This week’s Sirenomelia left me a bit confused. What stood out to me is the connection between humans and sirens that we have talked about in class. The portrayal of advanced technology in the form of satellite systems can be seen as the representation of “man made” things. Next there is the deep ocean with the representation of a siren that swimming around. When looking at those two representations the viewers have been confronted with a threshold/ liminal state between the two “different” worlds. But what is the real meaning behind the video? I came up with two different analyses about the core message of the video. The first is, that through technology, humans have learnt to find a way to conduct research on oceans and thus also on mermaids. The second analysis could be that the liminal state between humans and mermaids can never be crossed as long as humans are irritated by wrong narratives. What I mean by wrong narratives is the discussion we had about STEM and STEAM. As long as humans tend to believe in STEM instead of STEAM, the liminal state will never be crossed again. Humans will see mermaids as this indistinctive figure that only exist in a world of fairytales, whereas the siren (as shown in the video) is accepting the world of the humans, as she looking at human inventions like the bridge.

I am eager to hear more about that in class! My analysis might be wrong.