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Doss was considering how public art controversy can be seen as a way to enhances “community awareness and civic life” (Doss, p1).  There is an example which can reflect this statement, the Berlin wall is now an public art in Germany,  today,  the existing of it is not only public art, it is meaningful Historic Landmark and National Monument. It tells the history of Germany and how the German people used to fight for freedom. The distortion of the Berlin wall show the community awareness. However, this maybe an special example because Berlin wall wasn’t public art when it was built. Not like Berlin wall, most of the public art, such as sculptures and murals, which are big projects in city area and can play the part of beauty aesthetic are usually built with fundings that raised by government or organizations. For example, as the article mentions, the first example of NEA-funded public art in America happened in 1960s, It raised $85,000 in private funds and received $45,000 from the NEA to pay for the “Grand Rapids, MI, dedicated La Grande Vitesse” (Doss, p4). The public art was a way to decorate the city and cheer up people. However, what pubic art could bring to people are not only one aspect, “public art is as diverse as the people who view it”(Doss, P2). Public art diversity speaks to America’s diversity—and to the increasing number of Americans who want to see their cultural interests represented in the public sphere.

There are many issues can be analyzed about these murals, I will focus on “Spirit of a place” and my personal opinion about public art. The knight library designed to have the “modernized Lombardy and Greco-Roman” elements. It was also added public art, such as the fifteen stone heads by Edna Dunberg and Louise Utter Pritchard,  carved wooden panels by Arthur Clough and the two murals by the Rundquist brothers. When I first saw the murals in library, I didn’t relize it as public art, I consider it as art work; one of the collection of University of Oregon. However, it located on the wall of public building but not in a museum,  therefore, these murals are actually public art. Doss has mentioned in his article:”Public art discourse, like all conversations, can lead to a larger examination and questioning of assumptions, ideas, and concepts.” Referring to the two murals in Knight library, which is public art that hang inside of library in college, it is exactully true. These murals are portray the evolution of arts and sciencesIn Knight library,which suits the topic”knowledge”. It meets the same spirit of the place that they located, which is a library. Secondly, In Grey’s article “Art as Spiritual Practice”, He said: When our attention is arrested by an art work, we see both the shape and the meaning of it (Grey, P72). In this case, when students see one of the mural on the wall when they walked in library, they are more likely to be attracted by the content of the painting: the knowledge tree and the leaning process of different subjects. They will then understand why this mural are hang in the wall of this library, it will help the students to produce solemn silence and curiousness about knowledge. This is also a process of inspiring people who walk in this library, to inspire them to give respect to knowledge.

I have seen many public art in the cities in America. For example, the cloud gate in Chicago, one of the most poplar one, it has became the landmark of Chicago. It was designed by Indian artist.  The reflecting element and the lovely overall shape have express the message of a  “fun and creative” city for Chicago. I think a great public art can get the massive attention and the show the relationship between a city’s characteristic and the regional culture detailedly.

 

Work Cited

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

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

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

1. How do you define “spirituality”: Spirituality is simply a process of personal transformation. Using personal senses, people see or feel something and get inspired by it. By experiencing the senses, people express their aesthetic reactions and interpret the senses in forms of several works. Spirituality obviously enables people to believe the senses and to see a certain thing deeply. Once people get inspired and have a strong spirituality, it would not be easy to change their views.
2. Does spirituality differ from religion?Spirituality can be found in many subjects, many people believe that one subject could have reality side and spirituality side. Also, one person could define many things in his/her life as spirituality, for example, the relationship between this person and another person is spirituality, however, the same person cloud also have a relationship with different person which may be not spirituality. On the other hand, religion is a belief. One person usually have one one religion, some people even only believe in one version or one type of a pacific religion. For example, Muslin has Sony and Shia. Some Arabic people only believe in Sony and all his/her belief and religion practice only relate to this one type of religion.
3. How do you define “creativity”? Creativity is ability of creating  something new and also valuable. Such as an idea, an artistic or a painting. Creativity is an ability of people, it always turns out positive outcomes. such as painter with creativity produce great paintings. “the process of creativity includes formulation, saturation, incubation, inspiration, translation and integration” (Grey).
4. What is the source of creativity? There must be some ways of learning that are helping with the people to develop the ability of being creative. It may require the people themselves has the willingness to be creative and the environment to be allowed to let them to be. Lastly, there must be something to encourage and inspires them to be creative. It could be information, knowledge, encouragement, and technologies.

Ten keywords are aesthetic, creative, fantastic, crazy, passion, fine, proud , lonely, conflict, talented.

I used the images with keywords : Fine, Passion, Aesthetic, Lonely, and conflict.

The primary thesis of “Computer Graphics: Effects of Origins” is  showing readers a truth that there is a relation of  specific image, object, event or environment to conceptual frames,which are exist within art and technology and are present in other forms of symbolic and material culture.

One of the examples that Jone provides is  “The stone columns of ancient Egyptian architecture were based on earlier bound papyrus columns”. The medieval art is somewhat simliar in technique to draw a pictures. He explained his thesis by illustrating the example of material culture. According to cultural differences, artists viewed their drawing materials differently and expresses their ideas on the paintings. They did not just copy the works but imported new techniques to show the same effects with original works.

I think this essay states an strong thesis, the graphic art forms will continually effected by their origin and practice. Also, the author found the evidence from a paper: “the origins and practices of computer graphics from 1945 to the present are examined to reveal cultural patterns embedded in their material and symbolic form”(P21). The patterns may have existed in art or/and technology. I believe the old culture pattern do not disappear and the new ones are keep coming.   Today, numerous techniques are available for artists, filmmakers, photographers,etc. For example, the anime is art phenomenon in Japan, it promotes the development of anime technologies and creates an anime culture.  After the mature of anime film and books.  More Japanese artiest start use anime elements in their paintings and sculptures, on the another hand, animators are becoming new type of artists, such as Hayao Miyazaki. Now in Japan, great animators are culturally considered artist. Most important point is, the anime techniques are definitely has the Japanese culture patterns. The meticulous care and working attitude can tell.

John Meada’s article  “How is technology changing art?” also points out that art is highly linked to technology. Meada supports Jone’s opinion because he said that:” I made art with the computer, writing computer programs. I made things that could morph and change and if it wasn’t for the Internet maybe a thousand people would know about it” (Meada). I think the technology changes the culture patterns, Changes the way people reach to art, the way people receive art and the way people express how they feel about art. these will considered by artiest and then finally reflect in the art.

 

Work Cited  

John M,(2012, October) How is technology changing art? http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/technology-changing-art

There are many religions in this worlds, as I know, most of the religions in Africa are about connecting to the spiritual world, the people who believe in these religion cares about how they could open their eyes and see another world, talk to another living beings. For example, they hold an walking stick on hand and put an stone on the top, they believe, the top of that stick is another eye which could see what human cannot see.  I would define spirituality as an willingness of connecting to universe or other worlds, the reason I say it is “willingness” is because not everyone believe spirituality in the same way that the realigned people believe. Back to the relationship between the spirituality and art , Grey has said that :“There is a vast difference between looking and seeing – a difference which is fundamental to the artist’s experience” (p72). Most artist believe they have saw the world different than normal people, so they could create the art works in a deeper way and the express it out.  Here,  spirituality and religion has separate definitions.  For example, in the video, the artist sees the thread in many more ways than we see it, she put lives into the thread so it could show in different art forms.  I rather say spirituality in art is more focus on the subject and the passion of creating. however, religion is  a set of beliefs and practices.  What if people who don’t have the passion of spirituality, can they spiritually connect with the artists and understand the art?

 

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

Argument of Lawrence Lessig video on Ted Talks “Laws that choke creativity” is the new 20th century culture that technology is bringing is a read only not read and write, in other words the young generation are not actually creating a new thing but remixing and presenting a new massage. I understand his opinion that today’s technology helps us store information and present this information, however because of this large amount of information people tend to forget how to be more creative than before. I do believe the old knowledge and traditional culture are rich enough for us to learn and look at in different perspectives. I believe that laws and regulations limit people’s expressions but, they cannot limit an individual’s imagination. How many steps exist between imagination and expression?

After I watched the Ted Talks video “Gaming can make a better world” by Jane McGonigal, I felt as if video games cannot help people with reality problems because they are not dealing with them. In fact, people who play video games are running from reality because of fear of not succeeding. However, I like the idea that playing games can help people deal with reality and believe it or not there are better ways of using this technique. Jane McGonigal argues “that people should play more video games to better deal with reality.” I disagree, I think people should focus more on reality and present every problem in a virtual perspective. That way like McGonigal says we can all have the “Epic Win.” For example, my brother plays a lot of video games and he is now working in Microsoft. But, through the process of getting his P.H.D. degree, he had a shortage of money. So he spend many months dedicated to writing a program for buying and selling Bitcoin stock. In other words making profit without working. He was successful and used the program in his P.H.D. defense. He looked at an issue in reality and found a virtual answer to it. Therefore, it is better to play reality as a game rather than a game as reality because it creates critical thinking, teaching, and learning opportunities to better solve problems and be successful in reality. But in the end the real question will be, is it best to play more video games and learn how to deal with life’s issues or deal with life dilemmas as if they are video games to achieve the “Epic Win”?

 

In Stephen King’s essay “Why We Crave Horror Movies” he talked that people are enjoy horror movies, some of them want to show that they are brave, some other people want to get excited and have fun. For example, people will pay money to ride a roller coaster, they would also love to pay money to watch a horror film. However, the most important one will be that people need to watch horror movies to keep that insanity locked up in society. He gives some argumentative strategies and literally decides to prove his thesis. Also, Stephen King states that “I think that we’re all mentally ill…” He says that people watches horror to keep one’s under control. “It deliberately speaks to all that is worst in us. It is morbidity unchained, our most base instincts let free, our nastiest fantasies realized…and it all happens, fittingly enough, in the dark.”  King tries to make the case that people all have fears and some of them has the dark sides. King expalians that a horror movie shows the worse and horrorable part of people and lives, giving people a sense of experiences and feelings of the things we are unknown but we have thought about somehow.

Stephen King’s statement that we are all mentally ill sounds strange and hyperbolic, however, mental illness is not what we thought that are needed to be treat in hospital, it more like to be describe as stress and emotional needs, or whether our actions interfere with daily task and are acceptable responses to demands and opportunities. We are all capable of crossing the line between acceptable and unacceptable actions that determine being classified as sane or insane. Horror movies give people the chance for us to have the emotional experiences and even the consequences of insane actions. this is just like some people love to feel the death so they would love to do dangerous sports.  Another interesting point os that  horror movies appeal to all that is worse in us. Horror films cause these sudden, temporary emotions and reactions, all of these are not influencing people’s daily lives after we leave the theater.

 The article “The curious appeal of horror movies” talks about why there is a market for horror market, for example, there are some directors are focusing on horror films and there are people who loves horror films more than others. In the article, the author compare horror films with excited games. both of them create a sense of catharsis and people expect certain sensory stimuli by watching it. For the audiences who are watching horror film, they care not only the stories but also how they feel during the film, they are looking for exciting, anger, fear and even screaming. Also, people like to  feel the tension which is similar with the effects from the action films.  clearly, people seek to take a journey that makes them feel the dangerous but at the same time, they know that they are safely sitting in the theater or the living room in their home. 

Carroll has said in the article “Why Horror” :”it is not the tragic event in itself that imparts pleasure, but rather, the way it into the plot” (Caroll 277). it does’t necessarily look at what is the part of horror movies that are appealing, but why. This is apparent when they conclude, It captivates them to engage in the film to want to know what is happening, the story line, the action and the resolution. I think horror film is a type of film that more create an atmosphere to give people to escape from the reality and enjoy the freedom and even release the stress that they are holding. some people may ambivalent about should they show their real feelings or actions or should they hide them. horror films give them a space to stay.

Work Cites

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.

King, S. (2005, 03). Why We Crave Horror Movies. StudyMode.com. Retrieved 03, 2005, from http://www.studymode.com/essays/Why-We-Crave-Horror-Movies-50806.html

Lucy, O. (2003). The Curious Appeal of Horror Movies. N.p., n.d. Web.Retrieved September 9th, 2013, from http://www.ign.com/articles/2013/09/09/the-curious-appeal-of-horror-movies

First of all , I do believe that the way people dress up themselves tells their lifestyles, the way they value the appearances and what they are pursuit. My appearance has changed over the years, especially the last three years since I moved to the U.S. When I was in China, like many other teenager girls, I loved color on my clothes and I prefer the cute patterns, I still remember how much I loved a cloud patten hairpin when I was in high school. I have to say one person’s choice over clothing also get influence form the environment, the culture and the fashion trends. For example, in China, older people love to consider themselves as middle aged and elderly people, they set up limits when they go shopping clothes, the color should be dark and simple. On the other side, the young people are told to play colors, the clothes that my parents bought for me are more like to have bright colors.  The clothing  style that I had in this time reflects the culture I have, It also tells the different between generations.

As I have entered in college in China, I started to explore the so called “style”. Paying attention to “fashion”. I went to shopping with my roommates and we had some role models, such as the actress or models.We borrow ideas about how to marching clothes and learn to shop brand clothes. For example, we learning how the models on fashion magazines dress up and do make up. This reflect that I put a lot more value on “looking good ” than before. I wear more dress and I will mach it with shoes and bag.  I will change style once a while to be more “different”. At that time, the ideas of dressing up means I am showing people who I am, I start to think the people who pay attention to clothing is “better”.  It tells I got more influence from my peers rather than my family. I follow the fashion trend and looking for something that is totally new for me.

Growing up I maintained  some things I will pay attention to when I am choosing my clothes, first, the material, Since I have sensitive skin, I prefer the stuffs that make my skin feels free and comfortable. Cotton is always a good choice, since I grow up in south of China, I get used to wear silk because it has such a cheap price in my hometown. I realized there are some certain things about my clothing are came from where I  grow up, the location is matters.  All my aunts and my mom love wear silk and they buying a peiace of silk and design by themselves and ask store to make a shirt or a dress for them, the women in my hometown loves this way. This totally effect me, until today, whenever I have some clothes that i don’t want anymore, I will try to recreate it to other stuffs.

After many years live alone in another country, I used to pay attention to the color, I started to matching colors, how the bright color bring up my skin and how the dark color looks cool, I think this shows a lot that I put value on “beauty”. At the same time, I am more enjoy to create my own style of wearing clothes. I am no longer pay attention to the “fashion” trend and I stopped jugeing the outside of the actress and models, I know thats just a part of everyone. However, this doesn’t mean I for get the “beauty” thing. I know more about myself, I looks better with my black hair, I start to lean what color is better marching my hair color and skin color. I noticed that put some Asian element on my clothing is fun and it brings topics in some social place. By living in another culture for years,  how to have a great own style is more important than just following others. I think this idea is not directly come from my family or my friends, it come from my experiences and the American culture. Now, I have got some new looks, I wear running shoes because it is easy for me to run half of hour right after class and then take shower and study. I feel good when I am doing so because it means I am having a health lifestyle. I think it reflect that I am caring my health and also my time, I will choose a best way to maintain the balance of my life and wear the things that bets suit me.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The article”Is Food Art? Chefs, Creativity, and the Restaurant Business?” was written by FabioParassecoli, associate professor and coordinator of food studies in New York City. It introduces three important elements of the topic of “food as art”, they are chefs, creativity and the restaurant business. Parassecoli says that the question of whether food can be considered an art form resonates among scholars, practitioners, and aficionados. This article successfully related these elements to art. first of all, it points out that “Chefs are not just craftsmen, artisans, or business persons; they are expected to offer patrons (and critics) dishes and menus that stimulate and surprise eaters”, which has also discussed by Tefler in his article “Food as Art” (2002) : Tefler was talking about how people who don’t think food as art simply view chefs as artisans, however, Parassecoli thinks that many Chefs has the goals that similar with artists: they try to surprise people with their creatures. Also, just like today’s artist, they are using the technologies and medians to introduces themselves and their works to the world. Second, Parassecoli cites an essay “Food and New York city” as resource to explain avant-garde as “the pioneers or innovators in any art in a particular period”, “the presence of innovators that can be considered an intelligentsia, and a specific environment: the arts”. Cooking is a kind of creative process which has the similar characteristics with art. Lastly, the author shows the business element, the art marketing and the food marketing both has direct relationships with the investors and the cosumers. Young artist usually has the finical help form investors and then as the development of their career, the price of their artworks are determined but the market. Likewise, the Chefs are more likely to rely on investor’s money to produce the outcome, the spaces for their creativity may limited by this rule. However, today’s young gifted chefs prefer to take the risk from the market and try to show their creatures, the tension between food market requirements and creativity is the same with the other art fields, “is not easy to resolve”.

I liked this article because it not only compares the food and art themselves, for example, the taste, smell and the patten which could get people’s aesthetic attention, but also pay attention to food and art industries. This article focus on the element that I am most interested in: the Chef and their innovation, I think these are important factors of the topic”Food as Art”. In the article “Food as Art”, the author said: “it is obvious that foodstuffs can be made into visual objects which are works of art”. ( Tefler, p13). Food and drinks are works of art especially at the sense of the taste and smell, the foodstuffs are doing the works of art to create these outcomes. The author considered both the cookery and the cook by focusing not he creating processes. However, Parassecoli further introduces the Chefs put their creativities to produce outcomes as sometime they are facing the refuse from the “narrow-minded customers”, the creating isn’t easier for the chefs than the artistes.  In this case, both the chefs in the three star restaurant and an artist are facing the same level of changeling. 

Both these two articles talks about the Chefs and foodstuffs, if food is art, are these chefs and foodstuffs are attests? The answer seems obvious, however, many people might questioning the topic “food as Art” with an statement: aren’t chefs are just craftsman? Parassecoli says that “chefs are not just craftsmen, artisans, or business persons; they are expected to offer patrons (and critics) dishes and menus that stimulate and surprise them, find new methods to manipulate ingredients, and interact with technology and design in ways that keep them on the cutting edge and ensure coverage from press, TV, and the Internet” (Parassecoli, 2013).  It give the ideas that chefs are using the some path that the artists are using to be successful, both of them are creative jobs. Similarly, Tefler gives the difference between art and craft: art is original but craft is carrying the instruction, therefore the difference between art and craft is not between people but the aspects between the works. I count agree with it more, if the consideration on if food are art are based on the creativeness, some food can qualify as art and the cook is not just craftsman.

 

Work Cites

Parassecoli, Fabio. (2013, August). Is Food Art? Chefs, Creativity, and the Restaurant Business? Huffington Post [On-Line Newspaper]. Retrieved August 1, 2014 from http://www.huffingtonpost.com/fabio-parasecoli/food-art_b_3830791.html

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.