Person number 1:

The first person I watched was the man with the mullet. I found when I was watching people I was attracted to the eccentric and the “out of the ordinary” people. So the first person who caught my eye was the man with the mullet. He was wearing jeans, a generic t-shirt, and toms. The man gave me several impressions ranging from a “Bad Ass” to a regular Joe on the street. From the front, nothing looked out of the ordinary, but as I looked closer I realized the mullet that immediately made me think of him as “harder” than the regular person. Then I realized that he was wearing a shirt in almost 30-degree weather. This confirmed my first assumption until I noticed the toms as he got closer. The shoes really changed my perspective, from a “Bad Ass” to someone who really just did not care about his appearance. To me if he were “hard” he would be wearing a tough shoe, not something that is usually seen on hipsters or girls.

Person number 2:

The second person I noticed was the bearded man. He walked by wearing a loose fitting poncho and jeans to go with his sandals and big wire framed glasses. His head was shaved bald, which gave the look a district assumption to me. My first assumption told me that he was maybe Middle Eastern and most likely Muslim based off of the prevailing religion in that area. The baldhead and beard along with the poncho were the main signs that pointed toward the Middle East. I immediately assigned him several assumptions in my head based off of the Middle East conclusion that I had come to. First my assumption was that he was probably decently wealthy, because although his garb did not show it for an international student to come over he must have a decent amount of wealth, as it is expensive to do so. Second, I assumed that religion was a large part of his life because he had the dedication to up keeping the beard and shaved head and many times the dedication also spills over to spiritual life.

Person number 3:

The final person I watched I labeled the athlete. He wore Oregon affiliated sweatpants, an Oregon sweatshirt, and a backpack that read “Oregon Football.” The last part was dead give away. He had large diamond looking earrings and a gold necklace around his neck. Being an athlete I immediately assumed that he was at least part African American due to a large amount of the football players being a part of that race. I also made some large assumptions about his background. I think that he probably grew up being one of the most popular people at his school due to the earrings and necklace. The fact that he is wearing collegiate level equipment I think that he was many times looked up to in high school by younger kids. I also thought from the gaudy earrings and necklace that he enjoyed the attention. They made me think that he wanted people to notice him as he walked by.

Food is natural. Food is a necessity. Food is something we use every day. So does that mean that it can’t be a form of art? By no means. By Webster’s Dictionary art is “something that is created with imagination and skill and that is beautiful or that expresses important ideas or feelings.” I don’t know if you have ever spent the time to make a beautifully crafted meal, but food can embody every bit of that definition.

I grew up with a mother who has a Masters in food and textiles, and she spent a large part of her life as a home economics teacher. So growing up I learned to cook and bake and one thing I learned is that it indeed is an art form. The majority of creating a recipe is based off of feeling and the style of combining ingredients. You know what end result that you want, but a cook will have to use different styles of stirring or heating the food to make it end just the way the cook wants. I would really compare this to a painting or sculpture. An artist may know that he wants to paint a landscape or a persons face, but they may have to mix the paint several times to find just the right color for the sky or eye color. This is the same as a cook mixing salt into a soup until it is just right.

Some people complain that someone can make a lot of food by just following a few steps and “presto” there it is. This is true, but it completely ignores the creator of the recipe. Elizabeth Telfer agrees with this notion in her article “Food As Art” when she exclaims, “I have argued that we can compare the creator of a recipe to a composer, and the cool who follows one to a performer.” (p.2) If this is not enough to convince someone that food is an art form, just look at this masterpiece.

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.

1) Describe the term paleoanthropsychobiological. Who coined this term?

-In “What Is Art For?”,  Ellen Dissanayake coins the idea of a palaeoanthropsychobiological view. This view is that when looking at a human, art is an inherent trait that needs to be expressed much like social ability and other characteristics of human nature.

2) What does Dissanayake mean by the phrase “making special”? How does it relate to art and to human survival?

-In the article Ellen discusses the idea of “making special” and how it looks in human society. The notion is the act of perceiving an event, time, or place as more important or special so people change their behaviors and actions accordingly. People change their clothes, make special meals, or even say things in a more refined or “special” way. People do this to make an occasion even more special or sometimes out of excitement for something that might not really deserve the attention in itself. For art, people express themselves in a more “special way” for some exhibits or events. But for human survival this shows itself in different ways. People are making more and more out of sometimes little things, which can make them more and more meaningful to the individuals. The added stress and preparation completely change the way life is lived in human society.

3) Name three different theories of art that Dissanayake mentions in her essay. Identify the time period when each theory developed and was prominent. Provide a brief description of the philosophies and ideas that define each theory/movement/period of art.

-“Renaissance Art” – 18^th Century – Renaissance artist were usually known for the way they began to “replace God-centered with man-centered concerns.” (p.2) They transferred thoughts away from “divine” and instead portrayed more of the recognizable world and using “standards of beauty , harmony, and excellence.”

-“Modernist Movement” – Late 18^th Century – The Modernist idea mostly centered around a “special frame of mind for appreciating art.”(p.2) This idea is that people must separate themselves from their own personal interests to be able to fully enjoy the artwork. “Paintings became less like mirrors held up to nature, so that viewers could no longer decipher or natively admire them.” (p.3) This caused a stigma to art that it could only be appreciated by the higher classes that could spend the money and take the time that it took to be trained.
-“Postmodernism” – Late 20^th Century – Postmodernism is mostly based on the interpretation of a viewer. This was a almost direct opposite reaction to the modernist movement, because it contrasts the idea that only the elite can appreciate art. The one issue for post modernism is that “aesthetics troubled and inadequate when it proclaims that there are a multiplicity of individual realities.” (p.6)

Reference

Dissanayake. E(1991),What is art for? In K.C. Caroll(Ed.) Key note adresses 1991 (NAEA Convention) (pp, 15-16)

In her article about “What is art for?” Ellen Dissanayake talks about art’s role in society and also gives a history of the differing styles of art over the years. She starts by introducing her idea that art is not only a part of the human species, but a necessary part. Calling her view palaeoanthropsychobiological, a made up word to describe the complexity and necessity of art in our culture and species. She goes on to talk about the movements of different styles of art, from renaissance to the  “romantic rebellion” to modernism and eventually to post modernism. Talking about the change from God centered art to secular art and the idea that art is now more species focused art.

The part of her article that struck me the most was this palaeoanthropsychobiological viewpoint of hers. The idea that “art must be viewed as an inherent universal trait of the human species, as normal and as natural as language, sex, sociability, aggression, or any other characteristics of human nature.” (p.1) The idea really brings the question, is art a natural reaction? Given a society that has no influences, will art still be a part of society like these other characteristics?

Ellen points out “even nomadic people without permanent dwellings and few material possessions usually have elaborate poetic languages or dance styles.” (p.7) I think that this is probably her strongest argument, in that it shows that regardless of the influences art is still a huge part of culture and history. Art has a very broad definition, so I believe that one could argue that specific styles of art could not be necessary independently. In whole, however, art can really be seen as an inherent trait for the human species. With even more proof coming in the fact that “there is no known society that does not practice at least one of what in the West we call ‘the arts.’”

Looking back at my day and everything I did, I found that these actually do line up very well with my actions. When I first woke up I spent some time reading my Bible in the morning, which really affirms that Faith is my top value as it was the way I started my day. I grew up in a strong Christian household and that is one value that really stuck with me. My faith is as important as anything else in my life. From then I went to a photo seminar with a leadership group I am involved with. This was partially to hone my photography skills, but also partially because I committed to attending it earlier in the week. When I woke up I was not very keen on going but I decided it would be best to keep my word.

I next went back home when I had a friend visiting and spent time with him before he left. When he was leaving I noticed that one the people I had over the night before had left their hat, I ran over and brought it to them as soon as I could. And as I was doing that I got asked if I could take someone to the store and help them with finding a few things. I absolutely loved it. Most people would think I didn’t spend much of my day doing what I want, but to me that didn’t make it any less fun. And honestly that shows my third value to be really true. I really value my friendships and would do just about anything for my friends.

The author makes the point that when looking from an outsider’s perspective our personal values are “unpredictable” and “incessantly quarrelsome”. He is seeking to point out the flaws with our logic and the fact that many people contradict others and even themselves. This point he brings has some validity, but I really think that he has some flaws to the ideas that this is inherently evident to someone looking from an outsider perspective.

He brings up stories a like the wealthy young hostess that said that God was “co-chairing” with her, and how Willie Nelson was described as a “Baptist Buddhist”. He also points to two seemingly politically aligned people that have completely different views on the American social and political system. These specific events do point to his idea that our values are unpredictable and quarrelsome. The author fails, however, to look at the continuities throughout human values. For the most part, a lot of society has agreed on some major values that affect a lot of behavior. Society agrees, in large, on the issues of murder and theft as well as that the rights of one should not infringe on the rights of another. When you look at a few isolated events its easy to make people think that there is extreme unpredictability in human’s value systems, but most of these events do not deal with core values. On whole I would venture to say that core values are actually very similar throughout humanity. Even when you look at religion, you see many different religions throughout the world and think that these people’s core values must be very different. Many of these religions actually have a lot of the same themes. For example monotheistic religions, which involve a great percentage of religious people, all believe in a single higher power and many of the same realities based off of that fact. Also if you look at many of the core values of religions as distant as Christianity and Buddhism you find many parallels in underlying values such as loving and respecting your neighbor.

There are always going to be outliers and exceptions to the trend, but on average many human values are not unpredictable but instead very similar from one to another.

Back in June Apple announced the “ios in the car” initiative, before that Microsoft worked with Ford to create Sync, and now Google is getting in on the game with their Open Automotive Alliance (OAA). To me I this could truly be something special. Tech Crunch’s Natasha Lomas recently wrote a post about how Google is making a late addition to the party and how Apple already has a larger group of companies affiliated with the initiative. This might be true, but lets look back on what happened with the phone industry. Apple came first with the iPhone, but then Google came along with the Open Handset Alliance and the collaboration of many different device makers and programmers came up with a user interface that dominates in market share and allows for the users to have different manufacturers of hardware.

For phones the experience is a little different in that, for the most part, the customer chooses who the manufacturer is. They can buy an Apple phone or a Motorola phone, but with cars customers don’t really have that choice. With cars the customer only chooses who made the car as a whole, not the stereo system or computer chip. The decision of who makes the stereo or who makes the computer chip is based on whom the car manufacturer can get the best contract with and fits the best with the car. This is why I think that Google will be so successful in this realm, the open platform allows the car companies to have freedom in who they choose to buy their parts from and this flexibility is something they covet.