Multi Media

Gloria Gaynor-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3dqtraNmVgA&feature=related
Shiny Toy Guns-http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeczOVOuAK0

Assignment 21

This question reminds me of a movie I saw a few years a go called Trading Places. The movie stars Dan Aykroyd and Eddy Murphy. In the beginning of the movie, Aykroyd is a wealthy investment banker who has everything he wants and has no financial worries at all. Murphy starts off as a petty thief who is trying to get by day by day. The wealthy investors who own the bank that Aykroyd works at end up deciding to switch the two’s rolls after Murphy runs into the firm trying to steel something. Eventually, Aykroyd is thrown into the life of a street criminal and Murphy is given everything he ever wanted. They learn to adapt to each other’s life style and eventually end up switching back. I thought this story was interesting mainly because of the idea of people switching classes in an instant. The adaptation within the film shows the willingness of the lower class to try to rise given any opportunity possible, while the upper class have a much harder time reverting to the lower class. Also, the different types of knowledge it takes to succeed in either class is shown. The investment banker is a well educated and “cultured” individual and is very book smart where the petty thief is less book smart and more street smart. This can show the effects of the environment that one lives in as a child, being either privileged or not and being forced to learn either aspect of society.

Stereotype Video Link

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zack464/6423875767/in/set-72157628202506139/

Assignment 18

The commentary she is trying to provide about blue collar workers in America is that they are trapped in the middle class. Besides the fact that they can potentially fall lower in the social classes, most cannot rise to higher ranks within any field of work so they remain in the same social class as they were born into. I thought the piece was interesting in the fact that I have thought about this idea before and I enjoy reading other's ideas on it. I believe that unless something abnormal happens most are stuck in their class position with no chance of escape. Ethically this provides a constant strong workforce for the upper class to use, which in the long run creates faster progression and a generally modern civilized society. Although that may be true, it is unfair to the middle and lower class that they can be promised a chance to progress and not be able to.

Assignment #14

This article was probably the most interesting one we have read so far. The connections that were made in the article were not only surprisingly true, but were very eye opening, mainly because in my high school all three classes existed and so did all of the methods of teaching. For the most part in my experience, the social class was less of a factor, but students without realizing it would fall into the specific social groups based on their class. The kids from lower class families tended to not care as much about their education and they usually ended up in the lower standard of classes. Kids with middle class and some with upper class parents would end up in the normal and regular classes that were explained in the book. Those classes would involve some reasoning and other skills but were still highly regulated. And on the high end of the scale, most of the wealthier kids and some of the middle class kids were thrown into accelerated classes where critical thinking was involved as well as in depth study and research on close to every single topic. I believe that without realizing it, the students fell into their prospective groups unintentionally and stuck there from a young age. The school district then realized which students belonged where and began to organize us into social classes by class rank. As far as the given sentence was concerned, I believe that z is trying to say that through education, the political and economic structure in this country is being preserved by the level of education in each social class. In other words, the system is somewhat working to keep the rich families in control of the major corporations and of the wealth and managerial positions where at the same time it is working to keep the middle and lower class in the factories and in other positions doing the ‘grunt’ work for the higher classes. I believe that the points made in this article are very true. I believe I can say that I have seen these results first hand and until now I would have never realized it.

memoir

http://www.flickr.com/photos/zack464/sets/72157627981089206/

Blog #13

Rose's identity was effected heavily by his education. The diverse cultures that surrounded him were good building blocks for his development as well as realistic examples of how the world works. For example, the teacher asking him what kind of name 'Rose' is and then calling him a 'wop' or the sixteen year old drug dealer and pimp. There were also the different social and societal classes such as the black rappers and the surfer kids. In the end it all came down to the fact that they were shoved into this school and because of his ability to blend with several of the social circles he was able to develop a self identity that was formed by all of his peers. The 'cues' that he brings up are directly related to the events in his life that change him. Through these 'cues' he is molded and formed into his final self and the way that these events change him are ways that his self perception is molded.

Assignment 9

Eyes,

Growing up, my eyes always seemed to be the focal point of my appearance. My parents would always take pride in the deep blue color which has since faded, but the old color of them contributed greatly to my childhood and what people though of me.

Brains, 

I was always a straight A student. In grade school I would never get rewards like my friends would for good grades, but I also never worked for them. In middle school though that stopped. I became careless and I stopped doing homework because I believed I had better things to do. I believe in doing so I lost out on a lot of things that I would know and that I want to know. Although I am finding that high school taught me a valuable lesson, being I should do my homework or i’ll fail.

Personality,

My father raised me to be friendly and helpful whenever possible. He always valued friends and would put them before everything but family. He taught me to never leave anyone in a bad situation when you have the ability to help and to do as much for my fellow man as I possibly could. He would always demonstrate this by helping the neighbors with their cars (he was a mechanic) or cutting the grass when they were out of town or helping with other various tasks and chores. Through his demonstrations I really got a first hand look on everyone’s reactions to his kindness because he would always drag me along and I loved the happiness that his help brought people. Everyone seemed to appreciate the things he would do and I always appreciated that. Today I try to do the same thing. I try to be as helpful as possible to my friends and family because I believe it’s right and I think it never hurts to be nice.

Assignment 8

Early in the morning we climbed into the the stale cold minivan and said goodbye to our house. We hit the road and were off to a new place, somewhere I had never been. As we swerve through the empty dark streets of the bitter morning, the street lights illuminating the road and the dark surrounding the road, the fascination of the world around me kept me awake, even though i was close to falling asleep in the very back of the van. The seat was uncomfortable to say the least. Stacks upon stacks of bags were piled up next to me and they looked like they were ready to topple onto me and crush me at any moment. The back door looked like it was struggling to hold the load as we barreled down the highway, my dad excessively speeding as always. Although we were flying down the highway, cars were still passing us as if we were standing still. Sports cars with men in business suits on their way to an important meeting, too busy to worry about speed limits or laws. Too important to take their time to get to work safely, but not too important to risk getting into a fatal crash. Finally when we reached our destination, there was an erie feeling about the place. The florescent lights illuminated the entirety of the structure as several cars circled in front. Looking out the window past the dark and menacing fence I could see several steel structures sitting on the concrete, waiting to move but still in hibernation. The place seemed to be infested with people as everything on the other side was moving. The ground seemingly unsettled and anxious to complete the day’s activities. We finally parked a few minutes later and started to unload the car. Our bags were put onto carts then wheeled off by some random employee and were gone. Our carry on bags were heavy first thing in the morning. We ventured out of the cold and into the warmth of the inside of the sprawling complex. People were starting to form lines in front of the information desks, trying to receive their tickets, check their bags and pay for a new ticket out of town. We were almost gone. We were headed on a brand new adventure to California and the plane left in just a few hours. 

Assignment #6

This project was kind of interesting to me. Although I changed my idea, it still had meaning to me. I decided to do the idea of music’s effect on a society mainly because I had more of a connection to the idea. Without changing I think i would have enjoyed the project much less, but in doing an idea that I actually could connect with and I could use photography to show with better results. The obstacles that I stumbled across were simply time and interest (or lack of). With my work schedule and with the way my classes are arranged, I would not have been able to execute my original idea of the separation of classes in modern society. I simply didn’t have time to wander the streets and try to find pictures of homeless people or some specific scenes that I would have needed. So instead of that, I decided to use my surroundings to my advantage. At work, I pulled out my camera and decided to snap photos of my work. I had an all access pass to the world of a professional concert event. Also in taking photos of a show from a few perspectives, and I ended up being far more interested in this project. If I had to do this project again, I probably would have chosen a more interesting subject right off the bat. I think in the end that would have helped this project develop a bit smoother. I think the function that this serves to me is just that of enjoyment. I wanted it to show the workings of an event that makes people happy and provides people with the ability to escape into another world for a while and for me it did/does. For the audience I want this project to show what goes into this art form. I want people to see this and think ‘I love concerts’ and think back to a memory of a show they went to. 

Visual Rhetoric Project

Slideshow:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zack464/sets/72157627762175664/show/

Stream:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/zack464/sets/72157627762091892/

Assignment 5

I plan to explore the idea of social classes in the city. I have chosen this because it is a very interesting and very obvious subject to me. The separation of classes in very prevalent in todays society and in this city. The exact argument i intend to make is that people tend to stick to their own lifestyle and even though they may try to help at times, usually they just ignore the fact that there is someone suffering right next to them and they will do nothing about it. I do not intend to use captions because i want the pictures to speak for themselves. I plan to encounter people not wanting their picture taken or the pictures I need to be very hard to find. But through enough patience and given enough time i'm sure I will be able to find what I need.

Assignment #3

Although I completely forgot to write down the name of the piece, the three frames on the wall directly across from the animalistic photos really stuck in my mind. They consisted of 3 over saturated colors in the shape of a square. The photo was impossible   to make out but the way the image worked was interesting. The way the color seemed to fade back into space and the forced perspective using color shades only caught my attention and for some reason made me associate times in my life with the specific color. For example the blue made me think of my time over by the ocean and the yellow made me remember the time I saw the sun through a telescope (we had a special filter over the top so we didn’t go blind). I think that was the point of the whole project. I believe that the artist was trying to make the individual feel like the art was supposed to make them feel as if they were being brought back into their past and suck them into a memory of good times or bad times. The whole thing was really based on each individual’s interpretation of the color. All in all I thought the photo really stuck out and jumped off the wall into my mind. It really sucked me in which I believe is the main goal and success of any good art. Because the piece accomplished this I think that every aesthetic value that I look for was present (such as color, shape and depth). The piece was great to look at and really made me think which is also what I feel was the intent of the photographer and they were very successful in doing so. It’s an amazing demonstration of great artwork and I would enjoy seeing it every day.

Assignment 2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnUKurl7Fog&NR=1
The link above is a coke commercial that uses characters from The Simpsons (ethos) to sell the product. Obviously the sender of the message is Coca-cola and they are sending the message to consumers of coke and fans of the tv show, but the way that they do it is somewhat interesting to me. They took a well known character who is normally greedy and generally stuck up and used him in a way that connected him to the the hard times in this country (pathos) by taking away everything and showing him to be seemingly depressed. But later on he is given a coke and it brightens his day. The way that was done makes you think that coke can bring happiness to a dark day and make one relax and feel better (pathos and logos). And thanks to this commercial I have the desire to sit and watch The Simpsons while drinking a coke. I guess the commercial worked.