Through God’s Left Eye by Paul La Farge discusses the idea of Caodaism. He speculates the idea of communicating to ghosts and how it has shaped Caodaism religion and impacted on society – particularly the Vietnamese who carry and invented this religion. It started out with the wildfire news of the two sisters, Kate and Margaret Fox, ages ten and eight, who heard a noise in the attic and started to communicate to the ghosts through the act of tapping – one knock for yes and two knocks for no. With that start, it traveled all across the globe and there was a new sensation of communication – the communication with spirits. It finally hit Vietnam in also becoming a new sensation of communicating. What was interesting with Vietnam was that they were able to communicate with many famous dead such as a past emperor, Joan of Arc, and Victor Hugo. Not only that, they were given the foreshadowing of the first Caucasian Caodaism follower that proved to be true. With this new way of communicating that was introduced across the globe to Vietnam, came into development a new belief that trusted the guidance of spirits. Thus, Caodaism came into existent.
This idea of Caodaism is interesting because it was through the communication to spirits that a new religion was born. With the guidance of historic figures that communicate with the living, the people of Vietnam have come to trust the advice and knowledge given. This subject circulates the idea of one of the many possibilities of what could be beyond our world if taken the time and effort to discover it. In some way it connects to the Rosalind William’s interview in discussing what could beyond our understanding or what we believe that exists.
This type of media of communication across the globe (assuming that the Fox sisters were on newspapers everywhere and the story traveled by radio or mouth of word) has great ability to influence people to come to believe differently in terms of religion, such as Caodaism with the Vietnamese, with great consequences in shaping people’s lifestyle and thoughts. Through this article, the discussion seems to overlay the possibility the existence of spirits and the question of another world. It makes me question that if there is indeed a way to communicate with the dead, is there no hell or heaven? For if Joan of Arc was indeed communicating with the Vietnamese, why would her spirit be wandering the Earth, giving support in their time of French colonism? I’ve heard of spirits ‘stuck’ on Earth because they’ve ‘unfinished business,’ but with what I read in La Farge’s article, anything can really be possible of what really waits for our souls after death.
Wednesday, October 29, 2008
Art Journal #1 - Part 1
“In Notes on the Underground (MIT Press, 1990; revised edition 2008), Rosalind Williams, Bern Dibner Professor of the History of Science and Technology at MIT, examines how actual and imaginary underworlds shaped our attitudes toward the manufactured environments that we inhabit.”
The article, Underworld: An Interview with Rosalind Williams by Sina Najafi, is a very fascinating article discussing the many possibilities of what may be lying beneath the earth. It is questionable of what exactly may be waiting beneath the depths of the earth; perhaps it is Lucifer and the undying fire that torture damaged souls that await many other wrong-doers or mayhap it is just really the subways that occupy the space below and nothing more. The article also goes into depth of many publications of books that idealize their (the authors’) thoughts of the “underworld”. The ideas discussed throughout the article usually circulate on books that speculate the idea of an underworld that, for example, consist of supposedly extinct animals such as dinosaurs that can be found “in a journey to the center of the earth”. As Sina interviews Rosalind on her perspective, thoughts, and ideas on this idea of an ‘underworld, Rosalind gives many speculating views from different authors and the intriguing possibilities of how this underworld that is created affects one’s thought of what really lies beneath. As I read the article, I see the idea of an underworld categorized in science, religion, and fantasy. In reality, what is beneath the surface are old age rocks that contain fossils of once used to be. In religion, it may be a waiting place for the dead souls known as Hades or Hell with Lucifer’s ruling. Then created by imagination, the fantasy aspect comes by with the endless possibilities of what could be down there – it is open for many to imagine the underworld and create a new idea that may never be proved to exist. Therefore, how we think and what we believe affect our way of living. By believing that if there is a heaven, there has to be a hell; so for the sins that we have committed, we are condemned unless confessed or forgiven. If we were to all live by that idea, wouldn’t you think that many would be more willing to do good things or repent? Now if we were only to believe that only subways and other such stuff are the only things that occupy the earth’s depths, what would it matter how we lived?
The article, Underworld: An Interview with Rosalind Williams by Sina Najafi, is a very fascinating article discussing the many possibilities of what may be lying beneath the earth. It is questionable of what exactly may be waiting beneath the depths of the earth; perhaps it is Lucifer and the undying fire that torture damaged souls that await many other wrong-doers or mayhap it is just really the subways that occupy the space below and nothing more. The article also goes into depth of many publications of books that idealize their (the authors’) thoughts of the “underworld”. The ideas discussed throughout the article usually circulate on books that speculate the idea of an underworld that, for example, consist of supposedly extinct animals such as dinosaurs that can be found “in a journey to the center of the earth”. As Sina interviews Rosalind on her perspective, thoughts, and ideas on this idea of an ‘underworld, Rosalind gives many speculating views from different authors and the intriguing possibilities of how this underworld that is created affects one’s thought of what really lies beneath. As I read the article, I see the idea of an underworld categorized in science, religion, and fantasy. In reality, what is beneath the surface are old age rocks that contain fossils of once used to be. In religion, it may be a waiting place for the dead souls known as Hades or Hell with Lucifer’s ruling. Then created by imagination, the fantasy aspect comes by with the endless possibilities of what could be down there – it is open for many to imagine the underworld and create a new idea that may never be proved to exist. Therefore, how we think and what we believe affect our way of living. By believing that if there is a heaven, there has to be a hell; so for the sins that we have committed, we are condemned unless confessed or forgiven. If we were to all live by that idea, wouldn’t you think that many would be more willing to do good things or repent? Now if we were only to believe that only subways and other such stuff are the only things that occupy the earth’s depths, what would it matter how we lived?
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Field Report #2: Act/React
One of the Act/React exhibits that I found most interesting and eerie at the same time was Janet Cardiif and George Bures Miller’s To Touch; where a table is set in the center of a dark room with the light centered on the table aloneFulfilling Duchamp’s creative act, the viewer is needed to complete the artwork by touching the table in order for the artwork to be completely understood of its unique creation. In my comparison to To Touch is Sissel Tolaas’s work with the sense of smell. Both works are, to me, considered to be interactive in that they are able to invite viewers to respond to the works and in return, how the works are able respond to their actions.
My experience with To Touch was with much anticipation of what is waiting for me to discover in the room from my knowledge of the previews of the Act/React exhibition shown in class as well as a feeling of curiosity and uneasiness when entering the display room. The entrance to the room is lengthy hall that ultimately leads to a darkened room with the only light shining on an old wooden table that has seen many days with paint and usage. It was the darkness and lengthy hall that built my curiosity of the art exhibition with every step that I took, making me question what I will see and how I will see it. Once I entered the room and saw only the table while everything else that was hiding in darkness, it held a kind of eeriness because of how it is set up in the room, it forced me to focus only on the table and what the table would provide to ease my curiosity’s hunger of what I’ve seen in class and what I want to discover. The table is only a table if one only looked, but it is not a table anymore once touched. I changed the table by touching the surface and moving my hand slowly only the ridged surface, and as I did, a voice spoke to me quietly and softly. As I prolonged the action of my hand across the surface of the table, more sounds would add to the voice; recognizable sounds from classic movies, dialogue from a man, etc. Once I remove my hand from the table, the sounds slowly diminish into silence and the table is once again, only a table in spotlight. Thus, the artwork gives me the power to control the sound that the table activates by my touch with my decision of how and where I want to touch or if I want to touch it at all. To Touch can be considered a work of art in that it is created in the artists’ mind with a sole purpose to be viewed by the willing audience, but art’s definition is so broad that it can be arguable that it is not. My viewpoint on the matter, however, is that art is in the eye of the beholder. What one thing that a person may view as art, another may disregard it as not art. So who really has the right of what to define art as?
Another piece of ‘artwork’ I’ve seen that invites the audience to interact is one that involves the sense of smell. Sissel Tolaas, a conceptual artist whose work explores the sense of smell traveled to different countries taking walks from small villages to big cities, collecting the different types of smell and then capturing them in bottles of perfume. Her list of smell ran from dog feces to people’s distinct smell of their natural body odor. She explored the different places in order to strengthen the knowledge of the importance of smell and how that sense affects us. By capturing these different smells, she was able to exhibit it in the most unexpected way; it was contained on white walls labeled as Wall 1 and so forth of different smells ingrained in different white walls. In order to smell the wall, one had to rub it and the odor would come off (so yeah, like a scratch and sniff sticker). I remember going to one of the walls that fused such a strong smell of human body odor that I had to cover my nose after a few seconds from entering the room. This very specific wall came along with a story that she told to audience. It was with this wall that that an old man was crying and his son asked him what was wrong, and when he was able to, he said it was the smell of the human body odor that reminded him of his time in the Vietnam War of the men he fought alongside with and the men that died. This very situation shows a great significance of the interactivity that was involved with the man and Tolaas’s wall in that the man was willing to discover the scent on the wall by rubbing the wall, and in return the scent on the wall transpired, igniting an old memory with the man. The walls with this example, is able to bring different reactions to each viewer with each person with a different experience or memory with a certain smell. This particular wall reminded me of smelly boys in grouped together in a confined space.
Both works involve one of the five human senses in each exhibition – the sense of touch and smell. They are both similar in that in order for the artwork to be complete, there has to be a willing audience to touch or smell the artwork to understand the artists’ works. If no one touched the table, who would ever know that there was sound activation on the surface? And if no one rubbed Tolaas’ walls that contained different odors, who would ever know that the plain white walls actually contained a scent? Thus, in order for their artworks to be complete, it calls for an audience to interact with the artwork in order for the work to be fully recognized as how it was created for.
My experience with To Touch was with much anticipation of what is waiting for me to discover in the room from my knowledge of the previews of the Act/React exhibition shown in class as well as a feeling of curiosity and uneasiness when entering the display room. The entrance to the room is lengthy hall that ultimately leads to a darkened room with the only light shining on an old wooden table that has seen many days with paint and usage. It was the darkness and lengthy hall that built my curiosity of the art exhibition with every step that I took, making me question what I will see and how I will see it. Once I entered the room and saw only the table while everything else that was hiding in darkness, it held a kind of eeriness because of how it is set up in the room, it forced me to focus only on the table and what the table would provide to ease my curiosity’s hunger of what I’ve seen in class and what I want to discover. The table is only a table if one only looked, but it is not a table anymore once touched. I changed the table by touching the surface and moving my hand slowly only the ridged surface, and as I did, a voice spoke to me quietly and softly. As I prolonged the action of my hand across the surface of the table, more sounds would add to the voice; recognizable sounds from classic movies, dialogue from a man, etc. Once I remove my hand from the table, the sounds slowly diminish into silence and the table is once again, only a table in spotlight. Thus, the artwork gives me the power to control the sound that the table activates by my touch with my decision of how and where I want to touch or if I want to touch it at all. To Touch can be considered a work of art in that it is created in the artists’ mind with a sole purpose to be viewed by the willing audience, but art’s definition is so broad that it can be arguable that it is not. My viewpoint on the matter, however, is that art is in the eye of the beholder. What one thing that a person may view as art, another may disregard it as not art. So who really has the right of what to define art as?
Another piece of ‘artwork’ I’ve seen that invites the audience to interact is one that involves the sense of smell. Sissel Tolaas, a conceptual artist whose work explores the sense of smell traveled to different countries taking walks from small villages to big cities, collecting the different types of smell and then capturing them in bottles of perfume. Her list of smell ran from dog feces to people’s distinct smell of their natural body odor. She explored the different places in order to strengthen the knowledge of the importance of smell and how that sense affects us. By capturing these different smells, she was able to exhibit it in the most unexpected way; it was contained on white walls labeled as Wall 1 and so forth of different smells ingrained in different white walls. In order to smell the wall, one had to rub it and the odor would come off (so yeah, like a scratch and sniff sticker). I remember going to one of the walls that fused such a strong smell of human body odor that I had to cover my nose after a few seconds from entering the room. This very specific wall came along with a story that she told to audience. It was with this wall that that an old man was crying and his son asked him what was wrong, and when he was able to, he said it was the smell of the human body odor that reminded him of his time in the Vietnam War of the men he fought alongside with and the men that died. This very situation shows a great significance of the interactivity that was involved with the man and Tolaas’s wall in that the man was willing to discover the scent on the wall by rubbing the wall, and in return the scent on the wall transpired, igniting an old memory with the man. The walls with this example, is able to bring different reactions to each viewer with each person with a different experience or memory with a certain smell. This particular wall reminded me of smelly boys in grouped together in a confined space.
Both works involve one of the five human senses in each exhibition – the sense of touch and smell. They are both similar in that in order for the artwork to be complete, there has to be a willing audience to touch or smell the artwork to understand the artists’ works. If no one touched the table, who would ever know that there was sound activation on the surface? And if no one rubbed Tolaas’ walls that contained different odors, who would ever know that the plain white walls actually contained a scent? Thus, in order for their artworks to be complete, it calls for an audience to interact with the artwork in order for the work to be fully recognized as how it was created for.
Monday, October 6, 2008
Field Report #1: Self-Determination by Iverson White
In summary, Self-Determination by Iverson White was about a woman contemplating the decision to keep drinking in her misery about her broken marriage or take a step to do something about it for the better. White’s use of editing and story-telling is one that I find quite similar to Charles Brunett’s Killer of Sheep. Both films resemble each other in editing but, I have to admit, their storytelling is a bit different. Self-Determination included a beginning and an ending that had the audience guessing, following a narrative form of storytelling whereas Killer of Sheep had no narrative, just a film following the lives of the working class in their daily activities with no big significance of the film as a whole like a narrative film would imply. They were the same as that both represented the film in sequence where it got the audience guessing the meaning with not much obvious indication of what the events were really all about. The editing was no different, jumping from scene to scene, keeping the audience either in awe or confusion in what was really going on.
Self-Determination started out with a woman crying in bed at night as her husband undressed, got in bed, and shifted on his side so that his back would be facing her back. This body language would signify that this couple is not getting along. It is confirmed when she turns around and touches his shoulder only to get rejected at that intimate touch by him pulling the blanket up to cover his upper body. As this scene cuts to her picking up her orange juice, it goes to a flash back of her memory at a bar, drinking away her lost hope on her marriage. This altogether makes a strong statement that the woman and her husband are at ends with each other with the coldness and distance. As with Killer of Sheep, where the husband and wife dance together to music in the room, and as the wife tries to get intimate, she is rejected with him lightly shoving her away and walking out of the room. The simple act of rejection makes a big statement in the movie. A simple body gesture helps move the film along of what is happening, the meaning of a scene, and an implication of an event or situation.
Both films succeed in saying little to direct the audience’s knowledge of what the film is supposed to mean but help indicate indirectly of what the film as a whole, is representing through editing, events that had occurred, and/or body language.
Self-Determination had little dialogue whereas Killer of Sheep had it in most every scene, but both were edited in a way that gave the audience the opportunity to discover for themselves what the film was trying to convey to viewers of what the film was really about.
Killer of Sheep was obviously about the black working class but there was no obvious indication to the audience that it was about that that Brunett was trying to represent. As well as Self-Determination sent no obvious indication that it was a woman struggling within herself about taking a step toward change or drinking in her despair. Both films helped represent their meaning or plot of the story through events that were edited not only to catch one important aspect that event would show within that time frame, but also to help carry on the life and actions of the character. In that respect, giving the audience to make their meaning out of the scenes.
Self-Determination started out with a woman crying in bed at night as her husband undressed, got in bed, and shifted on his side so that his back would be facing her back. This body language would signify that this couple is not getting along. It is confirmed when she turns around and touches his shoulder only to get rejected at that intimate touch by him pulling the blanket up to cover his upper body. As this scene cuts to her picking up her orange juice, it goes to a flash back of her memory at a bar, drinking away her lost hope on her marriage. This altogether makes a strong statement that the woman and her husband are at ends with each other with the coldness and distance. As with Killer of Sheep, where the husband and wife dance together to music in the room, and as the wife tries to get intimate, she is rejected with him lightly shoving her away and walking out of the room. The simple act of rejection makes a big statement in the movie. A simple body gesture helps move the film along of what is happening, the meaning of a scene, and an implication of an event or situation.
Both films succeed in saying little to direct the audience’s knowledge of what the film is supposed to mean but help indicate indirectly of what the film as a whole, is representing through editing, events that had occurred, and/or body language.
Self-Determination had little dialogue whereas Killer of Sheep had it in most every scene, but both were edited in a way that gave the audience the opportunity to discover for themselves what the film was trying to convey to viewers of what the film was really about.
Killer of Sheep was obviously about the black working class but there was no obvious indication to the audience that it was about that that Brunett was trying to represent. As well as Self-Determination sent no obvious indication that it was a woman struggling within herself about taking a step toward change or drinking in her despair. Both films helped represent their meaning or plot of the story through events that were edited not only to catch one important aspect that event would show within that time frame, but also to help carry on the life and actions of the character. In that respect, giving the audience to make their meaning out of the scenes.
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