What Are the Positive and Negative Effects of Camera Surveillance?

The use of video recording has greatly increased since the 1990's.  In forensics, for example, video recording, or camera surveillance, has become a vital part of the evidence in a crime.  In Videotape, Don Delillo describes a girl recording the murder of an average man in his car.  It became "a famous murder because it [was] ... on tape", but the tape has been squandered (Delillo).  Delillo evaluates that "crime ... has found its medium", "the idea of taping and playing", but despite its aid in crime investigation, the media has misused crime footage (Delillo).  

Camera surveillance has decreased crime rates in America since the 1990's.  According to GCN, "In Baltimore, officials installed 500 cameras mostly in a 50-block downtown area, ... and saw crime rates drop steadily" (GCN).  Although video supervision has not helped drop crime rates in all areas, it is true that the "violent crime rates of 2010 were 1/3 the rates of 1994" (WANTTOKNOW.INFO).  In addition, the U.S. Department of Justice statistically presents that violent crime rates have dropped by nearly 60% from 1994 to 2010 (UCR).  Since camera footage is considered hard evidence in an investigation, shouldn't individuals in all areas of the U.S. be compelled to not commit crime?  

Although video recording has helped crime rates drop, it has been misused when shown to the public.  Videotape mentions that "some central authority, the police ... the district attorney or the TV station, decided there was nothing else you had to see" (Delillo).  That is, authorities as well as the media have misapplied this crime evidence that it has become nothing but "cheap mass production, [of] the sequence of repeated images and victims" (Delillo).  Can an overplay or an underplay of video surveillance contribute to the public's disregard for the viewing of crime?  

"Maus" Analysis

Maus Page 55 of III. I 

On page 55 of Book One of Maus, Art Spiegelman illustrates the relief felt by the soldiers, including Vladek, upon seeing their warm and cozy living arrangement.  However, a closer look at the elements of the panels suggest otherwise.  The contradictory facets of the images accentuate the false appearance of safety and the reality of danger during World War II.  

Rather than providing assurance, the aspects of the images foretell the horrors of the future.  The most apparent signal is the stove.  The soldiers see the stove as a positive feature, since it gives warmth to the chilled soldiers, but it is a direct indication of death in the concentration camps' ovens.  Also, the wooden planks in the floor and walls create a likeness to the stripes on prisoner uniforms.  These stripes are surrounding the soldiers.  This implies that their new luxuries and thoughts of asylum are illusions and that they remain prisoners of war and victims of the Nazis.  In addition, Spiegelman's play on the use of black and white highlights the inconsistency between appearance and reality.  This inconsistency specifically connects the color of the bed sheets with the stove.  The color white is a positive omen and the color black is a symbol of death.  The blankets appear white to the soldiers, but later panels depict the blankets as black, emphasizing death's disguise.  In another perspective, these sheets can be considered as fire blankets.  Initially, the blankets are white and free of harm, but these blankets become black with smoke while protecting the men.  This foreshadows that the soldiers are doomed to a horrendous future in the concentration camps, but are temporarily free of harm.  

Why Do People Practice Photography?

In On Photography, Susan Sontag discusses the negative implications of photography.  She states that photography is a "form of mental pollution" that has turned "citizens into image-junkies" (38-39).  Sontag believes that these "image-junkies" need "to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced" (35-38).  However, I disagree with Sontag because, to me, photography is a way of capturing moments that would otherwise be lost or forgotten.  People become "image-junkies" because they need to preserve memories and to develop a hobby, or a method of relaxation (38).  

There are many reasons why people take photos.  Specifically, photography is a practice that expresses emotions.  For example, photographs of family and friends are taken to send to loved ones that are far away.  To these recipients, these photos are candid and gratifying and make them feel closer to home.  In addition, people do photography as a form of relaxation.  Personally, my grandfather is a cancer doctor in India, and he does photography to relieve his stress.  He is primarily a nature photographer, and his photos are absolutely stunning.  Below are three of his photos of a 'Palash' tree, scientifically named Butea monosperma. Its flowers resemble bright orange flames; therefore, this tree is commonly referred as Flame of the Forest.  

Rose-ringed Parakeet 

Rosy Starling Bird 

 Flame of the Forest Flowers

A couple of years ago, my grandfather taught me nature photography.  Below are some of my photos that were taken in America and India.  

Pride of Barbados Flowers- Photographed in India 

Cone Flower- Photographed in America 

Common Grass Yellow (Butterfly) - Photographed in India 

Crayons!!!!!!

Everyone has used crayons at least once in his or her school career.  Crayons are usually used in elementary school because, according to The Bluest Eye, a person's childhood is not complete without  the fundamental "paints and crayons" (Morrison 110).  High schools dislike crayons because they view crayons as "not nice to look at" (Wallace).   To explain, they believe that crayons are a worthless disbursement.  Actually, high schools should invest in crayons for its vast educational capabilities.
Crayons are a great tool to teach chemistry *1.  For instance, teachers can melt a crayon to demonstrate a physical change *2.  In addition, students can do labs with crayons to test the variety of ways crayons can be transformed *3.  Advanced chemistry classes can even mix Paraffin wax, Beeswax, and Stearic acid *4 to learn how to create crayons.

Melted crayons

Crayons are an even greater asset for teaching art classes.  Personally, I had taken a college art course this fall called Color.  The class' purpose is to present how to mix primary colors *5 to produce secondary and tertiary colors *6 and to reveal the difference between cool colors and warm colors *7.  Teaching these skills to students in high school develops their skills in becoming more proficient and more experienced artists *8. 

Color Wheel

Footnotes:

*1- Fun Fact!  Did you know that QueInteresante, a seller on Etsy.com, offers a 120 set of crayons that has its individual chemical formula on the label? 
*2- Use a hair dryer to melt crayons.
*3- Melt crayons into coconut oil to create 'Crayola lipstick'.
*4- The Stearic acid chemical formula is CH₃(CH₂)₁₆COOH.
*5- Primary colors are the three basic colors on the color wheel - they are red, yellow, and blue - that create all other colors.
*6- Secondary colors are the colors made from the primary colors. These are orange, green, and violet.  Mix primary colors and secondary colors that are next to each other on the color wheel to create tertiary colors.  There are six tertiary colors:  red-orange, yellow-orange, yellow-green, blue-green, blue-violet, and red-violet. 
*7- All colors result from mixing only cool colors, only warm colors, or both cool and warm colors.  This concept also applies to the primary colors.  In other words, there is a warm red and a cool red, a warm yellow and a cool yellow, and a warm blue and a cool blue.  Mixing warm red and cool red make primary red, or Crayola red (In the college course that I took, any primary color that results from its warm and cool color mixture is called a Crayola color :) ) , mixing warm yellow and cool yellow create Crayola yellow, and mixing warm blue and cool blue produces Crayola blue.
*8- Fun Fact!  Did you know that Crayola created the word purple, and that purple is not an actual color?  The proper term for the mixture of red and blue is violet.  

How Do People Express Their Love for Each Other with Technology?

There are many similarities and differences between Mrs. Dalloway and "The Hours".  Mrs. Dalloway is the story of Clarissa Dalloway, while "The Hours" intertwines three lives, Virginia Woolf, Laura, and Clarissa.  Both the movie and the novel illustrate one day in their lives.  In addition, Clarissa has different living arrangements in the novel and in the film.  In Mrs. Dalloway, Clarissa is married to Richard, and they live in a mansion.  In "The Hours", Clarissa and Richard are divorced.  Richard - he lives alone, but Clarissa still visits him - is poor and lives in a dangerous-looking apartment building, and Clarissa lives in a flat with her daughter and with Sally Seton.  Clarissa and her daughter get along in the movie, but not in the novel.  Both mediums have a traumatized person commit suicide in the end by jumping out of a window; Septimus dies in the novel and Richard dies in the movie.  However, most importantly, both Mrs. Dalloway and "The Hours" stress Virginia Woolf's theme that time connects everyone's different lives.  

Both the movie and the novel contain the symbol of flowers.  However, the flowers in Mrs. Dalloway are only red and white, whereas there are a variety of flowers in "The Hours", such as purple flowers and yellow and orange flowers.  Nevertheless, the film and the novel both depict the flowers as gifts and as symbols of unspoken love.  

While love can still be expressed through these simple gestures, technology is allowing individuals to use text messages to convey it.  "cellular technology has greatly advanced and ... it is very common to see love being expressed on [text messages]" ("EXPRESS LOVE THROUGH MESSAGES").  In addition, individuals can now send messages called 'love SMS'.  With 'love SMS', a person can send his or her "own words and ... phrases of love taken from a book or a speaker" ("EXPRESS LOVE THROUGH MESSAGES").  

'love SMS' Example

I do not normally like to express my individual opinion, but I must say that 'love SMS' is silly.  Love is best expressed through kindness and simple gifts, such as flowers.  

How Does Time's Orderly Chaos Affect Artists?

"but here the other clock, the clock which always struck two minutes after Big Ben, came shuffling in with its lap full of odds and ends, which it dumped down as if Big Ben were all very well with his majesty laying down the law, so solemn, so just, but she must remember all sorts of little things came flooding and lapping and dancing in on the wake of that solemn stroke which lay flat like a bar of gold on the sea.  Mrs. Marsham, Ellie Henderson, glasses for ices.  She must telephone now at once" (Woolf 128). 

This passage in Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway connects time to the motif of waves.  Big Ben is the grand representation of time.  Its central location in London implies that Big Ben has "majesty" and is the 'king' of time (Woolf 128).  This king is always "laying down the law" (Woolf 128).  Although it appears that Big Ben is "solemn" and coordinates - for example, a particular clock "always struck two minutes after Big Ben" - its kingdom is in chaos (Woolf 128).  Time's orderly chaos is comparable to a wave's.  They both have laps "full of odds and ends" that "came" "shuffling in" and "flooding and lapping and dancing in" chaos (Woolf 128).  However, like a wave, there is a rhythm to this discord, consisting of both sharps and "flat[s]", ups and downs, flows and ebbs (Woolf 128). 

This discord after World War I greatly affected European artists.  Many artists "turned away from prewar experimentalism" and "returned to the classical past, seeking tranquility, order, and enduring values" (artdaily.org). "classicism ... dominated the discourse of contemporary art" (guggenheim.org).  Subsequently, Guggenheim Museum exhibited this confusion in the art world in Chaos and Classicism: Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918–1936.  This installation "traces this interwar trend ... from ... a political, historical idea of a revived Roman Empire ... to the chilling aesthetic of ... Nazi culture" with a vast variety of mediums, including "painting, sculpture, photography, architecture, film, fashion, and the decorative arts" (guggenheim.org).  

Blue Painting by Kandinsky, Exhibited in Chaos and Classicism:  Art in France, Italy, and Germany, 1918-1936 

How is Life Perceived Through Glass?

"He had only to open his eyes; but a weight was on them; a fear.  He strained; he pushed; he looked; he saw Regent's Park before him.  Long streamers of sunlight fawned at his feet.  The trees waved, brandished.  We welcome, the world seems to say; we accept; we create.  Beauty, the world seemed to say.  And as if to prove it (scientifically) wherever he looked at the houses at the railings, at the antelopes stretching over the palings, beauty sprang instantly.  To watch a leaf quivering in the rush of air was an exquisite joy.  Up in the sky swallows swooping, swerving, flinging themselves in and out, round and round, yet always with perfect control as if elastics held them; and the flies rising and falling; and the sun spotting now this leaf, now that, in mockery, dazzling it with soft gold in pure good temper; and now and again some chime (it might be a motor horn) tingling divinely on the grass stocks - all of this, calm and reasonable as it was, made out of ordinary things as it was, was the truth now; beauty, that was the truth now.  Beauty is everywhere" (Woolf 69).  

In this passage of Mrs. Dalloway, Virginia Woolf is illustrating the perception of nature and the seemingly small instances of beauty.  Beauty is found in ordinary exemplars, but only if individuals, such as Septimus, can perceive it through his or her "pane of glass" (Woolf 87).  Dale Chihuly demonstrates this perception through his stunning artwork and installations.  

Dale Chihuly is a glass artist.  To explain, he uses glass as his primary medium in his works because "The process is so wonderfully simple, yet so mystifying" (Chihuly).  Chihuly is inspired by glass, since "Glass itself is so much like water.  If you let it go on its own, it almost ends up looking like something that came from the sea" (Chihuly).  This simile is similar to Woolf's beliefs of water that waves are like the life cycle, beautiful and continuously ebbing and flowing.  

One of Chihuly's famous installations is Artpark Installation.  Artpark Installation, located near Niagara Falls, is an outdoor installation comprising of "handblown sheets of stained glass in simple arrangements" (Chihuly).  Although it is simple, this installation comes to life with "The magic ... in the light" (Chihuly).  In other words, the glass gives "physical expression to light" (Chihuly).  

Artpark Installation 

Artpark Installation 

Artpark Installation's location near Niagara Falls emphasizes the representation of water as the life cycle.  Glass, or perception, influences life.  Perceptions discern beauty individually.  Life is beautiful through a clear glass, but perceived differently through a colored glass affected by "pane" (Woolf 87).  

How do Artists Exhibit the Life Cycle?

In "The Death of a Moth", Virginia Woolf explores the life cycle of a moth, a "simple ... form of ... energy" and "zest" (Woolf 696).  She emphasizes that death is a part of life, but that life itself is more powerful than death.  Also, she illustrates that perspective influences the regard of life and death through the "windowpane" (Woolf 696).  This regard greatly impacts the work of artist Damien Hirst.

Damien Hirst is a non-traditional artist that examines "the deep profundities of life and death" (Damien Hirst).  One of his earlier but "most important" works is "A Thousand Years" (Damien Hirst).  Hirst describes "A Thousand Years" as a "'life cycle in a box'" (Damien Hirst).  It is composed of a "vitrine ... split in half by a glass wall" (Damien Hirst).  On one side of the glass wall, there is "a box reminiscent of a die" that contains "newly hatched flies"; they can fly through small holes in the glass wall to the other side, "where an Insect-O-Cutor hangs" and "a decaying cow's head is presented beneath the fly-killer" (Damien Hirst).  

"A Thousand Years" by Damien Hirst 

It is elemental for Hirst to create "'bookends'", or "pairs and duplicates", in his sculptures (Damien Hirst).  In "A Thousand Years", Hirst develops the pair of life, the side of the sculpture with the "newly hatched flies", and death, the side with the "decaying cow's head" and the "Insect-O-Cutor" (Damien Hirst).  He does this in order to present life and death as not unique, yet "'independent of the other, but they live together'" (Damien Hirst).  Also, the glass wall is like the "windowpane" in "The Death of a Moth", since they both allow reflection on "The possibilities of pleasure" in life as well as the "hard fate" of death (Woolf 696).

How Is Music Incorporated Into Installations?

In "Because My Father Always Said He Was The Only Indian Who Saw Jimi Hendrix Play 'The Star-Spangled Banner' At Woodstock", Sherman Alexie uses music as a motif to demonstrate that it is a "powerful medicine" that has both "form and function" (28-29).  Music is a compelling art medium that can mend "broken hearts" and can inspire others (30).  Recently, artists began to incorporate music into mesmerizing installations, in particular Janet Cardiff's The Forty Part Motet.  

In the fall of 2013, the Metropolitan Museum of Art (MOMA) exhibited The Forty Part Motet as its first sound installation.  According to ARTNews, The Forty Part Motet is a "14-minute work [that] ... continuously [plays] a composition by 16th-century Tudor composer Thomas Tallis with individual voices coming from each of 40 loudspeakers" (Pollack).  In his composition, Tallis wrote lines for each of these 40 voices, or singers.  Hence, individuals can listen to a single singer, several singers in unison, or the harmony of all of the singers.  The most effective component of this installation is that there is a pause at the end of "each 'performance', during which you can hear the sounds of the people around you" (Schaefer).  This pause allows the audience to comprehend how each individual voice conduces to a captivating "choral effect" (Pollack).  

The Forty Part Motet 
Fuentidueña Chapel, MOMA 

How Do Impaired Artists Positively Illustrate Aspects of Disabled Life?

In "Disability", Nancy Mairs reveals that the media denies "the existence of [her] ... kind absolutely" (14).  Although it is true that "disability ... may enter anybody's life" at any time, I researched and discovered that there are impaired artists that positively illustrate aspects of disabled life, in particular the blind photographer Bruce Hall (14). 
Curator Douglas McCulloh explains Bruce Hall's purpose for practicing photography with an antimetabole:  "Most photographers see in order to photograph.  Bruce Hall photographs in order to see" (McCulloh 34).  Bruce Hall, born with multiple, serious eye conditions, loves photography and "has constructed his world from photographs" (McCulloh 34) because it enables him to have "a strange form of double vision" that he calls "'intensified seeing'" (McCulloh 34).  This double vision comprises his mental impression of his subject and the actual photographic result of it.  Hall's photographs are mainly glances into the underwater and the "autistic worlds", because he believes that "One can visit, gather glimpses and impressions [of these worlds], but it is impossible to truly inhabit either space" (McCulloh 34).  Two of his photographs that intrigued me are Silhouette, an underwater photograph, and Aberration.  Silhouette, an underwater photograph, depicts the serenity found in the subsurface world, and Aberration is a perception into the visualization of autistic children of water droplets.  

Silhouette 

Aberration

A Diary Entry by Ruth

Dear Diary,
I'm so glad we moved into our new house!  There were so many problems with that old "rat trap" (44) of a house.  For one, we've put in "enough rent ... to pay for four houses by now" (44).  Also, I couldn't stand those "cracking walls" (93) and the armies of cockroaches "marching ... like Napoleon" (55).  But besides the house's problems, there were many disputes among the family there, mainly revolving around Mama's check of ten thousand dollars.  Bennie, Travis, and I knew "that ain't none of our money" (34), but Walter wouldn't understand.  Walter strongly believed that, with his partners Bobo and Willy Harris, he could invest into a "little liquor store" (33) and obtain money for the family.  I realize and appreciate that he just wanted to provide a better life for his family, especially for Travis - Walter felt ashamed that his own son "sleeps in the living room" (34) and all Walter "got to give him is stories about how rich white people live" (34) - but there is bound to be trouble when working with Willy Harris, who is a dishonest, "good-for-nothing loudmouth" (32), and I think Walter learned his lesson about working with people like him.  Despite losing all of the money that Mama entrusted him, I am so glad that, when faced with the Clybourne Park Improvement Association, he decided for us to still "move into our house" (148), affirming that his father "earned it for us brick by brick" (148).  Mama and the rest of our family is proud of Walter, and Mama and I decided that he had "finally come into his manhood ... like a rainbow after the rain" (151). 

Walter had "finally come into his manhood ... like a rainbow after the rain" (151). 

I'll write to you later, Diary.  Mama is calling me.  I think she is going to start planting her garden today. 
                                                             Love,
                                                                 Ruth

Fitzgerald and Princesses

Throughout "The Diamond as Big as the Ritz", F. S. Fitzgerald conveys that immorality is caused by self-interest.  Although it is possible to manifest this theme by writing with in-depth rhetoric, it would not be as meaningful as by portraying it through stories, such as fairy tales that, today, everyone is familiar with. 
Fitzgerald's theme is found most prevalent in Disney princess movies.  Once upon a time, Snow White is given a poisoned apple because the Queen wanted to be "the fairest one of all".  The Evil Stepmother locked Cinderella in her room so Cinderella could not marry Prince Charming; the Evil Stepmother wanted to continue to own her, like the stepfather of Moses wanted to continue to own his Hebrew slaves.  Maleficent casts a curse on Aurora as revenge on King Stefan for not inviting her to a celebration for Aurora.  Ursula transforms Ariel into a human for three days, a request as absurd as wanting to witness pink elephants, as part of her evil scheme to become the ruler of the sea.  Mother Gothel kidnaps Rapunzel and channels the magic in Rapunzel's hair to herself continuously in order to look young for eternity.  Mother Gothel's selfishness is evident in the special song that activates Rapunzel's magic hair:  

Flower Gleam and Glow
Let your power shine
Make the clock reverse
Bring Back what once was mine
Heal what has been hurt
Change the Fates' design
Save what has been lost
Bring back what once was mine
What once was mine 

 

What is It to Be Successful in America?

Success is steadfastly defined as the accomplishment of an aim or purpose, but in The Great Gatsby, Fitzgerald compares the beliefs of characters Jay Gatsby and Nick in order to explicate how the definition of success is distinct to different people in America.  
In the 1920s, the American Dream was characterized as the achievement of success through wealth, and Jay Gatsby is a prime example of an American Dream, rags-to-riches success story.  Gatsby grew up poor, as his "parents were shiftless and unsuccessful farm people" (98), and, as a young adult, Gatsby found work as "a clam-digger and a salmon-fisher" (98) "along the south shore of Lake Superior" (98).  Later, Gatsby, with Meyer Wolfsheim's help, "bought up a lot of side-street drug-stores here and in Chicago" (133), and he became a bootlegger, making Gatsby immensely wealthy.  This was important to Gatsby, since he strongly believes that a person can "repeat the past" (110) and change it to the way he or she wants it to be. 
Unlike Gatsby, Nick believes that success is achieved through "at least one of the cardinal virtues" (59).  Nick personally believes that his is honesty, stating that he is "one of the few honest people" (59) that he knows.  Not everyone can obtain wealth comparable to Gatsby's, except by being dishonest.  Therefore, it is better and more acquirable to be morally successful than having success through wealth. 

How Did Women Fashion and Attitudes Change During the 1920s?

After researching on the 1920s as well as cultural details for homework, I learned that, according to our McDougal Littell Literature textbook, women, specifically flappers, "embraced new fashions and the urban attitudes" (825).  Thus, I wanted to research more on the different women fashions and "urban attitudes" of the 1920s.  
Women fashion changed dramatically with "the passing of bustles and corsets" (1920-30.com).  As a result, fashion designers were able to create more aesthetically pleasing and meaningful clothes for the young generation.  For example, dresses became more colorful, fabrics became lighter, and dresses became shorter.  By making clothes more colorful, designers "echoed the joy felt by a war weary population following the end of hostilities" (1920-30.com).  Designers used "less material and new synthetic fabrics" (1920-30.com) to make fabrics lighter.  Dresses became shorter because American women wanted to dress like the flappers, "the trendy young women" (1920-30.com).   

Women Fashion of the 1920s

 Although women fashions were very vibrant, their brilliance can only be observed in illustrations, as photographs were black-and-white then.  

Black-and-White Photograph of Women Fashion

In addition to the emerging distinct fashion trends, women started having new "urban attitudes".  Women wanted to be like the trendy flappers, and as a result of the major cultural change of the Roaring Twenties, it was more acceptable for women to be smoking and to be drinking outside of the house. 

A Synthesis on the Value of Punctuation and Its Impact on Technology

Communication, including punctuation, evolves as a result of societal and technological progression, and although society is examining its value in everyday usage, social media needs punctuation in order for messages to not lose their clarity and coherence.  
Punctuation is vital when using technology to express thoughts and to create conciseness.  According to Henry Hitchings, "Digital communication and social media have produced new opportunities" (Source A) to do these.  This ranges from memes to Twitter.  In memes, it is important to convey a funny and/or purposeful message in a few words, and a helpful way to assert a message is to apply punctuation.  

Meme

As the above meme demonstrates, different uses of punctuation create different meanings to a sentence.  The commas in the first sentence define a woman without a man, while the semicolon in the second sentence - the semicolon is portrayed as "a particularly intelligent ... friend" (Source E) that can be depended on "for easing ... through a complex thought" (Source E) - defines a man without a woman.  This illustrates the importance of establishing clarity while writing because, without it, the message can be confusing or not necessarily convey the meaning wanted.  In addition, without punctuation, language itself becomes chaotic.  In Twitter, "Tight character limits force users to ... 'Omit needless words'" (Source A).  "tweets must be 140 characters or less" (Source F), so there is "very little room for adjectives" (Source F).  As a result, people change their writing style to become "obscure" (Source F) while tweeting:  they do not use punctuation and diction becomes unspecific.  Eventually, this negatively impacts a person's writing by also making it unclear and not concise.  

How do Modern African American Artists Convey Their Thoughts on Racism?

After analyzing the painting Officer of the Hussars, by Kehinde Wiley, I was interested in finding out his artistic purpose.  I learned that he "engages the ... visual rhetoric of the heroic, powerful, majestic and the sublime in his representation of urban, black and brown men found throughout the world" (Kehinde Wiley).  Kehinde's enthralling paintings made me wonder how other modern African American artists convey their thoughts on racism.  After some research, I found out that Glenn Ligon, a conceptual artist, explores the impact of language and gender on racism.  
Glenn Ligon has created many famous works, such as We're Black and We're Strong.  

We're Black and We're Strong by Glenn Ligon

Ligon has had many art exhibitions.  One of his more momentous exhibitions was "America", at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York.  "America" explores "American history, literature, and society across a body of work that builds critically on the legacies of modern painting and more recent conceptual art" (Whitney).  An interesting piece there is Sun (Version 2) #1.  

Sun (Version 2) #1 by Glenn Ligon

In this, Ligon uses multiple colors, predominantly black, in order to scorn the racism that was taught to children.  The school that is colored black signifies the segregation of schools, where white children were taught in white schools and colored children were taught in colored schools.  The people in the lower left corner are scribbled over with black, indicating that children were taught that colored people were not accepted by society.  The word "shades" in the upper left corner is blackened to suggest that all colored races were treated like how blacks were.  Also, by adding (Version 2) to the title, Ligon conveys that there were "two suns", one for whites and one for colored people. 

How Can Eye Color Be Changed Both Temporarily and Permanently?

In The Bluest Eye, Pecola dreamed and "prayed for blue eyes" (Morrison 46), believing that "if her eyes ... were different, that is to say, beautiful, she herself would be different" (Morrison 46) and "maybe Cholly would be different, and Mrs. Breedlove too ... say ... 'We mustn't do bad things'" (Morrison 46).  Although it is impossible to genetically change eye color, people are able to modify their eye color both temporarily and (soon) permanently through advances in technology. 
A common method of temporarily adjusting eye color is with colored contacts.  Colored contacts have a diverse set of hues to choose from, ranging from blue and green to purple and gold.  They are convenient to use, since they are becoming cheaper and can come in prescription.  Also, they last for a long time, as long as they are taken care of properly.  

Colored contacts

A technique that is being developed to permanently change eye color is called the Strōma procedure.  The Strōma procedure is a process that, with a gentle, low-energy laser, alters eye color from brown to blue.  Researchers assert that everyone has blue eyes, but brown eyes are a result of a thin brown pigment layer on the surface of the iris.  The Strōma procedure removes this brown pigment, exposing a person's natural blue eyes.  Eyes that have gone through this procedure are indistinguishable from genetically natural blue eyes, and it is so effective that, afterwards, the brown pigment cells do not regenerate.  There is no set date of release for the procedure since it is still being tested, but it is expected that the general public will be allowed to use it in fall 2015. 

How are Feminist Ideas Simulated in Art?

According to Emily Prager in "Our Barbies, Ourselves", Barbie dolls were created by Jack Ryan as an indirect tool used by men to combat feminism in the 1960s.  However, I feel that it would be very extreme to combat feminism through children's toys.  Nevertheless, I wanted to research how feminist ideas are portrayed through art.  

I discovered that the messages on feminism are portrayed the most successfully through installations.  Judy Chicago shows this in The Dinner Party.  It is a part of the Center for Feminist Art in the Brooklyn Museum.  

The Dinner Party by Judy Chicago

The Dinner Party is composed of a banquet table in the shape of a triangle - triangles symbolize equality - with thirty-nine place settings.  Each place setting is for a notable woman from history and mythology, such as Sophia, Saint Bridget, Sojourner Truth, and Virginia Woolf.  In addition, the names of 999 prominent women are painted on the tiles below the table, such as Abigail Adams, Eudoxia, Enheduanna, and Mary Shelley.  With this installation, Judy aimed to participate in the "feminist revision of history", an undertaking where feminists strived to rediscover women icons forgotten due to the conspicuity of male icons throughout history. 

How is a Building's Significance Expressed to Different Groups?

Earlier this week, we talked about the article "So What?  Who Cares?", which examines the importance of addressing the questions "Who is the target audience in this essay?" and "Why is this essay important?".  During the discussion, I realized that these questions apply to more specialties than writing, such as architecture.  There are many architectural feats around the world that answer both of these questions, in particular the Bata Shoe Museum in Toronto. 

Bata Shoe Museum, Toronto

The Bata Shoe Museum is both visually appealing and answers both of the questions, "Who Cares?" and "So What?".  Architect Raymond Moriyama uniquely designed the building to represent the museum's purpose of showcasing shoes from history and different cultures - the museum is constructed to look like a shoebox.  Because of its purpose, the museum has a huge audience that includes tourists, shoe fanatics, and architects, and its importance and impact ranges for different sectors of its audience.  Tourists come to the museum for its unique exhibits and its stature as a distinguished attraction in Toronto.  They leave the museum with new and uncommon knowledge about shoes.  Going to the Bata Shoe Museum is probably on a shoe fanatic's bucket list because it contains a diversity of shoes.  They are impacted the same way as tourists:  they receive remarkable information about a distinctive field.  Although the information that can be acquired at the Bata Shoe Museum is important, architects value the building's outward appearance and functionality more because they are important factors to the museum's success.  Architects are also impacted differently since they are primarily searching for inspiration for their own designs. 

How Does Setting Affect Artwork?

Early in the week, during the class seminar of The Scarlet Letter, a question came up concerning the effects of the settings, the forest, in chapters 17 to 19, and the meeting house, in chapters 20 to 22.  I believe that the forest helped represent the dark and secretive situation that Hester and Dimmesdale were in.  Also, I regard the meeting house as a gathering place for strict, law-abiding residents.  Moreover, I think that setting has a profound effect on artwork because it helps create mood.
Different art periods throughout history have different ways of expressing itself, therefore composing different moods.  For instance, artwork from the Romanticist period aesthetically glorified abstract concepts, such as survival, hope, and despair, and was based on strong emotions rather than exact truth.  An example of a Romantic artwork is The Fighting Temeraire, by Joseph Mallord William Turner.  This painting creates a tranquil mood by having a peaceful setting. 

The Fighting Temeraire by Joseph Mallord William Turner 

In addition, the Expressionist period expresses the emotional responses from an object or event by using color aesthetics.  A well-known example is The Scream, by Edvard Munch.  By using intense colors in the setting, the painting establishes moods of chaos, disorder, and alarm. 

The Scream by Edvard Munch