Bauhaus + McCarthyism

Well when I hear Bauhaus I immediately think of the band, but the art movement is pretty nifty too! On my searches, I found an image of a poster for bauhaus furniture that said "art as life" which is an absolutely stunning concept when you think about it.
Bauhaus is incredible because of it's functionality. In a way, it reminds me of apprropriation art it that it took a modern day object (say, a chair) and turned it into something much more, making people look at chairs, shelfs, tables, in a totally different way. That's what Duchamp and Man Ray achieved with there pieces, but they never tried to make it functional.

Art as life. Sitting in art, making tea with art, putting your books on art. This idea overwhelms me with it's simplisty and it's beauty.

McCarthyism, on the other hand, overwhelmes me with it's absolutely stupidity. It's not even anything I can fathom -- that someone could cause such chaos by saying so little (not to mention he was an obvious nut job.) How people listened to him, and ruined peoples lifes -- it seems so science-fiction to me. The fact that there was no real evidence, is astounding. But people were so terrified of this abstract idea that they didn't even care. It's like the salem witch trials, which even in the McCarthy era I'm sure seemed arcyan.
But even know things like that happen; people who travel feared anyone who looked remotely Muslim after 9/11, despite proper proof.
I've watched footage of the trials, and it seems like a circus. Here's a clip:

Dada Manifesto

Given how random everything else was, I found the Dada Manifesto surprisingly poetic. 

"t will serve to show how articulated language comes into being. I let the vowels fool around. I let the vowels quite simply occur, as a cat meows . . . Words emerge, shoulders of words, legs, arms, hands of words. Au, oi, uh. One shouldn't let too many words out. A line of poetry is a chance to get rid of all the filth that clings to this accursed language, as if put there by stockbrokers' hands, hands worn smooth by coins. I want the word where it ends and begins. Dada is the heart of words."

I guess my problem is I have a hard time seeing things in a the framework of a timeoutside my own. As in Dada for example, I found it utterly ridiculous. How could anything as absurd as this spark a movement the art world?
However, when I wake myself out of here and now, and place myself in the time in which Dada was being birthed, Dada movement is amazing.

Also, I feel I'm at a slight disadvantage as I studied speech pathology for two years. Being in hospital wings where people litereally cannot speak and seem to be reciting a dada poem with the words they can't quite get out as hard as they may try, it's hard to find a lack of language beautiful or groundbreaking. I think those without language are truly at a disadvantage. I've seen it with my own eyes.

Maybe I'm overthinking it. I'm clearly not very Dada.

Grid Art

For my gridart I did a peacock feather. While I knew I could never replicate the detail in the photo, I thought the colors (and the sections of the colors) would look interesting in a grid fortmat.
I used roughly 900+ beads.

Original Image:

Tada!

Videogames + Bullying

Well, to begin. The documentary, while very interesting, had some major flaws. To begin the "girls games" was incredibly sexist. The got the whole idea wrong! Trying to make a place for in games for women, so they don't feel "left out," because they couldn't possibly enjoy "violent" games, was just offensive. Maybe that wasn't their aim, but as a "girl gamer" I found it offensive.

But, on to bullying! I think that saying we can't call the other characters "people" may be incorrect. The whole point of video games is to feel immersed.  In the documentary, one of the people playing  a game stated "We're shooting each other." People often refer to the avatars as "me." So naturally, the other characters become "people." If we get so immersed in a game we begin to see ourselves in the avatar, is it that big of a leap that the characters become "people"? I am inclined to say no. That's the power of games -- to feel like you're a part of a different world. If they didn't do that, it wouldn't be such a successful industry.

Are you actually killing literal "people" when you play a game? No. But it may feel real enough where it feels like you are. Maybe.

I think that video games definitely have an effect on violence. Just as if a child watches his father beat up his mother, he may handle his anger in similar ways. Some children, especially young children, are very susceptible to being taught things. I think we can all agree that a 5 year old should not be playing Mortal Kombat. It's just not appropriate.

I think it can lead for children to be more aggressive  Are they going to become psycho killers? Slim chance, and if they did, it's not because of the video games.But it could lead to some more aggressive behavior, as the see in video games. The video game Bully, in fact, makes the player a bully in school! The message doesn't have another way of looking at it. Here's an article that discusses this game, and opinions on it.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1576078/Video-game-glorifies-bullying-say-critics.html

While I don't think video games should be banned by any means, some violence in games is just absurd. In a world where bullying is a major problem in our society, I do think caution needs to be exercised with children playing games.

War of the Worlds + the Ghostwatch Effect

The reason why War of the Worlds drove everyone bat-shit insane, was because...
they only decided to say it was fake right at the beginning!
This was problamatic for those who tuned in mid way through, and when it sounded just like a trusted news story they might hear on there nightly radio. Those who were tuned in ahead of time, of course heard it was fake, but it seems not many were able to do tat.

While this seems like something that would happen long ago, and couldn't possibly happen today, let me direct you to a show called Ghostwatch. Ghostwatch was a show that aired on BBC in 1992. When it aired, it recieved an "estimated 30,000 calls to the BBC switchboard in a single hour." And it has not been aired in the UK since. This news style, documentary drove the viewers into an extreme fear. The show itself was banned for a decade after it aired.

It was a long running set up, that a famous news anchor (real one, that is) was going to go to a haunted house and film on Halloween night. What happened was one of the most terrifying hours of TV ever, and many people beleived it to be real. While it started innocently enough, it escalated from there. One viewer, a 13 year old boy, commited suicide, many believe to be a direct result from the show.

BBC was even taken to court, when viewers beileved it caused psychological harm to the viewers, and that they had a responsiblity of doing a little more than HINTING at its fakeness.

My first flipbook

video to come, but for now - a few selected pages

And back to photography...

10 of the Most Famous Photo Hoaxes

http://www.flavorwire.com/333176/10-of-the-most-famous-photo-hoaxes-through-history

Wendy Carlos + Singing in the Rain

I guess I'll start with why Singing in the Rain was used in Clockwork Orange. After filming the rape scene, Kubrick decided that it was too "stiff" and asked Malcolm McDowell to sing a song. Since it had to be decided upon on the spot, McDowell choose "Singing in the Rain" because it was the only song he knew all the words, too (sort of). Kubrick apparently liked the effect it had, as it's used in another scene, as well as over the end credits. Rumor has it that Gene Kelly was upset by this decision.

As for the rest of Clockwork Oranges soundtrack, we turn to Ms. Wendy Carlos. Well of course the main thing about "Walter" Carlos is that she now goes by Wendy Carlos. She had sexual reassignment surgery that she prefers not to discuss. She had not yet received the surgery at the time of Clockwork Orange, so she was credited was "Walter Carols."

She has some very interesting takes on soundtrack music. She has a flair for using previously made tracks as a sort of guide for her own music. She makes it more electronic, as she was one of the pioneers of using the Moog synthesiser.

We heard some of her work in Clockwork Orange, such as the scene in which they use the Beethoven song, which becomes a very interesting catalyst for the story. We probably all recognized it has a Beethoven song, but it was now being played on a synthesizer. This gives it a very interesting sound a feel. Old, but new. Familiar, but yet somehow very unfamiliar.

Playing on an instrument that can at times sound incredibly cheesy, Wendy has mastered her craft.