Teaching

It was interesting giving the presentation on a topic that the class didn't know about already. I've always just given presentations that supplement the class or reading material. So, to start we had to make sure that we understood the artist fully ourselves. On initial consideration of the artist, we only found his work that he does now, nothing from the 70's and 80's. Once we started going in depth we realized how much his work changed overtime. The next step was to interpret the work and figure out why he made the changes he did. Once we had figured everything out for ourselves, it was important to find the best way to express our ideas to the classt. It was harder than I thought to organize everything, cover all the main points, and manage the time and questions of the presentation. In the end, I had fun doing the presentation and being able to share my thoughts and ideas with the class. I also felt the class helped out alot by being patient with us as new teachers, and they reacted to what we had to say with insight.

TV Series: LIFE

Lately, I've been watching the new TV series called Life, about animals. It's amazing the different angles and camera views they get of these animals. Watching the show, it almost makes me think that animals are a form of art themselves. There grace, movement, and lifestyles are amazing to watch, and fascinate me. I wonder if the producers of the show could be considered artists for being able to put the show together in such a creative way and the camera crew for knowing how to get these shots at some remarkable angles.

Even the technology that goes into this is above and beyond much of what is out there for movies and other shows. The cameras go into the mud to show eggs laid by certain fish. They are high speed to be able to catch the fast animals in a chase.

The whole process is something that makes me very curious about nature. And it's weird to think that we could go a whole lifetime and never see any of these remarkable acts in person.

Andy Warhol

After discussing Andy Warhol in class I decided to take a further look at some of his work and see what other kinds of paintings he did. As a pop art painter he created a work different than many of the people before him. Warhol's style and the pop art movement in general are completely different than the paintings of any other era.





Many of Warhol's paintings have been made into posters and replicated for distribution. His Marilyn Monroe painting is a painting that I see constantly. Many people have even starting duplicating the type of art he used in that painting and placing pictures of themselves in and distorting the colors in the same way. There are even websites where you can upload a picture and it will change the colors for you.

I think part of the reason he became so famous is because many celebrities were part of his work, like this painting of McJagger.

I like alot of his art, I think its very unique.

Frankenstein Themes

Developing the theme of the paper is often the hardest part for me, i have to really think out and theme and fully deveop the idea before I can start writing. If I don't I often find myself drifting through my paper and changing my thesis and my theme as I go. For me, this either leads to an unfinished, mess of a paper or me having to rewrite the whole thing.

Within Frankenstein there are a few themes that I'm considering, they more intriguing to me than others and should allow me to further develop my ideas and create a more motivating argument for my thesis. I'm going to start developing a few of the main ideas of each theme so I can start working on the outline of my paper.

First theme: Parent versus Child

The parent Victor, is the creator of the monster, he gave the monster birth. Like a parent, Victor should have been responsible the monster, he shoudl have taght the monster the about life, happiness and family. Instead he left the monster behind and ran away. Just as with any parent who would do that to their child, they feel guilty and the child feels neglected and unhappy. Children will rebel out if they are neglected, similiar to how the monster rebelled against Victor by killing his friends. This theme also follows the idea of guilt and creation, it incorporates many of the feelings going on within both Victor's life and and the monsters actions throughout the story.

Second theme: Secrecy

Victor has been creating the monster in silence, he dropped contact with Elizabeth, Henry and all of his other friends and family. Even when Henry comes to visit, he just hopes the monster isn't around, and doesn't even inform Henry what he did. This is weird because he put so much effort into creating the monster, for most people this would have been a time of celebration. Then when his brother is murdered and Justine is blamed for the death, Victor still keeps quiet knowing it was the monster that killed his brother. This brings up the question, why won't Victor confess what he did? guilt, embarassment, intimacy problems. I'm still trying to decide what the reasons are but I have to finish the book before I can further develop my idea.

I have to develop the ideas further but writing them out is helping process my thoughts.

Museum

After going to the Museum, I learned alot more about what I think of art. To me, there were certain things that I found interesting and others that I just didn't care about looking, I found myself drifting off at times just thinking about other subjects because the art didn't hold my attention. And thinking back, I was curious why I felt this way and why my mind drifted to the thoughts it did.

The egyptians held my attention, looking at the coffins and the writing on them, the stories that told there lives and the afterlives they would have. It was interesting the differences in beliefs they have compared to many people now or people within the past centuries. I wondered what made them feel this way, who gave them they idea that there was this important afterlife, and why didn't we still feel that way. What changed?

I didn't find myself paying attention the victorian paintings, they had no interest to me, I didn't see the sexual references or the importance of painting pictures where people lay in the mud with expensive clothes on. It was in my wandering mind that I found myself looking at the frames of the pictures and the detailed architecture that came with that time period. I imagined the hand carved moldings and furniture and all the time that must have went into making the beautiful pieces.

Overall I realized, art is what WE want it to be. Art can be anything we see, it is different to every person, race, and religion.

Avatar, Art and Technology

I wrote a bit about Avatar, Art and Technology last week but since we had further discussion in class, I thought I'd discuss the idea of nature within Avatar and also in our world now.

Some of my favorite parts of the Avatar movie was the connection with nature. I thought it was interesting the relationship that the Na'vi had with nature and that they consider nature itself art. It's interesting to think that we, in the world we live in now often don't consider nature art at all. We're ripping through forests, jungles and rainforests like they themselves don't matter, we're only using them for their resources. I think it's important that we look at them for other reasons too. Like in Avatar, the humans were there to destroy Pandora for its resources and they don't care that the avatars consider the ground sacred. They use there technology to destroy the art of the nature.

In some ways there are certain things in nature that are spectacular on their own, they should be kept exactly as they are and never changed. For instance, Niagra Falls, the Grand Canyon, or the pure beauty that is the many of our National Parks. But there is also, man-made beauty that is created by our technology such as the Hoover Dam, and Mount Rushmore. There are so many beautiful things that can be considered art, its just up to us how we choose to see them.

Tree of Voices in Avatar, worshipped by Na'vi

Mount Rushmore

"Old Faithful" Geyser at Yellowstone National Park

Art and Technology in Cinema

I enjoy watching movies, its fun sometimes to just sit down relax and get away from your own life and experience the life of a character for a few hours. It can highten your sense of reality in a good action or drama film, that shows what else is out there in the world that we may never have experienced. Or it can sweep every part of reality away into almost fairytale, a life we wish we had or we aspire to have.

Movies combine the art of human emotion, language and visuals with the technology of film, lighting and animation. It is the combination of art and technology that makes movies what they are today. Recently I saw the movie Avatar. It was amazing! Not only did it create an amazing story of the beauty of nature but it gave an emotional story of the experience of death. The movie added the technology of robotics, guns and futuristic airplanes into the art of all the rest.

Seeing movies change overtime, is alot like seeing the art of the early centuries change to what it is now. It evolved to change with the times and with what the people of that age wanted in their lives. Movies have also changed to like that art. It reflects different things that we look for in our lives, and the reality of what is happening in our lives now and things we care about. For instance, thirty years ago we may ghave focused more action movies on war, and american soldiers. Now, although more is still important part of our culture we have more movies focused around terrorism.

The beauty of art and technology within movies is changing constantly but it consistently surprises me and keeps me interested.