Making Waldo

This last project has been a blast. We got to vandalize school property FOR A GRADE. This project had so much flexibility. At first I was clueless on what to do. Never really thought about "If I was to suddenly turn to street art, what would I put up?" Eventually the Waldo idea came to me, and my group ran with it. It was tons of fun. Trying to hide Waldo's everywhere, printing a giant Waldo, taking pictures of observers, all of it. The making of the website was more of a chore, especially with the manifesto and sources. However, with the freedom of the project, the medium by which we showed it must also be free. A simple word document, or 1 video wouldn't have been able to show all the different parts, the meaning behind it, and our reflections  While making the website wasn't a smooth process, it came out nicely in the end.

http://findingwaldo.wix.com/finding-waldo

IMPROVising

One of my favorite types of comedy is improv. Improv, when done well is hilarious. Stand-up is funny, but it's so practiced and tailored, it doesn't have the same effect. Improv is spontaneous, and to be good at improv, one has to be a really funny person in real life. Those spur of the moment, on the spot jokes are what make someone truly funny, not how well you can practice 1 or 2 routines. To me, improv has a sense of realness to it. It isn't practiced, or censored. There are no parts cut out of it, or bad jokes that are skipped. Its real funny situations arising from real funny people.

Liar Liar

Every year England has a "World's Biggest Liar" competition. Participants are required to come up with a story on the spot and make it as believable as they can. While it sounds like a terrible competition, it mostly comes down to who can tell the best story. The winner is not a sneaky, weasel-faced, scumbag. Instead it was a nice pleasant old man, who simply told a great story enthusiastically with great charisma. This made me rethink "On Bullshit." In class, we agreed that lying and bullshitting are not the same, nor are they mutually exclusive. I mean here there is a lying competition that is simply who can make the best story. Is it testing your ability to bullshit? In that case, are all authors just really good bullshitters?

Wiki Link

In a Land Far Far Away

So my previous post was about pictures of real life Disney princesses. Well apparently it has been taken one step further. ABC has a show called Once Upon a Time that is about what would happen if all our favorite characters were dropped in a town without any of their memories. And I ask you: why? Why take perfectly good innocent fairy tale characters and make them real? From what I've heard, the show shows that in real life, the characters aren't great people. You rarely actually like any of them because of personality, and every episode seems to have more and more bad stuff happen. Long story short, I won't be watching it any time soon. But it does raise an interesting point: is this simulacrum? I categorize it as a simulacrum (it's a show) of a simulacra (real life people based on cartoons). I bet Baudillard would enjoy figuring out how that one works.

Is This a Dream? Is it Real?

Re-watched the movie Inception the other day. Now here's a movie worth watching twice. I love how you don't find out the story in order. You find out about some of the first events (Molly's death, and Cobb's exile) towards the end of the movie. But besides that, the movie does take an original look at reality and our perception of it. Where the Matrix choose to simply have a false reality (ours), and the real world, Inception has multiple layers, all seeming real when inside of them. Ultimately, the story leads to Limbo, a dream-state where time doesn't pass, and you can be trapped forever. With each layer seeming real while inside, once you realize that there are layers, how can you tell when you are out? Molly is utterly convinced that the real world (was it the real world?) is just another layer and commits suicide to escape into an outer world she believes exists. In the end, there is no definite way to know. If Cobb made the totem in a dream, it would spin exactly how he would want it to in the real world, rendering it useless entirely. In the end, he never does wait to find out if it's a dream or not. What it comes down to is that he is happy. And if the only way he can be that happy is in a dream, why not dream?

On a side note, the movie has one an amazing soundtrack.
Hans Zimmer does it again
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=imamcajBEJs

Cartoons to Reality

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  Ariel from The Little Mermaid
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  Belle from Beauty and the Beast

  
  

  
  
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  Megara from Hercules
• Princess Aurora from Sleeping Beauty
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  Esmeralda from the Hunchback on Notre Dame
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  Princess Jasmine from Aladdin
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  Pocahontas
  
  
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  Snow White
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  Cinderella
  
  
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  Alice from Alice in Wonderland
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  Jane from Tarzan
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  Tinkerbell from Peter Pan

  
  

  So here's an interesting example of simulacra. Someone decided to post a few reverse caricatures. Usually you see real people made into cartoons, but this is the first time I've seen someone take cartoons and try to draw them as real life people. Personally I don't like it. I like the my cartoons as cartoons. These pictures try to bring them to life, and make them out to be real people. But they aren't. They live in fantastical worlds, with magic carpets, and happy endings. That's where they belong. Making them look real just seems...wrong. It also doesn't help that a few of them look like people I know. That's just awkward.

  Original Link

  
  

Back to the Beginning

I realized that I started this blog a bit late, and should probably talk about some of the earlier things we read. The one that I liked the most was Maggie Jackson, "A Nation Distracted." Starting off, I decided that the only proper way to read this would be without getting distracted. So I told my roommates to let me focus, and tried to get through the entire article. Didn't happen. I think I made it to like page 2 before I switched tabs (its a habit) and started chatting on Gmail. After a few more diversions, I did make it though. But reading 5-7, I felt like I was living proof of it. I, a well-educated college student, couldn't muster up enough focus to read a single article continuously. I always thought I didn't because it wasn't convenient. But honestly, I can't. I'm slightly ashamed.

Still don't get the name

Watched Exit Through the Gift Shop again. First time i watched it, I expected a documentary, and felt was unsure at the end. Watching it again, I am almost sure that it's a hoax, or at least the last part is. Going back a 2nd time and seeing it all knowing the ending, it seems impossible that this kinda thing actually happen, and just happen to be caught on tape. Not buying it. Still, it was entertaining, and I do like the style, so I won't complain about the lack or realness (is that why we choose to watch it?). It did get me to look at some of Banksy artwork, which I found really interesting. I love how he combines serious things, such as war or death, and adds his own little nice, or innocent twist.

Well that was quick...

I felt I had more time to get this done than I actually did. Since I already talked about the actual content this will be more Need to work on knowing about deadlines more than the day before. I didn't get as much time as I would have liked but I did get all of the corrections I wanted in. Just wish I had more time to look over it, and consider how to get my point across. The peer review worked better than I expected. Usually in class peer reviews are not helpful because the reviewer either doesn't understand the paper, or is rushing to finish it so he/she can do more interesting things. However in this class, when you finish the review, you discussed it with the person. I feel people actually read my paper, and critiqued it insightfully and actually helped me improve my paper. I did try to include their inputs in the final paper, as well as tried to clean up a few corners. Hopefully it came out nicely.

This I Believe

I believe people are inherently good. Now that's not to say every person is good in their hearts, but simply that as a whole, humans are compassionate, generous, and trustworthy. Now most people would immediately mark this off as me being optimistic, or sheltered, and I couldn't say that it isn't true. However, the  most compelling argument for me is simply this: If humans weren't naturally good, how could we have made it this far?
At this point I think it's necessary to define "good". I don't mean good as in smart, or good as in never lies or cheats. I mean good as in most people are not driven simply by selfish motives of greed and power. They have a moral code and care about being accepted in society over materials goods. Now this often does lead people to take misguided actions, but they do have good intentions most of the time. Now there are some outliers. You do occasionally run across some people who act based on selfish desires, spite, or even sometimes just to cause chaos. But none of those are the norms.
Most people act based on what they think is sociably acceptable. We are a race driven by communication, by interaction, by unity. For tens of thousands of years we have worked together overcoming obstacles to get to where we are today. There is a psychological desire each of us has to be accepted and part of a community. Without it, we would like to be as far apart as we could, and would never have developed civilizations, never built cities, or raised monuments, never became the dominant species on Earth. Instead, we will try to help where we can, however we can, because that is what makes a society work. And ultimately, most people understand that by being part of something bigger, they themselves will benefit more as well.
However, this can, and has, led many people down the wrong path. Often times society does push people to make choices they wouldn't normally make, and commit crimes that they wouldn't even consider by themselves. Society leads to wars and destruction, has stagnated progress, and encouraged atrocities. But that's what makes it all the more important that we don't let ourselves be pulled down into one of these times of darkness. As long as we as a society hold true to our morals, it will ensure that others do the same. It is vital that we stay a society built upon community, and altruism, and not let our actions be governed purely by greed and hate.