Public art, from the meaning of word, we know that it is artwork in the public place. The public art is everywhere in people’s life. Like the fountain in the park, the sculpture on the campus, the mosaic on the wall, or even the building façade. These things are all public art. Some of these things are public funding, and some of them are private funding. No matter what funding they are, they are all shown up publicly. In my opinion these public art is not decided by government or any organization, the public art should be voted for their existence. Public art is like the word of this city. They could express the local culture and citizens’ spirit. Every city has their own public art, and there is no exactly same public art in different cities. People could also know a city from the city’s public art. When people see some famous landmark or sculpture, the city’s name will come up in their mind. This is the charm of public art. After reading this article of Doss E, I want to talk about the place-making, spirit of a place, and civic improvement.

I think the very important thing of public art is the place-making. This is a very complex problem of it. The place that you want to put the public art will decide how many people will see the artwork, what kind of people could see it, is this artwork fit the environment around it, or is this place safe for this artwork. From the Doss  E’s article “Public art controversy: Cultural expression and civic debate”, she says that “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” (Doss, 2006). A public art has ability of cohesion that could make people feel together and united. When people see some of the public art, it just like a tribal symbol tells people who are they and what they should do. This also depends on what the artist want to express from the public art. The artist for a public art is the key of it, their expression or spirit would influence a lot of people.

Let’s talk about the spirit of a place. Like I mention in the first paragraph, the public art should fit with the environment around it. A public art will tell people things that about this place it stands. This is the meaning of public art, because it could express spirit to people. The public art will last a long time, it will not only effect one generation. Just like Doss mention in his article, “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.” (Doss,2006) The public art is an information carrier and a spirit spreader. Just like the pioneer sculpture on our campus. Pioneer is the spirit of West. This sculpture is a walking old man, his eyes stare the further place. This sculpture might want to tell students, being brave and put the view to the future. No matter what happen do not stop and keep moving. These spirit is just fit the university. This is a solemn sculpture, and the campus also is a solemn place. The sculpture just fit there. With some flowers around it, it also remind us to remember pioneer. The sculpture is made by bronze, so it will last a very long time on UO campus. Every people who have been UO will feel its spirit. It will remind different generation of people.

When we talk about the public art, fist we will think about is public art should beautify this area or this whole city. People build this public art do not want it to destroy the outlooking of this area, their motion is to make this place better and greater. Like the author says in his article, “A public art Public culture can be contentious, especially in a country that values individualism, freedom of expression, and First Amendment rights, and yet also prizes communal experiences and relationships.” (Doss,2006) The public art make the civic more valuable and it improve the city.

In the Beverly Jones’s article “Computer Graphics: Effects of Origins”, her main point is that all the technology stuff is based on the old technology, and the computer graphics also influence the way that people doing art. She also claims that, “New forms art and technology are frequently cast in the mode of old forms, just as other aspects of material and symbolic culture have been” (Jones, 1990) The forms of technology almost stay the same, and they are already in shaped. People could not change the art forms easily, the elements of it is everywhere in   artworks. Technology is the product of people’s wisdom, but it also affects people’s art view.

Things always have two sides, the good side and the bad side. So, the technology is the same thing that has the two sides. In the article Beverly Jones says that, “However, some traces of the origins and practices remain in these forms, which consequently contribute to both cultural maintenance and change.” The forms are based on the art, and the art is based on the culture. When people think about the history of an artwork, people always connected with the culture. The culture is part of the artwork. This should be maintained. The author also talks about the history of computer that changed people’s real life. She also makes some example for the computer graphic, “Scientific visualization involves expression both of physical laws and of visual/optical laws. Both artists and scientists abstract natural laws from the ‘real’ world to express it mathematically and to present it visually. ” (Jones, 1990). We can see the visual laws of an artwork is very important, the technology change the way that people look things. When people want to view an graphics on the computer screen, this should be a problem to view the real pictures. In conclusion, the author just wants us to know the technology graphics makes our visualization more variable. This could also tell us, the technology improves the way that people appreciate things. This is a progress of people civilization. The technology changes people’s life, and I think it could be more influenced in the future.

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

1. How do you define “spirituality”?

For me spirituality is a virtual thing, and it exists in people’s mind. This is about philosophical research. I think spirituality is people how to look this world and how people deal with things. Some spirituality is gifted. When people born, people already have some view about things in their mind. They know how to make things, and how does things work. Some spirituality is based on people’s development during their life time. This is depends on the environment that people live, and how clear their self-analysis is. Spirituality is a magical stuff, it will slide into people’s mind. The spirituality is about how long that people live, the longer that people live the view about things is more clear and intensive. Spirituality is the key that people create things. When an artist wants to create an artwork, the artist must have some spirituality of his career. Then, he will make a great artwork depends on how much spirituality he has. The more spirituality the person has, the more creativity the person will be.

2. Does spirituality differ from religion?

I think spirituality have some commons like religion. Spirituality is the development of people’s mind and heart. When people think about things they think about it depends on his believe. In religion, people also believe things. People always judge things or look at things depends on what they have learned from their religion. Religion is also a development of mind. Religion also need people have spirituality, people could understand the profound meaning of religion. Both of spirituality and religion need people inspect themselves. From inspecting themselves, their spirituality could get improved.

3. How do you define “creativity”?

In my mind creativity is ability that animal could have. Bird have creativity to build their nest, ants have the creativity to build their kingdom under the ground. I think creativity is gifted when animal born. People are the primate species in the world, so they have more knowledge than animals. Their creativity is much broader. Creativity depends on how much imagination that you could have, because some people could think about new stuff that other could not imagine.  This is the creativity, to create other people cannot imagine. Creativity also depends on what have you seen, where have you been.  This is also about the experience. When people’s view is open, their creativity would be better.

4. What is the source of creativity?

I think the source of creativity is the spirituality of people. Why? This is because how clear that you analysis things. If you understand something very well, then you can use this thing do something, or make some improvement on this thing. This is kind of creativity. Creativity also could be motivated by some idea spark. When you see something, this thing could make you associate another thing. Why people could create things, this is about the spirituality inside people. Spirituality could let people see other people could not see. When you have spirituality, you will associate this thing to other things. This is because spirituality could make you understand things, not only the appearance of that.

This TED video is very powerful and professional to describe development and commercialization of telecommunications technology. Lessig talks about the society transfer from “read-write culture” to “read-only culture” He also claims that for a real read and write culture, it should be full of love and none profit. For the progress of technology, it is easy to use other’s idea in someone’s own creation. He do not against the piracy, he said that people always break the law everyday. Is “remix” is a bad behavior or not?

I think it is shameful that to steal other people’s idea or creation. The people create things with their brain storm and their experience. When other people steal it, the creation of other people has been blocked. This  behavior is bad for people’s innovation. A creation is someone’s value and achievement. The people who steal it or copy it without permit is immorality, and this is also disrespect to the creator. If the people remix things together just for fun or entertainment and with none profit, I think it is feasible.

I like the way that TED explain some issue to people, it is funny and easy to understand.  No matter video games or online games, they are all the creation of people. This is the progress of technology. People spend time on it, so they can get satisfaction from it. They satisfy by the up level, or the virtual stuff they have in the game. People play game, because there are no more funny things to do. People also can make friend and talk with each other in the game. I think the purpose of this video is to ask people spend less time on game and do some real world thing.

I think games are part of people’s life. No matter playing video games or playing poker, these are all people’s entertainment. When I heard the TED said people spend 5.93 million years on Warcraft, I am shocked. I agree that this game have a fantasy screen and interesting story line. I think people should focus on some real things, not only in the virtual world. Online game is easy to be addicted. People compete with each other, so they spend money to make their characters be stronger. They will feel they beyond other gamers, and the feeling they cannot feel in the real world. The video said that gamers have blissful productivity, social fabric, urgent optimism, and epic meaning. I think these abilities are not that useful in our real world. People in the real world need to work and deal with anything in their life. If they just spend a lot of time in their games, they will feel powerless to face the real life. This is like a circle. If gamer could not find the feeling of superiority in the real world, they will go back their virtual world to find it. I think it is worthless to spend a lot of time on games. If you just want to kill some time, you can spend few hours on it.

In this article, Alex Grey talks about the spirituality of art, and he also talks about the visual point of art. He says that, “The artist is possessed by a creative force, overtaken by a vision and driven to create.” The spirit of an artist is very important for their creations. When you want to create an art, you should have a blueprint in your mind. This is like you just copy the picture that has shown in your mind, or the picture is still in your mind. For an artist, he must have the ability of imagine and watching. I think most artists are good at watching, they watch what things happened around them. They always pay attention on the details, the thing that people will ignore. Artists could see the spirit of things, and they also could use their artwork to express what they have seen. The spirituality also depends on what the people experience and what they believe.  A good artwork most depends on an ego. Ego is very important for an artist to create. One thing is the artwork reflects what the artist wants to express. The other one is the artwork could be accepted by people, and they also give the artist good feedback. I kind understand the chakras that Alex Grey describes in his article. He mentions that there are seven chakras in human’s body, and he also declares that “The development of the next for chakras depends on awakening an awareness of the higher self, beyond the ego, toward higher self-knowledge and self-realization.” This means a good artist should improve himself by knowledge and accomplishment. This progress will cost very long time in people’s life. That’s why some artists created some great artwork in their old age, like Van Gogh. Artworks that have spirituality need the precipitation of time.

Every movie has its story, and also a movie is an integration of idea. Even the horror movie has its own and different aesthetics in it. These aesthetics are built on people’s fear. This is about people’s negative emotional reaction. They always include some scary elements in it, like ghosts, evil, monster, or vampire. People could be afraid of their looking, and also depends on the plot of the movie.

The article that I picked is “Horror movies throughout decades have constantly reinvented genre”. In this article ,the author mentioned that In 1950s, the horror movie was not that scary at that time, this means people do not want to watch it any more. He also mentions that “English director Alfred Hitchcock would also change the horror genre with the 1960s “Psycho,” which stunned audiences with its suspenseful tone and infamous plot twists.” It changed the genre of the horror movie by killing the female protagonist. It is the new idea, because at that time character should be safe from harm. Alfred Hitchcock is the first guy to direct horror movie in the slasher way to make people scared. In 70s, the horror movie also keep doing the slasher way. “For the most part, the ’80s and early ’90s all followed the slasher genre or tried to be violent for the sake of violence.” Most horror movie scares people by violence and blood. This kind of method keeps a long time in horror movie history. He also talks about directors always compete with each other’s violence. They try to see whose method of violence is scarier. He also talks about the movie “The Cabin in the Woods” is simple and original, but it is scary. This is kind to reflect that this author’s opinion of scary movie.

From the Carroll’s article “Why Horror”, there are some similar idea as the article that I picked.  In the “Why Horror”, Carroll says that “we are attracted to, and many of us seek out, horror fiction of this sort despite the fact that they provoke disgust, because that disgust is required for the pleasure involved in engaging our curiosity in the unknown and drawing it into the processes of revelation, ratiocination.” The horror movie need disgust things, this is same as the violence and blood. In a horror movie, the directors just try to scare people with the thing that people do not like to see. When people see these things that they cannot imagine, they will feel stimulation. These are the basic thing of horror movie. The mise-en-scene looks more important for this part. Just like Carroll said, “It is not what we crave disgust, but that disgust is a predictable concomitant of disclosing the unknown, whose disclosure is a desire the narrative instills in the audience and then goes on to gladden.” When people see the thing that is disclosure, people could feel satisfied by this. This is just a trick that directors use to catch people’s mood. The logic of a horror movie is different sometimes. It always makes surprise for people. But these surprises always not be the good one. They are counterfactual thinking. When people mention about the horror movie, the first thing people will connect with is violence or scary characters. This is the basic elements that normal horror movie should own. Like the article that I picked, he said that, “Maybe this will remind viewers that being simple or original can be scary, rather than simply tearing someone’s heart out for shock value.” This shows that this person has seen too many horror movies, and he knows what is going on here. He knows what a horror movie will have, violence and scary scene. So this person said the horror movie should be simple or original would be scarier. This must be the person’s view of horror movies. Horror movie do not need too much complex things to scary people. It just depends on the non-diagetic and diagetic sound. These things are basic of horror movie, or every movie. If a horror movie has the right non-diagetic and diagetic sound in it, the movie will more scary than to use mise-en-scene. Horror movie is a special movie in the movie category. There is not too many people like to watch it, but some people try to find stimulation from it. This is why people watch it. The element for the horror movie is much more important to scary people. The sound of it is like the source of a meal, it makes the movie more flavor.

http://www.ramcigar.com/news/view.php/185421/Horror-movies-throughout-decades-have-co

I am an international student who has been America for 4 years. The way that I dress changed a lot after I come to America. When I just get to America, It is March. I was very thin at that time. I used to wear polo shirts and jeans. This could makes me looks mature like a man. At that time, I am very care about what kind of cloth that I dress, and what kind of jeans should match my clothes. I also like to wear some casual shoes. This could make me feel comfortable. When I pick a shirt, the first thing is it has a good looking. The second things that I like shirts with lots of patterns. At that time, I just want to be different from others. In another word, I want to be stick out. It is very embarrassed that to see the people who wear the same cloth at that time. When I see the people who wear the same cloth as me, I just want to take my shirt off or try to avoid this person. I do not like to wear necklace, because I do not something that always move around my neck. I like to wear Buddha beads on my wrist, because it is kind of fashion in China. Some people wear it because they believe Buddhism, but I wear it just for cool. As before I used to wear some fancy shoes, I think shoes is the most part of people’s out looking. When I observe a person, I always see this person’s shoes first, because a shoes is not fit for your pants or clothe, you will not look good. A shoes could tell you a lot of information of this person. Choosing a shoes also very important for I think the style that people dress is changing with their ages.

For now, I like to wear things that make me feel comfortable. I do not care too much about how the cloth looks like. The most important for the dressing is comfortable, and the second thing I think about is the outlook of it. There is one thing that I never changed is the white socks. When I was young, I like to wear the white socks. It is because that I think white socks are very clean. It makes me feel good. My mom know I like white socks, she bought me a lot of pairs of it. This is because why I always wear white shirt. My mom always tell me that, if you want to people like you, you should wear tidy and clean. This will leave other person a good impression. I always wear sports shirt and shorts and a pair of Nike running shoes. Most of my sports shirts are white, I think white shirt looks clean. The other reason why most of my shirts is white is I think white color is easy to match every kinds color of pants. Or I do not know how to match clothes, most of my clothes are white and black. This sounds weird, but I like to wear them. I don’t why I do not like the shining colors. I do not like too much pattern on my shirt now. I try to make the cloth looks like a paper. I used to wear jeans or pants in the summer, because I do not want to bare my legs. Now, I always wear different kinds of shorts in summer. I think it is because I already pass the puberty, I more like to talk with people. For the shots I do not like the tight, and I like sports shorts. When I found a shoe is easy to wear, I will always wear the same one until it is broken. For the adornment, I like to wear nothing. I do not like other things on my body except clothes.

I think the way that people dress is like a media between peer communities. Girls always talk about dressing, they share the information of brand. They also like to compare with each other. Sometimes you friends are more likely to know what kind of clothes you should wear. For guys, they also care about the out looking. Some boys like to find confidence from their dressing. If they feel their dressing is not good, they will feel lose. If they feel they look good, the person will feel more confidence. For our generation, the choice of clothes is very huge. I think the most important thing is you know what kind of person you are, and what kind of clothe that could make you look good. I think most people pay attention to the outlook of a cloth, but there are also some people like to wear comfortable dress like me.

First, he talks about the inherent edibility of food. He said food provide energy for people to survive. Food is the necessary consumption in people’s life, so the aesthetic interest in it may not be genuine. Like the auther said, “People do not go to restaurants to see the food. Instead, they go to eat it, ultimately for the reason of survival.” The value to appreciate food is not that practical than appreciate painting, movie, or music. Second, the author talks about that food does not have the ability to move people. An artwork should express people’s opinion and influence the way that people look at the world. A food could not do these. He also mentioned that, “All art seems to require a medium of some sort, and physical food cannot be its own medium.” He thinks that an artwork should have its own soul or spirit to influence people. Food is just a form in the menu. At last, he talks about that food could not last for several generations. He says that people still making food again and again, but no one wants to reproduce a Van Gogh’s painting. The value to reproduce an artwork is very cheap. An artwork has its own symbol. If that could be copy or reproduce, this could not be called artwork.

The article that I found is totally different than the Tefler’s article “Food as art”. In Tefler’s article that she claims that food is the form of art, also the dishes is the part of art also.  Recipe and dish are regarded aesthetically (Tefler, 2002). She thinks that food has it own aesthetic way. She thinks that food is a product that could provide appreciation to people. Food has its color and its shape. People have the appreciate mood. I found that in “Food as art” has some similar point like the Blog that I found. In “food as art”, she also mention that “food is necessarily transient, it cannot have meaning and it cannot move us”. I also found that “We must conclude that works of art in food, whether creative or interpretative, cannot gain the same stature as those of greater permanence.” This shows that Tefler’s mind of art. She has some definition of art, so she can think the entire factor that related to art. This is similar as the one that I found, that author claim that an artwork should have the ability of move people. Not only move people for a short time, but real artwork need to influence people for thousand years. In Tefler’s opinion shows that food must have its shape and appearance. When people appreciate an artwork, the appearance will impress people a lot. She is a little conflict with her opinion. She first mention she think food and dishes are artworks. After that, she makes some point to against her opinion. This is kind interesting.

To defined food is an artwork is a very controversial thing. When you read the blog, you will have a very clear mind to identify that food is an artwork or not. Because it is clearly said that, an artwork should move people and express the artist’s mind. As a food, I think the function of it in the whole world is to survive people. I agree that food is creativity. People design the look of it, and chef make the tastes of it. This doesn’t mean that it is an artwork. People always appreciate artwork in the museum or some serious place. I think food is not that valuable to appreciate. People always eat food, it is hard for people to appreciate. If people appreciate food, there will be two possible ending. After appreciating, people will eat it, or it will rot by itself. Food is a temporally thing, it appear in the world has reasons. As an artwork, it should last a long period. Artwork is for people to appreciate, also it will express the artist’s mind. Food as an artwork, it does not have the basic feature. An artwork also has some historical meaning for people. It will take people to that decade or period. People will discover that period by the artwork. This means a lot to human civilization ‘s progress. Food is just the production of human civilization. It is a symbol of the improvement in people’s life. People find different way to cook, and they enjoy the taste of food. These are all the improvement of people’s pursue. As an artwork, it is not only the improvement of people’s life, it means more than this.

Mostoibe, ( Dec, 2012), Philosophy of Art Course Blog,

http://artblog.catherinehoman.com/food-is-not-art/