Ex. Credit : Irish Men (shell)

The Irish men that came to the shell were fantastic. They really let Centenary see the folklore of the Irish. The flag behind them really allowed them to bring Ireland to us. They danced and really got in to their show. I left feeling happy and bouncing all over the place because of the way they sand the songs and taught us of Ireland. I would love to visit Ireland someday. I did not get to go to the "after show" because I had some homework I needed to finish but I bet it was fantastic.

Ex. Credit : Mikado Opera

I went to see the choir's production of Mikado which is an opera comedy. The visual art that I saw was that everything was red and the center was black which drew you to the black because of how the lines of the sides of the set pieces were arranged diagonally to draw you to the characters of the play. The audience had to have left feeling wonderful, because of how funny and relaxing the opera was.

Film Studies

Samuel Becket is a talented actor/director. He is Irish and left Ireland in the 20s-30s. He moved to Paris and was in Paris during the experimental film era. He was considered one of the 20th Century's greatest play writes. He was very interested in the theater of the absurd. There are collections of his plays that people have put on film. One of these is Breath which is a ball of mess. Hospital bed, bed pans, cigarettes, and other items that would be found in a hospital with someone who may have lung cancer or emphysema. There were little things that were noticed in the film. The cigarettes were placed very intelligently in a swastika formation. It was kind of scary because the breath sound made me think of The Grudge, a movie with the same sound when something bad was going to happen.

This chapter is mainly about what film is. Film is a narrative story that gets a psychological identification with the viewer. It is simply light and shadows where as a photograph is more tangible. The illusion of reality is shown in film through manipulation of time. Films are like dreams which is why we enjoy movies with the lights off. Films are mythological meaning not that they are lies or fake, but stories. A shot is a serious take before the film is edited. Sequences are several shots with the same goal in mind by the cast, editor, and director. Classical Hollywood Cinema means that Hollywood is a business. Some people may see it as an art, seeing the story with form and lines and reason. In Madonna's "Like A Prayer" video, a lot of controversy was brought over the struggle with religion and racism. An interpretation of the video may be seen as Madonna's character having a struggle with a religious experience. The icon comes alive and essentially makes love to Madonna which is seen by the innocent kissing and passionate touching when he whispers in her ear. It ends with the icon not being able to do anything else and Madonna has to take over and do what is right. Films tell stories and make a statement about something as well.

Chapter 9: The Photograph as Fine Art

When photography is a fine art, we see it with more of the lines, texture, form of the photograph. Some nude photographs are seen not with the individual but with the way the photographer captured the lines, texture, and the form of the object. People, history, or places are not what is important in this kind of photography, but the picture itself. When the reader looks at the photograph, it looks for a message or text, but can only see the beauty in the picture not really much more. They get lost in the dark negative space and such.

Chapter 8: Documentary Photography

Taken in the twentieth century, photographs taken for the soul purpose of "remembering" what happened during these times. Some may say that this is the most intimate form of photography. There is a great bond between the on-looker or reader of the photograph and what the photograph is saying, or showing. These may be scenes from disasters or wars, people helping or a political campaign. I like the photograph called Sharecropper's Home because it shows us how the sharecroppers lived.The news papers on the walls as their wall paper. It is very similar to Interior of a Black Farmers House that was taken around the same time. The older furniture and the clippings on the walls from newspapers, show us how they lived and what they went through. The photo of the migrant mother crys out, "Sympathy" to the reader as if to say, "Feel sorry for me" the photograph speaks so loud that anyone who looks at it would feel this way. These people are dressed in what they have and are about to begin a new life away from eveything they know.

Chapter 7: The Body in Photography

Oh boy! Camaras love the body. The body is something that shows who the person is, kind of. The body can be mysterious. When a photograph is taken of the body it is usually because of the lines the body creates, not becauses there are perverted people who just want to look. It is telling a story. The lines of the body are curvy and are nice for the eyes to look at. Photographs of the body can be kind of graphic, but when looked at close can really tell a story. The photos of the backside show a sort of innosence. The person in the photo does not want to be seen front on, and it shows a sense of shyness.

Chapter 6: The Portrait in Photography

I love Mapplethorpe's photograph of Apollo's sculpture. I think it captures a lot. I think it almost looks as if it were a real person. You can hardly tell it is a sculpture if you were to just glance at it. The book says that portrait photography should include aesthetic interactions, cultural interactions, ideological interactions, and sociological and psychological interactions. You can tell a lot by a portrait photograph by where the person is looking. Some people when beging photographed look away as seeming to say, "Look at me, I will not look back." while others gaze back and say, "I dare you." or "What's up!" Just like pictures that are taken today. Portraits have been taken throughout the years of famous people, infamous people, and everything in between.

Chapter 5: The City in Photography

Being brought up in a time where cities were also becomming popular, photography has a lot in common with the city. Like landscape photography, a photograph taken in a certain spot will look different through the lens of a photographer taking the same picture 20 years later. Panoramic photos are photos taking in sequence and put together to make a large, wide photograph. There are panoramic photos taken of the largest cities, London, New York and Paris from the 1790s because that is where the life was. The picture Steiglitz took of the flatiron building was a very neat one. The lines and everything work really well. This is an example of photographers taking pictures of America growing up. They saw the beauty in new things and the shiny snow that Steiglitz saw on this foggy morning reminded him of that. Some photographers took pictures of buildings and monuments, others stuck with the people of the city and the city life, and others took photographs of the events that took place in the large cities. I think that the photograph taking by Weegee, Murder in Hell's Kitchen is interesting because there is a bird in the front of the photograph. Kind of representing that maybe somebody saw the murder. Why didn't Weegee run away, why is he taking pictures?

Chapter 4: Landscape in Photography

Landscape in photography is usually seen and beautiful and valuable. Photography has a notion of being "picturesque" as the book calls it and that means that it is "timeless" and nothing else can be like it. A landscape photograph from back in the 1800s probably looks a lot different if the same photograph from the same angle would be taken today. A man named Fenton, takes photographs that are relaxing to the viewer. There is not work shown in any of his photographs and everyone looks easy going and happy. He takes more photographs of what we wish the world was like all the time. I really like the photograph on page 59 of the wagon and horses and O'Sullivan's footprints in the desert sand leading up to where he is taking the photograph. The desert is something that will not only change in a few years, but in a few minutes or even seconds with wind changing the footprints into flat, level sand. In the photograph of the "Grand Canyon of the Colorado" is cool because they use a lot of cloud space to highlight the beauty and the bigness of the canyon.

The Photograph: Photography and the Nineteenth Century

In the Nineteenth Century people began taking photographs that looked like paintings. The Nineteenth Century was obsessed with things. The whole chapter has pictures of things, not many people. The pictures of people are very rare and it makes it obvious that this Century was obsessed with things. They were interesting in not just personal things, but historical things as well, things that would help us remember the past. This chapter basically says over and over that the Nineteenth Century was a very item-obsessed time period.

The Photograph: How Do We Read A Photograph?

The book tells us that people go further from looking at a photograph and read it as if it were a text. In some pictures the reader cannot really know what the photographer was thinking or seeing during the time of the picture. The photograph only captures a moment in time and only a specific event. No one could know what was truly going on around the photograph, even if the photographer tells them. Who's to say the photographer is telling what really happened? A photograph has the ability to tell as story, that is why we read them as if they were texts. The person reading the photograph must look at the expression of the person or thing that may be in the photograph. Arbus's photograph of the twin girls shows their different expressions. One girl seems to be the happier twin while the other ones seems to be more passive. A true critique would look at their hands and how one is open and one is closed and other details like that. They also look at how it relates to the real world. Reading a photograph takes a lot of time and attention to detail.

The Photograph: What is a photograph?

The entire chapter is telling what a photograph is and where they come from. In the very first paragraph of the book, they talk about how we carry photographs with us everywhere. We use them for everything as well. Photograph means "light writing". This means that that something created by/in light. Photographs make time stand still. It is a way of remembering good or bad. The modern photograph with negatives and postitives and such was founded by a man named William Henry Fox. I like Walter Benjamin's suggestion for a photograph. A work of art based on "chemical and industrial prossess of production." I also like how the book takes apart different views of photography, they call them 'art photography' and 'documentary photography'. Photography was considered a 'fine art' in 1853 in London. A photograph is simply the creativity of the photographer. Anyone can push a button, but it takes a true artist to pust the button at the right time and capture something breathtaking.

Chapter 6: Consumer Culture and the Manufacturing of Desire

The main discussion topic of Chapter six is how art plays a major part in countries' economies because they are selling for high prices. Advertizing, television, books, etc. sells artwork. There are several stages of art. Modernism was aroung the twentieth century (1900). Manet was one of the artists of this time period. This is when the anti-art or dada came to be, after World War I. They think that beauty is not an art. In 1922, T.S. Elliot wrote The Wasteland and Hallowmen. The next stage is Postmodernism which occured around the 60's and 70's. It came to be around World War II. It was a rejection of Modernism. "After Aushchwitz how can you write poetry," one very famous poet asked. Also the idea that are can do anything, it could cure cancer. Media came to be a form of art as well. Pop musicians also formed, people like Radiohead and Moby. Bricolage took dominant art forms, reconstructed them and used them in different ways. Sigmund Freud and Jacques Lacah came up that human being hunger or desire something and when that is fulfilled they hunger for something else. Lacah says that there is always a gap or lack of desire. The term "the grass is always greener on the other side" is a good way to explain what they mean.

Chapter 5: The Mass Media and the Public Sphere

The beginning of Chapter Five discusses how current arts include arts on the computer, whether it be games or work; arts in the newspaper, television, or it may be watching a movie. Mass media reaches a large number of people who share the same interests. One paragraph breaks down the meaning of mass media. Media means the way of communication or medium and mass means that it covers a large area of people. In the section titled "The mass media and democratic potential" it explains that mass media may be a great way to spread and explain democratic ideas to the world or a nation. A negative to mass media, is that it does not reach everyone and it can be expensive. Local television stations are low cost and do not reach a large audience. Instead of having the media explain to the people about what their issues are, video cameras have allowed people to have their issues expressed on television. As said above, television and other forms of mass media, such as radio, can be expensive. The people watch the television shows, but unknowingly hear the products that the advertisements are trying to sell, and they go purchase them. There are television shows and stations for all sorts of groups of people, such as, women, children, sports, music, etc.

Chapter 4: Reproduction and Visual Technologies

Sally Mann photographed her children in a lot of positions and situations that many people think is not acceptable. There were a lot of nude photos. Although they were not in sexual positions or portrayed as being trying to show off her children's bodies, I do not think that it is okay to publish them. I understand it being art, but how will they feel later in their life, when their friends' have that photo in their house or when they are even older and trying to get a date. I do not believe that she thought about that. I think they are beautiful photos, but I think that they belong in the family photo album or displayed around the house, in grandma's house or close famliy members, but not made public.

Chapter 4 discusses how social roles have changed. A long time ago, art was seen as something that was meant for the upper class, not middle or lower class. The photograph has played many different roles including art, science, marketing, the law, and personal things for people. Art explains the time period it was drawn in. A real world or the fake world, either world will give away when it was drawn. Reproduction is an important.

Chapteir 3: Spectatorship, Power, and Knowledge

Chapter three discusses psychoanalysis and other forms of spectatorship, power and knowledge. It describes how art gives us a since of pleasure and allows us to describe our disires through looking at it. Spectatorship and psychoanalysis are based on the theories of a guy who worked in the late nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Sigmund Freud. He and a man named Jacques Lacan have similar ideas in that they studied the subconscious.

And example of Hagenamy is when parents try to control their children, the dominant culture is being counterd. Kind of ties in with subculture. Where the smaller culture begins to go agains the dominant culture, like how the government does not change culture as much as religion.

What does it mean to "gaze". It is a way of seeing. In some portraits and photographs children and women begin to gaze back at the camara. They are becoming brave and showing that they can stand by themselves. In Sally Mann's photos of her children, we see that they gaze back at the camara. Laura Mulvey is a theorist from the mid-70s. She gazed objectivly at women she made women goddess-like. She made people less real, held them up on a pedistal. She also argues the movies are made for guys - to see the world as a guy.

Chapter 2: Viewers Make Meaning

When a teacher is teaching a child to read, they teach by meaning. A childres' book is a great example of art that creatings meanings. Chapter two begins with the sentence, "Images generate meanings." Well, I believe this to be true. Let's say a child is reading to you and stumbles across a word they do not know, what do you do? Well, first, you would try to play a sort of Taboo game with them, telling them synonyms to the word and having them try to guess it. If that does not work, then you might say, "Well hey, let's look at this picture to see what is going on here!" This is not a great example of what some people would call, "high art" or "real art" but what is "real art"? Who is to say what "real art" is. When we look at a piece of art and we do not know what the creator was meaning by it, we try to interpret what they were trying to portray, this means we discover the meaning of it. Beyond interpretation we have evaluation, where you say what you think about the artwork. A man named Frederic Jameson 'always historisized' his artwork, this means he sees it is its historical moment, place things in context relating to history. The chapter also discusses aesthetics and taste. Aesthetic is the study of beauty. Artwork is going to be judged by its audience on whether or not it is beautiful. Taste refers to a background and education. The phrase "has taste" usually means they are "in style" or apart of their time period. All images give a little hint towards their meaning to the audience. This is called encoding and decoding. The audience can, then, either disagree or agree with the author's meaning of the artwork. These terms that we use are Dominant-hegemonic reading-not questioning; Negotiated reading- interpreting the dominant meanings; or Oppositional reading- taking a different position by simply disagreeing or by rejecting the piece of art.

Chapter 1: Images, Power, and Politics

The beginning of Chapter one discusses the differences between what it means to see and what it means to look. It defines "look" as making meaning of whatever you are studying and "see" as noticing it for the moment, but not knowing the meaning of it. When someone tells you to "Look!" they are demanding that you look and studying whatever they are pointing at or looking at, they do not tell you to "See!" When we look at something we begin to wonder "What is this thing?" and "What does it do?" We can look at the art in a way of who the artist or creator is, but sometimes that does not tell us what we are looking for. Sometimes an artist will tell as story and it may be in third person. We can also come up with the story of the artwork by determining what the artwork is, what the context is that the creator meant for the piece to be seen in, how the artist wanted their artwork to be produced in, and what "world" did they want the artwork to exist in. But even with all of these puzzle pieces in place, we would not be able to know exactly what the author was thinking while creating the artwork. These are called intentional facilities or the ideas that the author had in mind while working on their creation. In Chapter One, page 15 there is a picture or a pipe, although written at the bottom of the painting it says "Ceci n'est pas une pipe" or "This is not a pipe." So was Rene Magritte being sarcastic or making a joke? Or did he really mean for it to mean something deeper. Or was he being literal, it is not a pipe, it is a representation of a pipe.

Today, people's portraits are everywhere; magazine covers, bilboards, signs outside of buildings, but what is the realism in the portraits. There is a myth of realism in photography, that because there is a picture it is real. The reason this is a myth is because photography can be staged.