Angel_forever22

my overall reflection

2008-05-08T14:47:36Z

This class has taught me many different things and i have tried my best to demonstrate those skills into my final project and I hope that everyone sees that as well. Content, context and form are the main features to begin any story and to me these three are the basic tools that help shape the entire story.
I also, got to hear my classmate’s ideas and thoughts about my ongoing projects, which I thought was very supportive and honest feedback that I have ever got in any class. Moreover, I also learned about their stories and their media making experience, which makes me, realized that we were all in the learning phase. All the blog post and videos that we created was just too good to watch because each and every single person used different ways to tell the story. Some chose to bring the personal aspect of it and some were for the educational purposes.
I also learned the technical aspect of the media making such as holding a camera in a proper position and when to take an eye level shot vs. when to bring the shot from the bird angle. In addition to that, I learned about the various feminist media makers such as Judy Chicago and her personal take on media making. It was fascinating to see how motivated she was toward her work and she can be call as an inspiration for many people. I personally, liked her take on the feminist media and how one should go beyond to achieved the desire goal. I will take all of this aspect of theoretical and practical tools further in my future work. In addition to that, I will continue to make videos of my family and my personal experience in life. When I made the videos for the class it gave me a sense of satisfaction and achievement and I will continue on this journey throughout my life. Although, I wish I could learn the Final Cut as well but I guess there is always a next time.

Theories and Practice

2008-05-06T17:03:56Z

Theories and Practice:
My final project is based on a history of two individuals Ota Benga and Ishi both suffered greatly due to being Native in this American land. I was inspired to do this project by reading articles for my women studies class on the topic of Freaks and how freaks were mistreated and became the object of gaze. In other word they were called as “monstrous�? and “Freaks�? because they were not normal like other people.

]]> My project is about a story of two individuals, Ota Benga and Ishi who were bought to the U.S. through slavery and later became part of the freak sideshows. In 1906, Ota Benga was sold into the tribal slave market where Samuel Verner purchased him. The same tribe killed Ota Benga’s family so he did not have a reason to return to home after the suffering. Ishi on the other hand was found in the slaughterhouse in Oroville, California in 1911. Ishi died from tuberculosis and Ota Begna committed suicide.
Freaks have always been seen as monstrous people and our society has never accepted them. What is more is that I came across several different racial types of freaks during my readings; but never once did I come across any Americans who were also called as Freaks. That indeed inspired me to ask the question why is that we call freak to only native people? And not to any Americans? I began my journey by searching more about the history of Ota Begna and Ishi. I chose those two individual because they both counterpart each other in some ways. Ota Benga was highly mistreated by his fellow who brought him to the U.S. and later kept him at the monkey house as a savage. He became the object of the display and many people gathered to see him all over but no one ever came to fight back for him. On the contrary Ishi, was given respect and was taught some manners but still he worked as a janitor in the university’s heart museum of Anthropology museum. I wondered how many professors around the university were treated that way around that time? That led me thinking more and more and I found the history of Ota Benga and Ishi. I found articles and book that talked about freaks more in depth. I search for their images. I also saw the video piece made by Fatimah Tobing Rony On Cannibalism, which dealt with a very similar question that I wondered. Rony also wrote a book call “The Third Eye�?. In her book she talks about her practice and theories for the video. She gives a great insight of how she perceived native peoples have been looked at. According to her, “ ‘[t] hat man is Alive!’ The irony is that in order to look most alive, the “native�? must be perceived as always already dead�? (116).
Moreover, she mentioned that, “ the continued proliferation of images of indigenous peoples as spatially and temporally distant, however, sustains a denial of the history of native people’s struggle against colonialization and genocide, and their ongoing struggles for cultural identity against the forces of an image-hungry dominant culture which sees them as always already dead�? (198). While constructing with the video I have tried to bring all the aesthetic and visual tools that I learned in this class throughout this semester. I liked the idea of telling a story through pictures and audio narration and you can see that in my final project. I have also tried to bring the history and struggle of these individuals and my goal is to make people think of what happened in the history was right or wrong? Like how Rony mentioned that, “ film and the discourse surrounding it can tell us about the nature of anthropological knowledge and the role of visual media in legitimating that knowledge and other regimes of truth�? (100) and I hope that I succeed in my project.
Although, I dealt with some technological problem throughout the making of this documentary but in my final piece I believe I achieved a better documentary. In my project I have dealt with the racial difference that existed throughout the history. And my hope is that after seeing the video it will provoke the audience to think over and eventually it will do well to our society in the future.

quotes on what Freaks

2008-05-05T16:48:57Z

Freaks in American Culture
Definitions of “Freaks�? are individuals who are visually different than normal people.

“The freak, as we will call it, is a very wide and undefined category that includes many different genres from the very human to the extreme monstrous. To make it simple, we will limit ourselves to the human freaks, who have a mythological or mythical background or were displayed as human oddities in sideshows�? http://freaks.monstrous.com/definition_of_freaks.htm
* “A thing or occurrence that is markedly unusual or irregular: A freak of nature produced the midsummer snow�?.
* “An abnormally formed organism, especially a person or animal regarded as a curiosity or monstrosity�?.
* “A sudden capricious turn of mind; a whim: “The freaks of the psyche can no more be explained than the Devil�? (Maurice Collis). www.answer.com

history of Ota Benga and how he was treated in his life time..

2008-05-05T16:48:57Z

History of Ota Benga and Ishi can be told in many different ways and many things can be said about the same story over and over.

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In September 1906, New York newspapers carried the story of a human exhibited in the Monkey House at the Bronx Zoo. The person was Ota Benga, a Central African Batwa who had been brought to the United States by explorer and sometime Presbyterian missionary Samuel Verner to be part of the Pygmy village at the 1904 Saint Louis World’s Fair. Ota Benga chose to remain when the other participants returned to Africa, in part because he no longer had a home there. He has been a victim of Belgian colonialism, he had returned from a hunt to find that his tribe (including his wife and children) had been slaughtered by tax collectors of King Leopold’s Force Publique, who sold him into the tribal slave market where he was purchased by the Verner. After the Fair ended, Verner traveled the United States with his African companion until the impoverished explorer left him at the Bronx Zoo under the care of its director, William Hornaday. For weeks Ota Benga wandered freely around the zoo in relative anonymity. Zookeepers encouraged him to spend more time in the Monkey House, where he had been sleeping since his arrival, until one day they locked him inside and since then he was displayed in the Monkey House with an Orangutan name Dohong. Dohong, an orangutan trained to wear clothes, ride bicycle, and eat at a table.
Ota Benga represented, on the one hand, the tragedies of Western imperialism and the intolerable persistence of domestic racism; on the other, he provided them with clear evidence that Africans were inferior to American blacks. If freak show representations of Africans as savage wild men were unacceptable, so too was the equation of primitive African tribes with respectable black American citizens. Moreover, the exhibition showed racial prejudice.

final project thoughts and progress...

2008-05-04T02:43:55Z

story line and voice recording of the script is done. I am missing information on Ishi very much at time.
i found a great articles one is, "Freaks of Culture Institutions, Publics, and the Subjects of Ethnographic Knowledge" by Rachal Adams and another articles call "Introduction: From Wonder to Error- A Genealogy of Freak Discourse in Modernity" by Rosemarie Garland Thomson. Both articles talks about the Freak culture in detials and It also brought me the history of both Ota Benga and Ishi and how they were brought to the US trade and later sold.
I have also found a book call "The Third Eye" by Fatimah Tobing Rony who talks about the Cannibalism and her theories, practices and personal experience as being the object of the same gaze. I found all of these sources are great help so far my project is still not done so lets hope for the best.

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reflection my storytelling 3/11

2008-03-25T17:29:14Z

Making a digital story was a tough job but at the same time the learning process was interesting as well. I got to learn new techniques and methods to tell my story which I never knew before. This process was absolutely time consuming and hectic as I was not very familiar with the Mac computer, so all the hidden details I got to learn was fascinating at the end. I was very much familiar with the scanning and recording part so that went easy for me but editing the images, cropping and writing voice over was very difficult for me.

The course reading on the digital story telling part one was very interesting because it gave me an insight on how to write a narrative and pick a topic. Further more, it hence my knowledge on the story telling elements such as that we need a thesis to begin with, the body to go with and the end to justify our thesis. It gave me a good overview on how to critically think about all of these story-telling elements and to make a successful digital story. It also educated me about what makes a good story and what makes a boring and dull story. The digital story telling reading thought me the key elements to the successful digital story. It thought me that I need to watch out for the time and make it as specific as I can. In other word, convey the message without wasting so much time. This reading further gave some good examples to give me a sense of what consider to be a good story. In addition to that, it taught me different ways to tell a story such as adding emotion to make it look so dear to the audience.

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When I started brain storming about my first digital story I knew that I wanted to make something feminist and eventually I ended up looking at my own pictures from the childhood to the adulthood. I began to question what do I like, what do I not like about this picture and whether this picture is telling its own story or not. That is how my initial process of digital story making went. But after knowing what I wanted to talk about I decided the search for the pictures and something that I wanted to share in my digital story telling piece to the audience. I choose the material that was relevant to my topic and the thesis. I found this process to be very interesting because until now I never questioned any of my pictures and tried find out the story behind it. I sort of started to interview myself and began to critically ask question to find out the truth and that is how I created this digital story script. After that came the process of editing, which I struggled with due to the lack of knowledge in new technology field, but I am glad that I got to learn new skills through this digital story telling process.

Eventually, with all that is going in my life, I worked hard through my first digital story for which I am very proud off.

movie reflection on 3/18

2008-03-25T17:27:48Z

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Name: RACE
Stars: Saif Ali Khan , Akshaye Khanna , Bipasha Basu , Katrina Kaif , Anil Kapoor and Sameera Reddy .
Music Director: Pritam
Director: Abbas-Mastan
This movie was about friendship, love, money and power. I watched this movie on Friday night. This is an Indian movie so I expected to see glamorous outlook. This movie was shot in South Africa. I liked the action in the movie and I knew that this movie was loaded with the theories that we have been discussing in our class. I saw some shot in bird view angle as well close up shots. The placement of the lightning was great I thought. Star cast acted really well in the movie but it was all about money and how low one can go in the name of money. Race, is a story about two brothers who pretended to love each other. But the youngest brother never really loved his older brother, because older brother was always ahead of the youngest brother due to his experience in life. Youngest brother, tried to killed his older brother several time for the property purposes that is where actresses comes in. The movie confuses you couple of time because you do not know who is honest with who at this point. They are all going for the million-dollar insurance policy, which their late father had placed for them and I believe the insurance policy was worth 200 million dollar. This movie was great due to its great view. Of course actor and actresses acted well along with some humorous moment in the movie kept the audience laughing. In top of that, the suspense in the movie who will get the money and who won’t, grab audience attention fully until the end of the movie.

media watching progress 2/26

2008-03-25T15:40:48Z

So far I have written my script and I know which pictures I want to add into my digital storytelling. I am excited and nervous because I do not know much of this new technology that I am and will be working with. This week I am focusing on editing and sound recording on my storytelling. Although, I really think my piece goes along well without music because my story is about my family. And you can see their happy faces to realize happiness without bringing happy music to the sound track. As a result, I am going to avoid any music in my piece. Editing, I like my script the way it is. Now only I wished that I started ahead of time so that I could re-record my script over with a better voice quality. I am planning to use to different types of medium for pictures such as some dissolved images and some shaded images as well. I am not planning to add any special effect into any of these images cause I do not know how to work in the Photoshop again. But, I will love to work and learn how to use Photoshop for my future storytelling.

]]> I am also learning to work with new tools such as garage band and imovie. Although, I own Mac Book but I really never used any of these stuff before so it is really amazing how I can create new digital stories in just couple of hours. I am also not aware of how I am going to upload this digital story of mine into our course blog because again that I have never done.
Consequently, I am waiting until next week to learn how to upload my first digital story.

Southern Comfort

2008-02-27T14:28:26Z

My critical response is on the movie call Southern Comfort by Kate Davis. It is a documentary movie which brings us an insight about the transgender struggle to live in this society and what humiliation they have to go throughout their life. This movie was really shocking to me because of several reasons. First of all, I have heard of the transgender, the gay and the lesbian relationship but until now I have never felt so emotionally attach to their pain and grief. This movie brought an actual picture of the transgender community to me. In our daily life we get so busy that we never get a chance to ponder over what type of struggle other people go through in their life. We always try to think of our problem, how sad and how tough our lives are and most importantly we care a less about anyone else.
This movie was different than any other movies I have ever seen before. I actually, liked the depth and the flawless emotion in this movie. In fact, the struggle that Robert went through in his life seems unbearable. What was most shocking in this movie that his mom had actually didn’t approve of him as a transgender. Furthermore, Robert mentioned in his documentary that when he told his mom that he/she is not a lesbian rather a transgender his mom said I wish you would just stayed as a lesbian then what you are. I felt those words were really painful and it must have hurt his feeling. Later, in the movie hospital refuses him to be admitted because they thought he would bring humiliation for them. Some doctors said that they cannot accept him in their hospital because they cannot put him along the rest of the patients such as in OBGYN. It was really sad to see him dying with no medical assistant and with no community help beside his own transgender community. No one even bother to fight for his right and dignity and he passed away keeping all of his pain inside. Apart from that I really like Robert’s personality because even though he was fighting and struggling through his life but he never lost his hope to live. He was a happy man as anyone else could have been; however, at times his face did show the signs of cruel harshness of this world.
In addition to that, there were times when Robert’s friends were discussing their life stories when one mentioned that although doctors have treated them in the past and gave them the desire look. However, they have not done the perfect job because they do not want us to look natural and there are always these things which separate us from the rest. Moreover, they think that today technology is capable of doing almost anything in any ways. And, if doctor wanted and wishes to make things look natural and more perfect then they should have but they chose to not make us look like the rest.
I personally think that and feel that it is time that we should stop discriminating people based on their gender and accept them as they are. Moreover, we should give them the same privilege as we have given others and there is no need to let them die and suffer till the end because overall they are human being just like us and we should respect that. At last, I think everyone has a right to chose what they want to be and our society should accept their decision and treat them well because if we don’t then the humanity will lost from this world.

some of the videos that i like...

2008-02-27T03:27:55Z

In Memory of Ashley strieter

I chose this particular story because it is a story that I get inspiration to pursue my dreams and education in a way that I want too. When Ashley's friends can struggle through the life without her best friend's support so can I without the one I love. This story teaches you and motivates you to work harder no matter how hard and tough the path becomes to you. I also, love this story because it reminds me somehow of my own struggle with life.

I like this story because it shows the struggle of Immigrant's people and what they do to survive. Although, I know very well that this might not be true for all the immigrants, but for someone who have no one and they have to go on with their life by taking risk in order to survive in a given native land.

2008-02-19T20:25:10Z

I love flowers

Reflection on Refarmings: New American Feminist Photographies

2008-02-19T17:18:16Z

Reframings: New American Feminist Photographies
Editor is Diane Neumaier
She is a Scholar/ Photographer and Theory and Practices
Reframings is a story about women struggle and how they were depicted in the past. Some chapters of this book focused on the homosexual relationship verses heterosexual relationship. Moreover, it talks about how back in the day society wasn’t accepting these type of relationship and how women had to keep fighting for their right to live with equality and for their freedom of speech. The Author highlights and shares art theory and key issues like identity, race, history, memory, media and sexuality in this book; in addition to that, here re-framing mean constructing feminist “praxis�?. There are different forms that are used to create this book some of them are photography, collage, image collection, pinhole photography, consumer camera, digital and large format photography, Quilt and layering text.

]]> The Article I read was by Connie Hatch and in that Article she talks about the Sex and the Anxiety of women and how we still gets pleasure by looking at or vice versa. She talks about the gays and lesbians relationship and how they have existed throughout the history. It’s about their struggle toward society; moreover, it is a battle between their rights to live like others. It is about their struggle to live life the way they want too without any fear and how society doesn’t accept them because of their gender differences. Not only that, their own families sometime disowned them and how they have to struggle through this world alone to live like just a normal human being without being discriminated based on their sexuality and gender differences.
Some other Articles talks about the Domestic Production/ Reproduction Resistance meaning, certain genital to look at it within the family. This chapter is by C. William an African American, who focuses on the race, sexism and feminism and the exploitation of women. Her role model is Sara Cage. She thinks that things haven’t changed much since the 1800s. She goes on in talking about demystification of women and how memory lives through object and object simplifies your past. She further talks about the oppression and family. I believe her main argument is based on gender identity and family because it shows through her selection of images.
Next chapter along the line which is called the Identity Formation, talks about creating identity, self identification, and native stereotypes of African American women. The author in this article talks about building native identity, making comparison between native and African Feminism and to her Native mean indigence and self representation.
After that the next chapter talks about the Post Colonial Legacies, mainly referring to suburban speaking for them self. This chapter is talking about the colonial gaze, male gaze and oppression and what it’s mean to be in this position. Main point here is the term “objectification,�? which means different way photography can lies depending on how we show them to other. Next chapter Rationalizing and Realizing the body focuses on bearing verses baring (?). The theme of this chapter is that women are trying to realize their bodies through others idea of history and ambiguity. And the last chapter focuses on Reimagining and Reimaging. Here the main idea is minority models and stereotypes that are associated with minority people.
To me this book unrevealed most of the sensitive issue that women have been dealing with over the generation and these issues are still the most important in term of race, gender, and sexuality. This book takes us into the deeper history of feminism and how women are still struggling for their right and for a better place in this society. I was amazed to see the photographs in this book because some of them are really extreme and it really makes you think has the history changed over the years yet? If so, then in what ways? Because, homosexual people are still battling for their place in this world; moreover, they are still being discriminating based on their gender difference. Additionally, they are still not much acceptable in our society and they are not allowed to walk freely and express their emotion in the public liberally.

First Post

2008-02-05T15:14:19Z

I am Sehar. I am an Art major. I have taken Rachel class last summer and I found it really interesting so I decided to take another class with her. I think She is an amazing professor in every aspect. What I like about her class the most is that she divide the course load in such a way so it doesn’t seems that you are just doing the stuff and not learning at all. I had an amazing time in her class last summer so anyone who hasn’t dealt with feminist theory and want to learn something then I suggest you are in a right place.
I have always enjoyed learning about the history of feminist movement and the their theories and who they dealt with the rising issue that was taking place around that time. After taking the class with Rachel last summer, I was able to understand more about those theories and concept better. I was able to think more critically about my gender role in a society and was able to distinguish my roots in a much better way. I have learn a great deal in my previous class and I am hoping to learn more this spring with Rachel and I am excited over it as the ride begins now.
I am looking forward to this semester as it is also my last term at the U so good luck to me.

Second Post

2008-02-05T15:08:47Z

When I started watching the movie I had no idea who Judy Chicago was but now I am glad that I watched that video. I liked how Chicago works with her student to find their inner most interest. I know some people thought that, she was really harsh with her students but I believed it was because of her they achieved their true goals and succeeded in their artwork. I am also an Art student and while watching the movie I was thinking of ideas for my final project and how to make it more enjoyable and worth my time. I want to create something that represents my thoughts and ideas in clarity. More importantly, I want to get a clear message across my audience and want them to feel what I felt while making that particular artwork.
Overall, I really like Judy’s ways of approach toward her students. Judy had her way of talking to her students and making their vision right so they can be proud of themselves and I wish I had the pleasure to be in her class.