I spent about an hour sitting in front of EMU and doing people watch. Here are three persons that I picked to describe and analyze.

The first person I picked is a young white girl with short blonde hair. What she wore was all black, the black jacket with many zippers and chains, black leggings with skull logo on it and wearing a middle-high black leather boots. She had around 4 rings on her face, 2 on one side of her ear (I cannot see her other side so I am not sure if she also have some rings on her other ear), one on her nose and one over her eyebrow. From what I saw in her appearance, I think she is around 20. She is kind of cool and might interest in industrial rock music, I guess she might be a fan of Marilyn Manson; by the way, I also love Manson’s music though sometimes it is not easy for many people accepting the genres he plays.

The second person I noticed was a guy. He is white, having dark brown hair with a pair of glass. He was just in a white shirt and dark blue jeans with a pair of black converse. His backpack was black and there is dirt on it. He also had some books and documents in his hand. He looked in hurry and walked quickly; I think he may just finished studying in library and now was going to his class, to have presentation or discussion. He, I guess from his backpack, is a kind of causal person in life, while he might be strict to academy.

The last person that I wanna write down was an Asian girl. She was wearing a long white sweater with a big logo on it, a black legging and Uggs on her feet. She also wore a white woolen hat. She was walking with a group of her friend and was happy talking about something. She, from the brand of her purse and clothes, I think is born in a middle or high class Chinese family.

When people talk about food, they are talking their tastes, textures, smells and colors. As one object that is demanded in everyone’s daily life, food plays an important role. Depending on different point of views on food, some people see food only as something that they need to consume, while some concerned more about their features and believe that food in an artwork that people can made in their daily life. Today, I’d like to talk about this topic based on the article from Jacquelyn Strycker “From Palate to Palette: Can Food be Art?”

Strycker, as an artist who has a lot of passion on cooking, believes that food is of course art. At the beginning of her article, she first described how she cooked last night with “broccoli rabe with caramelized onions and vegan fennel sausage, along with a creamy parmesan polenta and a crusty whole wheat rosemary bread made from the Camaldoli sourdough culture that I feed flour to each day” (2013). She enjoys cooking, and sees the process, combining textures, flavors, scents and colors, as a creative way to practice. She then cited and discussed an opinion article on New York Times: A matter of Taste by William Deresiewicz, which claims that food “food has replaced art as high culture” (2012), about can food be seen as art. She first pointed out the long tradition of food being as artistic medium. She discussed the European sugar sculpture, porcelain and table layout during 16^th to 19^th centuries. At that time, table decorations were seen as “an aspect of political and social prestige, and required the skills of the finest artists and craftsmen of the time” (Royal Guard, as cited by Strycker, 2013). She then used several examples, like German artist Wolfgang Laib and emerging artist Leah Foster and briefly introduced their artwork which are made by rice and cupcakes.

In Strycker’s point of view, “Combining and transforming materials is a fundamentally creative activity, whether those materials are paints, clays, musical notes or edible ingredients” (2013). She believed that during the process of cooking, the combination of different ingredients, the control of the degree of the temperature is creative; even they are not painting or sculptures. Comparing to Strycker, Tefler mentioned about the aesthetic reaction, “there can be aesthetic reactions to tastes and smells and as with other sense, the non-neutral, vivid and non-instrumental reaction to taste and smells can be combined with a judgment for which the judger claims objectively” (2002).

In conclusion, by comparing several articles both from class and outside sources, I found knowing deeper about what is art and how can some food be concerned as an art. Therefore, as some food can satisfy human’s emotion, and is a creative way to show how the artist’s, or say cook’s view, it can be seen as a form of art.

References:

Deresiewicz, W. (2012, October 26). A Matter of Taste? Retrieved October 26, 2014, from http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/how-food-replaced-art-as-high-culture.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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.

Strycker, J. (2013, January 7). From Palate to Palette: Can Food be Art? Retrieved October 26, 2014, from

http://createquity.com/2013/01/from-palate-to-palette-can-food-be-art.html

In this week’s article, the author Tefler discussed the relationship between art and food. She argued about if food can be seen as a way of art. In my point of view, I believe some food is art. Comparing fast food and slow food in general, slow food is more likely art. In the video “Slow Food Presentation”, all the sense, sound and the describe of the food bring me into a world with awesome food. From the quality of the ingredients, how to deal with them, how to cook and how to organize them in the plate, every step is quite similar with making an art work. On the other hand, in the video “Fast Food Presentation”, it mentioned that “Fast food is industrial community assembled by machines shipped from varies factories. “ Comparing with slow food, fast food is more like a product from factory. Everything in it is already set, which is the reason why their taste will not change even between different countries. “What you eat defines you.” This is one of my favorite sentences in the video. How people decide and treat what and how they eat everyday is one way that shows their attitude toward life, like artists’ works show how they think. Today’s reading “Is Food Art” also reminds me that when I was a little girl, I always stayed with my parents when they were cooking. Both of my parents love cooking. They always told me that cooking is a process of creating an art.

The word “paleoanthropsychobiological” is made by Dissanayake, the author of “what is art for?”, and shows Dissanayake’s thought about the life’s sake. This word suggests that art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effect, encompassing all human history and including all human societies.

In this week article, the author, Dissanayake, discussed about the history of the western idea of art, what she called “Palaeoanthropsychobiological”. “Palaeoanthropsychobiological” suggests art is a psychological or emotional need and has psychological or emotional effect, encompassing all human history and including all human societies (Dissanayake 1). She indicated that “art is inherent universal trait of human species (1)”. She briefly introduced the history of how western idea of art changing through time. Through this timeline, she showed us how the idea of art changing in different times.

In the video, Denis Dutton, the speaker introduced the relationship between art, or say, the beauty related with theories from Charles Darwin: Natural selection and Sexual Selection. in his example of peacock, the beautiful tail of male peacock is chosen by the nature to attract more peahen to increase the possibility of his reproduction. In addition, not only in natural world, but also human’s production, are included in this natural selection system. For example like the hand axes and cave painting he mentioned in lecture. In his lecture, he also showed us several examples about how he believed beauty is universal. Like the music of Beethoven and the literature of Shakespeare. The beauty of their art, are adored overseas.” There are many difference among arts, but there are also universal, cross-culture, a static pleasure and values.

Many people believes that how to define beauty is quite different among different cultures, while in general, there are difference, but the similarity, the universality of beauty are still the majority.  the I am quite agree with the idea that how natural evolution can gradually influence humans’ beauty-appreciation.

Family

Enjoyment

Health

Friendship

Wisdom

————————————

Location

Wealth

Integrity

Independent

Personal Accomplishment

Personal Development

Security

Creativity

Community

Service

Expertness

Loyalty

Power

Leadership

Prestige

The top five values that are most important to me are family, enjoyment, health, whisdom, and friendship. Today I had a relax day. In the morning I got up and cook breakfast. Since I was a little girl, my parents always told me about how breakfast was important and can affect our health. While I was cooking, I always like to bring my phone with me to play some music and check Instagram and facebook about my friends and families. As I have been study aboard for more than two years, I realize that the importance of my families and friends, even though we lives more than 8000 km apart. After having breakfast, I did some reading about my education study course. After that, I opened my computer and start to read something online. I love articles that related with personal values, discover personal identity and things like that. That also is the reason why I choose psychology as my minor in university. In the afternoon, I chatted with my parents through phone and talked the ideas about their Wedding anniversary on October 18.

The values that I inherent from my parents are family, health, friendship, wisdom and Integrity. These values are always with me through my childhood period and all of them are still very important for me. The goal that I am working hard now is to get in the major and graduate with a nice grade.

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