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Blog Post 6

For my location I chose to take my pictures in the square in San Marcos. I do not live on campus, I commute from San Antonio. It is very rare that I am ever in San Marcos for anything other than class. This year has been quite difficult at school, as I haven’t really had the “college experience”. I haven’t felt connected to the people, the school, or any of it, and have felt very lost with where I am. Over spring break me and my friends from San Antonio decided to visit Sewell Park and the Square. Visiting San Marcos with some of the most important people to me finally helped me feel a sense of belonging, and see a future where I live close to campus. My pictures created more of a personal narrative for myself. These signs looked incredibly different from how signs look in my hometown. The signs in the square have so much character, they are all so individualized. With how creative and unique they are, it felt very welcoming. The signs helped me see a narrative to try out something new, and maybe take is a sign to accept change.       

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Blog Post 5

Part one: the four square exercise

Part two: Artwork Analysis

A “Woman with a Parasol” by Claude Monet is an oil painting created in 1875 during the impressionist movement. The painting is of his wife Camille-Léonie and their first son Jean Monet. The two figures are seen standing in a green lush flower field. The upper two-thirds of the background are taken up by a bright blue sky and clouds. Monet's intent with this painting was to capture a beautiful family scene, as well as the gorgeous landscape. Monet uses a triangular structural composition to help create perspective, and brush strokes to create movement. It looks like monet painted this from a low vantage point looking up at his wife creating a beautiful sight, almost like a paused moment in time. By using a triangular composition it draws the focal point to Camille’s face. Through simplified detail, and energetic brush strokes he was able to capture this fleeting moment, making it spontaneous and real. Movement plays a very powerful role in making this painting so stunning. The scenery comes to life. You can tell it’s a beautiful, windy, sunny day by the flowyness of her dress, flowers blowing in the wind, and the direction of the clouds. He was able to capture this movement by using sporadic dashes and brush strokes. Claude Monet’s “Woman with a Parasol” is one of my all time favorite paintings. The scene is so wonderfully captured I truthfully feel like I'm seeing the moment with my own eyes. 

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Blog Post 3

Thom Andersen’s essay film, “Eadweard Muybridge, Zoopraxographer” explores the relationship between still and moving images showing the revolutionary contributions to visual culture. Muybridge's work captures the essence of motion through a series of photographs, challenging conventional notions of photography. It shows the vitality that can be created through still images. Reshaping our visual insight as a form of artistic expression. The film underlines the importance of the archive of images as an evolving art. 

Andersens film presents Muybridge’s work and studies as a work of art, as well as appreciating the science behind it. The film allows us to reflect on the boundaries between science and art. The viewer is able to recognize the advances in technology through Muybridge's exploration of motion. Illustrating our understanding of movement, and the interaction between perception and narrative. Andersen created a film that invites people to appreciate the history of visual culture and its relationship to science and art. It improves understanding of the possibility of images, encouraging the exploration and potential of photography.

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Blog Post 2

In Susan Sontags “In Plato's Cave” she discusses the relationship between photography and truth by using the analogy of Plato’s Cave to explain how photographs are representations of a truth, but will never and can never be the full truth. Sontag explains how photographs blur the distinction between the real thing, and are an altered representation of the truth. Society takes countless images to create a copy of the world, a world that doesn’t represent reality. She suggests that often media desensitizes the viewer, leading to surface level engagement, and lacking understanding.   

We can relate this to modern times because due to the use of social media it has blurred reality, altered our concepts of experiences, and overall our perception of the world. Said by Susan Sontag herself, “needing to have reality confirmed and experience enhanced by photographs is an aesthetic consumerism to which everyone is now addicted. Industrial societies turn their citizens into image junkies; it is the most irresistible form of mental pollution.” People are so obsessed with capturing the moment they forget to actually live in it. There’s such a strong dependency on a camera, with having such easy access to one through our phones, it causes more pressure to capture and “certify” an experience. Especially when it comes to posting on instagram, people find the need to prove something by sharing their lives for the whole world to see. “To collect photographs is to collect the world.”

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Blog Post 1

In Adam Curtis’s Documentary, “Hypernormalisation” he skillfully pieces together videos, and clips of history to create an oversimplified narrative. His use of archival footage shapes a unique view on how humans retreat from a complex reality. The way these videos are constructed together give insight to all the different perspectives on how we as a society have evolved over time into the current world we live in, along with ideas and systems created along the way. Curtis shows the connection of political, economic, and social patterns, revealing the loop of events. The expeditious cuts between clips give the viewer a sense of confusion, a daze that mirrors the complexity of the reality we live in. When Curtis presents the viewer with authentic experiences depicting a “normal” world, contrasted with distorted insight he creates an indistinguishable reality for the viewer. 

Adam Curtis’s use of diverse footage sources helps convey the complex variety of societal narratives while illustrating their connection through time. The film is very thought provoking and gives insight on the connection from past historical events and modern day life. The video clips are edited in a way that recognizes individual themes as well as finding connections within different or contrasting ideas.

I thought the film was very different and unique from any documentary I have ever seen before. The film itself in a way made me feel very simple, and made me reflect on the political and economic world I tend to avoid. Overall I truthfully found myself confused at times some themes felt a bit too complex for me to understand. I did find the use of archival footage very interesting and unique. The compilation of found diverse archived footage, from various sources, put together to tell the same story was very genius. It provided different perspectives and insights highlighting the importance of keeping history, it sends a message and I think that is such a big part of what art is.