el-oui-blog
el-oui-blog
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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6/4/17 - #8
Since I was not in class this week and could not partake in the discussion about the cyborg manifesto, I have decided to revisit one of the topics from last week: uncanniness. In film, this translates to traits so similar between certain things that the brain visualizes it as identical, but in the back of your mind you know something is off. Something is so close to being human or normal, it freaks us out because we know it is not. For example, in The Metropolis, this is seen with Maria’s robot counterpart. She is physically identical to the Saint Maria (she is the exact same actress, after all) but you can see in her eyes and body movements that the robot Maria is not the real one. Freder figures this out during the robot’s speech to the workers, because while the robot was physically the same, he knew from her words it was not the original Maria. Another example would be in movies like Polar Express or the animated version of Beowulf, in which CGI characters are made to be as humanistic as possible. These movies have realistic-looking people in them, and are made to move around the screen as humanly as they can. But we can see, so matter how hard we try, there is just something off. Last year in my high school AP Literature class, we read Beowulf and watched a few movies corresponding to it, including the CGI version. I have to say I was thoroughly creeped out, because the technology did look real and tricked me at first glance, but the way bodies and hair moved and looked, just was not right and was unsettling. We decided as a class not to finish that movie after two watching sessions.
However, CGI characters in live action movies are much more difficult to spot and see has unnatural. This past year, the film Rogue One was introduced into the Star Wars anthology. It followed a backstory behind something introduced in the first Star Wars movie, released in 1977. So, the older actors and actresses that were in that 1977 film were either not alive or too old to act in this new story, so they used CGI characters to revive a younger version of Princess Leia (the late Carrie Fisher) and General Tarkin (aka Peter Cushing, who passed in 1994). You could not tell these people were not human if you had no background in watching these movies, as they blended in almost seamlessly to the humans alongside them in the films. Fisher at the time (before she died) was 60 at the time of Rogue One, while in 1977 she was 21 when that original film came out. These CGI characters preserved the originality of the cast and made it almost as if there was no time passed between the two movies. 
The word “uncanniness” comes from the German word “unheimlich,” which translates to “un-housing.” One is displacing something “normal” or from the home, removing it completely, and then bringing it back. Once it is brought back from this time of being away, it is not the same, and so the brain sees it as wrong. This is why we find the Chuckie doll to be so terrifying.
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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5/27/17 - #7
Last week we had to watch the movie Metropolis, which contained many references to various technologies, social injustices and metaphors for such, and historical/biblical terms and stories. What intrigued me the most was what I interpreted as a representation of the Seven Deadly Sins within the cast itself. The plot includes a vision of Freder's being of bodies coming alive, each corresponding to Death and each of the seven sins. After an analyzation of each characters personality and motivators, I concluded that Freder is Lust, Robot Maria is Wrath, Rotwang is Envy, Fredersen is Greed, Georgy is Gluttony, Josaphat is Sloth, and Grot is Pride. Freder lusts after the good saint Maria, the artificial Maria plants wrath in the workers and enacts rage against the luxury of the upper class, and Rotwang is blinded by his envy of Fredersen and his affair with Hel. Fredersen is greedy and ambitious, abusing the labor of his workers to fuel his gilded city, Georgy gorges himself on the luxuries of the city with Freder's money, Josaphat always reveals news and works his duties lazily and behind schedule, and Grot's pride in the Heart Machine almost kills him when trying to protect it against the horde of workers. As I dug deeper into this analysis, I read up on the meaning behind what makes a capital vice a "deadly sin," and it is because it affects the head. Each sin has to almost directly affect the person's happiness, sourcing from the "roots" (principle sins) in the head. Each character complimenting a sin is part of the head, while the workers underground amount to the hands. The common factor connecting this all in a relatively positive way is the Saint Maria. "The mediator between the head and the hands is the heart." https://www.calvin.edu/academic/philosophy/virtual_library/articles/deyoung_rebecca_k/7deadlysins.pdf
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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5/21/14 - #6
This past week we touched on the discussion of the relativity of diseases and their complementary disabilities, or lack thereof. Biomedicalization in layman’s terms is the “creation” of a disease. To be “biomedicalized” is to cure or fix a disease, even if it was not particularly a problem before. A case of this would be from a reading earlier this term, when a boy with a club foot used it to his advantage, until he was told it needed to be altered and “fixed” to make him normal. He lost this ability that made his life easier, all because this deformity was deemed as a hazard to his health, contrary to his own belief. In current times, I connect this story and term of “biomedicalization” to my own experience with mental illness. A very good friend of mine was diagnosed with serious depression and insomnia. She was given pills to help cope with her anxiety attacks and keep her calm during situations of high stress. Within days, she told me she refused to take the medicine anymore. Of course I protested, because why would she give up on something that could possibly help her? She explained to me that she could handle the episodes and bouts of depression in her own ways, and that the medication was prescribed at her parents’ wishes because they believed it would make the symptoms subside altogether. As she took the pills every morning, by afternoon they would cause her to be a subdued, foggy version of herself. The medicine made her into someone that was not her, and that is not what she wanted. This biomedicalization of her mental illnesses turned her into a walking zombie. I myself have the option of taking medication for the symptoms of a thyroid condition, which causes my hormones to be out of wack and contributes to imbalances of chemicals connecting to mental illnesses. However, from my experience with others who have taken these medicines (not just my good friend), I have opted to not take anything in order to not jeopardize my own mind. While I may have trouble coping sometimes, I would much rather be myself than become a shell of my personality.
This week I have decided to not include an article because I have plenty of life experience when it comes to medications, psychological therapy, and mental illness that I feel can contribute to this topic much better than generic medical passages on WebMD can.
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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5/13/17 - #5
When we first started reading about race as a technology, I could not grasp the concept that race was not inherently biological. It was not until we went over the science behind the fact that in our DNA there are no racial indicators, that I finally could understand. While there are obvious physical differences between people, it only shows in the external characteristics; not the coded genes. There are many ways for genes to express themselves on the human possibilities and the variations range almost infinitely. These biological differences make up an aesthetically diverse population; so why then is race categorized? Even if we do not mean to, the human mind wants to organize the hundreds, if not thousands, of faces they see in the day, and what better way to do so than organize in visually outstanding traits. The problem with that is (almost obviously) another human tendency: to visualize patterns and associate these with people. This tendency is a psychological phenomenon observed in countless cases and proven to be an incorrect and somewhat harmful practice in our heads. So, in other words, it is to create stereotypes. I grew up in a mildly racist family, and even now I have to take steps back to erase the conditioning done by the people who raised me. Specifically, to erase the stereotypes put into my head about the different races I encounter on a daily basis. I make a conscious effort to see people from their behaviors and not their exterior.
Going further into race as being a social and cultural aspect instead of biological, one can really start to see it as a technology. Even as it is proven that no one race is better than the other, it is obvious to see the white population has an advantage in just the way their pigmentation is shaded. The technological sense of their race is that of an “enhancement.” I am not just talking about someone who is born into a white family and has the predisposition to be a lighter skinned person, this also includes someone who could pass as being white, against their genetic background. This enhancement allows them to skirt around harmful stereotypes and somewhat better their experience as a person, since they are considered a member in the “better” race.
An interesting read comes from social media this past month, where a college female uses her “white privilege” and own experience to call out her university and her peers as they made a blatant assumption against a person of color.
https://www.indy100.com/article/white-privilege-student-important-jenny-lundt-colegate-univeristy-black-lives-matter-7734006
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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5/7/17 - #4
When it comes to thinking about feminine technology, I really only thought of things catered exclusively to women, like beauty and hygiene products (makeup and tampons) and clothing, not products with a context behind them. This context hints toward a gendered vision of the product and in most cases causes a polarized mental image when it comes to what pops into our heads when we think of some items. For example, think about boats and ships. Obviously these things have no gender, so why do we most frequently give them women’s names? Why does most machinery have feminine names, when so often they are thought of as tools for “men’s work” and were strictly to be used by such? One thing I read that caught my attention was an excerpt explaining the “reasoning” behind naming ships as female. In summary, it described ships as being something to taken care of and only a skilled man can work it the right way. So, off of that explanation, what I can take from this is that machinery is thought of as female to compliment the fact that women can be finessed and worked just as easily by a man of knowledge and skill. Yeah, because we all continuously fall for the male charm every time.
Branching off from the track of feminine technology, a phrase that I read and stuck with me is “ad-her-tising.” Basically what it consists of is brands and companies appealing to women in disguise as a feminist campaign, when in reality it is a strategy to reel us in. Would a woman today buy a deodorant that makes us “smell like the perfect lady” or one that “works with the modern woman, against anything life throws at us.” Anyone would pick the one that does NOT pose us to be submissive and ladylike, and in personal experience, I have not met one female in my life that truly strives to be “ladylike.” So, brands will advertise their products to be either 1) capable of working with a successful, feminist women or 2) part of a bigger purpose to advocate for women’s rights. Obviously not all of them are lying when campaigning for feminism, but at the same time, how many of the CEOs for these companies are women? Something to think about, as the answer is not many.
reading on ad-her-tising:
https://www.elon.edu/docs/e-web/academics/communications/research/vol6no1/05BaxterEJSpring15.pdf
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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4/30/17 - #3
After this week’s discussions on organizing human life and norms, one thing that stuck out to me was the censorship of sexually charged language and dialogue as proposed by Foucault. He talked about how talking about anything to do with sex was taboo in the late 17th, 18th and 19th centuries (so much so that authors were exiled from countries over writings considered “pornographic”), and that the frankness of the early 1600s was clouded over by the dark shade of the Victorian era. I learned at the end of high school that all the Shakespeare I have read since the 9th grade had been laced with sexual innuendos and crude language, and my teacher had chosen not to explain most of the meanings behind those scenes. For example, in Romeo & Juliet, a play I read with my class at 14 years old, most of the dialogue between Romeo and his best friend Mercutio was filled with references to the male anatomy and to sex. However, while my teacher went through the play line by line to explain everything to us in contemporary English instead of Old English, she never alluded to the amount of lewd wording and phrases used by Shakespeare. Maybe she did not want them to fall on our young ears, but why? What would be the harm in us learning about that? That goes back to the Victorian era belief that talking about these subjects was incredibly sensitive, and as Foucault put it, “children do not have sex” in the first place, so why would we have learned about it under those guidelines.
Even today, sex is most popularly thought of as confined to the bedroom, or at least the shame of sex is taught to most young adults. For me, my parents never talked to be about sex, so I went a very long time being confused about many concepts. However, it seems as though the Shakespearean style of comically sexual language and writing is coming around in full swing, as the contemporary adult novel genre is growing in popularity and exposure. A huge example of that is the Fifty Shades of Grey series and movies, a franchise that has generated a lot of buzz (and revenue) in the past few years. In my own opinion, I personally have been desensitized to sexual language and its occurrences on Television and Media, because it just seems to frequently be a topic.
As an afterthought, as I went through Shakespearean quotes and read over criticism and readings about his bawdy language, one thing I rediscovered was the argument of whether Shakespeare was a homosexual or not, and I found this passage interesting.
http://public.wsu.edu/~delahoyd/shakespeare/sonnets.html
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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4/21/17 - #2
After this week’s discussions about norms, the term “normal”, and society’s standards, I decided to take a step back and think about those aspects in my own life. In my own view, normality is subjective, especially when it comes to different stages in someone’s life or their opinion on the world. In an overall sense, I have found that I am “normal” in comparison to certain factors. For example, I am a normal or slightly above average student when it comes to the quality of my grades and the amount of time I spend on homework or studying a week. I am not overly obsessed with the perfection of my studies, but I definitely do more work than some of my peers and tend to overcompensate. In addition, I am a normal person when it comes to the dating scene, with my fair share of puppy loves and breakups. I have a normal relationship with my parents with frequent petty fights and a younger sister I do not always get along with, and I struggle to pay for college seemingly like every other student in the United States. Like most college students, I spend (probably too much) time on social media, binge watch television shows, and eat junk food at all times of the night.
However, all of these things can be considered “abnormal” to other people or scientists, or anyone who has a different outlook on life. I find my GPA of 3.75 to be too low while others find it it to be perfectly fine and almost too good to complain about. My dating life can be considered “deviant” because I only date women, and I tend to dress outside of the feminine norm (I prefer to dress androgynously). I fight with my parents about “abnormal” things like my sexuality and mental health, and my struggling to pay for school is relative to the fact that Drexel is an investment, and I will probably get a career that will return that money lost. So, like I said, it really is subjective to the person going through life.  
As a side note to the word I used to describe my sexuality, “deviant,” there is quite a long psychological and sociological history with that term that I find to be very interesting. Personally I like to call myself a deviant in accordance to who I fall in love with, because it tends to make conservative people squirm or makes me seem like I am more confident in my identity than I actually am. There is an interesting read (the link is below) that also talks about how people say that homosexuals push their agenda on children and try to “recruit” certain demographics to further the number of deviant citizens, which I find ridiculous and laughable. If anything, the heterosexual culture pushes heteronormativity onto young children with portrayals in television and in any outlet of media for that matter (most, if not all, children’s programs are centered around heterosexual romance). 
https://espace.library.uq.edu.au/data/UQ_266021/UQ266021_OA.pdf?Expires=1492892916&Signature=PNnyIeVhvj-4R0irBgpI30Kwa6BcEZA4QvQ4VR5DIxYR761mis~ECF0ChKCSQs8wzskbC9Q~IosLneATy3~2KCH62rvNg5YIr9Se-qThzOiFDg-~XRsWNlEGDaiJiNHhW7NciJ~IKFDsPM9kfU6dDk3dSubwTN1rPF78H~xWZPaHgROu3tQUGOoUfHWDgF0q7DY33JS7RTT2RF78zZzGCH7ZRkyvLeKkJXaIchaTJaq3-7PvadNBde-qbX1Jbd2d-ENTx8soxAK-YZMJjyvkiMm-V7W0vMxSCK3sR6DO8XdF51zM-De6G0QPz9spC8MXUddDWTmQVkqX9nEUfTbbKg__&Key-Pair-Id=APKAJKNBJ4MJBJNC6NLQ
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el-oui-blog · 8 years ago
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4/14/17 - #1
After reading the passages this week, something that stuck in my head was our discussion on the peacock plant. We did not go into deep detail about abortifacients, so I decided to do some research on my own. In current times, the length women go to receive treatment are complex and most times dangerous in countries outside the United States, this is a fact I have been aware of for years, but I never gave any thought to the subtext that statement entails. Before class on Wednesday, I did not know there were natural herbal methods to induce miscarriage or abort a fetus, although now it seems like a blatant fact. Women in ancient times did not have access to medical help, or even illegal “tools” used today, so what other ways could they prevent this? What I found was lists, diagrams, forums, etc. containing multitudes of different plants, herbs, seeds, or vitamins that can be utilized. So, why don’t women today use those methods more often rather than more dangerous types of physical injury? Turns out that while some natural aides are harmless, they are significantly less effective than other methods. Wild carrot seeds, iris, willow, and parsley are some recognizable herbs and spices used in everyday uses, but handled in different ways can cause miscarriage. Some of these, however, can cause possible complications to the female, like hemorrhaging or poisoning.
My point is, why is society highlighting the incredibly damaging and harmful ways to abort a fetus? For years, I thought the only method for a woman was to go to a shady clinic and face severe complications to her health, sometimes fatally, or perform an amateur operation to her body when she could destroy her reproductive system and her health. Most herbal and organic methods are learned by word of mouth, or in the digital age, online. The possibility of a woman, in a panic to help herself, would resort to physically maiming her body is high, and instead being able to safely abort a fetus, will only continue to enhance the dangers posed by alternative medicine. The safest abortion is one done by medical professionals, and if legal would obviously diminish the number of women harmed by unsafe practices, but cultural and societal barriers continue to prohibit this movement.
Speaking of cultural barriers, I found an incredibly interesting fact in my research. Myrrh was given to Mary after the birth of her child Jesus by the wise men in Bethlehem. Myrrh, in ancient times, was used to aide many common human afflictions, but one usage happened to be the inducement of menstruation, which if used by pregnant women could cause miscarriage. In addition, the Bible only considers abortion (in Exodus) as a crime, not a murder punishable by death. Just some things to consider when using religion in the fight against reproduction rights.
Some sources I used and very interesting reads within themselves:
http://www.academia.edu/10915569/A_Short_History_of_Abortifacients
http://jezebel.com/the-history-of-abortifacients-1658993381
https://mic.com/articles/128589/women-are-learning-about-herbal-abortion-online-here-s-why-that-s-a-problem#.dGAgaqlNZ
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