In unit four, we have a special topic about is food a form of art? I see many reasonable ideas and it is really interesting for me to think of this topic. Now, I found a pretty unique article about food as art on The New York Times. This article is “A matter of taste” by William Deresiewicz. He has really interesting point of food can be art and it is more likely to be an art in the future because people are tending to make food special and unique which is an important concept of being an art work. However, he didn’t directly say food is art. He said food is similar to art. He said “like art, food is also a genuine passion that people like to share with their friends”(William 2012). Nowadays, people treat food not just for feeding themselves but also for improving life styles. Different families eat different types of food. The power of culture environment has impact people’s taste of art. People from some cultures are more tending to make food an art-like thing to improve their life quality. However, not all the cultures want to change their food to art, but why?

The answer is not all the cultures or countries have the resource to do it. Art is expansive. As I recall the article “What is art for” written by Ellen Dissayake, art is “Something that is ‘special’ is different from the mundane the everyday, the ordinary”(Ellen, 1991). And this is the reason why I didn’t agree that food can be completely an art because the food we eat normally is the simplest supply to human. It’s nothing special nor unique. However, there is an exception. A special dishes with unique elements inside of it so that people know it is different from normal dishes and it is the best dish they have ever eaten. These kind of dishes can be called as art but they are usually hard to make. It takes more than just time and resources to make a prefect art-like dish. It also requires cook to have the spirit to make unique type of food. In this scenario, only the people who got time and resources and also the talent for it can make an art food. Here comes the problem. There are still about 85% of people who lives in developing countries and a big group of these 85% of people don’t even have basic ability to eat normal food we eat in America. They starve. It is impossible for them to think food as an art because art is so far away from them.

Art is expansive. Doing a work of art requires resources, time,  people’s talents and most importantly money. For many people, art is just like a dream. A sweet dream that is so far away from them; a sweet dream that they can never access to. I have eaten some really special food. I see them as a real work of art, but does it matter if most of the people on earth cannot understand or see it as art. Same quotation, “like art, food is also a genuine passion that people like to share with their friends(William 2012). Yes! Sharing! That is the spirit of being an art and food has it. It is just a question of if people want to share their art-food to the whole world or not. Not only to the rich people who can afford it but also to those under-rich people who may not see these thing in their life.

In my opinion, art is not just a tool to bring pleasure, it is also a bridge to share your thoughts. Art is just some special thoughts and everyone has them. That is why individual is called because no one man is the same. They all have different parts in their bodies and spirits and these differences are the key though art. Now, food. Food is just one of these more topics out these, but a special one too. Everyone eats food and everyone has their own unique type of dishes that they think it’s holy as art. As I said, normal food is too non-special to be art, but with sharing, the one unique dish in everyone’s mind can be spread and thus everyone can understand and know there are those types of food out there. And only at this specific moment, I agree food is art.

Reference:

Deresiewicz W. (2012, Oct). New York Times, A Matter of Taste? Retrieved Oct.27.2014 from : http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/28/opinion/sunday/how-food-replaced-art-as-high-culture.html?_r=0

 

 

The first impression that I had when I saw this topic is “this is going to be crazy.” Don’t get me wrong. Personally, I like delicious food and especially  dessert and ramen. And when I connect art and food together, I say yes. Food is art. Basically, food is a demand that we eat to support our body, but good quality food can make this process much better. People enjoy so much when they are eating something not just delicious but looks great and smells good. This is a human basic demand. If I saw a well-made ramen with prefect taste and amazing smell served before me, I will say it is a work of art. However, not all food can be in a form of perfection. When food is perfect for the eater, food definitely can be seen as a work of art. According to ” Food as art” written by Elizabeth Telfer, ” Although food may be an art form, we should not always treat it as such. For one thing, not all food constitutes a work of art.”(Telfer 2002). I can see food can be art but it is not completely an art work. Food is more likely to own a big part of art work, but missing a constant element that keep the good quality as infinite.

From Ellen Dissanayake’s essay “What is art for”, I think the method of “art for life’s sake” is better fit for my argument.  According to Ellen, art is “Something that is ‘special’ is different from the mundane, the everyday, the ordinary. “(Ellen, 1991) So the food we eating everyday is kind of not special. We eat it everyday as a basic need of human body. So I agree that as a special form, food can be an art, but the food we eat daily base cannot be called as a work of art.

Paleoanthropsychobiological is coined by Ellen Dissanayake. This is a really strange word to me. I couldn’t understand the meaning of it until I read the definition several times. Paleoanthropsychobiological is refer to art. It has 3 concepts:  human history, human societies and human psychological or emotional feelings. Dissanayake try to tell us that art -Paleoanthropsychobiological is human-based and it  shows human’s wish and how this wish can change human’s society.

“Making special” shows that individual wants to be unique and everyone has this special wish. According to Dissanayake, “Making special’ is a fundamental human proclivity or need”(Dissanayake 1991). Human want to show their special parts because they want others know they are different, they are unique. And art is also special and unique. The core element is the same. For human survival, it is the same because if you want to live better, you need to be special so that other people will revere you and you will get a better job and possible better future.

There are three methods of art : ideology, interpretation and life’s sake. Ideology for art is an idea from 18th century that people trying to manage the definition of fine art based on people’s “taste and beauty”(Dissanyake 1991). With the time flows, in the mid-twentieth century, people start to define art with “flatness, purity and picture plan”(Dissanyake 1991).  Art work can not just be a simple random paining, but it should be an object with patient and carefulness and love. With no feeling for the project, this project can hardly be a fine art work.

Interpretation represents that art can have many forms and arts does not just reflect single kind of knowledge, but it also shows the connection between art and human belief. By that I mean the form of art is not limited by specific rules. Art can be presented in many special ways. Interpretation shows in modernism.

For life’s sake, it is more like a special view of art from each human beings and everyone has their unique setting for art. On the other word, the definition of art can be really different base on different group of people.  Everyone has their own special value for art  and they want to show others their unique feeling for art. This is the meaning of special and this is why individual can be so different. Since everyone can hardly have a same value of object, people cannot simply accept others’ art.

 

What is art? This is a very interesting question. According to Wikipedia,  “Art  is a diverse range of human activities and the products of those activities; this article focus primarily on the visual arts.” I can read art as something beautiful in different forms. This means art is a translator of beauty and there are many forms of being beautiful. Based on the Ted Talk “A Darwinian theory of beauty” by Denis Dutton, beautiful can be four forms- “human beings, natural land forms, works of art and skilled human action”(Denis 2014). Everyone has a  different sight of what is art, on the other word, what is beauty. The differences are based on different taste of beauty and different taste of beauty is caused by different culture and living environment, like childhood. For me, I really love some types of music, not all the music, but the type I like. Here is a link and example of the music I like-” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3Ba_WoSZXvw&list=WL&index=46″. For this kind of music, I see them as art work and like so many people, they see or hear something they like as art and beauty. In my opinion,  art and beauty are connected together. People see  something as an art work usually means this thing provides an intensity of pleasure. This  is nature selection. Everyone grow up in different environment and their taste of beauty is changing through the path of their growing. Some people may like traveling a lot. I think it is a response of they love natural land forms or different culture environment. And these people may have seen beautiful land forms in the childhood which makes them liking natural land forms. Art can be so difficult to define because art itself is so different in everyone’s mind. If you see it as an art, it  is an art.

List: 1. Enjoyment 2.  Independence 3.  Friendship 4. Creativity 5.  Health

Today I went to supermarket to buy food and daily supply since it is Sunday. I think location, service and health can represent what I did today. For location, I always shop the nearest supermarket. Also, the market needs to have good service and the foods there need to  be healthy so that I am willing to go.

According to my list, I do feel enjoyable after I shop and I always go alone which present independence. Also, I always buy drinks for my roommate and it is where friendship come out. For creativity, sometimes I need to cook food in different way and I do need to be creativity to make this happen. Finally, the food still need to be healthy so that I am willing to buy and eat.

I have a good personality. So I usually do enjoy what I do. And I learn creativity from my mom who taught me how to cook well. I try to be independence because it is the way to live in a society. I always try to be healthy because if my body don’t last, I can’t do the things I like.

After reading this article, I find out myself being attracted by this topic. How do we choose our values? And why does it matter? Lewis who is the author of “A Question of Values”, shows readers the connection between value and human behavior. People usually decide to do one thing because it’s worthy to do. This is where the value comes out. We evaluate one thing before we proceed on it. The idea can be presented in questions : What is the good if I do the work or do I enjoy to do this thing, because people always think  the benefit before they do the work. If there is nothing good, nor it is the right thing to do, people usually don’t do these things. For example, people come to collage because they can get a better education so they can earn more which improves their future life quality. This is a logic value. However, if some people felt already satisfied of their life and they don’t want to invest more time or money to get a better a life, then most likely they will not go to collage.

The four small concept of value from “A Question of values” : sense experience, deductive logic, emotion and intuition, these things can be concluded as how people feel and is it logic to the people who define this value.  These four concept also come with an order. Before doing the thing, experience will tell you if you face this situation before which leads to a question of is this thing sounds right to do.  This is the  process of logical thoughts and intuitional feelings. The value of a thing can be really unique because different people have different logical thoughts, their life experience could be so different which makes them define value in an unique way. People always have friends with same value on some thing and companies hire the people with the same value as the company does. This world is fulfilled with value and people who have similar value usually stick together.

http://www.ted.com/talks/apollo_robbins_the_art_of_misdirection

First, let me introduce this website- Ted Talks. This is a really great website which contains many educated and advanced ideas that shared by different people. People share their inventions or their spirits or even their courage on doing some great work. Everyday this website is getting updated and people just love sharing their incredible ideas to others.  This website is not going to fail you.

Okay, now let’s talk about the blog I bring in. This is a speech from Apollo Robbins who is really good at pickpocketing. Yes, you are not reading it wrong. He is good at “stealing” things from other people without getting noticed. So, what did I learn from this “thief?” He started the show by introduced an idea of misdirection. When people focus on doing some thing, they usually lower their attention on other things.  For example, if I ask a question about what did you eat this morning, you mind is trying to get the information out and at the meanwhile it is really easy for you to lose attention to some thing important. In this video, Apollo invited an audience and kept asking him question and at the same time he stole his watch and some cash without noticed. He gave the point that most people are really easy to get misdirected and they may lose their attention to some thing much more important. I really like the idea of misdirection can to such impact to us. Misdirection is a really powerful thing and everyone should be aware of it.