I want to talk about the paintings and how they relate to public art as a whole. These painting in my opinion are perfect examples of public art and what public art should be. They do not show bias and just tell the story of how things were formed. In the First painting Development of Arts, it starts off with just cave paintings because that is the first thing we as humans created to share stories and document events which since then have been known as art. It is great to see how art as evolved from a way to document events like the Neanderthals did as well as the greeks and Egyptians to what happened in the middle ages where art was used to honor god and not show man, to again what the Renaissance did with showing what men are and document our culture and not a higher being as much. My favorite part of these paintings are the top two areas where they depict students learning the arts and then a place for modern art to show that we are indeed in a creation period of our own and we can continue to shape art from here at UO. (Maruska)

The Development of Sciences is a little different but mostly the same. It starts in the stone age and moves to the iron age where the tools were made to survive, to the early Egyptian age where tools were made to make building monuments and structures, the greeks who started making tools to think about stuff outside of this world, The Renaissance shows the creation of the printing press as well as some science such as calculus and the expansion of physics, The Eighteenth and nineteenth centuries saw the industrial revolution and the creation of lightbulbs, followed by the modern scientist such as Einstein and Curie who expanded our modern knowledge of science immensely, the last box is again filled with students because I think it is a representation of what we can accomplish. All the previous discoveries have only given us a foundation of what we can accomplish so we should see it as a challenge to add another row to the painting. (Maruska)

This example of public art to me is great because there is no bias about what happened, there is only the facts on here of how science and art have developed over time. This made me think about the reading and how public art is viewed. I do not think it is right to change how a person was seen in there memorial purely based on the fact that you want to please everyone. The FDR memorial is a controversy because of all the changes that had to be made. “Yet this public sculpture was deemed inadequate by disability activists, who insisted that Roosevelt’s memorial more blatantly commemorate their own interests.” (Doss 7) this is proof that because someone didn’t like how he was portrayed he should be changed. Roosevelt did not want to be known for his disability and thats why he never showed that he had it, he wanted to be seen by more than just his disability and the memorial now depicts him as a frail man in a wheelchair instead of the powerful man he portrayed himself as. I think that if you are creating a memorial for someone you have to show the world who they are not what they didn’t share. History can not be changed to please someone else and neither can historical people. Jefferson’s memorial is placed with him staring at the white house because he had a mistrust in the presidency, it seems weird that if this is how Jefferson is portrayed and not for what he did to transform this country, FDR should be shown for what he did and not for his disability.

Doss, E. (2006, October). Public art controversy: Cultural expression and civic debate. Retrieved from http://www.americansforthearts.org/pdf/networks/pan/doss_controversy.pdf

 

Maruska, B. (2013). A response to the runquist murals. Retrieved from http://blogs.uoregon.edu/runquistmurals/

 

I watched both the TedTalk and the mashup of the Beatles and Jay-Z video. I think that copyright laws make music like that mashup impossible. I do agree that copyright laws are better for creative processes because it incentivizes people to create something new and profit off of their creation. Like any invention, people want to be recognized for what they have done so copyright and paten laws are in place for a reason. At the same time, as Larry Lessig was saying in his TedTalk video “Laws that choke creativity” the laws that prohibit the use of copy-written material in a non competitive way is bad because it destroys the creative process’ of some young adults in our society. Also as Lessig says about the young children of today, we and them are formed by television, by technology and we use other peoples thought process’ to form our own and in some cases change their’s in a way to discover our own technology. I think that copyright laws should be limited because I think people’s creativity comes from observing current works, and that some people have a talent of mixing music together like the Beatles and Jay-Z music video, music that would never be created without someone breaking the rules.

I define spirituality as the ability to see yourself and how you grow in relation to the world. That is spirituality is being able to see who you really are, not what people see you and judge you for, but rather how you truly see yourself and if you are actually growing or standing still. It is the inner being within you that only you can feel and whether you want to portray who that really is, is up to the person.

I believe that spirituality and religion are different things. Religion is a belief in a higher being that you want to please in order to have a good afterlife, and spirituality is the belief in your true self. I think that religion pushes spirituality because they know that in order to truly be one with god or the higher being you have to have a connection with your true self. Spirituality can allow you to view religion differently if your true self has come out and you identify your true self as someone close to the higher being.

I define creativity as the ability to create something the is new and original. It can be art, music, food, or a new invention. I think that creativity is a process in which you have an idea in your head and the way that you portray that thought is new and original. It definitely comes from within our selves but at the same time you see what other people have done and alter it in a way that makes more sense to you and can be useful for your idea.

To me the source of creativity comes from multiple areas. First is a persons spirituality because it is their true self and in order to be creative you have to trust it in your heart. Second I believe there are two types of people in this world, the art type and the analytical type. The art type have a brain that can see the image of what they want in their head and can translate that into the activity that they are doing. An analytical brain (like me) need to work harder at in and requires a lot of trial and error with some modifications every time. And lastly like I said in the previous paragraph, I think our creativity comes from observing other peoples creativity and expanding on it or modifying a process of it.

To me spirituality is discovering your true self, being accepting of the transformations that you and the world go through. This can be with the help of religion or not whichever makes more sense for the individual. So when I watched the movie I thought it was very interesting how each of them expressed their spirituality. I am going to focus on two of the four artists, John Feodorov and Shahzia Sikander because I find that they come from religious backgrounds but have two different views on it. John Feodorov is of Navajo decent so his work has to deal with the spirituality of the Navajo tribe. But he is not serious when it comes to it, he almost makes fun of it. When he talks about the totem bears he sells and that he makes them not enhance peoples spirituality but almost to mock it because he rigs the game. I think he has found his spirituality in other forms, because when he talks about painting he says that it is a struggle and he hates it but at the same time loves the struggle itself. So I think that his spirituality comes out in that struggle and what he puts on the paper is his true self, not the totem bears that he makes.

Next is Shahzia Sikander, she grew up Hindu in Pakistan, a primarily large muslim country. And her spirituality comes from her religious upbringing, the detail that both her miniature paintings have as well as her large paintings shows that she doesn’t want to mess up and portray the religion badly. She finds peace in the fact that everything has to be perfect, and in that peace she is able to meditate and therefore find her spirituality. Spirituality comes from within so sometimes it is hard to see it with someone but I believe that an artists spirituality comes out when the paint or draw or write because in the struggle or in the detail, the true artist comes out.

Im not a horror film guy, I prefer happy movies because I don’t like to be scared so my interpretations could be a little different that everyone else’s. First is a non-diagetic sound, my example is right when they are getting their voices taken away from them the music was very eire and set the tone of what was happening. Since all the voices were being taken away it was an evil plot being made so the music was diabolical in a sense. My diagetic sound is also around the same scene but a little before hand. To me whenever I hear a clock in a horror film I can always tell something bad is about to happen, it is almost foreshadowing the events that are about to happen. But the clocks inter workings always have a devious sound to them. And lastly is the Mise-en-scene is when the two guys cannot use their voices in the elevator to gain access to the base. This is a very suspenseful scene to me because you dont know entirely what is going on but you are assuming nothing good and when you see the gas coming out me as an audience member gets very nervous and scared for them.

 

Adornment to me is the best way to portray yourself to someone. Like our assignment this week when we were supposed to make insights about people based on their appearance, I feel like in order to portray how I view myself to people I need to dress like it. And that is not to say that I dress in order to impress people, but rather I dress in a way that shows people who I am and how I feel about myself.

 

How I would describe my style would be in three categories; comfort, brand and stylish. I say them in this order because this is the order in which they are important to me. First comfort, I like to be comfortable in what I wear not only the material that I like to wear but what I feel comfortable wearing. Next is brand name, I pretty much only wear 3 brands; Lululemon, J Crew and Nike. I really like these brands and what they put out as well as how comfortable they are. The last category for me is style. I like stylish clothing, but what I think is stylish not what other people think is stylish. So my closet is not as full as my roommates and that is because I am extremely picky when it comes to the clothes that I wear around. I do not have any tattoos or piercings on my body mainly because I don’t want them but also because my parents disapprove of those things and since they are paying for my education at the moment I will listen to them and not cross them. The last thing that makes my adornment is my hair. I like to put gel in my hair because I feel more confident in myself if my hair is done correctly. That is my style based on my clothing and body art.

 

Now onto the choices that I make, which stem from two groups as everyone’s do: my family and my social group. First off with my family, they have preached to me since I was young to make my own decisions and not worry about what they thought of me because they will love me no matter what happens. This is hard for me to do though because I like pleasing people and showing people that I care so I like to make my parents and siblings happy by making choices that will please them, thankfully those choices are always in my best interest so it works out in the end. I come from a family where there is a lot of pressure put on ourselves to succeed, since both my parents are doctors I cant very well take over for my dad without doing a lot of schooling first. So because of this we are forced to try and succeed in our own areas of choice, mine being math and economics. My parents and family view this as a good choice for me because they see how talented I am at math and how truly passionate about it. So overall my family influences me more than anything but not because of the expectation they put on me but because of the expectation I put on myself to be as good or better than them. You can see how my family influences my dress or adornment by me trying to be comfortable in my own skin.

 

I am the baby of the family so my friend group or social group tends to be on the older side. I’ve always enjoyed hanging out with my brother’s friends because I feel like I fit in better. As well as being the baby I am also old for my grade so I got to do everything before my friends did. Because of these two things I have learned that true friends are hard to come by and that once you find them you should appreciate them. This is expressed through my dress by the comfort aspect; if I’m comfortable with you then I will dress like it and let you see me in my “natural habitat”. This is to say I wont always wear what I think is stylish around you or I wont do my hair sometimes. My dress and body adornment are very important to me, not because of what other people think of me but more because of what I think of myself and want to portray to people. If I do not accomplish that then well at least I like what I look like.

I am a huge people watcher, I do it all the time especially at airports or amusement parks. I think that no human is the same even and to understand a different human you must sit and watch them when they are unaware of it. This may sound a little stalkerish but the difference is you do not follow them around you just watch what they do for a certain amount of time then move on to a new stranger. When I normally people watch I try not to judge people by their appearance but rather their mannerisms or their decision making process so when asked to look at a person and not judge them but draw conclusions based on their appearance or how they wear their clothes can make me uncomfortable but I gained some insight of myself because of it.

The first person i observed was who I believed to be an athlete at our school solely based on the fact that she had one of those highlighter backpacks on. But when I continued to observe I noticed that she had the whole nike outfit on from head to foot, The ducks sweatshirt and sweatpants and some green nike shoes (she was too far for me to be more specific with the shoes). If I was new to this school I would assume that this person was trying to stand out by wearing only oregon apparel with the athletes backpack, but now i would assume that this person’s closet has a lot of free sweats and sweatshirts so it is only fair to assume that this person just grabbed whatever sweats were clean at that time. I am assuming she either had practice earlier in the day or just woke up because her hair is in a ponytail and is slightly damp (no rain at this time). But overall what I believe about her is that she is just another student either going to or coming from class in comfortable clothes.

The next person I observed is a (sorority) girl at starbucks. I say this with confidence because she is wearing her letters on her sweatshirt. She is also wearing yoga pants and uggs, or as I like to think about it the sorority girl uniform. I say this because I can look around the room and see 4-5 of the same exact outfits around the room. This particular girl is sitting with her laptop open drinking her coffee and doing what I assume is homework. I have a hard time studying in a place like starbucks so when I see people studying there I assume that they are only have studying and half people watching, so I am assuming that this particular girl is not really studying. The values I see in her though just from this quick encounter is that she likes (or pretends to like) the other girls in her sorority (there are a couple other girls right next to her with the same letters on) but more importantly I assume that she is probably older than 21, studying journalism, in good health but a little stressed about something, and most likely from California (just one of those feelings).

The last person I observe is a man who I would say is 40-50 and most likely a teacher, I say this because he is carrying a cup of coffee, a computer, a book and an envelop with a bunch of papers. The book appears to be a math book so I am going to assume that he is a math teacher. I am concerned because of how much stuff he has with him but he seems to manage just fine. He is wearing a button down shirt and khakis that are a little bit too big for him so I am assuming that he either just lost a bunch of weight or that he likes baggy clothing. He doesnt look sick so I will finally assume that he just likes baggy clothing. his hair is a little messy and he has a stressed look about him so I am going to assume that he is either late to class or that his research is stressing him out. Lastly I would think that he is Russian, this has no real bases but I just have that feeling about him.

I watched the video about fast food first then read (most) of the article about art is food. I really disliked how negative the fast food video was and how much it trashed the fast food industry for what it does. The thing about fast food is that it is mass produced food that is easy to get and is available for cheap, that sounds like an art form to me. Fast food has revolutionized the food industry whether you agree with how they stand or not. Fast food is an art form, not one that everyone likes necessarily but an art form none the less. Because an art does not have to be pleasing to everyone in order to be classified as art. As Dissanayake said in her essay when referring to “species-centered view”, “It does this by thinking of artmaking and experiencing as a human behavior” (22). Meaning that art is just a human behavior not necessarily a good feeling towards a piece of art. And as Elizabeth Telfer says in her article about food as art, “An aesthetic reaction need not be favourable one, and even where it is, pleasure may not be the right characterization of it” (10). This is a description of the word aesthetic and how it relates to everything. People do not have aethetically pleasing reactions towards fast food, but that does not me we dont have any aesthetic reaction towards it. Food definitely can be both an art form and aesthetically pleasing but it is not required to be and fast food is the best example of this because they have made the mass produced food industry an art form and have revolutionized the food industry because of it.

1. Describe the term paleoanthropsychobiological.

   Who coined this term?The term paleoanthropsychobiological was coined by Ellen Dissanayake and it is a way she describes art. “Paleo” meaning from history, “anthro” meaning from humans past and present, “psycho” meaning behavior, “biological” which is life. So art comes from all of these things and therefore cannot be summed up in one area.

2. What does Dissanayake mean by the phrase “making special”? How does it relate to art and to human survival?

   Something that is special is as Dissanayake puts, “different from the mundane, the everyday, the ordinary” (22). It relates to art in the way that something that is mundane cannot be art because are is something that is supposed to be special. As she says “Now all animals can tell the difference between the ordinary or routine and the extraordinary or the unusual” (22). That is to say that something that is special is a natural instinct, so recognizing art as special is a natural instinct. Adaptation is an artform, and it is essential for human survival. Throughout the course of human history we as a race have created objects that are useful for our survival and that is innovation which is art

3. Dissanayake identifies many different theories/movement/periods of art throughout western european history. Name three different theories of art that Dissanayake mentions in her essay. Identify the time period when each theory developed and was prominent. Provide a brief description of the philosophies and ideas that define each theory/movement/period of art. Support your answer with quotes from the reading.

   Her first mention of a time period is during the Greek era. When the term art wasn’t around but instead, “Plato did not discuss ‘art’, but rather beauty, poetry, and imagemaking” (16). So art itself wasn’t a term then, but the elements of art were there. The next era Ellen talked about was the Medieval times where “the arts were in the service of religion” (16). That is to mean that most of the art of that time was about God or any other religious item

   The time period that really changed things for art as we know it today was the Renaissance, because “artists gradually replaced God-centered with man-centered concerns” (16). To say that people started to see the beauty of earth and the lives here rather than that of the afterlife.