Copyright laws as we all know is a good way for people to protect their products from other people copying their ideas and making their own profits off another person’s ideas. While these laws seem to make a lot of sense, there are some who make a case that copyright laws aren’t all that they are cracked up to be. Lessig points out that copyright law, “clearly favors one type of culture over another.” (Lessig, 97). Current copyright laws are significantly favored towards the professional groups of society while it hinders less professional and amateur business groups. The copyright laws almost hindered the evolution of music as well. When music artists began using classic hits to recreate new hits, big corporations began to crack down on the copyright laws that protected the older music. The new wave of music began to generate a lot of following and with that a lot of money, so the corporations wanted a piece of the pie. (Amen Break, 11:30). In the Ted piece, he talks about the Supreme Court case over the use of flight and how some felt one needed permission from the land owner to fly over their land. But Justice Douglas felt that this case must not win because, “the doctrine protecting land all the way to the sky has no place in the modern world.” (Ted, 4:41). I think this sums all of these ideas up. Copyright laws are only benefiting a certain group of society, while it is hindering the evolution and development of new ideas and concepts. Because one group is benefiting in a such a major way, the copyright laws are going to be hard-pressed to change, but the benefits that could come from change, could mean a shift in the way society works together as a whole.

Beverly Jones’s article visits the relationship that exists between technology and art. She states that her thesis is, “By reviewing specific works and what appear to be underlying conditions and assumptions that shaped these works, I hope to establish the relation of specific image, object, event or environment to conceptual frames. These frames exist within art and technology and are present in other forms of symbolic and material culture.” (21). Jones uses different historical examples to elaborate on her thesis, one of which is the the stone columns that exist in Egyptian architecture. These columns were made to resemble the papyrus columns. People are always striving to make things better and more desirable for the culture that exists around them. Art theorists can actively sway the directions of new technologies and bend them to their adhere to the culture around them. Art and technology can easily influence one another, just like with  the stone pillars. What was put there out of necessity, can still be given an artistic quality. In today’s culture, we see a lot of different things that some people give a lot of artistic value to. One of these things, as we have discussed in this course, is food. Today, while food is obviously a necessity, with today’s technology, people have developed ways to make food as artistic as it has ever been before. The combination of modern cooking utensils and media has led to a massive wave of culinary artists. In today’s world, people are not just cooking food over a fire, people can use stoves to cook things much faster and easier. Chefs can also use of multitude of different combinations of food and utensils to give the dish aesthetic qualities. One things, for example, is using using a solid white plate. Many professional dishes will only be served on a white dish, while many households will often have more decorative dishes. Ultimately technology and art are always going to have a relationship and many times that relationship is going to be beneficial for both sides. Art is going to have new methods of creation while technology expands its ever-growing influence over all of us. This article written by the Smithsonian shows several different ways that technology is changing the way that we see art. One example talks about a robot that is constantly working on a painting and how the painting is different every day.

Bibliography:

Jones, B. J. (1990). Computer Graphics: Effects of Origins. LEONARDO: Digital Image – Digital Cinema Supplemental Issue, pp. 21-30.

Rieland, R. (n.d.). 7 Ways Technology is Changing How Art is Made. Retrieved May 25, 2015, from http://www.smithsonianmag.com/

Jones’ article offered a lot of interesting details about the rise of technology. A lot of these milestones occurred before my time, so reading about the history of technology is always quite interesting, seeing as how big on an influence it has on our world today. While reading it, my mind began to wonder off into thinking about just how much different was everyday life prior to the massive rise in technology? At one point, on page 27 of the reading, Jones describes just how important special effects are to advertising and entertainment. So the question I found myself asking, what is so different today then in the earliest stages of technology? We’ve all seen clips of films where the best special effects are just claymation or shaking the camera, yet it still grabbed people’s fascination like modern special effects do today. What was exciting back then, may seem laughable now. So what has changed? Our expectations, maybe? Or is it something else?

There are a lot of different things that people could define as spirituality. Some people might think its the things they believe in, others might think its a sense of connection with the environment. For me, spirituality is more of a sense of self. Being able to really understand one’s self seems to be a more difficult task than it was a few hundred years ago. In today’s culture, there are so many different things that can help define a person: sexuality, religion, occupation, etc.. I think that spirituality is a definitive idea of who you are and being able to accept that and portray that means being more spiritual.

Many people might relate spirituality with religion. Those people might view spirituality as a connection with their religion, so for me, I would argue that spirituality can be religious. For me, spirituality doesn’t have anything to do with religion, but I cannot say spirituality is not religious because I feel that many people do feel it is religious. For me, as I said earlier I feel spirituality is more a connection with an individual’s self. However, I do understand reasons why spirituality is religious, even if I do not think that it is.

I define creativity as someone’s ability to think or create something that is original and unique to them. This doesn’t necessarily mean that they have to create a work of art, but even coming up with an interpretation of an existing piece of art that not many other people may have came up with can be creative. Creativity isn’t limited to art, I think that people can be creative in many different ways. I think people can be creative in the way they think, especially if they think outside the box. Being able to create something original, whatever it may be, is what I would define as creativity.

I don’t think their is any one source of creativity. Some people might find their own creativity in their head while other people’s creativity may be inspired by the things around them. Every person if unique to themselves and their source for creativity is equally unique. For me, I would say that m creativity starts in my head, and is shaped by what is going on around me. I seem to have a knack for finding interesting things around me and thinking of some way to make it a game or a joke, so things like these start in my head, but are shaped by the environment I am in.

I felt that the reading this week was pretty insightful. I felt that the author had a few quotes that made me stop and think about what he was saying. The first quote that stood out to me was when the author determined the difference between just looking at something versus actually seeing something. Grey stated that, “Seeing occurs when our attention is arrested by a person, object, or scene.” (72).  For me, this quote really stood out because the age that we live in, it does seem that a lot of us might not take the time to actually see what is going on around us. With most college students moving 1,000 mph every minute trying to balance school, work, and a social life, it seems like the world outside of those three things go by unnoticed sometimes. So this quote stood out quite a bit and intrigued me more throughout the rest of the reading.

I was also drawn into the small paragraph about the third chakra. (98). Types of art that force the audience to think deeply and allow those people to develop intellectual interpretations have always struck me as interesting. This short paragraph didn’t have a lot of information, but it did give me a couple of artists who I might try to look out for in the future. I also found the point about how we can develop new interpretations of paintings by learning more about the history of the painting and the artist who created it. (102). Ultimately I found the whole article rather insightful and opened up a lot of different trains of thought that can be applied to everyday activities.

Everyone has their favorite genres. Whether someone is reading a book or watching a movie, we all have a few genres that strike a chord in our brains that tell us, “hey I enjoyed that.” But for a few reasons, we all tend to have one thing in common and that is our universal intrigue and enjoyment of horror. There are a few people who absolutely refuse to associate with horror films, but for the rest of us, there is something about horror films that draws us back in every single time. For some of us, it might be just the sheer passion of horror cinematography and literature. The special effects and costuming that go into just about every horror film and the suspense of a page-turning horror story. For others it might be the desire to experience an emotional state that we do not often experience in our day-to-day lives. Engaging our natural fight or flight response is not something we experience every single day, so to make up for that moment of adrenaline and excitement, some of us experience horror stories and films. Whatever the reasons may be, horror is something that constantly draws in an audience even when the audience knows what is coming.

One of the key questions raised in the reading this week is straight forward and to the point; how is it that, “normally aversive events and objects can give rise to pleasure or compel our interests”? (Carroll, 276) Well as we try to answer this question, Carroll tries thinks that it, “is driven explicitly by curiosity.” (Carroll, 279).  Is this true? Do we watch horror films just to experience the proverbial “monster in the closet?” In an essay written by Stephen King, which you can read here, we go to watch horror movies because it allows us to step out of the day to day and experience the fact that “we’re all mentally ill.” (King, 1). King explains that going to watch a horror movie is like going on a roller coaster; a horror movie lets out the child that exists in all of us when we are too old for roller coasters. He even explains that the murderer that exists in all of might not be that far from reality and that we go to see horror movies to satisfy that little part of us. He explains that horror films have a nasty job and that is to appeal to the worst part of all of us. But underneath what seems like a gruesome idea, that a murderer exists in all of us, is it not better that that part of us is satisfied by horror rather than reality? It’s an interesting question to think about. So what does Carroll think about this? Well the answer is in the text and I think the two are in agreement. “Moreover, it should be clear that these particular cognitive pleasures, insofar as they are set in motion by the relevant kind of unknowable beings, are especially well-served by horrific monsters.” (Carroll, 283). Using these “horrific monsters” is our way to satisfy the darkest parts of our inner being. Everyone has it, and luckily most of us exercise that part of us using horror films.

Another reason that seemed to be alluded to the reader throughout Carroll’s article is that by nature, horrifying things appeal to us and that’s just about it. We, as human beings strive to see and witness things that we know are not real, things that we understand to be fictional. We see the same things in many other genres, like fantasy or action films. We experience these things to live something that we know deep down can not every really happen. (I’m 22 and I’m still waiting for my Hogwarts letter). So, we go to horror movies to experience the gore and the theatrics because inside of us, we know that this is the only place we can experience these emotions. Carroll states that, “the pleasure derived from art-horror  are a function of fascination.” (Carroll, 291). In an article written on the psychology of a horror fan, which you can read here, it explains that we go and see this horror films because they are not something we can experience anywhere else. Going to see a horror film can be something of bragging rights for a person, more like they survived watching a film more than just having watched a horror film. The article concludes by saying that we watch horror films, just to see, “someone who is hands-in-front-of-their-eyes terrified” (Heaney). And it might be as simple as that. We watch horror because it is fun, it makes us experience real fear, and it lets us experience things we know we can never experience.

Bibliography:

Hawkins, J., (2002). ‘Revisiting the Philosophy of Horror’, Film-Philosophy, vol. 6 no. 6. Retrieved October 20th, 2002, from http://www.film-philosophy.com/vol6-2002/n6hawkins.

King, S. (n.d.). Why We Crave Horror Movies. 1-3.

Heaney, K. (n.d.). The Psychology of a Horror Movie Fan. Retrieved May 11, 2015, from http://www.psmag.com/books-and-culture/psychology-horror-movie-fan-halloween-scary-cinema-93375

For this unit, we’ve been instructed to watch an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer and try to determine three different aspects of film. The three terms are: diegetic sound, non-diegetic sound, and mise-en-scene.

For the term diegetic sound, I’m going to use the example of the young girl wearing a red dress that appears in Buffy’s dream while in class. At the first sound of the girl singing, she is not on screen, but quickly moves on screen, therefore I’m using her as a diegetic theme. I’m using this theme because the young singing girl has been a staple of some horror films for many years. Just take the Grady twins from The Shining, does it get creepier than those two? Anyways, this girl represents diegetic sound, because she is on screen singing, adding to the creepiness and anticipation of the scene. Buffy clearly senses that things are not right, especially when seeing a girl, alone, singing, in a dark hallway. Ultimately the girl singing just adds to the anticipation of what is going to jump out and scare Buffy.

For mise-en-scene, we’re going to go to 33:59 in the episode where the young man walks into a room with his weapon drawn. The reason I’m using this example is because the entire scene is setting up the audience with anticipation. The actor is silent while wielding a weapon, making it known that he is expecting some kind of trouble. The room that he enters is dimly lit and someone could hear a pin drop because the room is so quite. Also, the way the camera pans around the actor, as if the camera is actually the eyesight of someone watching him. The combination of all of these factors leads to the audience, again, being built up with so much anticipation and anxiety, that any sudden noise or movement scares them.

Finally, the non-diegetic sound. For this example, we’re going right around the 13:45 mark in the episode. The reason I’m using this as my example is because of the eery voices that begin going around after the wooden box that steals voices is opened. The voices are eery and what they are saying is hardly audible. It gives off the sense that nothing good can be happening. Also, the very quick, but quiet music that plays behind the voices gives an added boost to the scare of what the voices might bring. The reason this adds to the horror of the scene is because all the audience sees is a ghostly hand opening a box and the ensuing voices and music leaves the audience lost and confused about what can be happening. Add in that it’s completely dark outside and the audience is entrapped in the moment of horror that the creator has intended.

In all honesty, I tend to take my appearance pretty seriously. This doesn’t mean that I’ll spend an hour every morning trying to think of what shirt looks good with these shoes, but I want my dress wear to represent my own personality. I tend to treat every person I meet or spend time with in a polite and mature manner. I tend to dress in one of two ways: gym clothes or casual clothes. When I wear gym clothes out in public, it is almost always because I’m coming from the gym or going to the gym immediately following what I am doing. As comfy as they are, I don’t prefer to wear gym clothes out in public. When I wear casual clothes, I’m wearing a collared shirt, jeans or khaki shorts, and a suitable pair of shoes. I wear this because I personally hold a lot of value in first impressions. Because of this, I want to always be presentable in case I meet someone. I don’t want that person to walk away and think that my mother still dresses me. I make this choice because its how I was raised and I believe it’s nice to be dressed well. Quite frankly, my attire and body style has changed so dramatically throughout my life that whenever I look back on some of it I can’t help but laugh. I have always been athletic and involved in sports, so up until I got into college, I would often wear athletic outfits; I’d wear gym shorts, high socks, Nikes, etc. I even went through a skinny jeans phase my freshman year of high school. One thing that stands out, though, is a Dodgers cap that I wore every single day. I wore that hat for about five years straight until my mom was forced to throw it out. I always wore what was considered in and never really exercised individuality until I got into college.

My family has a wide variety of beliefs; some of my family are extremely hard working and value professionalism and hard work, while others are more lax in the way they dress. Some of my family don’t really care how they dress and believe that the only person they need to satisfy is themselves, which I think is admirable in it’s own right. As for the hard-working side of my family, the attire is pretty much the same; my grandfather, who has worked in a welding shop for longer than I have been alive, wears the same outfit just about every day: steel-toe boots, jeans, a t-shirt, a flanel jacket, and a hat. When someone sees him, they know that he probably spends a lot of his time doing some form of manual labor. As for both of my uncles, they are both their own business owners, so they present themselves in a professional way just about everywhere they go, this is probably where I get my own values from. As for my mother and my aunt, they both came from very little, worked hard, and now are quite well-off. I think they show this in their apparel because a lot of it is quality clothing. I believe they value what they accomplished and try to show that through the way they present themselves. As for the rest of my family, they do not concern themselves as much with their appearance. They don’t value the idea of satisfying other people, they believe that the only people they need to satisfy is their family and they don’t do that through the way they dress.

The core values of my peer community are widely ranged. Some of my friends dress very professionally because of jobs or a desire to dress well, while some of my friends dress to have fun and be similar to the way their friends dress. I think both value systems have their ups and downs; the friends who dress professionally are always dressed well, while the other friends are showing off their interests more in the way they dress. I believe that the peers who dress professionally do so because they are at a different point in their life; a point where it is less important to adhere to what is socially desirable and more important to look professional to the people you work with. As for the others, I think they just want to have fun and show that they want to have fun. It is not a bad thing to be young and want to do similar things that are similar to what others around are doing. I think that the values just differ based on where each individual is in their life and what they each hold most valuable.