"Information is indeed the very potential for there to be objects and subjects. It is the medium in which objects and subjects actually come into existence, and is the medium in which their virtuality resides. When information is not free, then the class that owns or controls it turns its capacity toward its own interest and away from its own inherent virtuality." I agree with many aspects of this quote and of the article "A Hacker Manifesto". But I feel that this information that is so readily attainable comes with a heavy price. We have sacrificed experience for knowledge in the sense that anything that peaks our interest is in almost all cases readily attainable. With all of the vast information that we share on the internet alone, we can satisfy anyones visual or hearing curiosities everywhere. You can get video and audio of just about anything happening, whether it is animated or real.
But when knowledge is so entirely ready for you, I believe the mind becomes lazy. When we have all of this knowlege and information at the tip of our fingers, we often will find ourselves constantly not satisfied with what we have. People will go on you tube trips where they will spend hours just sitting and watching random videos on youtube, simply to kill boredom.
-Conor
Thursday, November 8, 2007
Wednesday, October 17, 2007
Visual Pleasure and Narrative Cinema
When we go to see a movie, we sit in a theater for a couple of hours and experience a story. But what part of that story made us excited? Why is it that we enjoy watching these movies, sitting down, completely clueless to whatever is going on outside of the theater? How is it that cinema can tune in to what it is that fascinates us so well? Is it because the stories are so riveting and eye capturing that we cannot help but stare in awe? Or is it the blatant sexual under and over tones that make us want to experience it? Sexuality in movies is almost always present. Very rarely will a movie come out that doesn't have a love interest aspect to it, and the ones that do come out are rarely successful.
The Mulvey essay dives into the pleasuring aspects of cinema using psychoanalysis to get a better understanding of how our pre-existing fascination that is imposed on us by a patriarchal society. The term she uses is phallocentric, the idea being that we see the penis as a dominant characteristic in our society. While this may be true, she also goes on to say that women embody the fears of men. She says that the absence of a penis symbolizes castration, and that is what forces women through society. This is a very loose and strange way of putting it. In my opinion, I feel that the penis IS the dominant feature in our society, or the idea of the penis, and while women are subjected by their lack of a penis, I don’t believe it weakens them, I believe it almost strengthens them. Women are not the power holders in this country, but they pull the strings.
I feel another aspect to the phallocentric society is males desire for women. Women may not have the cards, but they have the power. Sexual themes are constantly being used to sell products, movies, whatever! The first advertisements for America in the colonial times, referred to the new land as if it were a virgin woman, when it was really uncultivated, dangerous, and unexplored.
But some of this fascination is innate, or what she called scopophilia, which simply put IS fascination. A vouyeristic tendency of ours in which we take pleasure in watching the actions of others without fear of being seen. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Babies learn through constantly watching and admiring other people’s actions, and trying to mimic them as their own.
I believe that our fascination with cinema stems from a desire to relate. When you see movies, you want to be involved, even in zombie movies, you admire the hero, and wish you could be put in a position to prove your bravery as they did. You want to be the hero who gets the girl, or the girl who finds herself, or the brave little toaster. We watch movies so we can find ourselves in the actions of people doing things that we never could.
The Mulvey essay dives into the pleasuring aspects of cinema using psychoanalysis to get a better understanding of how our pre-existing fascination that is imposed on us by a patriarchal society. The term she uses is phallocentric, the idea being that we see the penis as a dominant characteristic in our society. While this may be true, she also goes on to say that women embody the fears of men. She says that the absence of a penis symbolizes castration, and that is what forces women through society. This is a very loose and strange way of putting it. In my opinion, I feel that the penis IS the dominant feature in our society, or the idea of the penis, and while women are subjected by their lack of a penis, I don’t believe it weakens them, I believe it almost strengthens them. Women are not the power holders in this country, but they pull the strings.
I feel another aspect to the phallocentric society is males desire for women. Women may not have the cards, but they have the power. Sexual themes are constantly being used to sell products, movies, whatever! The first advertisements for America in the colonial times, referred to the new land as if it were a virgin woman, when it was really uncultivated, dangerous, and unexplored.
But some of this fascination is innate, or what she called scopophilia, which simply put IS fascination. A vouyeristic tendency of ours in which we take pleasure in watching the actions of others without fear of being seen. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing though. Babies learn through constantly watching and admiring other people’s actions, and trying to mimic them as their own.
I believe that our fascination with cinema stems from a desire to relate. When you see movies, you want to be involved, even in zombie movies, you admire the hero, and wish you could be put in a position to prove your bravery as they did. You want to be the hero who gets the girl, or the girl who finds herself, or the brave little toaster. We watch movies so we can find ourselves in the actions of people doing things that we never could.
Sunday, September 9, 2007
Art as a Cultural System
Reading “Art as a Cultural System” was exciting, informative, and easy to understand. This is what someone else would say… Not me. I found Clifford Geertz’s article as pretentious as it was boring. Removing the aesthetic nature of art is a conversation worth having, but not a topic worth investigation. Whatever time and money was put into making this article, and the events that led to its creation would have been best spent elsewhere. Art is a beautiful, and wondrous thing. I do however agree that social tendencies towards art can tell someone a lot about a culture or society. Art deserves to be talked about, but I like to believe that the pleasures of art are much simpler than what is described in Clifford Geertz’s article.
Great art occurs when skill, and expression meet in order to convey a message, or to express a feeling. It carries a power within itself. To see a piece of original art is to be standing in front of someone’s heart, and to really look at the sweat and blood put into an expression. The feeling you get from seeing and analyzing a piece of art can inspire creativity, and promote a greater plane of thought. To try to understand an artist and to interpret the art as you understand it, is one of the most thought provoking, intellectually stimulating activities you can participate in. To remove the arts aesthetic value as an original is to destroy the purpose of art. It is to say that an original is the same as a copy. That something someone pined over for days is equally amazing to see in a picture someone took of it. To be able to marvel at an original creation and speculate on it’s design is all that I think is important. It’s not what the artist intended it for, it’s you make of it.
Though my feelings concerning the removal of the aesthetics of art still remain the same, Geertz brought up a very good point. If you look past the art, and rather at the artist, and how he treats art, you can tell a lot about the way he thinks, and most likely the way his entire culture treats art as well. People make art for different reasons, but it is how people treat, and discuss their art that indicates where the artist is coming from with his creations. A man who sells his best art at a high price, is a man who makes a living off of art, however on page two of the article in the last paragraph, we see an example of a man who lives for art. Paul Bohannan sells the art that doesn’t turn out well, keeps the ones the do come out well, and gives the exceptional one as gifts. This shows his true desire to be close with his art, but at the same time be wise and generous with it as well. He can get rid of what he doesn’t prefer without just scrapping it, a very smart and compassionate way to manage your art.
Great art occurs when skill, and expression meet in order to convey a message, or to express a feeling. It carries a power within itself. To see a piece of original art is to be standing in front of someone’s heart, and to really look at the sweat and blood put into an expression. The feeling you get from seeing and analyzing a piece of art can inspire creativity, and promote a greater plane of thought. To try to understand an artist and to interpret the art as you understand it, is one of the most thought provoking, intellectually stimulating activities you can participate in. To remove the arts aesthetic value as an original is to destroy the purpose of art. It is to say that an original is the same as a copy. That something someone pined over for days is equally amazing to see in a picture someone took of it. To be able to marvel at an original creation and speculate on it’s design is all that I think is important. It’s not what the artist intended it for, it’s you make of it.
Though my feelings concerning the removal of the aesthetics of art still remain the same, Geertz brought up a very good point. If you look past the art, and rather at the artist, and how he treats art, you can tell a lot about the way he thinks, and most likely the way his entire culture treats art as well. People make art for different reasons, but it is how people treat, and discuss their art that indicates where the artist is coming from with his creations. A man who sells his best art at a high price, is a man who makes a living off of art, however on page two of the article in the last paragraph, we see an example of a man who lives for art. Paul Bohannan sells the art that doesn’t turn out well, keeps the ones the do come out well, and gives the exceptional one as gifts. This shows his true desire to be close with his art, but at the same time be wise and generous with it as well. He can get rid of what he doesn’t prefer without just scrapping it, a very smart and compassionate way to manage your art.
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