This journal entry is due by 11:59pm, Monday May 2.
This week's blog entry requires a review of your past entries over the course of this semester. Please re-read your entries, and pick one sentence you have written that stands out for you as something you would not have expressed before you took this course. In your response, please copy the sentence, and in a 1-2 paragraph response, discuss the ways in which that sentence represents something in your own point of view that has changed since the beginning of this semester.
I chose my sentence from our second blog entry due in January. In that entry I wrote, "art is free expression." I remember answering the blog question that week, "what is art", and not feeling 100 percent certain my answer was what I wanted it to be. I still believe art is free expression of feeling and anything else a person is passionate about. However, I now feel that art has no boundaries. It really can be anything. With that, I believe that there really is no true definition to what art can be. There are no words that can embody the full meaning of art, therefore, it should not be defined at all. Art is art and this class has helped me realize that. I appreciate all types, styles, and variations of art now that I have taken this course. I look at any art now and find the beauty and meaning behind it, where as before, I would have only seen an object sitting there.
In blog entry number 3, I wrote "I think that we need to be more appreciative of what the camera enables us to do." This sentence stood out to me as something that I most likely would not have expressed before taking this course. Before this class, I wouldn't have thought twice about what a regular camera "enables" us to do. To me, it used to be just a piece of everyday equipment. Now, I see what it truly is. It's an advancement of the human eye. It allows us to capture our grandest moments. It allows us to see beyond the stars, beyond the surface of the ocean, and beyond the skin attached to our living bodies. ARTS 1601 has really put this in perspective for me.
The sentence that stood out the most for me was, "I love the sound of water in nature, and nothing would be better than just chillin out in the middle of no where listen to waves." I chose this sentence because it made me realize how important inspiration is in art. Before taking this class, I didn't quite realize how much nature, for example, inspires me. Without this, there is not vision, no emotion, and no art (at least for me).
There were times when I was absolutely clueless about what to do for the projects. I had to stop thinking so much about what I wanted to do, and just start considering what inspires me that I could tie in to a project. After this connection, I figured out stuff that I was excited to work, which made the projects fun. It also gave me a sense of accomplishment upon completing them.
In blog entry three I wrote, “I think that in some ways, it has caused the value of the personal camera to go down.” I was referring to the popularity and ease of present-day digital cameras, and how taking pictures today has changed from what it once was. While I knew that digital cameras and cell phones made it easier and more convenient to capture images, I never would have considered how my own mental process of taking pictures has changed before this class. When we watched “Man with a Movie Camera,” I started to think differently about our relationship to cameras. Even just 10 years ago, my personal camera use was different. I remember having to be very selective in the images I chose to take, and I spent more time trying to compose the “best” image so that I didn’t waste any of the 24 spaces allotted on my film. This class let me jump back even farther in time and think about early forms of photography, and consider the idea of a camera having an eye of its own. I don’t just think of my digital camera as a tool to take quick, sometimes bad, snapshots that I’ll likely delete. Even though I don’t have the most expensive equipment, I’m trying to bring back some of the more careful planning that used to come with taking pictures, and let my camera’s eye do more of the seeing.
Thai's entry:
The sentence I pick is from the entry number 6, where we mentioned about the everyday events that are often so ordinary that they fail to register in our memories. I wrote “I am much more aware of the danger of the street now than ever.” Before this journal entry, I did not really aware or notice the danger of the street. It also make me realized how I never notice or even care to put some ordinary events into my memories. After the entry, I was more aware of things that going around me and noticed thing more than ever.
Ciarra's entry:
After looking over my journal entries from the semester I thought my response from entry #3 was extremely interesting. The entry was about the camera and how it is seen as a superior object to the human eye. The sentence I used in this particular entry was, ‘Cameras allow us to remember and hold onto events, people, places and memories, which in itself gives them a sense of “superiority” to the human eye.’ After being in this course, I have taken a different view of art as a whole and look at things in a different way. I notice that I take more time trying to understand and analyze works of art and try to connect with them. With the camera in particular, I realize the superiority it holds in my life and how important photographs are. They allow you to capture a moment in time and remember and look back at what happened. It is a fascinating concept to think about and after looking at various pieces and genres of art I have realized that this concept of superiority can be seen in other forms.
"He is the cardinal sins put together."
This is something I said about the cartoon character Homer Simpson in the blog entry about animation and animated characters. Even though this sentence is simple and a little non-specific I still feel like it has the most impact. It shows one of the many things that tI have learned in this class and that is the ability to look and examine visual media on a deeper level. although I may not fully understand something while watching it i now feel as though after taking this class I can at least pick out different things. Like how before this class I would have been unable to contextualize the different dimensions of the visual media character in different ways.
This also shows how this class my view has also widened in the matter of how I view media arts. For example I am now able to bring in different references from outside what i am looking at to better be able to examine a piece. Such as how I saw character defects and I am able to pull in terms and ideas from a different field like religion.
"I believe the film makers did these changes in the scene to show that certain things are important and to also show the viewers that everything matters. Every small thing in life affects everything else, and timing matters more than we give it credit for."
I chose this from the blog about Run Lola Run. I chose this because before this class, I did not necessarily realize how much timing mattered, nor did I really think about timing that much at all beforehand. I never really make movies myself before this class and once before. I believe this class has made me more knowledgeable.
Awhile back, I wrote, "[...]the frenetic nature of the cuts creates a sense of human accomplishment in keeping with the Soviet ideals of the glorification and idolization of the worker and his task." While it wouldn't be out of the question for me to have written this sentence before this semester, the combination of editing film together in this class and deconstructing film in a Cinema and Ideology class has had me seeing everything through shades of Panofsky, Deleuze, Jameson and Marxo-Feminist theory. It's been enriching for the most part, but I think I'm gonna take a little time off from movies this summer and read a book.
The sentence I chose is one from the blog entry about "A Man With a Movie Camera"...My sentence reads "It gives it a great boarder and helps to focus your eye where it needs to be." Kind of a boring sentence here, but before this class I did not think all too much about framing of shots in a film or many other aesthetics involved in film making. Looking at the many different things that go into creating a film has given me a different outlook and greater appreciation for them. Something as simple as framing a shot can either make or break it. The meaning of things is so carefully constructed and if done in a different or incorrect way, the meaning you are trying to convey could potentially be distorted or completely lost. Every detail in film making matters and I never realized how much work all of it requires.
Matt's entry:
I chose this sentence from Entry #2: "Art can be abstract or representational, but it always leaves something up for interpretation."
My opinion has changed. The old statement, even though it seems to be free-form and non-judgmental, does impose some expectation about what art is and is not. I think that this imposition hurts what is possible with art and thus it isn't a good measure of art. It may be that some art has multiple meanings while some has only one.
A better definition of art may be: "object(s) presented as art". This tautological statement provides no information to someone who doesn't already know what art is, but it allows for many different viewpoints and opinions of what art is.