Archetypes

          I learned about archetypes in my english classes in high school because they show up a lot in literature. An archetype is a basic model or pattern that can be copied or represented. In literature, there are certain archetypes that appear in different stories through the representations of different characters. I think because archetypes represent a general idea or pattern, its easy for stereotypes to arise because people have some sort of preconceived notion of what something is. There is already an idea in their head, and that's where stereotypes come from. If people can destroy their expectations and stereotypes then there would be a lot less discrimination in the world. Without archetypes, people can have a more open mind and just accept someone for what they are.

Sheryl Oring

          One of my favorite things about Sheryl Oring is how she takes words and turns them into her artwork. She get real life people to share their personal feelings and ideas, and I love how she displays the connections with people in her pieces. "Writing Home" and "I Wish To Say" both get so personal with people we consider strangers, yet after reading them you feel like you know them. You get insight into the relationships between family members in "Writing Home" and it has such a personal touch that you can't help but feel emotionally connected to the letters. 
          Not only do her projects unveil emotion and relationships, they are also a form of interactive media. She allows the audience to become part of her piece, and she forms a bond between the people that write letters for her. The fourth wall is not only broken, but the people in the audience are also the artists because it is their words that make the art. 
          Another way Oring involves the audience is in the piece "Rilke's Offerings". By placing letters addressed to "A Young Poet" all over the city, she is inviting any random passerby to get involved. Any reader who opens a letter is then given the power because they can choose what to do with it. They can throw it away, respond, or start a similar project of their own. Oring is spreading her ideas in such a way that might inspire other people to do the same.

Howl

          It only took me a few paragraphs of this article to realize that the argument was ridiculous. First of all, the supposedly inappropriate content of the poem "Howl" is nothing compared to what is on the internet today. Anyone can access inappropriate material online at any time, and it's not like people have never been exposed to that type of content before. Everyone knows what sex and drugs and booze is, and if someone feels uncomfortable with those things that they can choose not to listen to "Howl".
          But the part of this article that angered me the most was when the former FCC Commissioner Glen O. Robinson said "Maybe the commission would look differently on it if we were talking about Shakespeare, but Ginsberg isn't Shakespeare."
          Why is Shakespeare allowed to talk about inappropriate topics in his plays but Ginsberg isn't? Some of the content in Shakespeare's writings were just as bad if not worse than what Ginsberg writes in "Howl", and there were no censorship issues back in the sixteenth century. If people stop worrying about what is acceptable and what isn't acceptable and just focus on the art, we wouldn't have controversy over silly things like fines. Just focus on the art. 

Brion Gysin

          Brion Gysin was an artist born in England, but his true artistic talent didn't flourish until he moved to Paris in 1934. Here he became involved with Surrealism, joining the Surrealist Group along with Dali, Man Ray, and Duchamp. Later on in life, he joined the U.S. army in WWII, learned Japanese and calligraphy, and opened a restaurant. 
          While his life was full of achievement, Brion Gysin is most well-known for two artistic projects. The first is the cut-up technique, which he worked on with William Burroughs. They would write on paper, then cut the paper up and put it back together, creating a new, creative piece of writing. This completely relates to the Exquisite corpses we did in class. Like Gysin and Burrough's creations, our drawings combined different elements that were not suppose to go together and the outcomes were incredible. Gysin's cut-up technique displays the idea that art and beauty doesn't have to be planned out. You can take totally unrelated images or words and align them so that they naturally create new meaning.
          The second well-known Gysin art form is the Dreamachine. This is a flickering cylindrical device that resembles a strobe light, where the pulsating light coming from the machine creates bright patterns behind the viewer's closed eyes. It seems to work almost like a drug or like hypnosis; the viewer is transported to a new world with strange colors and images. Some think the dreamachine is harmful because it can cause seizures, but I think it is definitely a form of art. Art is supposed to get a reaction out of its viewers; it is supposed to make the audience feel and experience something. That is exactly what the Dreamachine does. Some people may have bad reactions to it, but not everyone is going to experience art the same way. As long as people have some sort of connection with the Dreamachine, it is a powerful piece of art. 
         

Grid Art Project

I took this picture over the summer while I was at Green Key Beach in Florida. I just love the tropical colors and the interesting shape of the palm tree, so I decided to use it for my grid art.

I took a piece of foam poster board and created a grid out of gluing down party beads so that they all lined up and made a grid. After that I painted the beads, and here is the finished product!

Emak Bakia - Man Ray

          This film was absolutely mesmerizing. From the haunting music to the mysterious mesh of visual effects, I could not take my eyes off the screen. Man Ray's amazing artistic ability shines through this piece, particularly when he distorts and blurs images of ordinary everyday objects, turning ordinary things like nails into art. There are reflections and rotating objects where you can never be sure if it is the camera moving or the object. Because everything is so distorted, I had to second guess everything I saw in the film; I never knew if I was looking at something real or if it was something Man Ray had created with technology. 
          I also found influence from different art forms we talked about in class in Man Ray's video. For example, at 3:32 there was a sort of rectangular prism that was rotating and reflecting light on the screen. This reminded me of cubism, because of the rigid edges of the prism and all the reflecting patterns were rigid shapes. There were traces of order, since a cube is an orderly shape with equal sides, but they were displayed in a disorderly way because of the confusion Man Ray's technology created. 
          I also sensed surrealism in the film, because everything was so dreamlike and surreal. The fact that the viewer needs to ponder whether what they see is reality or not is exactly what the art movement of surrealism provokes. For example, at 4:15, Man Ray turns something as simple as driving a car into a surreal experience. The angle of the camera puts the driver almost totally out of frame, and all you can see is the landscape whizzing past as the front of the car speeds down the road. The vision is shaky and goes in an out of focus so that you aren't exactly sure what it happening. Then at 7:07, the simple idea of the ocean is transformed into a strange montage of motion and images that may or may not be the ocean. The layering of scenes on top of each other create a picture that is constantly in motion, and many things are happening at once. You see fish swimming, then you see waves washing on a shore, then you see reflections in the water; and the whole time the scene is rotating and swaying so that your eyes take a while to adjust and your brain takes a while to decipher the scene. This interesting dreamlike state seems to be influenced by surrealism.

Steve Jobs Commencement Speech

          There is no doubt that this speech by Steve Jobs is incredible. It was inspirational and captivating, and I found myself emotionally invested in everything he was saying. One of the best parts was when he explained the calligraphy class that he took, just because it was so unexpected. Who would have thought that a single class taken on a whim could have such great influence on a company that changed the world? This just shows that the littlest things can have huge impacts on your life, so never take anything for granted.
           Also, that story reinforces the idea that you should always do what interests you. Steve Jobs took the calligraphy class because he wanted to. It was a topic that interested him, and he eventually found out that he was very passionate about it. He then took what he learned and applied it to another project that he was very passionate about: the Mac computer. If Steve hadn't followed his passions and done what he loved, the world would not be able to enjoy the benefits of the Mac.
          Similarly, Steve Job's second story about being fired from Apple also revolves around passion. Although Steve lost everything, Apple and the Mac was still in his heart. There was no way that he would let John Sculley stand in the way of his dreams, and his dedication towards Apple is the epitome of passion. This should be a lesson to everybody to never give up on your passions, because when you fight for what you love, everything seems to turn out well in the end.

Alan Turing

          We often take the incredible technology we have today for granted. It is part of our everyday lives; we use technology without a second thought, without really thinking about how far science has come over the past decades. Right now I am typing on a computer, and without Alan Turing I would not be able to do this. Alan Turing is a brilliant British man, with experience as a mathematician, logician, and a computer scientist. He has worked at the Government Code and Cypher School during World War II, breaking German codes, and finding useful information for the British. He later applied his intelligence to computers.
          Turing designed the ACE, which was the first stored-program computer. Although it was a detailed project, there were many delays and the project was never released. However, a Pilot ACE was released while Turing was studying at Cambridge University, so it wasn't Turing's version but he still deserved all the credit. 
          Computers were further enhanced with the "Turing Test". Turing explored the idea that computers have "artificial intelligence", and he wanted to establish a standard for a machine to be considered intelligent. He wanted a machine to be able to think like a human, but to stimulate a child-like mindset so that it could be educated. 
          After Turing's death, the Turing Award has been given for those who contribute to the computer world by the Association for Computing Machinery. Turing's contributions to the technology have basically shaped our lives today since so much of the modern world revolves around computers. So next time you're using your computer, remember to think of Alan Turing and appreciate his research.

War of the Worlds

          My initial reaction to "War of the Worlds" was that the speaker really knew what he was doing. I was only one minute into the broadcast, and I was already immersed in whatever the speaker said. He was so eloquent; pausing at the right times, pacing himself at the right speed, and talking with the perfect amount of intensity. Clearly, when radio was this popular, the speakers had to be very skilled speakers because their voice is all they have to draw the audience in. They can't use facial expressions, body movements, or images to get the point across, so the fact that I was already intrigued by the speaker's voice in this broadcast was very impressive.
          

           As we all know now, the fake alien invasions created fear with the American public because everyone thought it was real. I can see how people believed it after finishing the broadcast. The integration of random bursts of breaking news in the casual music made the news seem legitimate; it was really as though the music was being interrupted because of an alien invasion. This just shows how art has such a great influence of the public. Radio is a form of art that flourished in the 1900's, and it was so prominent in people's lives that it has the ability to terrorize an entire population. Orson Welles is brilliant for this; nobody got hurt and nothing tragic happened, but he was talented enough to use only the sense of sound to scare the public. 

History of the Battery

          The battery is an invention that has greatly improved life for humans. During my research, I was surprised to discover that the battery existed in ancient civilizations, though it was obviously very different than it is today. The earliest known battery was the "Baghdad Battery", a terra-cotta jar discovered from Mesopotamia. Inside the jar was a sheet of copper surrounding an iron rod, and certain chemicals were added to create a reaction and produce power. 
          Many years later, the modern idea of the battery was born when Benjamin Franklin created a set of capacitors, which were glass panels lined with metal. They could be charged and discharged with a static generator, therefore creating electricity. For the next few centuries, numerous inventions and discoveries helped the battery progress into a more efficient invention. Once the 20th century rolled around, scientists experimented with different elements to enhance the battery's performance. There was the nickel-iron battery, the zinc-carbon battery, the nickel-hydrogen battery, and the lithium ion battery. Today, people can use primary batteries, which work immediately upon use, or secondary batteries, which are rechargeable.
          Without all this research that has helped develop the battery, our lives today would be more difficult than we can imagine. Batteries are a convenient source of power that allow us to enjoy amazing privileges and we owe a lot of gratitude to those who have put time and effort into this great invention.

Phillip K. Dick

          After reading about Phillip K. Dick's background, I find that his life follows an expected pattern. Numerous great artists are ridiculed and disliked during their lifetime; people will often push their work aside because of false judgement, not truly recognizing how great it is. Then after the artist passes away, everyone starts to remember that they even existed, and they will study their art and finally realize its value. They say "you never realize what you had until its gone", and this is true for Phillip K. Dick along with many other amazing artists. It doesn't surprise me at all to know that he was constantly deemed an "oddball", only to have his work transform the world of science fiction after he died.
          But regardless of whether Phillip K. Dick was living or deceased, his ideas are revolutionary. He was one of those to question the universe. He recognizes the flaws of technology, and the immense power it has over mankind. He was also brave enough to explore the relationship of humans and our precious technology, and he wasn't afraid to show how dangerous that can be. I think that is what separates an artist from a great artist. An artist observes the world, reflects, and displays his findings in some form of art. A great artist observes the world, recognizes its flaws, and challenges society. They are willing to highlight the not-so-perfect aspects of humanity, and that scares a lot of people. Phillip K. Dick uses his art to show his audience "a glimpse of what makes us human". He exposes who we truly are as a species without hesitation, and its that type of artist that has the capability to change the world.