The Michigan Daily — michigandaily.com
Arts
Tuesday, March 28, 2017 — 5

‘Seas’ is a fascinating look 
into one family’s challenge

Ann Arbor Film Festival presents a tale of a family at sea

You’ve 
probably 
never 

heard of the Griffith family, 
despite the fact that they’re 
among the most accomplished 
American sailors in history. 
The family undertook 20 ocean 
voyages over two decades, 
including 
three 
separate 

circumnavigations. 
They’ve 

been 
marooned 
on 
desert 

islands, 
navigated 
through 

miles and miles of treacherous 
icebergs and nearly drowned 
more times than they can 
count. They live their lives 
according 
to 
the 
call 
of 

adventure, untethered by the 
trappings of modern society.

“Following 
Seas,” 
a 

documentary shown at the 
Ann 
Arbor 
Film 
Festival 

made by Tyler J. Kelley and 
Araby Williams, is the story 
of the Griffiths, as told by 
the matriarch, Nancy. Her 
narrations 
are 
set 
to 
the 

footage she took while at sea 
over the years on 16-millimeter 
film. The result is fascinating 
— a film filled with stories of 
adventure, 
love, 
heartbreak 

and visceral panic.

They are truly a family of 

explorers, in the oldest possible 
sense of the word. Nancy’s 
husband, Bob, had been a 
successful veterinarian until 
one day he decided he couldn’t 
take it anymore, and so he took 

his daughter (an act that Social 
Services 
had 
described 
as 

“kidnapping”) and went off to 
sea. He met Nancy in Honolulu 
Harbor in 1960, and the two of 
them got married and raised 
their family at sea.

Nancy tells her stories in 

a deadpan voice, which feels 
somewhat 
juxtaposed 
with 

her subjects: that time she was 
stranded on a desert island 
and lived self-sufficiently for 
three months, or that time she 
found out she was 
pregnant 
while 

on 
a 
Russian 

naval 
base 
in 

Antarctica. 
Her 
matter-of-

factness is part 
of 
what 
makes 

her family’s story 
so compelling — 
she’s interesting 
because of what 
she did, not how 
she spoke. They 
traveled without 
GPS, any way to communicate 
with the world or money (most 
of the time). It was just the 
family, a 53-foot boat they built 
themselves, a chronometer and 
some maps.

According 
to 
a 
post-

screening Q & A with the 
filmmakers, 
it 
took 
about 

six years to finish the film. 
Most of that time was spent 
not gathering the footage — 
Nancy supplied that herself 
— but gaining the trust of the 

Griffiths needed to put the 
whole story together. They 
experienced 
some 
horrible 

losses in their travels, losses 
that could be expected given 
the danger that constantly 
loomed 
over 
their 
lives, 

but awful nonetheless. The 
filmmakers’ empathy for their 
subjects is clear in the way 
they edited the film, with 
a deft sense of humor and a 
precise eye for the detail that 
makes the Griffith family’s 

lives 
transcend 

from a collection 
of anecdotes to a 
complete story.

There’s a keen 

sense of nostalgia 
to 
“Following 

Seas.” 
Whether 

that be because of 
the omnipresent 
16mm 
footage 

or the fondness 
with which those 
interviewed 
talk 
about 
the 

old days, I don’t know, but it 
lets the film hit the audience 
gently. Not with a sudden rush 
of forced sympathy, but with 
a quiet yet focused empathy. 
Kelley and Williams aren’t 
here to force awe or judgment 
on the Griffiths — they’re just 
along for the ride. It’s a lovely, 
warm film, one that deserves to 
go beyond the festival circuit 
to wide release. We could all 
do with a little more adventure 
in our lives. 

ASIF BECHER
Daily Arts Writer

Problematic presentation 
of pregnancy in the media

Where we go wrong at the intersections of social media and health

UNIVERSAL PICTURES

Alicia Vikander in “Ex Machina”
Can computers create?

The question of artificial intelligence originally raised by Turing

Can computers think?
Alan Turing, the closest thing 

computer science nerds have to a 
god, first posed this question in 
1950.

Today, I ask: Can computers 

create?

Before I dive into the second 

question I want to talk about 
the first one: Can computers 
think? 
Computer 
scientist 

Edsger W. Dijkstra countered 
this 
with 
another 
question: 

Can a submarine swim? And 
by extension, can an airplane 
fly? All three examples involve 
technology achieving a certain 
naturally 
defined 
endgame. 

Submarines swim, but not like 
fish. Airplanes fly, but not like 
birds. 
Resultantly, 
computers 

think, but not like humans.

We see submarines and planes 

as successful because they are 
able to navigate the seas and skies. 
To reach a similar bar of success, 
a computer that thinks should 
make decisions as rationally as 
human do. 

Computers can’t do this yet, 

but the entire field of Artificial 
Intelligence 
has 
emerged 
in 

pursuit of this goal. And in the 
past decade it has exploded.

Given that in a mere half 

century we have seen computers 
evolve from cluttering entire 
rooms to fitting into our pocket, 
making a machine that thinks 
seems like a realistic goal. Google 
Director of Engineering Ray 
Kurzweil, an incredibly accurate 
technology forecaster, said at the 
SXSW conference last month that 
this moment could be upon us 
come year 2029.

So if we wait a couple decades, 

there’s a good chance we’ll be able 
to definitively answer yes to the 
first question. And although this 
might seem menacing, I assure 
you there’s nothing inherently 

dangerous or scary about AI. Ex 
Machina is fiction. At its core, AI 
is a collection of algorithms and 
agents like Siri and Alexa are just 
a bunch of lines of code.

Now that we’ve theorized 

about the first question, we turn 
to the arguably more compelling 
question: Can computers create?

It’s one thing for a machine to 

drive itself across the country, 
but can a machine record the 
next 10/10 Pitchfork album? (Can 
anyone for that matter? I won’t 
launch into that debate right 
now though.) Or can a machine 
create the next Starry Night? For 
a computer to be innovative, its 
abilities must span far beyond 
mere thought.

The world has already seen 

some early attempts at creative 
AI agents, especially in the music 
field. Last week, a high school 
student 
debuted 
a 
machine-

learning library that uses Kanye 
West lyrics to create its own 
ad-libs. Last year, Flow Machines, 
a project funded by the European 
Research Council, released two 
songs composed by a computer, 
though the production, mixing 
and lyrics are human-generated.

Despite 
the 
buzz 
and 

flashy headlines, the resulting 
compositions 
fall 
far 
short 

of the goal of creativity. The 
computer can rhyme, but the 
rhythm structure and wordplay 
is lacking. The Flow Machines 
tracks, developed in the style of 
The Beatles and Duke Ellington, 
sound like they came from 
their 
respective 
influencer’s 

discography. There was nothing 
new in the actual composition.

But just because these AI 

agents don’t meet the standard, 
doesn’t mean that none ever will. 
To reason about the future of this 
technology, we must consider 
what creativity is.

Steve Jobs said, “Creativity is 

just connecting things.” I think 
he’s pretty spot on. No musician 
exists 
without 
influences; 

no 
painter 
creates 
without 

predecessors. Artists look at what 
already exists — be it current 
events, society or other art — and 
rearrange select pieces in a way 
that has not been done before.

As we learn more about the 

neuroscience behind creativity, 
we 
will 
eventually 
pinpoint 

what 
makes 
a 
high-quality 

creative connection and develop 
technology that reflects this. It is 
likely that someday machines will 
be able to create like humans.

This doesn’t mean that artists 

will be obsolete, though. As I 
said before, there is something 
inherently 
different 
about 

creativity and thought. A self-
driving 
car 
is 
successful 
if 

it drives, but an artificially 
intelligent artist is not successful 
if it merely creates something.

Artists are so much more than 

their art; they impact society and 
pop culture in ways that machines 
cannot. Kanye West, Lady Gaga, 
Frank Ocean — hell even Taylor 
Swift — all have reputations and 
societal impact that is infused 
into their music. You can’t listen 
to Kanye without thinking about 
his latest Twitter rant, or Swift 
without considering her latest 
breakup.

Machines don’t have emotions 

or 
personality. 
They 
could 

contribute 
industry-changing 

innovation, 
but 
the 
entire 

experience would fall short of a 
human artist’s.

Regardless, computers have 

the potential to compete with 
humans creatively. We shouldn’t 
see this as a threat though. 
Some of the best art results 
from competition. Considering 
that for years now the arts have 
struggled to be taken seriously 
by 
government 
and 
society, 

a creative revamp might be 
just what the industry needs. 
Although we might have to wait 
a while for it, creative AI could 
eventually spark a new artistic 
golden age. 

JESSICA ZEISLOFT

Daily Arts Writer

MUSIC NOTEBOOK

If you type into Google the 

phrase, “am I pregnant,” the first 
autofill that comes up now is “am 
I pregnant video.” The video 
that this popular search refers is 
actually titled, “how is prangent 
formed.”

In case you haven’t seen or heard 

of this video, a quick explanation: 
Published on Youtube on October 
20th, this video consists of several 
screenshots of the question “am I 
pregnant?” or variations of it from 
Yahoo Answers. This video went 
viral quickly after being published; 
every time I checked Facebook for 
a few weeks, people were sharing it 
on each other’s walls, and I’m still 
seeing it pop up occasionally. Now, 
it has more than 8 million views.

The first time I watched it, it 

was without sound and I thought 
it was a poverty porn type of 
video — something made to pull 
on heartstrings. I thought that if 
I turned up the volume, I would 
hear that song they play during 
the ASPCA ads, and there would 
be a somber voiceover talking 
about women who have no access 
to healthcare or education or birth 
control or something along those 
lines.

After I watched it with volume, 

I wished it had been that simple. 
The guy doing the voiceover reads 
every single question out loud in 
a “funny” voice. The humour is 
supposed to come from the fact 
that he pronounces everything 

phonetically, including people’s 
spelling mistakes, and doesn’t 
correct any grammar. He reads 
one in a in a stereotypical Southern 
accent (around the 47 second mark, 
in case you’re curious), presumably 
because of the use of the word ain’t: 
“Girlfriend aint had period since she 
got pregat?”

I get it, the narrator’s voice is 

funny, sure, whatever. But these 
questions aren’t funny 
at all, especially when 
you 
consider 
that 

anyone who is turning 
to Yahoo answers for 
something as serious 
as pregnancy must not 
have very many other 
options. Some of the 
most 
off-putting 
or 

concerning asks include: 
“How can a nine year 
old get prangnet,” “are 
these systoms of being 
pregarnt,” “Did most you women 
FEEL pgrenant before find out?” 
and “How long can u go being 
prognant to get an abortian?”

I don’t know anything about 

the women who typed these 
questions into Yahoo answers. But 
the sheer volume of them suggest 
that there are women out there 
who need answers, haven’t had 
access to education about how 
the reproductive system works, 
feel alienated from their bodies, 
maybe never went to high school, 
can’t speak English well and/

or don’t have anywhere else to 
turn to for answers. Of course, we 
already knew that, but this is visual 
evidence. I’m still unclear as to 
how this is actually funny, when 
you think about the implications.

I’m not trying to shame anyone 

for liking a video where some guy 
speaks in a funny voice, nor am I 
a “feminist who can’t take a joke.” 
Hearing a guy read these questions 

out loud — a guy 
who has presumably 
never had to worry 
about the possibility 
or 
implications 
of 

becoming pregnant — 
was jarring enough. 
But seeing so many 
people on my social 
media 
feeds 
who 

I know care about 
women’s 
issues 

(and 
human 
rights 

in 
general) 
spread 

this video as if it were devoid of 
political implications was also 
unsettling. And for people who 
consider themselves vehemently 
pro-life 
and 
believe 
the 

government should ban abortions, 
it’s worth asking yourselves how 
you can want to deny women that 
option, and yet laugh at this video 
which shows some women clearly 
seeking alternatives and unable to 
find them.

I feel like I’ve seen an increase 

in 
coded 
messages 
revolving 

around pregnancy in the media 

recently, or maybe I’m just paying 
more attention. There was that 
X-ray of a pregnant snake that went 
viral after Hank Green tweeted it, 
as people starting tagging Taylor 
Swift and then making jokes about 
sending it to their ex-girlfriends. 
Then there was U.S. Rep. Steve 
King (R - Iowa) ’s comment that 
went viral, “We can’t restore our 
civilization with somebody else’s 
babies,” in reference to immigration 
issues. 
While 
thinking 
about 

these happenings, I couldn’t help 
but recall the memoir “Left to 
Tell: Discovering God Amidst 
the 
Rwandan 
Holocaust,” 
by 

Immaculée Ilibagiza. It’s a haunting 
narrative about genocide, human 
cruelty, sorrow, and unbelievably, 
forgiveness. I was too young when 
I read it, but there are a few lines 
seared into my memory, including 
a chant that people would use 
as inspiration for killing anyone, 
including pregnant women and 
children, they came across: “A 
baby snake is still a snake, let none 
escape.”

I’m 
not 
making 
a 
direct 

correlation between viral twitter 
comments, memes or videos and 
genocidal mindsets. But it’s worth 
thinking about how, in the media, 
what we sometimes mindlessly 
consume affects our engagement 
with the concept of pregnancy — 
and why we find certain things 
funny when they’re not attached to 
a real name or face.

FILM REVIEW

“Following 

Seas”

55th Annual Ann 
Arbor Film Festival

March 25, 2017, 

5:15 PM

Michigan Theater

GENDER & MEDIA COLUMN

SOPHIA 

KAUFMAN

WILLIAMS AND KELLEY

Still from “Following Seas”

