Honestly, people watching is my thing.  I love to look at people and analyze who they are (this doesn’t mean judging them by the way).  Sitting in the rec center or on 13th right in front of Columbia are my favorite places to people watch.  Right now I’m sitting in front of Columbia and a couple people stood out to me because of how they were not standing out.  For example, one girl that I see is wearing black leggings, converse high tops, a sweatshirt, and a puffy vest.  I noticed her because she was wearing what the typical University of Oregon college student wears.  I think that her values are showing in her dressing: she values nice things but doesn’t want to show it.  She wants to look trendy and conform to how the Pacific Northwesterners dress.  Her dressing tells me that she wants to fit in with the crowd, but be able to get attention too.  This tells me that I value people who have confidence and can stand out in a crowd.  The second person I noticed was a young man probably in his mid twenties.  He was wearing tight jeans, boots, a sweater, and a jacket.  He had big earrings, probably gauges.  It tells me that he probably wants to stand out and wants people to notice him.  I think I jump to these conclusions because of what I have associated with these earrings.  If he didn’t have the earrings I would have automatically assumed he didn’t care if people noticed him, but with the earrings I think he’s a rebel.  It’s interesting to see later in life how we look at people depending on what we have associated certain things with when we were young.  The third person I noticed was a young lady dressed in workout gear, but her hair and makeup were done.  This tells me that she either is going to work out and doesn’t work out that hard, or she isn’t going to work out but wants people to think she is.  This tells me she values people’s opinions and wants people to see her as athletic and healthy.  A lot of people first judge people by what they are wearing and how they look.  I believe that’s just human nature.  So with that knowledge, I think people dress a certain way to portray the way they want to be seen by other people.  This assignment has made me try and connect the way I look at people to my values.  For example, with the guy and the gauges, I assumed he wasn’t very professional and didn’t take himself seriously.  That is what I have learned to associate with “rebel” clothing, which reflects my values on what is appropriate dressing for portraying yourself as professional versus not.

In this article, the author explains two connections between food and art.  His first point is that chefs of “haute cuisine” are expected to wow people.  Chefs are innovators and creators who “find new methods to manipulate ingredients, and interact with technology and design” (Parasecoli).  The second connection, he believes, between food and art is the word “avant-garde,” which is used in the media to describe top chefs and restaurants.  The formal definition of this word is “the pioneers or innovators in any art in a particular period” (Oxford English Dictionary).  Therefore, he suggests, that since chefs are being called avant-garde, they are innovators for an art form: food.  In closing, the author mentions briefly the relationship between haute cuisine and the arts, and patrons and investors.  Both new artists and chefs are helped by investors, or donors, and the relationships are complex.  He explains that artists careers “take off when their work starts carrying conspicuous price tags determined by intricate market dynamics” (Parasecoli).  With chefs, investors are taking a risk: they are betting on new talent that wants to be so creative it might become excessive and therefore cause the investors to lose money.  In both the artist and chef cases, “the tension between commercial requirements and innovation… is not easy to resolve” (Parasecoli).  Both relationships are dangerous because both require taking risks on new innovations that may not turn into a success.

Before I begin the main part of this assignment, I want to say that there are many ways to look at food being art, or not being art.  You could look at it from taste or smell, from the look of the food, from the creation of the food, or from the business side of it (like I mentioned previously with the relationship between chef and investors).  For the most part I will be talking about the look of food as an art form.  However, I will briefly discuss the taste and smell part of it in combination with the creation of the food.

My first point supporting food being art is that, like art, food creates an aesthetic reaction.  This meaning our reaction is “based solely on how the object appears to the senses” (Telfer, 9).  With our senses being either sight, taste, or smell.  Next, we are given a definition of art in Tefler’s paper: “an artefact primarily intended for aesthetic consideration” (Tefler, 12).  Combining these two definitions, we get something along the lines of ‘art is something that is intended for our consideration by appealing to our senses.’  This could by all means be a beautiful plate of food carefully prepared by a master chef in which we consider all the different flavors, or the unique arrangement of food on the plate.  One could have an aesthetic reaction to the way food looks on a plate, “the taste of food and drink as well as the look of it can give rise to aesthetic reactions…” (Tefler 14).  Sometimes, from my own experience, one may not want to eat it because it would ruin the “artwork” that was created for them by a chef.  Now, one could just as easily have an aesthetic reaction to the taste, or smell, of the food.  Whether it be bad or good, one forms an opinion after tasting it.  This is what is meant by “aesthetic consideration.”  To relate all this back to art, when looking, or exploring, a piece of art, whether it be a sculpture, painting, or a movie, we all seem to have a reaction based on the artwork and whether or not it appeals to us.  We then contemplate the piece of art and form an opinion to whether or not we like the piece.  The same goes for food, like I mentioned above.  One can have an aesthetic reaction to either the look, taste, or smell of food, then consider all the different elements of the “art work,” and form an opinion about the piece.  The process of “aesthetic consideration” is the same for food and pieces of common art (painting, sculpture, movie, etc.).

My second reason for considering food as art is the great deal of design and innovation that goes into one particular piece of food.  This could be a wedding cake, an elaborate dessert or meal.  “[Chefs] are expected to offer patrons (and critics) dishes and menus that stimulate and surprise them, [and] find new methods to manipulate ingredients…” (Parasecoli).  In this regard, chefs are innovators, sometimes called “avant-garde,” that design new recipes to make sure they keep surprising people.  In Tefler’s paper, she quotes different chefs talking about their process of making a certain dish: “These passages and many others like then illustrate the authors’ desire to design dishes, courses and whole meals which present patterns of harmonious or contrasting flavours and textures.  This is the approach of the cook who is designing a work of art” (Tefler 15).  With this, it is appropriate to make the claim that chefs do not just follow a recipe and expect it to wow the consumer.  Instead they make sure that the design and innovation process will create particular flavors that will result in a certain reaction out of the consumer.  They spend time and effort making sure that their work of art has a particular reaction that comes with it, just like artists.

Now, to briefly talk about a counter argument as to why food may be considered art: Food is not art because food is supposed to serve a single purpose: satisfy our appetite and fuel our bodies.  Food is a necessity and no one can argue with that.  However, I can argue as to which food is a necessity and which foods, even though they satisfy our hunger, are not considered necessary.  Take cake for example.  Wedding cakes are not meant to be considered as the main meal.  They are there for looks and taste.  The design process that goes with wedding cakes is an intricate and delicate process.  It takes a large amount of creativity and thought.  Wedding cakes are meant to be appreciated for their remarkable design and the amount of effort that went into creating such a masterpiece.  “A meal that claims to be a work of art is too complex and long-drawn-out to be understandable in terms simply of feeding, and a cook who has cooked a work of art is not satisfied if the eaters do not notice what they eat” (Tefler, 14).  Here we see that there would be no point in making such an intricate meal if the only purpose was to relieve hunger.  Therefore, I am not going to completely refute this counter argument, but I will say that not all food is meant to serve the single purpose of satisfying hunger, some food should be considered works of art because it took a great deal of design and innovation to create such a meal.

Parasecoli, F. (2013, August 29). Is Food Art? Chefs, Creativity, and the Restaurant Business? Retrieved October 20, 2014, from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fabio-parasecoli/food-art_b_3830791.html

Telfer, E. (2002). Food as art. In Neill, A. & Ridley, A (Eds.), Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates (2 ed., pp. 9-27). New York: Routledge.

First, I want to clarify that in this post I will be addressing “food” as the finished product, not the process of cooking (which could be considered craft).  I will be discussing whether or not a plate of food can be considered art.  I’m using the word “art” to mean a piece of artwork, just like one would say a painting is a piece of artwork.  I am also going to brush the surface of answering thiss question because one could write a never ending essay answering this question. So here I go:

The author describes food as a minor form of art (Tefler 24-26).  I’ve never thought of it that way but I believe she is right.  Food is a minor form of art because not all food is considered art. For example, fast food? Not art. Even though in the video it is said that it was “scientifically crafted” for us.  Which could be considered art, but not by me.  I consider some food works of art like cakes, and dishes at fancy restaurants made to look pretty.  That, to me, looks like a work of art.  And the taste of it could also be considered a work of art, but for me I think the look of food is the most important part.  The author also talks about an “aesthetic reaction” (Tefler 11).  For me I believe when one looks at a dish, or a beautifully designed cake, it should be considered that one could have an aesthetic reaction: “food can elate us, invigorate us, startle us, excite us, cheer us with a kind of warmth and joy…”(Tefler 26).  For example, I spent months trying to design a cake for my 21st birthday.  I wanted it to be stunning, and awe people.  I wanted to get a reaction out of my peers.  While giving the design to the baker, she asked “what flavor?”  Of course, I was so worried about how my cake would look I didn’t even think about the taste, the main function of a cake!  So, of course I believe food can be a work of art because it can give us that aesthetic reaction, it can awe us just like a beautiful painting can take our breath away.

I believe this view on art is a representation of the modernism view and the postmodernism view.  The reason for this is my view on food as art has a little of both belief systems in it.  From the modernism era, comes the idea of “‘disinterest’ [implying] that viewers could appreciate any art, even the artwork of eras or cultures far removed from their own” (Dissanayake, 18).  I believe food could be looked at in the same way: a recipe from years ago that has been passed down from generation to generation can still be made and appreciated.  From the postmodernism era is the idea that “any ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ is only a point of view”(Dissanayake 19).  This means that everyone has their own opinion, or “taste,” regarding food and are able to form their own opinions about both the look and taste of the food.  They are able to do this regarding art as well, so therefore food is art.

1) The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by Ellen Dissanayake and is basically a lot of little sub words put into one to make it one big idea (if that even makes sense). The word means that art is something that goes far back to the paleolithic era, is something that can be traced across cultures, and that art is something that is biologically embedded in humans.

2) When Dissanayake uses the phrase “making special,” she is describing making something different from the ordinary, or “not normal.”  She claims that making something special (the action) is the definition of art.  She also claims that the act of “making special” was crucial to human survival. She used the examples of ritual ceremonies that were unique and special ways of communicating and socializing with the community.  She argued that this act of making the ceremonies special unified the community and made it to where communities that held these rituals would have more surviving offspring than those who did not.  This act of “making special” is art itself so therefore, art is essential to human survival.

3) The first period of art that Dissanayake points out is medieval times.  During this period art was considered the “service of religion”(16).  Art was not thought of as “‘aesthetically,’ if this means separately from their revelation of the Divine”(16).  This meant that art was not thought of for its beauty or for personal pleasure unless it was enjoyed from a Divine perspective (an experience through religion).

The second period I would like to address is during the 18th century: Modernism.  This is when art was beginning to be thought of aesthetically.  During this period, there emerged the idea of “disinterest” which meant “[an] attitude that is separate from one’s own personal interest in the objet, its utility, or its social or religious ramifications”(17).  This meant that art was being looked at by stepping out of one’s own opinions and looking at it from a non bias viewpoint.  Almost from a different perspective.  This “disinterested attitude” allowed viewers to appreciate art from a different time period because it didn’t matter if they “understood” what was physically in the painting, but rather the beauty of the painting as a whole.

The third, and final, period I would like to touch on is postmodernism.  This viewpoint emphasized the interpretation of the artwork rather than the artwork itself: “…assumption that interpretation is indispensable to appreciating and even identifying artworks…”(19).  They suggest that individuals’ interpretation of an artwork comes from their own point of view and is unique to each individual: “…any ‘truth’ or ‘reality’ is only a point of view — a ‘representation’ that comes to us mediated and conditioned by our language, our social institutions, the assumptions that characterize individuals…”(19).  Postmodernists also believe that “art is not universal”(19).  They believe art is relative to each individual and it is “conceptually constructed by individuals whose perceptions are necessarily limited and parochial” (19).

This article had a lot going on in it.  I had to read it a couple times just to make sure I understood what points she was trying to tell us. There was a lot to follow and comprehend.  However, I want to take a moment to bring up a thought I talked about last week, which was how the definition of values was not very concrete so it made talking about values difficult.  I believe the same thing happens here with art…

Ellen Dissanayke talks about many different subjects in this paper, but the most important part for me was her definition of art.  She takes the “conceptual” part of art away.  Instead she suggests “art must be viewed as an inherent universal (or biological) trait of the human species” (pg.15).  She believes that along with all the other behavioral traits we inherit, there was also a trait “to ‘make special’” (pg. 22).  Therefore, she argues that art is instead an act: to make something special. This means “something that is ‘special’ is different from the mundane, the everyday, the ordinary. It is extra-ordinary”(pg. 22).  I cannot completely agree more with her argument.  I have always been struggling to determine what art is, and I believe her definition is the best argument I’ve heard so far.  Usually when one thinks about art, a painting comes to mind, or maybe a sculpture.  But what makes that art? Isn’t it just colors on a piece of paper? Or a shape in a rock?  What makes it art, is it is special.  The shape is special, unique, artistic.  The colors on the piece of paper are organized in such a particular manor to make it look unified.  Therefore, art can be anything one makes special.  Quick example: When your 5 year-old daughter holds up a painting she drew with her water colors at the kitchen table, it’s a piece of art, because it is special.  It’s different than the ordinary, unique.

My personal values list:

Top 5 (in order): Family, Friendship, Integrity, Health, Enjoyment

Others (in order): Security, Loyalty, Personal Development, Personal Accomplishment, Independence, Wisdom, Leadership, Location, Prestige, Wealth, Expertness, Service, Community, Creativity, Power

Reflection:

Within the 20 values on the list, today I have expressed the values of friendship, family, health, enjoyment, loyalty, personal development, wisdom, and service.

With these activities, 4 out of my top 5 appeared today.  I believe most of the things I do during the day reflect at least a few of my top 5 values.  It would make sense to have activities reflecting your own top 5 values because those are things you hold important in your life and they shape who you are and also what you do.

My family is stubborn, so I guess that would be integrity in a more formal matter.  They stick with what they believe in.  Also, enjoyment and personal development is really important to my family.  If you are not enjoying life, then there’s no meaning to it.  My family also takes friendship to heart because they’re like our family and we treat our friends with love like we do family.  Honestly, my family has great values and I know I got put into the right family.

My personal goals change every now and then because I will think of one that outreaches my previous one.  For example, I wanted to graduate college.  Well, now I want to graduate college with honors.  I always try to think of a way to be the best I can be and in order to do that I have to let nothing slow me down or get in my way.  One of my biggest goals in life, if I’m being completely honest, is having a stable, enjoyable career with a loving family and being able to provide for them while teaching them to live every moment like it’s your last.

Values hold a very important role in my life.  I live every day thinking about my personal beliefs and how I can better myself through them.

I want to start this post by saying I thought this was an interesting paper, and I’ve never really thought about ‘values’ specifically.  I guess it’s one of those things we use everyday but don’t think a lot about, like breathing.  It’s a complicated process, but for us, it is so simple we don’t even think about doing it.

Moving on to the paper itself.  I agree with the majority of this paper (I know that’s really vague, but it is true).  While I was reading it, I understood how the author was thinking and where these questions and points were coming from.  It just clicked for me. I could write a huge paper on my opinion of this paper but I won’t bore you with all the jumbled thoughts in my head… just a few:

The first thing I just want to touch on is the actual definition of “values”.  What does it actually mean?  In the paper it states that the term “values” should be “synonymous with personal evaluations and related beliefs, especially personal evaluations… about the ‘good,’ the ‘just,’ and the ‘beautiful,’ personal evaluations and beliefs that propel us to action, to a particular kind of behavior and life”(page 7).  It doesn’t give us an actual definition however.  It’s difficult to say what values are without saying the actual values themselves.  Bottom line I want to say here is that values really cannot be defined specifically, therefore it can be hard to prove that they actually exist in a society. (If you know what I’m trying to get at please comment and maybe explain what it means to you because it’s hard for me to get what I’m thinking onto paper! Could always use a little peer help!)

The second thing I want to talk about is this question: “Are human beings instead driven by inherited instincts, instincts that we like to dress up with the term values, so that we can pretend there is a measure of choice in the process, when it is really all programmed into our genes?”(page 7).  This is a loaded question, and I don’t think we will ever know the precise answer.  However, I will give you my answer: No.  I don’t think that we cover all instincts with values to pretend we have a choice.  I believe that humans have certain instincts that we can’t control, and we have some that we can.  It all depends on our values and the choices we make because of those values.  I think the author does a good job in the next section explaining a possible answer to this debate: “Perhaps we are not driven by immutable instincts. But we night still be controlled by the influence of genes on our underlying personality or,…, by peer pressure, by the relentless demands of society in which we happen to live”(page 8).  I cannot agree more with the author here, mainly because this answer is a compromise so both sides are happy.  I think our society, people, and even ourselves, shape who we are and the choices we make.  Therefore, all of those things can influence our values and how we think of them.  Some people may have more values than others, and some may not even believe in them at all.  I think everyone has their own opinion about values and none are either right or wrong.

Sorry if any part of this is confusing! Please feel free to comment and ask any questions!

Blog Post

*Side note: I love Pinterest. You could call me obsessed. So, naturally, when I found this article I screamed a bit on the inside. I have heard about the amazing success of Pinterest in the last year, but haven’t actually looked at the numbers of it or a study of the reason behind the success. So here’s a little knowledge for both me and you:

Pinterest, if you haven’t heard of it, is an online pin board (basically).  It allows you to look at a number of “pictures” to inspire you, or help you with a DIY (Do It Yourself) project, and re-pin them onto your own “board”.  It has become one of the top websites in the nation and just recently underwent a major facelift.  The site was already pretty easy to navigate and very user friendly.  However, they have added many new features like trending, related posts, and scheduling pins to release during peak “pin times”.

This blog post describes the impact that Ahalogy (the technology doctor behind this facelift) has had on Pinterest’s user activity and interaction.  Making the website more interactive and offering more options for users to get inspired make Pinterest one of top websites in the nation.  Specifically, the impact that Ahalogy has had on the success of Pinterest is remarkable: “In the first week of using Ahalogy, the brand’s traffic from its Pinterest account doubled. In the second week, it tripled. At the end of the program, the campaign saw a consistent six time increase during a time when web traffic to the brand web site typically decreases.”

Of course there is more to the study, which is linked in the blog post, and I think it would be interesting to read more on this, especially if you are interested in major business development and growth. Being on Pinterest since the beginning of it’s existence, I have seen it develop and grow almost weekly, and personally, I dig all the new changes!

Cheers!