Category: Uncategorized

Discussion Post 1: Creative Spirituality

This week I find the reading of creative spirituality is very interesting and give me many inspiration.  According to the author Gray. A(2001), he discuss about what is deeply seeing and how can artist use deeply seeing to produce their art works. At first, he mentioned that “seeing occurs when our attention is arrested by a person, object, or scene” which means seeing can probably happen in everybody’s life. He also points out that look and seeing is very different. he cited Ernest W. Watson’s word about seeing and looking which is :”There is a vast difference between looking and seeing–a difference which is fundamental to the artist”s experience.” After that he discuss about how artist looking for archetypal beauty and create their own artworks. Finally, he states that inspiration is also a unique process for every artist which is a “most mysterious step in the creative process.”

As far as I am concerned, I believes that everybody have potentiality to become an artist because they all have eyes which can found luminous points in their life. I also extremely interested by the inspiration because it a kind of thing that only given by god. The author Gray. A like to provide example from his life experience, for me, I would also like to raise my own experience to be an example. As a student, I always need to write something I don’t like or familiar with. If I don’t have inspiration, even if I think the topic is very attractive, I can not write a good article without inspiration. The author also talks about spirit and art. He said that “Spirit brings vision to the artist via the imagination, the multidimensional media center of our minds.” (Page 82)It is why artist always can bring us some sensitive emotional touch. They actually use their heart and soul to create. I think that the word “soul” and “spirit” is connected to the word “inspiration” because those things are very abstract but meaningful for artists. The also also mentioned that inspiration is like an unseen lover, a muse, an angel or demon, or perhaps and entire committee of discarnate entities, who creep up to your imagination and give it the most sumptuous gifts.” (Page 82)

Citation:

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

Discussion post 1: Enjoy horror

  1. Diagetic sound

The diagetic sound is all around the whole movie. I pick up a scene which is starting at 32 second at the beginning of the movie. The female character is called by the teacher and suddenly stand up and walk down to the  stage. The sound that teacher make and the sound that the girl make when she stand up and also the footstep when she walk down to the stage are three simple example for the diagetic sound. Because diagetic sound is made for pushing the story continue to go through the movie, I think those sound is helpful for movie to provide a horror atmosphere. However, it is not strong than the non-diagetic sound because diagetic sound is the sound that audience can still easy to imagine and understand. When people realize a sound that they might heard in their normal life, they will feel familiar with it. People will have less probability to afraid of a sound that they already known.

2.   Non-diagetic sound

When I see the movie, I found that around the 24 minutes, when the girl look out of the window, she suddenly found an vampire show up in front of her. The movie choose a very terrified music to be the back ground to make audience to be shocked as the girl in the movie. Even though the sound is  cooperated with the film’s plot, it is still a sound that would never appear in our life to make people’s emotion fluctuate. I pick up this scene is because I also shocked by the movie not only because of the vampire, but also because of the sound of background. The diagetic sound suddenly show up and lead my emotion to involve in the film through the exciting moment. I believe that non-diagetic sound is helpful for director to provide horror environment.

3.   mise-en-scene

An example of mise-en-scene can be found around 13 minutes and 22 second in the film which is a scene of a clock tower. The director use angle of elevation to emphasis the tower’s gruesome—looks like it cover the whole sky. This scene seems like an hint to tell audience that there must be something happened in the tower, which can increase the effect of terrified the people might have during watching the movie. I believe this feature in the film is significant and essential because to build a horror atmosphere need some basis of sentiment before audience really see the climax of the film. It is unnecessary for a horror movie to be “horror” in every second, the audience also need time to think about what is going on in the movie. Those scene give them opportunity to think about what will happen next and arouse their curiosity.

Discussion post 1: Is Food Art?

This week’s reading is much more interested for me because I really love to eat delicious food. The author Tefler, E. (2002) in the article “Food as Art” discusses about how to distinguish “aesthetic” between art and our daily activities. He points out that “Is food art?” is always an controversial issue in our society. Some people don’t agree that food is art while the author insist that food is kind of art and also has its “aesthetic.”

Coincidentally, today is Spring festival in China, which is a traditional “New year” for Chinese people to celebrate.  Relatives will stay together in one person’s house and eat together. In my country, the “Food” is also an significant part of culture. For example, we will always eat”Fish” in the Spring festival because the “Fish” has the same pronunciations  as “surplus.” The fish means that people will have enough things to spend every year. According the Tefler, E(2002), he states that” Our reactions is aesthetic, in many simple cases, if it is based solely on how the object appears to the senses.”(Page 9) In my opinion, the food which can contain people’s emotion is an art work because it has a power to make people feel enjoyable and aesthetic. Although the author thinks that “food can not move us at the way that music and other major arts can.”(Page 25) However, some food really have its special meanings for me to remember.  The taste from your hometown I will never forget because I already mixed my homesick and the taste of food together. The meal made by my mother, which is not really delicacy as an expensive restaurant or an excellent  cooker, but it’s my familiar taste, which can bring me into a extremely sweet dream of my past. So I think that food can be an art in some certain ways not because it looks beautiful or taste so great, but because who made it for you and how you feel about it.

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.