While seeing the two murals in the Knight library, I realized that these two murals can be considered as public art. In this week’s reading, Erika Doss, the author, starts the article by quoting the definition of public art as Jack Becker details in his 2004 Americans for the Arts Monograph on the subject: “Public art is artwork in the public realm, regardless of whether it is situated on public or private property, or whether it is acquired through public or private funding. Public art can be a sculpture, mural, manhole cover, paving pattern, lighting, seating, building façade, kiosk, gate, fountain, play equipment, engraving, carving, fresco, mobile, collage, mosaic, bas-relief, tapestry, photograph, drawing, or earthwork.” (Page 2) The two murals, Development of the Arts and Development of the Science, fall into the definition of public art. There are, however, some issues to be considered such as civic improvement, civic beautification, place-making, and appropriateness, time, place, and manner.

The two murals definitely beautify the Knight Library. They hang in the East and West stairwells that connect the lobby of the Library to the Special Collection and University Archives. When people are entering to the library, they see these murals rather than organized classic bookshelves that people would see in a library. In this week’s reading, Doss says “Its visibly public presence, its frequent dependence on public dollars, and its originating concept as a unifying form of civic beautification can make public art a beacon for controversy.” (Page 5) Two murals were painted as part of Work Progress Administration Art Project, which was part of the New Deal the Federal Art Project and was funded by the federal government.

In the reading, Doss states “Critics and historians such as Ronald Lee Fleming and Renata von Tscharner argue that a “spectre of placelessness” characterizes many of today’s built environments; shopping malls, airports, office parks, and housing developments are so similar that it is hard to distinguish one from the other. This “banal sameness” is thought to keep people from establishing a sense of place or community identity. Public art is seen as a solution to the problem of placelessness, especially in its ability to remedy social alienation and generate a sense of civic and community identity.” (Page 5) For the two murals to be located in the library, it definitely generate the sense of civic and community identity for students. The two murals show the chronological history of the art and the science from bottom to top. In a student’s point of view, the display of the two murals in the library could generate the sense of civic and community identity for them. In addition, Doss describes that the definition is a quite a list and she says, “That’s because whether permanent or temporary, figurative or abstract, man-made or mass produced, public art is as diverse as the people who view it.” (Page 2) Not everyone might not think that the two murals would not be considered as public art. The people who view the murals are mostly students, and the library is mostly for students. Although the library would not be considered as public place, the murals could be considered as site-specific works of art. In the reading, Doss states “A widespread interest in genius loci – spirit of place – has helped generate site-specific works of art: public art projects that engage specific factors such as location, audience, and history.” (Page 5)

Doss quotes Douglas McGill’s statement by saying “Douglas McGill describes this new public art as “art plus function, whether the function is to provide a place to sit for lunch, to provide water drainage, to mark an important historical date, or to enhance and direct a viewer’s perceptions”” (Page 6) Doss also says “And contemporary public art that fails to generate some sense of spatial and / or social relevance is often snidely dismissed as “plop” art. But the sort of identity and relevance that public art is supposed to generate- not to mention which American public a public art piece is meant for – is often a source of conflict.” (Page 6) The two murals provide to mark the historical improvement on the art and the science in historical orders. They also generate the sort of identity and relevance by displaying in the Knight Library.

    I really enjoyed viewing the two murals in the Knight Library: Development of the art and Development of the science. While reading this week’s reading, I also realized that the two murals definitely fall into the category of public art.

1. Passion
2. Creativity
3. Unique
4. Mindful
5. eye-catching

In the beginning of the video, “Laws That Choke Creativity” by Lawrence Lessig from TED talk, he started by talking about the chicken farmers and the flight “trespassing” the properties of farmers. With this story, he started talking about read-write culture, which everyone participate in creation of culture, and read-only culture, which there is separation between consumers and creators of cultures. Read-only preserved until before the outbreak of the internet. After the internet, everyone became a creator of culture through the internet including using others’ work to create new things. Using others might cause the act of piracy and breaking copyright laws and even the intellectual property law in a broader sense. Lawrence is one that is against the piracy but he wants the laws to be more sensible. I think this is a controversial issue. Being sensible is not an easy work to be done. There is someone who literally wants to create new things based on others, but also there is someone who steals others and makes money off from those work.

In this week’s reading, “Computer Graphics: Effects of Origins” by Beverly J. Jones, it describes how the technology and art are combined or related to each other. I think the primary thesis of “Computer Graphics: Effects of Origins” is “New forms of art and technology are frequently cast in the mode of old forms, just as other aspects of material and symbolic culture have been.” (Jones, Page 21) Throughout this week’s reading, Jones mentions this thesis several times in different sentences, but the same meaning. There are three historical examples that Jones provides.

One of those three historical examples is the earliest computer graphics by Ben F. Lapofsky and Herbert W. Franke. In the reading, Jones says “Ben F. Lapofsky and Herber W. Franke were among the pioneers creating these images. Franke’s graphics were phase forms, presented as events rather than as static imagery. Lapofsky’s Oscillon No. 4 was included in the first edition of Franke’s book, Computer Graphics – Computer Art. His work continues to explore similar forms.” (Jones, Page 22) Although the technology has been developed dramatically, the work of Ben and Herbert continued to be commonly used by others until today.

First thing that comes into my mind when I think about technology and art is Photoshop and Powerpoint. One illustration of Jones’ thesis at work in today’s culture is Cohen’s work. In the reading, the author says, “Cohen has constructed a series of computer programs that direct the activities of a drawing turtle. He attempts to describe the process by which human beings read symbols and images. His programs imitate experts who know aspects of picture making, such as shading, spatial distribution and determination of inside and outside of forms…. Cohen’s work extends earl attempts to produce computer simulation of the step of artists such as Klee, Hartung and Mondrian. Cohen also attempted stylistic simulations of Bach’s musical style.” (Jones, Page 25) Just like Jones’s thesis, Cohen created new form of computer programs based on earlier attempts.

I think “Old Media, Digitized, Make New Forms” by Martin Gayford support Jones’s thesis statement. In the article, Fischer says “”People see I sue computers, so they say I’m making computer art,” he said. “It’s not about making computer art; it’s just using the new thing. Everybody uses it.”” (Martin, 2012) Fischer is definitely working in a new form of making art; however, the new form is “casting in the mode of an old form.” By using computer when making his own art, it might seem like a completely new form, but it is actually staying in the old form but processed in different way.

Old Media, Digitized, Make New Forms. (October 24, 2012). MIT Technology Review. Retrieved November 17, 2014, from http://www.technologyreview.com/review/429643/old-media-digitized-make-new-forms/

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

While watching the video named “Gaming can make a better world: Jane Mcgonigal on TED.com”, I found it really interesting that gaming can solve such problems in real life such as hunger, poverty, climate change, global conflict, and obesity. Jane, the speaker, connects the game life and real life. She mentions that there is epic win that always gives the players positive outcomes and make them more productive. With reasonable amount of work or problems that anyone can overcome with their reasonable amount of efforts, players become can have four core forces: urgent optimism, social fabric, business productivity, and epic meaning. In the game, there are many characters with world saving mission, and the missions are epic and always give positive feedback to the players, which they do not usually get in their real life. With these, people who spend more time in playing games can be successful with the experiences and the feedback that they got from the game. Since the players know that there are always someone who are willing to collaborate and work with them, they can build the faith for co-workers in real life. In addition, players become more willing to work hard by playing game. She mentions that people build a lot of trust by playing games together and that people are happier working hard than people are relaxing or hanging around if they are given a right work.

1. How do you define “spirituality”?

I think spirituality is something that is invisible and untouchable. Anyone in the world has their own spirituality. I would define spirituality as something like consciousness of one’s own. By going deeply, spirituality is more like the controller of one’s own consciousness. For example, people can move their body with their consciousness. Their consciousness signals one’s brain, and one’s brain signals one’s nerves and muscles to move. Like that, spirituality signals one’s consciousness to think in their own way. Basically, spirituality is the top manager of one’s own.

2. Does spirituality differ from religion?

I think there are differences between spirituality and religion. Although spirituality was originated from religion, I think anyone including who does and does not have any belief in any religion can have spirituality. Religion is basically, I think, learned belief. People go to church to learn about the religion; however, spirituality is something that is inside of you. Spirituality is not the one that we have to learn but it is there already in one’s mind.

3. How do you define “creativity”?

I think creativity is something that comes up when we think out of box. Creativity is something that nobody ever have thought of. It can be applied to anything such as verbal sentence like joke to real products such as escalators or other creative products that people have made. Humans and growing animals with learning things from their circumstances. From these environment, sometimes humans constrain themselves into well-ordered formality. This well-ordered formality prevent people from thinking creatively. Thus, creativity, I think, comes to real life when human come out of the well-ordered formality.

4. What is the source of creativity?

Every person has their own routine of one’s daily life. Once they break their routine of their daily life and when they step out of their well-ordered formality, the creativity comes out. So I think the source of creativity is the movement that they come out of their well-ordered formality. Besides the movement, creativity should include originality as well. Although someone comes out with a great idea, it would not be considered as creative if someone else already made or came out before.

The author started by discussing on the differences between looking and seeing. The author quoted a statement “There is a vast difference between looking and seeing- a difference which is fundamental to the artist’s experience” by Ernes W. Watson. (Page 72) In seeing process, there are several steps to fully seeing things. The author says “seeing determines every aesthetic decision. First, artists see their subject, which inspires them to create. Then there are the technical aspects of seeing, such as an accurate analysis of the formal relationships that the artist wishes to express. Next comes a critical translation phase, where the art-making hand dialogues with the seeing mind. This dialogue can be a halting argument filled with traps and pitfalls or a harmonious song halt flows from the soul of the artist. Frequently it is both. Seeing is also the recognition of meaning.” (Page 72-73) The author also takes some ideas on three eyes of knowing: “the eye of flesh sees the “outer” realm of material objects; the eye of reason sees symbolically, drawing distinctions and making conceptual relationships; and the mystic eye of contemplation sees the luminous transcendental realms.” (Page 73) Each eyes are related to wholeness, harmony and radiance.

The author also states that viewers must go through a mini ego death by placing themselves in the inspired mind of the artists, who themselves are out of their minds and only acting as channels of creative spirit to experience art fully, which the author defines this process as depth perception (Page 74) To generate fine artwork, artists must go through creative process, which consists of many stages: Formulation, Saturation, Incubation, Inspiration, Translation, and Integration. (Page 74) The author also gives an emphasis on legitimacy as well. The author says “the scale of legitimacy is the way that society interprets or confers success upon the work of art.” (Page 88) With creative process, artists started broadening the scale of legitimacy. For example, the author talks about the earth work of Robert Smithson’s dumping of a truckload of asphalt down a hill and earthwork of Joseph Beuys’s planting oaks across Germany. However, it is such a hard work to be succeeded. The author says “most art-school graduates will give up creating art within five to ten years because of the difficulty in gaining legitimate support for their art, either financially or psychologically.” (Page 89)

There is another way of evaluating art: the authenticity. In this week’s reading, the author defines the authentic meaning as “the height or depth of being and awareness that the artist is accessing and transmitting.” (Page 92) To explain the way of evaluating art with the authenticity, the author decomposes physical body of human into complex interlocking systems: the nervous, skeletal, cardiovascular, and lymphatic systems, and the skin. (Page 92) All the body compositions interact with each other by sending and receiving information to and from each other with creating emotional, mental, and astral layers, and the most importantly spiritual layers. (Page 93) With these processes, artists evaluate arts with their spiritual layers in the end. This spiritual layers are related to chakra, which is simple and has the virtue of visually tying spirit and mind to body. (Page 94)

In conclusion, art and creative spirituality are related and connected to each other. He author says “To the artist, the work may be a trace of any of many levels of the artist’s own awareness….To its viewers, the artwork fulfills a variety of private and collective meanings.” (Page 104) With art and spirituality connected, the author concludes by saying “the mystical perspective reveals that we and the world are so profoundly integrated that neither we nor any other thing is truly isolatable.” (Page 106)

I love watching or reading horror genre. I enjoy being horrified and scared. While watching horror genre, I always regret watching them, but I love them after watching or reading them. One of the articles that I found is “Why Are We Drawn to Horror Films?” by Lauren Suval. This article talks about the author’s experience about the Horror films and thoughts about why people are drawn to Horror films. The author states that there are various purposes for people to watch horror film. The purposes are that people may want to distract themselves from daily routines of life, that they may want to counter social norms, that they seek adrenalin rush, and they hope to indirectly experience frights from a distance. This article also touches on one’s childhood. With growing up experiencing horror film movies, there are fears and thoughts of the supernatural resided inside of our consciousness. With these experiences (the author expressed these experiences as ‘movie monster’) people are attracted to experience fearful emotions from a safe and secure remove. In addition, the author gives an emphasis on personality factors as well. There are two threat-related types: repressors and sensitizers. Repressors are the one that like to approach or confront the fears, which enjoy watching horror film movies. On the other hand, sensitizers like to escape or deny the attraction from the horror genre. The author concludes the article by saying the pleasure from horror film movies can be embedded in fear and peaks of adrenaline, while offering just enough emotional distance.

In this week’s reading, Carroll, the author, states “[Monsters thus] arouse interest and attention through being putatively inexplicable or highly unusual vis-à-vis our standing cultural categories, thereby instilling a desire to learn and to know about them. And since they are also outside of (justifiably) prevailing definitions of what is they understandably prompt a need for proof (or the fiction of a proof) in the face of skepticism. Monsters are, then, natural subjects for curiosity, and they straightforwardly warrant the ratiocinative energies the plot lavishes upon them.” (Carroll Page 281) This statement is related to one of the purposes that the Lauren talked about: that people may want to distract themselves from daily routines of life. People know that the scary things from movies are not real, but they get scared of the unreal things. Nevertheless, people are curious about how the scary things are come from, and they get out of their daily routines of life by exploring new scary adventures.

Second article that I found is “Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?” by Allegra Ringo. This article questions ‘what happens in our brains when we’re scared? Is it different when we’re scared “in a fun way” versus being actually afraid?’ The author says that we have to be in a safe spot to really enjoy a scary situation. The author also says “These senses are directly tied to our fear response and activate the physical reaction, but our brain has time to process the fact that these are not “real” threats.” Ringo also says “things that violate the law of nature are terrifying.”

In this week’s reading, Carroll says “All narrative might be thought to involve the desire to know – the desire to now at least the outcome of the interaction of the forces made salient in the plot. However, the horror fiction is a special variation on this general narrative motivation, because it has at the center of it something which is given as in principle unknowable – something which, ex hypothesi, cannot given the structure of our conceptual scheme, exist and that cannot have the properties it has.” (Carroll Page 281)

According to these two opinions from each author, horror genre draws audiences by taking them to unknown objects, which is the ‘movie monsters’ by bringing them to recognize and confront the unknowable things and setting the plots to let the audiences concentrate or mistake the unreal for the real.

Bibliography

Allegra Ringo, (2013), ‘Why Do Some Brains Enjoy Fear?’, The Atlantic, Retreived November 9^th, 2014, from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2013/10/why-do-some-brains-enjoy-fear/280938/

Lauren Suval, ‘Why Are We Drawn to Horror Films?’, PsychCentral, Retrieved November 9^th, 2014, from http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2014/01/04/why-are-we-drawn-to-horror-films/

Before discussing and providing examples of mise-en-scene, diegetic sound, and non-diegetic sound, I would like to go over the definitions of them to understand more clearly about the examples from an episode of Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Mise-en-scene is defined as “an expression used to describe the design aspects of a theatre or film production, which essentially means “visual them” or “telling a story” – both in visually artful way through storyboarding, cinematography and stage design, and in poetically artful ways through direction.” (Wikipedia) There was a scene that people lose their voice. In the video, their voice was visualized to show design aspects of the film. The voice was visualized as smoke, and the smoke are gathered into a little box. I think this is an example of mise-en-scene. This scene made us to preassume that there would be something bad to happen because of that.

Diegetic sound is the sound whose source is visible on the screen or whose source is implied to be present by the action of the film. In the video, there was a scene that the main character and his friend got stuck into the elevator. At that time, they could not speak even a word out loud. The elevator was asking them to verify their identification with their own voice. The voice of elevator is, I think, an example of the diegetic sound. With the sound of voice from the elevator, the scene became more dynamic because the two could not do anything because they lost their voices. In addition, there was some poisonous smoke coming out due to failure of the verification.

Non-diegetic sound is the sound whose source is neither visible on the screen nor has been implied to be present in the action. In the video, there was a scene that the evils from fairy tales chased a person, and the person fled away from them. During the scene, there was a mysterious background music playing, which made the scene more dynamic. I think the music was one of the examples of non-diegetic sound.

In this week’s reading, the author states “people construct their appearance in a wide variety of ways to control their social identities, self-definitions, and interactional prospects.” (Page 3-4) I totally agree with this statement. I personally believe that my dress or body adornment depends on the situation that I am in. When I was in a high school, I had to wear a uniform. The uniform was really formal outfits. I had to wear ties, a vest, and slack pants every day.  My appearance represents my social identity and self-definition as a student. In this week’s reading, the author also says “Clothing style is of sufficiently symbolic importance that it often is controlled through “sumptuary laws” that allow only members of specific (usually high status) groups to wear certain materials or fashions.” (Page 4) In my case, the uniform represents the symbolic importance of my status as a student because the uniform that I have worn was only given to the specific students who are attending to my high school.

When I was graduated from high school and started attending to the university, I had my own choice about what to wear. I believed that wearing the same outfits are bad, so I tried not to wear the same thing with others. I tried to find the outfits such as shoes, jackets, hats, and pants that others might not have. I valued the uniqueness the most at that time. In retrospect, I think that I was in the beginning stage of constructing my appearance in my own way to control my social identity and self-definitions. By trials and errors, I built up my personal beliefs and values with my dress. Now I wear normal clothes and do not prefer unique items. Rather, I prefer comfortable outfits such as sweatpants, hoodies, and tennis shoes. I believe comfortable clothes would help me study more and focus more, and I believe it would make me healthier to wear comfy outfits.

I made the choice of wearing comfortable outfits because of my responsibility of studying as a student. Back in the days when I valued the uniqueness the most, I had no passion to study and all I cared about was hanging out with my friends. My parents, however, supported me to study abroad here in the United States to motivate me and give me an opportunity to develop myself.

With these supports from my parents, my values have been completely changed. I prioritize studying to anything. The reason why I started wearing comfortable clothes is that I cannot concentrate or focus on something when I am uncomfortable. For example, I had a presentation for my marketing class one day, and I had a mid-term the day after. Thus, there was no choice for me to change my clothes and study for the mid-term. I studied with my suits on and it was very uncomfortable, which was not very helpful for me to study. As a result, I was distracted a lot by my outfits and I did not do well on the mid-term.

The core beliefs and values in my family are that there is nothing impossible if you do your best, and my family thinks the processes are more valuable than the results because the results come from the processes. To do my best, I must have adjusted my surroundings and circumstances to my best fit. I think what I wear depends on the situations where I am. When I have to wear nicely and formal, I wear nice formal outfits. When I need to do something important that requires concentration such as studying for exams, I wear comfortable outfits to do my best. By wearing the best fitted outfits to the specific situations, I think my family’s core beliefs and values are communicated and sustained through.

As a student at University of Oregon, many others wear clothes imprinted with the school logo. I think the core beliefs and values of my peer community is originated from the pride of school. By wearing hoodies, pants, shoes, or hats with the school logo, they create their own certain barriers that others cannot enter. Again, the author states, “Clothing style is of sufficient symbolic importance that it often is controlled through “sumptuary laws” that allow only members of specific (usually high status) groups to wear certain materials or fashions.” (Page 4) I think the school logo creates the symbolic importance for specific members which are students at University of Oregon. They are expressed through dress with the school logo imprinted.