I really like the idea of seeing food as art and I have thought about this many other times. According to Ellen Dissanayake in “What is Art For?” she believes in a species-centered view of art from humans as “thinking of art as kind of behavior that developed as they evolved, to help them survive” (Dissanayake 2). She also goes on to talk about how art has become something that is psychologically challenging and that it can be a number of things. For me, food embodies all of these characteristics, some foods more than others, and that basically all food is art. In Elizabeth Telfer’s article “Food as Art”, she discusses how food can be related to the art forms we all think of at first but also provides reasoning behind why people may believe that food and drink are not art forms. She claims, “It would be implausible to maintain that food and drink never constitute works of art in the classifying sense. People sometimes treat them as works of art, and I have argued that we can compare the creator of a recipe to a composer” (Telfer 11). I agree with her as I feel that food is something that not only a behavior that has helped us survive and think differently, but also affects us in ways that aren’t always measured the same as the way that art affects us.

Art to me is something that creates some sort of impact or reassurance in values and for me, food of any kind does this to me. The feeling that I get going to my favorite burger place back at home with my family or friends is something that I don’t feel towards anything else and has an impact on my mentality and emotional state. The video on fast food this week was interesting to me as it pointed out a lot of good details on how some don’t consider fast food an art form and that there may be “a line drawn” between what food represents an art form and which one’s don’t. Similarly, Elizabeth Telfer discusses a counterpoint of how our senses are not as highly developed so eating may create a faulty experience than what we think like certain other art forms do from time to time. For me, the experience that comes with food is just as much of an art form and even if the food may have been duplicated and uniform, the feelings that come from the food qualify it to me as an art form. What was most interesting to me was how one video talked about the aesthetics of slow food and whether it would be considered more of an art because of the effort put in to make it more aesthetically pleasing. I feel that there is just as much importance in the taste as their is in the “decoration” and that the best food that can be represented as art, takes these two ideals into equal consideration. One question that remained with me was whether the experience with food as an art form can be just as impactful as an experience with another art form? This question I felt really made a clear distinction on if food should be considered an art form or not.

1. The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by Ellen Dissanayake in her article “What is Art For?” and can be described as her view on art that “must be viewed as an inherent universal trait of the human species” (Dissanayake 1).  In other words, she believes that the history of art and art itself is a universal perspective.

2. To make something special it must be something that is unordinary or not seen everyday and must impact the person in a significant way. For art to be made special implies that there is a lot of meaning and intention behind it and can truly impact us to adapt new values and emotions. This ultimately affects human survival as we adapt to things that are special to us as individuals and can impact our decision making.

3. Three theories that Dissanayake mentions in her article include modernism, postmodernism, and western concept of fine art. The development of the western concept of fine art she discusses developed up through the 18th century and was shaped by the great minds of Plato and Aristotle who did not mention art specifically but used beauty to describe the understanding we had with daily tasks or activities. This emphasized the value of reason on art and developed the true thinking behind fine art, not being restricted to what we may simply think is art. Modernism was a belief of art as an ideology and happened in the 18th century through the 20th century. American critics like Clement Greenberg and Harold Rosenberg challenged previous beliefs of what we believed to be art as the appeal of aesthetics were introduced into art. Finally, postmodernism is currently happening as it integrates the idea of art being an interpretation. Postmodernism believes, “Artists, just like everybody else, do not see the world in any singularly privileged or objectively truthful way, but rather-like everybody-interpret it according to their individual and cultural sensibilities” (Dissanayake 5). This is showing how the idea of self interpretation has been introduced and is encouraged to challenge the art and previous beliefs of art.

This article by Ellen Dissanayake discusses the idea of art and the different ways and periods through which it has progressed. I felt the modernism period of art really related to me as the theme of ideology started to become introduced in this period. As described in the article, “The work of art became a world-in-itself, made solely or primarily as an occasion for this kind of detached aesthetic experience” (Dissanayake 4). I feel this relates to me personally of how I look at art. I see art all around us in our everyday lives and they can really bring another element to our lives as they are a special experience that can provide a lot of value to people. Through this, art became universal and was seen as something that everyone could relate to. The part of this period that I did not appreciate was how they talked about criticism of art becoming an elite idea and that only few could correctly do this task. I feel this is wrong because everybody brings different insights on different subjects and it is unfair to discount someone else’s claim simply because they may not be as qualified as someone else is to critique it.

The video this week talked a lot about beauty and how it is related to evolution. Beauty has evolved many things in this world to give people pleasure by simply looking at them and that is something that art tries to imitate. Art tries to evoke beauty in different ways and get people interested in it, but also challenges people to look further than simplistic beauties. The one remaining question that I had after this weeks lecture and reading was how does this beauty in art challenge people and what ideas does it introduce to try and shape people’s own personal values? For me art speaks in different ways to different people and getting insight from others on their perspectives is very beneficial in understanding what art is trying to provoke. Ultimately, this can lead to a lot of different ways of thinking, good or bad, and can lead to people wanting to emulate the values displayed in art.

1. Friendship
2. Family
3. Enjoyment
4. Personal Development
5. Leadership
6. Integrity
7. Wisdom
8. Service
9. Creativity
10. Loyalty
11. Independence
12. Health
13. Community
14. Personal Accomplishment
15. Security
16. Expertness
17. Wealth
18. Prestige
19. Power
20. Location

My top five in comparison to what I have done today is fairly similar as I feel these top five values that I chose are what I try and represent everyday. Today I went to class, did homework, spoke with my family, and had some down time with friends which truly incorporates my top five life values according to this list. When I went to class, I was aiding in my personal development and by participating in the class, I was also helping solidify the life value I try to represent being a leader. By doing my homework I am also trying to better myself and further my personal development. The final things that were important to me today included talking with my family and spending time with my friends as I feel that these are my most important life values as doing these also brings me my most enjoyment.

My belief patterns have been shaped since a young age but ultimately are determined from my level of enjoyment from them as I feel personal enjoyment is the most important thing in life. I believe that most of these values I inherited from my family as the importance of family and personal improvement are things that are encouraged in my family. Further down the list I feel that I am not fully capable to express these life values as I have not been given the opportunity to empower these because I do not have much authority to help create wealth or work on expertness. Ultimately my life values are very important to me as they are seen through my daily actions and represent who I am as a person.

I was very intrigued by the reading, most specifically the debate between whether values truly exist or whether humans are driven by natural instinct. This is a very interesting topic as I feel that we develop human values through our instincts and our experiences in life. The article states a clear difference in how we as humans still develop our own human values throughout life but also states, “The proposition that individual human beings are programmed into their values, either by the influence of genes on personality or by social pressures, can neither be proven nor refuted” (Lewis). I believe that we are not programmed into values but our values are influenced by genes and social experiences. I feel that my experiences led to my values, specifically my experience in sports at a young age. One of my personal values is to treat everyone with respect and to be kind to all and doing sports at a young age I feel molded this by being taught to display great sportsmanship at all times. I always felt that displaying great sportsmanship not only helped when playing sports but carried value off the field. To this day I do my best to treat everyone with respect and I feel that my experience in sports has helped me create that value.

I also feel a little confused on the concept in the article they spoke about the concept of knowing something. They believe knowing is based on a number of factors including things from emotion to authority to science. My confusion comes when I look at knowing something through emotion or authority, then being “disproved” on another front like science or logic. My question to this would be whether we can at any point be 100 percent on a subject or whether it is up to us as people and our beliefs and experiences to know whether something is true or not?

http://www.sbnation.com/lookit/2015/1/4/7490087/espn-tribute-to-stuart-scott-video

Sports is a big interest to me and a true icon in the sports world passed away a few days ago. Stuart Scott, an ESPN sports anchor, died at the age of 49 on Sunday and I feel this blog above is a fantastic tribute to what he contributed to the sports world and the impact that he had on those who worked in sports. It was amazing specifically to hear about how his children kept him going through his battle with cancer and how he felt that cancer should not control one’s life, to quote Stuart Scott, “You beat cancer by how you live, why you live, and the manner in which you live.” A truly great and influential man will very much be missed by many.