AAD 250: Art and Human Values, Fall 2013, Scott Huette

I found the TED Talk, “Laws that Choke Creativity” by Larry Lessig, to be extremely interesting. Before I watched this video my original view towards people’s obsession and infatuation with technology to be poisonous to a degree to the human brain. I don’t know about other people my age but I grew up with the wives tale that if you watched too much TV/computer/videogames your brain would go to mush. Even though I knew my parents told me this as a means to deter me from getting too consumed in technology, I also believed it to an extent as I got older. I didn’t actually believe your brain would melt and turn to mush but I believed that consuming too many hours in technology could be detrimental towards people’s personalities and people skills, mainly someone’s creativity and imagination since modern technology does most of the work for us by creating shortcuts. But Larry Lessig made a great point that I never really thought about, which is that technology has actually opened another door to creativity and imagination by creating a source that has an endless supply of materials to mash up and create from, such as music, short skits, videos, pictures, etc. It is our generation’s way of creating, however according to Lessig what our generation is capable of achieving through thought and creativity is being hindered by copyright laws. Just like Lessig, I have mixed feelings about this. I believe that piracy is wrong if you are stealing from the artist or producer such as music and movies. But if someone is using media sources for the purpose to express their creativity instead of making money, should they still be convicted of copyright and/or piracy?

TED Talk

The underlying thesis in this weeks reading “Computer Graphics: Effects of Origins”, by Beverly Jones, is that “new forms of art and technology are frequently cast in the mode of old farms.” (pg.1).  This means that the look and form of new art and technology that is released can be related back to its origins. One of the historical examples that Jones gives to support her thesis is about the ancient Egyptians architecture. She states, “The stone columns of ancient Egyptian architecture were based on earlier bound papyrus columns.” (pg.1).  This can also be said to be true about stone columns in today’s architecture. The columns in the front of the white house that are also quite popular other places resemble the columns that the ancient Roman’s built. Another example that supports this thesis that can be related to today’s technology is the evolution of the watch. When watches were first created their purpose was not to be aesthetically pleasing. Instead their purpose was to functional and to tell you only time. Now there is a huge variety of watches, with styles all over the spectrum. There are still watches that are made to look like the classic simple watches, however we now have watches to please any functional lifestyle. If you’re a business men you can get a nice Rolex, if your tech savvy there is the new Samsung touch watch, or if you are more of a fan of the athletic look you can get the Nike watches. All of these style of watches look different because they are created to be aesthetically pleasing to the group of people they are trying to target. And as styles and trends change within our society so does the watch. However, all of these different styles can be traced back to the original watch in terms of having one screen/glass window that tells time and a cuff that goes around your wrist. To give you a visual depiction of the evolution of the watches I posted a video below.

Samsung Watch Commercial:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2AjPfHTIS4

I found this unit to be pretty fascinating, especially after I watched the TED Talk video featuring Jane McGonigal, a game designer who is aspiring to create a new type of game genre that can possibly contribute to solving some of the world’s current problems. I don’t know if I would consider myself a “gamer” but I do enjoy playing video games every once in awhile so here idea caught my attention even though I was skeptical. I don’t know how far her idea will go but she does have one aspect of today’s world in her favor. That aspect is the fact that technology is on the rise and more and more things in today’s world are becoming virtual. For example, the internet is more powerful than it has ever been and what you are capable of doing online can be endless, and now we have cell phones that that are digital. I mean as a kid did you could you ever believe that Blockbuster would be going out of business? My point is that it is a digital world and kids might be more interactive and enthusiastic to learn through video games then from lectures. However, my problem with this is that since the world has become more digital there has also become a greater disconnect between human interactions. For example, I was eating out the other night and there was a family of 5 across from me who all had iPads! And each family members attention was directed at the iPad, seldom was there a word spoken. My question is do you think the cons of becoming more digital outweigh the pros?

TED Talk Video

1. How do you define “spirituality”?

To me spirituality is the opposite of the ordinary. To be more specific it is the notion in all of us that makes us search for the sacred. Its what makes us look for the meaning in everyday events and is what helps mold and shape our personalities and values. I also believe that everyone’s spiritual side differs from person to person since not everyone thinks the same. For example, people take different meanings from certain events, which changes people’s outlook in life and what they believe to be sacred.

1. Does spirituality differ from religion?

I believe that spirituality does differ from religion. I say this because I believe everyone has a spiritual side, but not everyone has a religion. Also like I mentioned in the previous question, “spirituality” is what one believes to be sacred and what might be sacred to one person might not be sacred to another. However, I do believe that religion is a form of spirituality because a lot of people in this world have a religion and what that religion gives to these people is sacred to them. They feel a connectedness to something greater.

1. How do you define “creativity”?

To me creativity is the product of our personalities and imaginations. It is the product of people’s unique thoughts that have been brought forth out of their minds and turned into art. Creativity also differs from person to person just like spirituality. Some people have more creativity than others. I believe this because all of us think differently and all of our brains are built differently, therefore some people have a more imaginative side to them giving them a more creative side.

1. What is the source of creativity?

As I mentioned above I believe people’s personalities is what gives them creativity. To go even deeper I also believe that creativity is directly related to someone’s imagination. The more imaginative someone is the more they can see things in a different way. Therefore they are able to create things that some of us might not have been able to envision. I also feel like imagination is the source of creativity because I have seen many people, including myself, loose some imagination as we get older and simultaneously see them loose creativity.

I found our assigned reading “Deeply Seeing” very intriguing. I felt like I was able to connect with the author on a personal level when he explains that there is a difference between “merely looking at a thing and actually seeing it” (pg. 1). He goes to basically note that we spend our entire day looking at thousands of things, whether it be people, objects, or scenes. But almost entirely of what we set our eyes upon only lasts for a quick glance, we take observations or notions of what we see from walking through a crowd to sitting on a bus stop. However, rarely do we actually “see” what it is we are looking at. According to Gray, to “see” something is when “our attention is arrested by a person, object, or scene. Our mind stops chattering and pays attention. We see both the shape of the thing and it’s meaning to us” (pg. 2). That last quote really sunk in to me.

I felt like I could deeply relate to what the author was saying here because I will always see something that truly catches my attention, and if I choose to, I let my mind go blank from my surrounding world. All noises cease and everything else becomes invisible, I am honed in at what I see with tunnel vision. Then I have this strange intimate connection with the object and as I keep staring my perception of the object and thoughts start to flow, its almost like meditation. But I only do this with certain objects and it’s all random, what I decide to focus on just depends what mood I’m in and it can be something as simple as a bus stop. But its crazy because even though I can “see” something as dull and simple as a bus stop I am still able to find value/beauty in it. For example, today I was walking my dog and came across this unique old looking tree with all of its leaves gone. There were many other tree like it around this one but this tree looked much older. And as I began to focus on the tree I started to see in my mind the life of this tree. When it started growing/ how many seasons its been through, and how many people have walked by thinking the exact thing. Or what this tree looks like in the summer and how many people have taken shade underneath it. These thoughts alone, even though there were more, makes me feel a connectedness to this world which I thought was remarkable.

Grey, A. (2001). Art as Spiritual Practice. The Mission of Art (1st ed., pp. 205-233). Boston & London: Shambhala.

My wardrobe is very diverse. I have clothes from all over the spectrum and what I choose to where mainly depends on what time of the day it is. However, I would definitely have to say that most of my wardrobe consists of sport/athletic attire. What I mean by this is that I have a lot of gym shorts, workout clothes, jerseys, baseball hats, etc. This is because I’ve played sports my whole life and it was just functional to where gym shorts and t-shirts everyday because I would always be running around playing. In fact, I didn’t start wearing jeans until 8^thgrade. The only reason why I started wearing jeans is because I began to actually start caring about how I looked and how other people saw me. That’s when everything stared to change and I went through a polo and button down phase, which looking back on was pretty embarrassing. But I never strayed away from my athletic wear. Now I own a little bit of everything and I wear a lot of casual clothes such as jeans, thermals, flannels, button downs, etc. I also have a wide array of shirts from your standard white-t to shirts with graphics on them and even some vintage shirts, in all colors. I also own a lot of dress wear such as slacks, vests, ties, blazers, and long sleeve button downs because I like to dress up nice if an occasion calls for it. On top of that I own a lot of hats such as baseball hats, snap backs, and trucker hats. I also own a decent amount of shoes that vary all over the spectrum like athletic trainers, chuck taylors, vans, basketball shoes, etc. Some people collect quarters or other things whereas I collect sweatshirts and jackets. Since I live in Oregon I am forced to wear sweatshirts all the time so its hard for me not to buy a cool sweatshirt if I see one. I would have to say that my attitude towards my attire and what I where has totally changed since I was young. When I was younger I barely ever went shopping for clothes and when I did I went with my mom and I would just get your basic clothes from target because it didn’t matter to me. However, now I love to buy clothes, at a store or online. Im pretty sure the main reason for this change is what I mentioned earlier, I started to care how I looked. Its not so much that I value looks or try to stand out, its that I value appearance. What I mean by this is that I think you should try to look respectable when you leave your house because as much as people hate to admit it your going to get judged by people based on what your wearing, first impressions are everything. I also don’t think that it’s a bad thing either that our society assesses and filters people based on what they wear. Since we all know that we all do this, we consciously choose to dress in certain clothes that we know will label us a way that we want. For example, a goth kid is going to wear mainly black when they leave there house, they’re not going to wear basketball shorts and shoes. My attire also changes throughout the day depending on where I am and what I’m doing. For instance, when I’m at my house you can find me wearing gym shorts, a t-shirt, and slippers because I want to be comfortable. It isn’t until I want to leave my house that I’ll throw on some jeans, tennis shoes, and a nice shirt with possibly a hat. And if it happens to be a weekend I’ll change again at nighttime into something a little nicer for a party or the bars. Its kind of funny too because I can slowly see my sense of style changing as I’m getting older and I know its just a matter of time before I’m wearing clothes that make look and feel older. And hopefully if everything goes as planned with school part of future attire will consist of  slacks and a button down for physical therapy. Who knows, my life can have a major change of events and I might wind up in a suit working for some corporation, or even in construction clothes. The only thing that I know for certain is that I will always have gym shorts and t-shirts.

Today I devoted an hour of my time to people watch in front of the EMU on the campus of University of Oregon. Of that hour spent people watching there were a lot of people that stood out to me. However, of the wide variety of people I saw, there were three that stood out.

One person that stood out to me was a tall athletic looking individual. By his build and clothes that he was wearing I assumed he was a jock. Furthermore what made me think this was that he was pretty clean cut.  He was also walking towards the student recreation center, which also made me think that he was going to the gym. However, I have to admit that my assumptions may be biased because one of my values I hold high is health. I played sports and been surrounded by athletes my whole life and health has always been important to me. And when I saw this individual it reminded me a lot of myself. I mean why else would you wear basketball shows and athletic shorts heading towards the gym if you’re not a jock. He was also a white male and some his entire fit was pretty expensive. He had on nice Jordan’s with some expensive looking Nike clothing. Therefore I also thought that he came from a well off family in some suburb. Also since he had an athletic build I also assumed that he had good health, respectively of course because we are in college. I’m not sure what all these assumptions tell me about my core values and beliefs, but all of them were based off my background and experience.

The second person that stood out was a wiry looking kid skating by on a skateboard. He was shorter than the presumed jock/athlete and was wearing a truckers hat on backwards with gauges in his ears and at least one tattoo that I could see on his forearm. These first initial observations led me to believe that this kid was everything opposite that the jock was. I could obviously be wrong but with the tattoos and gauges, plus his attire and frame, I assumed he didn’t do a lot of recreational activities except for obviously skating. I also assumed he was a skater because of the board he was riding. It was an actual skateboard deck with smaller skating wheels instead of those huge longboards with bigger rubber wheels. Also what made me believe he was a skater was how comfortable he skated, he didn’t look awkward like a lot of other kids. And from his wiry frame, tattoos, and gauges I also believe that his health was most likely poor compared to the jock. I’m also biased on this assumption because I have friends that skate and I myself used to skate so I know a skater when I see one and I know what recreation activities they partake in. Now I also played sports and skated so technically this kid could be along the same lines, however his wiry build convinced me that he doesn’t play a lot of sports.

The third individual that stood out to me today was a girl that was all dressed up, more than your average girl just going to class. It looked like she spent a lot of time on her hair and make up, basically she looked very high maintenance. However she wasn’t anything special to look at, I don’t mean this in an offensive way, I’m just saying she wasn’t a model no matter how hard she tried. Now I know that may have sounded rude, but I think she would have been more attractive if she didn’t try so hard to look special. She had WAY to much make up on, which led me to believe that she may have a low self esteem. Also based on how fancy she dressed up to stand out I also assumed that she was seeking attention and may be in a sorority. I guess what this say about my values is that I’m simple and modest, I can’t stand attention seekers. I already knew that this girl and me would probably not get along. I’m also comfortable with who I am in my own body so to see someone who tries to hard to make them feel better about myself also annoys me.

In this article, “What it’s like to eat at the world’s best sushi bar?”, Dan Shapiro has the honor and pleasure of meeting the legendary Jiro Ono, the worlds best sushi chef. Jiro Ono, an 86 year old Tokyo native, runs his sushi restaurant Sukiyabashi Jiro tucked away in the basement of the Ginza Metro station. Sukiyabashi Jiro is also the first sushi restaurant in the world to receive three Michelin stars. Jiro is so well respected and renown that in order to eat at his restaurant you must set up a reservation at least three months in advance, or in other words the waiting list is at least three months long! Not only will you have to wait an eternity to just to eat here but you better have deep pockets as well because it’ll cost you ¥30,000, which is roughly $375. I also forgot to mention that he requires cash only, and if for some reason you are not able to attend your reservation there is an ¥15,000 cancellation penalty. Both the price of the meal and the duration you have to wait to eat at Sukiyabashi Jiro pretty much puts it in perspective how popular Jiro is around the world. There is also a documentary about Jiro and his passion for sushi on Netflix, “Jiro Dreams of Sushi”, which is also one of the more popular documentaries. However, instead of watching this hour and a half documentary of food porn, Shapiro decided to make a reservation and travel all the way to Tokyo to be fully immersed and experience Sukiyabashi Jiro in person. Just as he suspected, Shapiro was not disappointed and Jiro Ono lived up to his hype as sushi master of the world. Shapiro documents his experience in timeline fashion, explaining each of the 19-piece sushi courses that Jiro Ono presents. Shapiro also notes that all of the sushi that Jiro Ono makes is hand picked by Jiro himself from the local Tsukiji fish market and that he uses a special grade of rice, which is made available only to him. Shapiro goes into great detail about each dish that is served to him but I will keep it brief. After Shapiro puts down his first dish, Karei (sole) nigiri, it is instantly apparent to him that Chef Jiro has intentionally designed a custom menu to give him an experience the will not forget. The first dish is followed by a series of more nigiri containing a variety of seafood such as tuna, squid, gizzard shad, ark shell clam, salmon row, octopus, prawn, and so on. Shapiro notes that every new dish compliments the flavors of the last one. Each piece of nigiri is lightly brushed with a soy sauce glaze and sits atop a two-inch bed of rice. Shapiro finished off his dinner experience with Tamago, a sweet egg that supposedly tastes like sponge cake. In the end Shapiro is blown away by the experience and labels it as priceless.

To me, this article pretty much proves my statements in my earlier posts, claiming that food can definitely be art. In the reading we were assigned, “Food As Art”, Telfer states that part of what classifies something as art is that it must be aesthetically pleasing “an artifact primarily intended for aesthetic consideration” (pg. 5).  Well, this is exactly what Jiro and other renown chefs across the fine dining world intend to do. Jiro doesn’t only care about how good his sushi tastes, he also cares how it is presented. For instance, one of Shapiro’s responses to one of the nigiri dishes was “its shiny silver and blue-spotted skin are so picturesque that I momentarily pause in awe before popping this bite in my mouth”. In this article Shapiro also posted pictures of each course and I can tell you that each piece of nigiri was made with passion and the intention of looking beautiful and aesthetically pleasing. But this is not solely unique to Chef Jiro, it is the goal of every top chef around the world to blow you away with the presentation of each course. I know this personally because I’ve had the pleasure of working with two cooks that have cooked at Eleven Madison Park, which is one of the best restaurants into world, and every meal the cooked for me and my crew was not presented in a way like your mom would. A lot of thought went into placement of the protein in comparison to the sides. Every dish was aesthetically pleasing, to me they were works of art that also happen to be delicious.

Sources:

1. Tefler, E. (2002). Food as Art. In Neill, A. & Riley, A. (eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2nd ed., Chap. 2). New York, NY: Routledge.

2.Shapiro, D. (May 3, 2012) What it’s like to eat at the worlds best sushi bar? [CNN]. http://travel.cnn.com/tokyo/eat/whats-it-eat-sukiyabashi-jiro-worlds-best-sushi-bar-282966