Category: Assignments

 

Here is a picture I draw today. I think it can be my version of art because I draw everything that I think it should be important in art history.

If I am a artist, those are the words I will describe myself.

• creative
• genius
• thoughtful
• nobility
• shock
• dedicated
• unique
• popular
• valuable
• persistent

Here are the total imagines that I found from Google imagines:

This week we are learning a new content of art, which is “Remix.” According to the video that instructor post in the blog, which is about remix. The speaker show the audience several examples of how to use technology to”remix” some videos and music to play for fun. He mentioned that he is not trying to talk about “piracy” because it is not “people taking other people’s content in wholesale and distributing it without the permission of the copyright without the permission of the copyright owner” He is trying to talk about “people taking and recreating using digital technology to say things differently.” He thinks that it represent a kind of “democratized” in our society. However, I think that the remix can not always bring us the positive way because once people have right to demonstrate their idea by “remix” some videos, they might use it to spread some negative influence. What do you think of this problem? Do you agree with that technology’s development make our society more “democratising”?

This week’s essay is talking about how the computer graphics, which is a controversial topic for people in the modern world. According to the Jones, B, J (1990), who is the authore of “computer graphics:Effects of Oringins”, he mentioned that:” Computer graphics, as defined by Eranke and Beyer, has been in existence a relatively short time. ” (Page 51)Even though the author think that it is a “short time”, but it still change the world internally.  He also describes the history of how computer graphics change the people’s life. He states that”In the 1940s, analogue computers were used to generate the earliest computer graphics and display them on oscilloscopes.”  (Page 51), The time is the beginning of people using the computer graphic technology. After that, Jones, B, J believes that the computer graphic do change people’s life in its own way, at the end of the article, he said that:”Now daily life is affected by computing. Even licklider may have been surprised at the ubiquity of computer graphics. Practical and professional communities of advertising, entertainment, publishing, telecomminunication, business, finance, education and medicine have joined the academic, scientific and artistic communities in using this medium.”(Page 57 )  It is why he thinks that computer graphic, which is a new technology, is increasing people’s life everyday especially for artistic field because nowadays people are familiar with using computer to “beautify” the imagines by some computer program.

In our daily life, computer graphic is surely a significant  invention for people. According to King’s Edogiawerie, (2013)who is a blog writer in word press , he states that “it is disccovered  that graphic design has always be in existence from the prehistoric world  to this modern world, and it will continue to be around us.”  For instance, the advertising in the TV, which are already become “graphic” by the computers. This kind of expression is already accepted by the people who are watching the TV and enjoy the advertising, which might lead them buy more product just because they attracted by the “beautiful computer graphic technology.” Thus, it can be a positive influence for our lives in the most of the time, people can use computer to control what they want to show for people and it is easy for them to edit and delete something they don’t -really like. If they don’t have this kind of technology, it might be wasting their time to re-do it later.

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

King’s Edogiawerie, (2013) The influence of graphic design in our world retrieved from: http://kingsed.wordpress.com/lectures/273-2/

I really feel touched by this week’s ted presentation which is talking about how online games connected to the real world and saving the world in the next decades. According to the  speaker Jane McGonigal who is a game designer, she said people are engaging to play online game is because of 4 reasons: urgent optimism, social fabric,blissful productivity, epic meaning. She mentioned that people are spend 3 million hours weekly playing online games, which is a very big number, the majority of them are teenagers. She trying to use “Changing the thought of creating online games” to involve real world problems to the games and help people to create solutions for the society. For me, I am pretty interested about how can they believe that people will change their life after they play the games? In fact, I think most of the”virtuoso gamer” would like to spend more concentration in games rather than the real world. Even if they start to play the game which can give solution for “saving the world”, however, I don’t think they would exactly focus and do anything in their real world. There is another problem is the real world and the game world are totally different because sometimes things are are always more simplified in the games than the real world. If the gamer only used to operate the game in front of the computer, they might not know how to solve the problem in the real world even they face the same situation both in the two different world.

Jane McGonigal  Recorded at TED 2010, February 2010 in Long Beach, CA. Duration: 20:04 Retrieved from: http://www.ted.com/talks/view/lang/en//id/799

1.How do you define “spirituality”?

I believes that spirituality is a condition that balance of our heart and body or a  transcendental willpower that is not belong to human beings. This word always connected to heart, soul and spirit and it also connected to the inspiration because inspiration is also a unseen and mysterious thing in the world. According to Gray. A (2001), he mentioned in his article “Deeply seeing”:” The word inspire refers to the breath, which has always been associated with life and spirit.”(Page 82)

2. Does spirituality differ from religion?

Yes, it does. I think that spirituality have some similarities with religion, but they are represent totally different realm. For me, spirituality can be anything about your willpower and attitude. However, when I think about religion, it it more like a system of faith. For example, Christian,  Buddhism, and Islam. They are all examples of religion. Most of the religion have their doctrine or rules while spirituality can be only created by individual’s need. For instance, the Olympic  athletes might not need to have a religion, but they really need to have a strong spirituality.

3.How do you define “creativity”?

As far as I am concerned, “Creativity” is  a power to create a certain thing that can provide some value for society.  According to the Gray. A (2001), the creative process including six steps, there are “formulation, saturation, incubation, inspiration, translation and integration”.(Page 75) I also think that creativity is extremely important for artist because they always need to create “new” things for people to appreciate. Gray. A also said that “Finding that energetic and idiosyncratic fountain of creation, an art spirit, is the artists’s task.” In another word, if a person have enough creativity to produce something, he/she can be a artist as well.

4.What is the source of creativity?

I think that the source of creativity is from our life.  Gray. A(2001) states that:”Seeing occurs when our attention is arrested by a person, object, or scene. Seeing determines every aesthetic decision.” When we see the aesthetic  things in the world, we will try to find a way to keep those things, it is why people wants to create. For instance, a artist wants to keep his emotion of happy about a beautiful scene, he might draw it and keep it as a picture. He can also write a novel or a small blog to keep it by words. Yes, people love to keep things, so they like to create, especially for them selves. However, not only artist, but also scientist wants to keep things which make them feel possible to keep. For instance, they will create a bike because it is convenient and they want to keep this convenient for everyone.

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

This week I found two articles which have the same topic as the issues raised by the reading that our instructor give us. One is written by Margarita Tartakovsky(2012), she is an Associate Editor at Psych Central. The second one is written by  Press Journals(2007), which is from University of Chicago.

The first article is discussed about why some people love to see scared movie. The author Margarita Tartakovsky states that there are some people like to see horrible movies while the others aren’t like. She points out one of the reason why people love to see horrible movie is because they enjoy the moment after they watched the movie. She called it “excitation transfer process.” She believes that after see the horrible movies, the happiness that you might gain when you have fun with friends or anything make you exciting will become more intensified. The second reason that she mentioned that people like to see horrible movie is because they love every new and novel thing. The vampire, demon, and also the bloody scene might not always happen in the real life. She also find an interesting point of the difference between man and woman, she think that men prefer scary films than women is because women are more likely to find “physical closeness” when they’re afraid, and men can show off their “strength and bravery”. Finally she suggest that parents should pay attention to their children who are under 14 years old to see a horrible movie because a research shows that the children who are under 14 years old might have trouble when they go to bed and feel anxious after watch those kind of movies.

Compare to the reading that instructor provided and written by Carroll.N(2002) and the first article I summarized above, I found that they have some similarities and differences. First of all, both of the articles want to give audience an answer of why some people will enjoy the scared movie and the horrible moment during watching the movie. However, the author Margarita Tartakovsky mentioned that people like to see scared movie is because they enjoy the moment after they see the movie and also they like novel thing which would not happen  everyday in our lives while the author Carroll.N describe that people like to see scared movie is because they are curious and attracted by the design of the movie’s plot.  He states that “the horror story is driven explicitly by curiosity. It engages its audience by being involved in processes of disclosure, discovery, proof, explanation, hypothesis and confirmation.”(Page 279) In fact, the article which is written by Carroll.N is more specific and  detailed to analyze the reason of people’s enjoyment of scared movie.

The second article that I find online is written by Press Journals(2007), his article also discuss about the reason why people love to see scared movie. He disagree that people love to see scared movie is because they enjoy the fearfulness moment or they just actually don’t afraid. He indicates a very arousing points that people who enjoy the scared film is because they are enjoy the moment when they are happy and also scared. He said that human beings can have two emotion at the same time. When they are watch scared movie ,the positive feelings and the fearfulness can give them a exciting experience that they are not able to try in a daily life except some extreme sports.

Compare to the reading which is written by  Carroll.N, Press Journals’s opinion is more like a simple defined of Carroll’s article. According to the reading”Why horror”, The author states that:”When we turn to tragedy, plotting performs this function. The interest that we take in the deaths of Hamlet, Gertrude, Claudius, et al. is not sadistic, but is an interest that the plot has engendered in how certain forces, once put in motion, will work themselves out. Pleasure derives from having our interest in the outcome of such questions satisfied.” (Page 276) He want to prove a point that people enjoy the scared movie is not just because they want to be scared, is because they are curious about what will happen next. For example, when you read a book, if you only read the most exciting part of the book, it might not make you feel interested, however, if you read through the book and understand what happened in the whole story, you will find the exciting part of the book is more attractive than before. In Sum, he believes that a weather a scared movie is successful or not is not only depend on the horrible or disgusting scenarios, is also depend on a attractive plot.

Reference:

Tartakovsky, M. (2012). Why Some People Love Horror Movies While Others Hate Them. Psych Central. Retrieved on February 13, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2012/10/31/why-some-people-love-horror-movies-while-others-hate-them/

University of Chicago Press Journals. (2007, July 31). Why Do People Love Horror Movies? They Enjoy Being Scared. ScienceDaily. Retrieved February 13, 2014 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/07/070725152040.htm

Carroll, N (2002). Why Horror?. In Neill, A.& Riley, A. (Eds.) Arguing About Art: Contemporary Philosophical Debates(2nd ed,. pp. 275-294). New York, NY: Routledge.

With the development of society, people are more and more pay attention to their outward appearance.  According to the Sanders, C. R.(1989), he mentioned that people construct their appearance in a wide variety of ways to control their social identities, self-definitions, and interactional prospects.”(Page 4) As far as I am concerned, people’s appearance in their daily life can  particularly demonstrate their value and belief in some certain way and I am not the exception one in the world.

In my opinion, the most important “dress principle” for me would be warm and comfortable. Now I am living in Eugene, which is a city always changing its weather during the whole day so I always prepare a  coat and an umbrella when I go to school. I like to dress like an student, which it means I will never dress too mature or sexy in the school.  My favorite  “cloth set” would be a sweater with soft feeling and jeans with boot. I believe that I would consider “comfortable” to be one of my reason to choose cloth is because I really enjoy my life and I am fond of simple and fulfilling life.  I believe that I am able to adapt any different circumstance and I don’t have a specific future  goal, but I do have some small target need to be finished, such as my next week’s exam and an academic paper I need to finish today.

However, the reflection on my dress has changed as the time goes on. I prefer to wear colorful skirt in the summer these years because I gradually find that I might want people to think I have more femininity than before. I start to enjoy being a female and feel more confident to “act like” a female. For example, I would consider to be more gentle when I have some problems or speak slowly during a communication.  Actually I am a girl when I was born, but I always play with boys in my childhood. I like to climb trees and throw sand to my friends so my parents sometimes think I might not become a “lady” after I grow up. I would never wear dress before 10 years old, nevertheless , things changed after I grow up. I start to separate myself to boys and enjoy have numerous “girl friends.” I understand I am a girl and I need to be different than the boy.  I enjoy to wear skirt and I always think I need another cloth when I look at my  wardrobe. According to the Sanders, C. R.(1989), he states that :” attractiveness, then, affects self-concept and social experience.” Sometimes I think that a girl like to dress up themselves is because they want to be more attractive.  I might feel more confident after wearing a beautiful dress or a new shoes, which is because I sometimes would judge people by their appearance. For example, if a person wear a dirty shirt in the school, I might think he is a little lazy and careless.

I think that my parents do influence a lot of my “adornment”, especially my mom, the first thing that she affects me is that she really love herself and her life. She always concern about her appearance. The most significant thing that I remember of her about she care appearance is because she takes exercise every day for three hours.  Sometimes she even controls the meals to keep fit. She believes that:” There are no ugly woman, but only lazy ones.”  I think her belief of appearance really influence me because I don’t want to be a ugly women just because I am too lazy.  Second, my mom  is a person like to keep every thing clean. Due to her job—she is a doctor in the hospital, she need to pay attention to not carry germs back home. It is why she like to wash hands in any environment.  This habit also reflect on her dress up style because she would prefer to wear clean and simple cloth when she need to go to work. It is why I also like to wear some “simple style” cloth when I need to go to school. I will concern that school is also a place that I need to finish some works their, if I wear a kind of cloth that is too complex to do some activities, it might make me feel uncomfortable.

In sum, to consider the appearance  is a important principle when we judge people’s heart. However, it might not always be the truth. I believe that my taste of clothing will change in the future as the time goes by, but I will always be the one who enjoy the life.

Sanders, C. R(1989). Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing. In Customizing the Body(Chap. 1). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press

l watch the people who are passing by the street and I found three of them are caught my eyes particularly.

First I meet a white man in front of my classroom. He looks about 30 years, with a little bald and an classical glasses. He wear a brown suit for top and a blue shirt but go with sports pants and sneakers. He through the crowd people very quickly while watching his watch, it seems like he have something to do right now so he can’t wait even a second. According to the Sander, C. R.(1989), he states that :”people use appearance to place each other into categories.” I am totally agree with that because I think the person I maintain before might be a teacher or an master student in the school just because his appearance looks like a “standard scholar.” He is really cherish time might because he has another class need to take or teach. He might already married because I can catch sight of his finger that he has a wedding ring. However, he won’t be an too serious scholar in his life because he still wear sports products in his body. I believe that he like to enjoy his leisure time with his family and exercise outside the doors, but he still wear an suit in the top to show his respect to the class and school.

The second person I watch today would be an meddle-age woman in the Eugene station.  She is a white woman with a messy hair and looks a bit overweight.  She wears a loose sweater and baggy pants. She is trying to talk with the strangers who are sitting next to her, however, they don’t really want to talk to her maybe because he sad face. I guess she might be a women who just encounter some problem in her life, it might be some small things like she lose her dogs or something bigger like her husband just cheat her. I try to imagine that she is a housewife and has some extremely boring daily housework to do.  She might doesn’t care about weather she has a goal or not. However, I know she wants to be attention and take care, maybe just a friendly communication can release her sad and give her a warmer afternoon.

The third person I want to state here is a elder homeless in the street. The reason why my eyes is attached by him is because the other homeless probably would have a dog stay with him, however, he lead a cat on the corner of the street. As I can see, he wears some dirty and old clothes, but he never looks like a person who need to have people’s sympathy. I can see that the harmonious and nature happiness show up in his face, so he must be an very positive person, even though he is poor. The cat is a yellow and brown cat with a red cloth. The cat looks exactly like its  owner. Even though I am watching them at that time, they just enjoy the sunshine and singing some songs leisurely. I guess that he might not be a homeless who become a homeless because of gambling or drugs. He might be a person who has a bad experience or unlucky so that he lose his house and money, but still have a very positive attitude and goal for his life.

If I use those standard to look through myself, I think that those standard might not be always true. For example, sometimes I don’t really pick up myself and my face expression. Some people might think I am a lazy girl, however, it might  not be a good way to judge someone just because of one time observation and adornment in their body.

Sanders, C. R(1989). Introduction: Body Alteration, Artistic Production, and the Social World of Tattooing. In Customizing the Body(Chap. 1). Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press