A butterfly on the steps of the GSU dorm University Commons stairs.
As I was walking down the steps from the University Commons courtyard, there was a large yet petite figure on the steps. The butterfly laid there and hadn’t moved or flapped a single wing. I couldn’t tell if it was dead or not considering that it was very still. I assumed it wasn’t because when I had came back, the little thing was gone.
Affordance: Something a design enable you to do.
Genre: A kind or type of something.
Conventions: The characteristics that define a genre.
Constraint: Something a design restricts us to do.
Summary: Pulling out ideas in the text and using your own words.
Paraphrase: A very short summary putting your ideas to what the text means. Goal is to get close to the meaning as possible.
Lexicon: A list of terms from a text, subject, and/or discussion.
Claim: A statement put forth as true that needs evidence to be convincing. Commonplace.
Thesis: The main claim of an argument.
Abstract: The overview.
Rhetoric: The art of crafting a message to affect change in a particular audience. The art of persuasion. Being able to see the available means of persuasion in an given situation.
Primary Research: Gathering the data yourself.
Secondary Research: Reporting and using data others have gathered.
Multi-modality: Bringing together different modes of communication. This includes: Linguistic, Oral, Visual, Gestural, & Spatial.
Content: What you say or what is being said.
Style: How you say or how it’s being said.
Digital Literacy: Our ability to work with the particular affordances of different medias.
Metadata: A set of data that describes and gives information about other data.
Explicit Claim: Stated outright
Implicit Claim: Suggested. Hinted
Exigency: A reason for being. “So What” test.
The Academic Blog, We Make Money Not Art, was founded by Regine Debatty who is a writer, curator, and critic. She is known for her writings on the intersection circulating between art, science, technology and social issues. She also ran a weekly art and science programme #A.I.L. (Artists in Laboratories) from 2012 to 2014.
http://we-make-money-not-art.com/
One article I read was “The Woodpecker: Could Fake Birds Save Our Forests?”, which was posted on August 30th a few weeks ago, talks about the artist Richard Vitols explored a way to replace some of the bird species with artificial ones. He installed thrifty custom-made woodpeckers in a forest near Dusseldorf and visited weekly documenting the “health” of the artificial woodpeckers. He also made observations to see how the other inhabitants of the forest interacted with them. After his observation, some would be knocked down from their positions, others would have insects living in them if they battery was no longer in use. His experiment is still a working progress. And in September, he will be traveling to the LabVerde in the Brazil Amazon rain forest to further explore tree sound emissions and insect behavior under a different climate. Once he returns to Europe, he plans to build a second generation of artificial birds hoping they will be stronger and monitored 24/7.
Link to the article: http://we-make-money-not-art.com/the-woodpecker-could-fake-birds-save-our-forests/
Associate Professor of Law, Sarah Schindler, wrote an article about how architecture has played along with racism and discrimination in the most unseen ways that people often don’t realize. With the feedback she received from peers from Columbia Law School and American University’s College of Law, she includes research and has the support for the information she provided. In the article, she writes about how some infrastructure was made to prevent certain groups of marginalized minorities having access to be able to get to areas that were premindomently reserved for upper and middle class white. These factors partaked in ways that separated and isolated a vast majorities of communities from one another because one feared that the other would violate their territories. The court system did not see it as this way, they saw these infrastructure as a inconvenience for some not realizing what it’s creating for others.
In Part I, it discussed about architecture being used a type of regulation among certain groups and classes of people. “Architectural regulation is powerful in part because it is unseen/ it “allows government to shape our actions without our perceiving that our experience has been deliberately shaped.” (Schindler). I annotated that this describes that government and the system makes changes and creates regulations that benefit certain groups while limiting and restricting it for others. An example of this is when a bench has arm rests to prevent homeless people from lying on them to take naps. I recall reading an article years before that a certain city or country actually installed spiked-like figures on the seating and backs on the benches resembling a needle or nail bed to prevent homeless people from laying on them. As I also recall, the reaction to such a thing were stating that it’s cruel and unfair to treat them poorly. That type of infrastructure being made is made beneficial to those who have homes and can just use the armrests to, obviously, rest their arms after running errands but it actually makes it hard for homeless people to lay and sleep because it’s blocking the function of bench also acting as a bed for them.
In Part II, it talks about the actual practice of architectural exclusion being used. Robert Moses was considered as the “Master Builder” of New York infrastructure creating many of its land. His biographer suggested that he favored upper and middle-class white people who owned their own vehicles as opposed to lower class groups, as mentioned African-Americans, because of his bias distinguishing of social-class and racial prejudice. An example of this is shown earlier in the reading where it mentioned that he created a number of low-hanging overpasses and bridges that led to Jones Beach to prevent buses from going to there. This decision prevented those who relied on public transportation such as people of color and poor people from receiving access to reach those areas. Another example of how public transportation are limited to reach certain areas is where the designated transits stops are placed.
A seventeen year old woman, Cynthia Wiggins, was hit and killed by a dump truck as she was attempting to cross a seven-lane highway to a mall where she worked. The reason because of this incident is because the bus stop for the mall was across the street from it on the other side of the highway. This was because during a conversation a mall store owner had with one of the officials recalled them saying that they did not want to attract the type of people that rode to bus into the mall. This shows racial profiling and discrimination against a certain group of individuals that depended on the public transits. Also, while the same small allowed charter buses to make stops there, they wouldn’t oblige the same for the city’s transits because, once again, they did not want to attract certain groups of people into their property.
Aside from architecture limiting and routes being placed outside certain areas in order to discourage certain groups that took public transportation from entering such territories, infrastructure was almost made to separate communities. In the 1940s, a private developer in Detroit constructed a six-foot-high wall known as the Eight Mile Wall to separate a black neighborhood from a new white one that was to be made. The wall still exists in the area today although the neighborhoods around it are no longer segregated despite Detroit still being one of the most racially segregated areas in the United States. Recently in 2014, a ten-foot-high, 1,500-foot-long fence that separated a white suburban area from a black one was taken down. It was built in the 1950s to keep crimes out of the city of Hamden, Connecticut from New Haven. However, this made it difficult for those living outside of the Hamden territory to reach certain areas to run errands. As more occurrences of these walls and fences were built up to “isolate” violence and crimes, it made it difficult for those who were not involved in the actions to be able to reach areas for the potentially of receiving jobs and running personal errands. I believe it still goes today when upper class neighborhoods have spiked fences and a security coded entrance so that only residents or friends of residents are allowed to enter the premises. Anybody that doesn’t live there or know a personnel there is restricted and almost prohibiting from having an access in the area. There’s a lot of that especially in suburban areas in Georgia.
Many people don’t realize that certain areas were built to either isolate them or because it was made for them. This causes problems for marginalized groups while benefiting the vast majority. While most infrastructure and areas would believe it’s supposed to bring protection into certain, it leaves out and makes it harder for people seeking opportunities to access them. You would think that if they would have signs stating who they serve to and didn’t that it would give a clearer message of who they welcome and don’t, but nowadays it’s no longer signs that make the statements. It’s the architecture of such areas that is built to separate and segregated groups from each other. People don’t live in the fear of their protected areas to eliminate violence, they live in a bias and prejudice role that holds them up higher against a lower and poor classified group of people. That’s how most of the country’s architecture was made, to keep one preferred group in while pushing out the others they did not prefer.
Stepping outside the train station being greeted by vibrantly painted wooden furniture, on my left, two men were laid on chairs under an umbrella snoozing the peaceful Sunday away. On my right, another man was sitting on a bench in front of a acrylic painted piano. And then another, who was nowhere near the furniture, was guiding drivers inside motor vehicles where to park towards a parking deck. Walking across the street and then up the stairs hearing the bass of music playing, once I reached the top, I saw families taking pictures of the painted figurines that were scattered around the quad. Further back towards where the bass was coming from, there was band of musicians in colorful tribal clothing. The audience in front of them seemed to be enjoying their rhythmic tunes and they were clapping along to the beat of the music.
As I walked into the High Museum of Art, it was mostly crowded with families alike and authority. Once I received my admission, thankful that it was a free day and I didn’t have to spend nearly $17 for it, I followed the bodies that headed to where I assumed the artifacts would be. Walking through an open door, on my right there was a painted exterior of what looked as though inspired by a classic children’s book I haven’t read since my younger years. As I kept going straight, there was an area for families and their small children to sit at as one of the employees were engaging with them in a performance to teach the little ones things about art.
For it being my first time into the High Museum, I didn’t necessarily knew where to go or what to see other than from I constantly see from peers posting on social media such a Twitter. Tumblr, and Instagram. Once I saw people coming up and down from ramps and followed a couple of signs here and there, I went up the first ramp and walked into the European and Early American Art sections at the second level.
Also, because I don’t usually stumble upon art galleries or museums as much I would like to, I didn’t know if there was a certain way people were to look at art. I knew that everybody does it differently. I would believe that the galleries would be full of scholars observing and possibly discussing with one another what’s the interpretation of such pieces, but I reckon that’s a stereotype I was taught to believe. The first gallery that caught my eye was one that held pottery items. There was two young girls already in there, and once I begin to kill time waiting for my friend to arrive, they left the small gallery. So there I was, alone in a section of the museum. It wasn’t intimidating; however, I just didn’t want to be seem bored although the arts is something is something I’m greatly fond of. Besides, I’ve been wanting to attend this museum since I first heard of it. So as my anxious body slowly walks through a small gallery of porcelain values, I skimmed the details of them and read their descriptions as well. Once I was finishing my observation, a small Asian family came into the gallery. As I was existing, a small boy was whimpering with tears as the mother stooped down in eye level to seek what was wrong with her son.
As I waited for my friend to arrive, I walked through the European Art section. Some of the people I passed through were friends following each other, others were taking pictures of their friends in front of the art pieces, more families with young ones and mothers demanding their children not to run in the museum and then there was a young woman taking a selfie with one of the pieces as well. As I began to walk through the American Art section, there was a woman taking pictures of her two children in front of these life-sized portraits of Native American Indian chiefs and generals. Around the gallery, a couple security guards were patrolling the area. Walking further, I got nervous and intimidated wanting to take a picture of this vanity with a board on the center horizon of its mirror because of the people around me including this one security, who probably wouldn’t have cared because she must have seen thousands of young adults and teenagers done it before, but still I was immensely intimated.
Once my friend finally arrived, we skipped the third floor and went straight to the fourth floor where all the Contemporary, Folk and Modern Art was held. First, we went through the Folk Art section, and he had me stand in front of a colorful quilt taking my picture with his camera and he had me do the same for him. Apparently, he was standing so close to it that he actually touched it without knowing and a security guard was nice enough to request him to be careful about it. Then as we wandered on, we walked into this giant exhibit room showcasing Walter Evans’ photography. At one point, I saw a young man drawing the face of one of his photographs while passing through. Once we finished walking around that level of the museum, we decided to walk down a block or two up until we requested an Uber to ride back to campus.
Going to the High for the first time and seeing people just minding their own selves on a Sunday afternoon was a great experience. I believe it’s usually quieter on the weekdays so possibly if I ever do decide to go during then, I will be able to explore more, read more and feel more comfortable taking selfies on and with the artifacts and masterpieces. For a Sunday at the High, there was a lot of families around so I’m guessing that’s usually a special day for families to come and enjoy themselves and together. At one point, I saw a small group of students with their teacher talking about certain pieces. A variety of people come to the High, families, students, teachers, friends, artists and scholars. I think that’s something really amazing about art is that it brings people together in a way.
Once I stepped off the escalator exiting the station, Arts Center, I turned on my heel and walked another flight of stairs to get to my destination. I kept following the arrows that stated “Woodruff Arts Center” and “High Museum of Art” and the very second I stepped off the top step, around the corner was this stain glass mural.
Along the corner from where I took this picture, a man was playing on a acrylic painted piano. I’ve heard recently that such vibrantly painted pianos were placed all over in different areas in Atlanta where people are free to play music to bring peace, joy and musical wonders throughout the city. Somehow I wondered if that was in the Five Points station I departed from earlier because I recall hearing a piano playing while waiting for the train.
Following the arrows, I’m met by the sun and greeted by colorfully painted chairs and tables that surrounded the piano. Once I cross the street and walk up another flight of stairs, on my right were painted shapes and figures, music playing, tents set up and families all around taking pictures of their children enjoying such figures. On my left was the entrance to the museum. I walk in and up to the admissions desks, and right when I take my wallet out the employee gives me a sticker informing me that it was a free day. (I saved $17, YES!)
While I waited about thirty minutes for my best friend to appear, I walked around the second level where the European and some of the American Art were held. Some of the masterpieces fascinated me including this vanity that separated my body with its various mirrors.
Once my friend finally arrived, he wanted to go straight to the Contemporary and Modern section which was at the very top level. So I skipped viewing the third level proceeding to the fourth and along the way I took advantage of taking pictures of the skyline and the skyview window up above the museum.
Walking through the Contemporary and Modern art section, I finally got to see artwork that I’ve seen people took selfies with from Instagram. And of course, me and my friend did our part to contribute to the trend.
Below is my friend, Jordan.
Seeing these artworks for the first time not through a touchscreen device on a social network really sparked something within me. I feel as I can accomplish anything and soak up so much creativity and innovations walking through galleries. What was really amazing was being able to read the stories and inspirations behind most of the artists’ works. This was my first time at the High, and it was such a relaxing experience on a Sunday afternoon. I do plan on coming here another day, hopefully when it’s another free day, maybe when they have their teen night, possibly writing and maybe even start drawing the art myself as I saw a few young artists doing while I was there.
I don’t believe there’s necessarily a blog I can dislike. Blogs are everyday virtual journals that people write it in expressing their thoughts out into a safe space on their own. As someone who has been writing in numerous of volumes of personal journals for years and who still is, I don’t blame someone for doing the same. Writing helps one express to where saying it aloud nearly can’t. I don’t necessarily have a preference or a favorite blog, but here’s a few that I enjoy:
Befitting Style is run by Oyinkan who has been surrounded with style since her childhood as she grew up watching her mother obsess over style. This is a daily fashion blog that I’ve been subscribed to for over a year now. She talks about fashion trends, showcasing outfits and looks she wears daily and even gives insight looks on fashion shows. I believe when I was looking for a blog to help me gain a sense of what could be my signature and key looks this was one I stumbled upon and have stuck with ever since.
Okay, so even if I did have a favorite blog, this would be one of my selections. Flower Roots is run by Karlye Hayes, who I believed graduated from GSU not too long ago. I first followed this blog when I first discovered Karlye on Instagram through the So Worth Loving organization that promoted self-love and positivity sending out the message through t-shirts. Karlye was one of the people that was actively involved with the campaign and I’ve followed her ever since. Her blog, Flower Roots, is a deeper insight into knowing who she is. She gives advices on self-love, relationships, self-assurance, and updates on her life. Every time I read her blog, I feel refreshed because it brings out such a peaceful tone in every description. And especially during a dark time in my life on discovering who I was, this was a blog I immediately went to to seek advice and guidance that I needed.
Another one of my favorite blog selections is NYCBambi by Christie “Kiki” Tyler. I first discovered her on Tumblr through my dashboard when various fashion posts of her would appear, and when I actually went onto her Tumblr page, I fell in love and immediately followed her and all her other social media accounts. We’re the same age and she lives more up north and she recently has been working for a lot of companies because they love her style and how she presents and promotes their products which I find is amazing and is the modern day millennial way of promoting and advertising such companies through social media. Once again, while pursuing a fashion sense and feel for myself this is one of the blogs I relied on. I don’t necessarily rely on it for fashion anymore, but I still like to keep up with what’s in Christie’s closet.
Franchesca Ramsey, an actress and comedian, famous for being on MTV Decoded has this blog that is run through the Tumblr website. She actually has her own website which has just been relaunched, franchesca.net. I’ve followed Franchesca since earlier this year when I first saw one of her famous controversial YouTube videos. She is hilarious and truly outspoken on so many things within the media, society and injustice that occurs within these systems which is why I’m so glad to have followed her on social media because to me, she is someone who is standing her ground so that people like me don’t have to keep going through the indecency we constantly do and have done. I have religiously watched MTV Decoded, but from what I’ve already seen Franchesca doing and pursuing, I almost don’t have to (but I’ll still pursue it). Here on her Tumblr blog, Franchesca responds to fans through asks, and also writes personal text posts dealing with or expressing topics such as having anxiety, what’s trending in the world, and calling out what should be done and could be done to fix such problems within the society’s fixed standards.
Last but not least is a friend of my friends’ but who is soon going to be one of my friends is Savana Ogburn. She just graduated from the same high school I went before her, she will be attending SCAD, she has created her own zine, sonicblumezine.com, and is one of the most amazing and creative people I have yet to met. I discovered her when a few months ago when a couple of my friends were tagged in her pictures of them for Rookie Magazine, an online website that’s a safe places for girls and femmes to express and connect with each other, and I’ve digged her artwork ever since. Just over the summer, one of my best friends got featured on Rookie Mag for one of her pieces, and I couldn’t be more proud of him and more amazed by her. Sonic Blume is an online magazine Savana created to promote concert photography, photographers and local band music. Savana’s website, savanaogburn.com, showcases her art work and her latest projects. I’ve got in touch with her recently about meeting up and taking pictures because I really wanted to be able to create with her and also get to her and make a new friend. Once she gets settled into SCAD, we will and I cannot wait!
These were 5 blogs I really enjoyed and I hope you get to check them out, too!
In 2014, American Eagle’s lingerie brand, Aerie, created a campaign where they featured untouched photography of their models promoting the notion of body positivity. This ad was used to break the barrier and standards of the ideal of the “perfect” body reaching out to their audience, which ranges in 15-21 year old women, that their bodies are perfect the way they are. Also it was brought out because the Aerie President, Jennifer Foyle, stated, “We definitely had a creative moment where the team got together, and we just said ‘Really, what’s happening today with millennials and the next generation?'” According to Huffington Post, when she spoke to Business Insider the year before she also state that, “And we really felt like girls today are just more independent and stronger than ever. We just really knew it would resonate with this generation.”
Among that, sales have gone up 32% since the start of the campaign. While the world seems to be on board with such a campaign, I found one article that is not convinced. Fusion’s Cora Harrington writes listening three ways she’s not convinced of the company’s new campaign quite yet. She obviously states she cannot disagree with the surge of sales that has aroused the company since its campaign release, but she always wrote that the company closed down 15% of its retail stores in the U.S. including 34 its Aerie’s shops signifying that store closures peek revenues at other stores still in production. She also adds that the stores bralette section has doubled down because it is not a popular margin in sales. And because a variety of other companies sell lingerie products as well, their no-Photoshop campaign isn’t what could be their reason for surging sales. Finally, Harrington describes while Aerie is given the credit of obscuring beauty standards by not touching up their photos of models, it’s not doing the job all the way through. Harrington posted with an example that the pictures of their models still shows the European-centric beauty standards that has embodied society for so long. She states, “What standard of beauty is Aerie challenging here? They’ve placed themselves at the forefront of the body positivity movement, yet they’re relying on the very same imagery that this movement was created to disrupt.” She concludes that Aerie is less diverse than Victoria’s Secret.
I, personally, am proud of a company such as American Eagle promoting body positivity with Aerie using “real” models and not touching up any of the photos showing the models in their curves, rolls, marks and scars. However, there is still work to be done and process still need to be made. While this lineup of #AerieREAL models shows a very diverse cast including women that work within the company, there’s still a spectrum of representation that is being left out. While we have slightly thicker women than slimmed down models, we still don’t have representation of women who are as one would say “Precious” (from the movie Precious) sized, or darker skinned women or black women wearing their naturally kinky hair.
But on Instagram and Twitter, the #AerieREAL hashtag has women promoting themselves and their bodies positively through social media using the hashtag to embrace their beautiful selves not fitting into the “norms” of society’s beauty standards.
So is #AerieREAL for real? I believe it is so, but it still has a long way to get as really REAL as it gets into being about embracing body positivity of many, many different shapes, sizes, and shades of bodies.
9/7:
Today we went over summarizing a quote in Schindler’s essay, “Architectural Exclusion: Discrimination and Segregation Through Physical Design of the Built Environment”. Partnered with Black Candebat, while we were assigned for Part B in the the first section of the excerpt, we went over it and went onto the second section finding a quote that best described what message the author was sending to its audience.
“In Detroit in 1940, a private developer constructed a six-foot-high wall – known as the Eight Mile Wall – to separate an existing black neighborhood from a new white one that was to be constructed.”
Also, I have Googled photos of the Eight Mile Wall to give a visual example.
“Negro children standing in front of half mile concrete wall, Detroit, Michigan. This wall was built in August 1941, to separate the Negro section from a white housing development going up on the other side” – Library of Congress
