Anne Rowan SMP

"Life Stilled" by by Anne Rowan 

She was a photographer and looked for intimacy in photographs. She is a believer of Budhism, especially the idea that all things are connected. In her work she tried focusing in and connecting. 

She likes taking an object or person and focusing on a particular part rather than looking at it as a whole. For example, she had a side profile picture of a boy but cuts out most of his face and body and focused on his hear and mouth area. This was to ensure a high level of detail and resolution in a non-conventional way. 

One thing that I liked about her SMP was how she talked about how she photographs her immediate surroundings because she doesnt believe that we need to travel anywhere in order to be dazzled by what is around us. I also really took a liking to a quote she provided by Tony Feher: "I think people are looking all the time, but I don't think they are seeing anything."

This quote reminds me exactly of what James Elkins discusses in his article, Just Looking." 

Anne Rowan SMP

"Life Stilled" by by Anne Rowan 

She was a photographer and looked for intimacy in photographs. She is a believer of Budhism, especially the idea that all things are connected. In her work she tried focusing in and connecting. 

She likes taking an object or person and focusing on a particular part rather than looking at it as a whole. For example, she had a side profile picture of a boy but cuts out most of his face and body and focused on his hear and mouth area. This was to ensure a high level of detail and resolution in a non-conventional way. 

One thing that I liked about her SMP was how she talked about how she photographs her immediate surroundings because she doesnt believe that we need to travel anywhere in order to be dazzled by what is around us. I also really took a liking to a quote she provided by Tony Feher: "I think people are looking all the time, but I don't think they are seeing anything."

This quote reminds me exactly of what James Elkins discusses in his article, Just Looking." 

Sarah Kramer SMP

Sarah Kramer: "Flights of the Mind"
-she likes distorting her objects
-she has a fascination with hands and eyes
-she also has a fascination with the female figure (which she described as not self-portraits, but maybe self-reflection)
-she mentions how she is not trying to make a statement on gender issues. However, this issue IS thought of when other people look at her art (as someone in the audience pointed out during questions)
-her fascination that interested me the most was relationships and struggles for power. When discussing this part of her project, she asked a lot of good questions that I always ask myself, such as those pertaining to financial dependence, tensions caused by self-sacrifice, when/why too many boundaries. 

Mike Benjamin SMP

Mike Benjamin:
He is renovating Charlestone Point; it is a work in progress; not finished yet. The program is called "Local Immersion" and it is located in historic St. Marys. He described it as almost like a study abroad program at Chancellor's Point that is 3 weeks long.
During his presentation, Mike talked about how today people can't function or pursue their goals without technology and how this is unreasonable. I don't usually think of things like that, but after he brought it up, I began to realize that he made a very valid point. What he said next made an even bigger impression on me. After talking about how people rely on technology and such, he argued that there are even bigger unreasonable things going on even WITH computers and institutions, such as people being bored in class or not being interested in their major. He called it a "lack of fascination" (in curricular activities). I have never taken the time to think about this concept until he mentioned it and after dwelling on this idea for a while, I realized that he made a great point. Even with all the technology and help in the world, some people are STILL not getting anything out of what they are doing or learning. This is tragic and I am glad that someone has finally taken note of it. After his presentation, one woman in the audience asked him: how do you reconcile the fact that this program is located on land owned by an institution? Mike responded by saying that the academic world and the outdoor world/environment need to communicate. I think this was a great answer and a good point.

artist: Radical Software Group (RSG)

"Carnivore"

Computer networks empower us to share information, but they also make it easier for governments and corporations to monitor our electronic communications. In the 1990s, the United States' Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) used a digital wiretapping software application called Carnivore to surveil traffic flowing through the servers of Internet service providers. This technology enabled agents to read e-mail messages and eavesdrop on the chat-room conversations of citizens. In response to this surveillance, a team of artists calling themselves Radical Software Group, or RSG, developed CarnivorePE (PE signifies "Personal Edition). I agree with these artists that the government practicing such surveillance is a complete invasion of privacy and should be stopped.

artist: Mendi and Keith Obadike

"The Pink of Stealth"
As the Internet first gained popularity in the mid 1990s, some cultural theorists argued that it was part of a new kind of virtual space (sometimes called cyberspace) that we enter as disembodied subjects whose identities are disguisable. Our bodies are left behind along with our genders, races, and ethnicities. In this new environment, our flesh-and-blood bodies don't register because they aren't visible. If a teenage girl could disguise herself as a middle-aged man, or vice versa, the old rules of identity no longer exist. 
Other people argue that our embodied identities follow us onto the Internet, and that categories such as female, white, or hispanic are every bit as real online as off. 

I personally agree with the argument that cyberspace allows us to completely change or disguise our identities. 

Literal: recounting events of the story; what happens in the story

Structural: patterns (repetition) For example pairs of characters or do two characters do the same things?

Anthropological: historical and biblical themes that are throughout text; biological concepts-man vs. women; raw, primitive way to view
-sociological and he might even mention psychological
-human experience

cosmological: the solar system; he was comparing the movements of mercury (god) with venus
-planetary compartments

IN CLASS
-compare ways of describing with Repunzel
-taking these categories and applying to contemporary narrative


LAW AND ORDER
-literal: a show in which each episode is a different story where a Special Victims Unit solves crimes in New York City

-structural: pattern-each show follows the pattern of beginning with a crime scene and immediately moves into detectives Bensen and Stabler pursuing suspects and obtaining evidence. In most episodes, after the perpetrator is caught, the show moves from detective work on the streets to the District Attorney trying to prove their case (while representing “the people”) in court.
-another pattern: usually, the first suspect is never the actual perpetrator

-anthropological: criminals are usually smaller in size and less attractive than Bensen and Stabler (the two detectives)

-cosmological: (just like in the reading in which at first glance people just see a plant but after further study and observation they realize that there are roots and ultimately deeper meanings) when first viewing this show, people do not see the detectives as their own persons; they are simply vessels of justice. However, after paying closer attention and watching more episodes, one begins to realize that both Bensen and Stabler have their own lives, which the show sometimes incorporates into episodes.