It was my birthday a couple of weeks ago and I got a nice present from someone who is arguably my favorite teacher ever. Her name is Olga and she basically has taught me math for my entire life.
She has been tutoring me since elementary school on and off and she works at my the high school my mom is a guidance counselor at. I was then lucky enough to go to that high school and be fully taught by Olga for the first time as her student. It was truly an honor.
Olga is one of the nicest, smartest and greatest people I've ever met. She has a huge heart and is willing to do absolutely anything for her friends and family. She has endured many hardships through her life. She was raised in a one room apartment with about five other families by her mom. Through her later years she and her mother would legally immigrate from Russia to America, and after a lengthy legal process, they finally made it. They didn't know one word of English, but would later learn the language and gain full citizenship. Olga herself started out as a hair dresser, but would later get a degree and began teaching at the Benjamin Franklin Academy in the early 90s.
These two items, one that says, "Dearest Graham, happy 19th! Two more years and we'll drink together! Love you! Always yours, Olgie". That made me smile. Olga sacrificed a lot of time and effort teaching me and being there for me and this is just another example of her love for me. The second picture is a strange sort of Rorschach drawing that she made on a napkin during an extremely boring faculty meeting.
I really love this napkin drawing because it's so simplistic and is just there for me to appreciate. It has nice colors, it's not too abstract and it's just there for me to enjoy. It's something I can look at, appreciate and make me feel good and remember how awesome Olga is.
Both of these items are near and dear to my heart and remind me of the great times I shared with Olga. To the outside eye, it might not seem like too much, but when you've got as a deep as a relationship as I have with Olga, anything you get from someone you really care about, a great friend like her, will always brighten your day. It sure as hell brightened mine.
That is really the last thing my roommate and good friend, Fritz, or as some of you know him, Zach Strum, said about the subject of what defines our society these days, and that subject in my opinion and in my group's opinion was technology. How it affects us as a society, and how it affects each of us personally is a fascinating subject to delve into.
Technology has offered society many great advancements in the way we live. That is really an undeniable fact. The advancement in medicine and machinery has vastly improved the way we as a society live. But technology has hindered us to the point where we are so reliant on it, that we almost can't live without it. That's not a good thing. My friend, Tyler, has a similar viewpoint on this subject as well.
"As a society, I think technology is a double edged sword. On one hand it has brought us greater methods of communication, and has enlightened the lives of the sick, the needy and brought the world a new way of being together.
I really do agree with Fritz, because technology really does make you lazy. You know on Dominos.com how you can track your delivery? I think that's sick."
By sick, Tyler of course meant disgusting. I agree with Tyler, it's like how much do we really need to know about everything? It seems like the internet becomes this infinite resource, and while that's a really cool idea, it just feels like we can get things way too easily through the internet and we don't really have to work for it like past generations did. Granted, life's still tough and all that stuff, but the internet has simplified things to the point where I feel like sometimes I don't even have to think about things because the internet has all the answers.
A V.A. student we interviewed, Cindy, has a similar take.
"We overlook everything, technology causes that. We're all way too in touch with each other. We just can't sit back and be, we just can't exist."
I agree with Cindy as well. Her viewpoint, which is similar to Tyler's really exemplifies the problem with the internet and that is that we are just way too into each other to the point where we are all just consumed with each other's lives. In some ways that's good, but in other's it's just strange. It's like we as a society build off this digital way of living and sort of lose connection of just seeing someone and talking with them face to face. The internet and cell phone text messaging (God I hate that so much) is really just making us incredibly introverted and is completely changing the way we communicate with each other, and I feel like it's leading us to the point where all of us will be living under rocks, not doing anything but just being wrapped up our gadgets and machinery, not seeing each other in the flesh, but in solely virtual reality.
I love all that stuff, I mean movies, video games, music and television are my life. They're great escapes and can take you on real emotional and beautiful journeys, but as Chris McCandless, the main character in the film "Into The Wild" says, or writes rather is that, "Happiness, only true when shared." You can't find total happiness I believe unless you make with a real person, face to face. There really is no other connection like that. All the other stuff is great, I love it. But to truly feel like you're really, really, just insanely happy, you've just got to have that real human connection.
"I don't really like technology, I think it's ruined a lot of us, and I think we're really lazy now," Fritz says after a minute, but he pauses and then says, "I probably spend way too much time on my computer...." It's funny to me how even though people know they shouldn't be so reliant on technology, and shouldn't be so plugged into the virtual world, they still are.
I too, am incredibly reliant on technology. Point in case, my commonplace book is a freaking blog. There's nothing really wrong with that, but at the same time, it's not the most creative thing in the world. A lot of people really work their asses off in not only constructing their commonplace books, but the work inside them are really cool because it just feels so raw and pure in its presentation. I like my blog, I feel like I get my opinions out there, but it doesn't feel as real as some of the commonplaces I've seen that aren't blogs.
I love movies, video games, music, the internet, all that stuff. I'm a big fan of it all, but at the same time it really does isolate us to the point of where machines take over completely. This leads us to our feature presentation and how I really feel like what film really defines not only our time, but very possibly our future. That film is, "The Matrix".
Forget about the sequels (Reloaded was cool though and Revolutions does have the epicness that is Neo Vs. Smith flying around and kicking each other's asses in the final climatic fight, but they're not compared to their predecessor), The Matrix has so many ideas and so many thoughts on our society in general that it's just insane.
The thought that the world we live in, our very existence is nothing but a computer program that is keeping us from the truth, keeping us from what really is, is just a brilliant idea.
The main character, Neo, is a computer hacker that lives out a rather meaningless existence. He is constantly plugged in. A computer hacker by night and holding a boring office job by day, Neo's life is very boring and flat out uninteresting, and rather sad in the sense that he lives so much and relies so much on computers.
But when Neo goes through a radical life changing experience, where he is freed from the virtual world known as the Matrix, and is taught the history of the world by his mentor, Morpheus. Morpheus explains to him that it's not really the year 1999, but yet sometime in the realm of the year 2050. He also explains that before the end of the new millennium, humans were joined together in a state of utopia because of the successful creation of artificial intelligence. But later, because of the human's reliance on these new machines they had created, it led to their downfall. Cities were destroyed and ravaged in a massive war between machine and man. The humans later retreated underground and forged the final human city, Zion in a last ditch effort for survival.
Ok, maybe something not as dramatic as this could happen, but who knows? This really was the first film that I saw where I really began to notice that we as a society are so damn reliant on these machines that it's just ridiculous. We take so much pride in our creations and are so caught up in them that one day someone is going to invent A.I. and these machines could easily rebel against us. That's why I think the Wachowski brothers who wrote and directed the film, really capture their whole idea about this scary futuristic world in this 15 minute scene between Neo and Morpheus and really personify and explore so many fears and so many untapped and scary possibilities that most people probably couldn't conceive of. I just really like stories like this that make me think. In this case, about the future, I love it when I can really see a scenario happening and I can be in awe of it. This whole concept is just shell shocking to the core. What if the life you'd lived was just a lie and that you were just in this computer world and then suddenly brought out of it into the real world. It's just such a cool concept, and combined with the war between machine and man is just fascinating stuff.
The film itself is mind blowing in all respects. A first rate action picture with great characters, a great villain, an excellent, scary story and of course, visually, it's the most brilliant film ever. When a film can be just perfect story wise and technically wise, that's when everything comes together and The Matrix is a perfect example of that. "Curiosity is the starting point of genius", says Baudelaire. How incredibly true, and the Wachowski brothers, Larry and Andy were just so curious about the possibilities of the future and the curiosity really filled their passion, and they created this incredibly dark and thought provoking world.
Technology is a good thing in many respects, but I feel like every day we become more and more reliant on it to the point where I fear it will totally and completely consume our lives. And we've just accepted it too much as a part of our life, sort of a second nature sort of thing, and it'll lead to us living a more isolated lifestyle more about virtual connection than human connection. And that's one thing that we as a society, really can't afford to lose.
The clouds darken and my vision wains as I make my way forward.
Rain is coming, Night is falling, there is hope.
I make my way towards it now, the clouds become even darker.
A rather ominous tone presents itself to me as I look up at the sky.
I see it now. There is no way in and no way out.
The messages along the wall bare warnings.
None shall pass.
The one who walks alone, is a fool.
Enlightenment only comes to fruition when it is shared.
These messages mean nothing to me.
They will not stop me from leaving it behind.
I will run and find what I need.
I need no one, I need nothing.
The wind begins to blow
My vision begins to wain.
My mind isn't right, it'll never be right again.
A voice calls to me as I look at the gate.
It beckons to me and screams to be heard, and I must listen.
Rain begins to fall, night comes, hope is failing.
The sky seems to encompass my entire body.
I want to know what is behind the gate
What do these messages truly mean?
Are they there to warn us, or merely keep us out?
Can salvation be found in a place I don't know,
Or can it be found in a place I've always known?
The rain begins to pour, as a bolt of lightning streaks across the sky.
I look up and back again at the gate.
I do not feel the certain confidence that I once felt.
Evil lies beyond it, a force that I do not have the strength or courage to face.
All I want is to find peace.
I believed that peace lay beyond.
Peace is found within oneself
Running from fate solves nothing.
Facing destiny, facing reality is what makes someone who they are.
Facing destiny, facing reality is what I must do.
I cannot run from them if I expect to find happiness.
I must return if I have any chance of finding it at all.
I chose to do the graffiti wall on the out skirt of the campus because it's a very isolated place. I always thought that it would be a nice place to go to and gather your thoughts. Also, I viewed it as a place to escape when you just needed time to yourself, away from the campus, this seemed like it would be the perfect place to go.
I also thought that since everybody was doing a sort of standard form of artwork, and heading off campus to find their projects to write about, I thought it'd be a better idea to take a look at something that isn't full of glitz or glamour or the elegance of other modern art. I just wanted to look at graffiti.
Graffiti had fascinated me ever since I was a kid. It's something I never took part in, but it was something I was always interested in. There were so many people who did it, and they painted on the same canvas. A wall, sign, the street. It was (mostly) work that had a lot of passion in it as I remembered as a child. I didn't really know what it expressed or why it was there, but it seemed to me that the message behind the strange looking letters and the other ways the various pictures and colors were designed was purely up for interpretation. There was no clear meaning in the message of all these artists. There were so many ideas in one place that they all sort of just combined together to create this super art work with so many different colors, layers and techniques behind the work.
Imagine what would have happened had Michelangelo, Da Vinci and Caravaggio all painted something on the same canvas and how incredibly fascinating that would be? Three completely different styles blending together to make one gigantic and powerful super artwork. We wouldn't have all these clear ideas about what they meant, we'd just get lost in the painting and not have to think so much about what it means, because it would all be up to each person as an individual to decide what the meaning of the painting was. It wouldn't be told to us, because no one could really say for sure what it would be, or what it would represent. That's what makes graffiti fascinating to me. It's something that has no clear definition, which makes it all the more fun to analyze and think about because there is no right or wrong answer.
The inspiration for the story of this film I made came from the idea of the graffiti wall seeming like a good place to hide from the world, but I also came to a realization that facing fears and staring your demons in the face is the best way to attack a problem. Running away and isolating yourself from the world doesn't solve anything.
I then got the idea for someone to be taking a journey to the wall and trying to make their way through the gate to get away from the pressures of life, but then as I mentioned above realizing that that wasn't the answer to his or her problems.
I also really love the sky and trees and what not, which is why I focused a lot on those particular parts in the film. I think the combination of nature with graffiti blends very well, because the graffiti on the wall seems natural and it creates this atmosphere around you, and you're not really sure what it means, and the sky is the sky, man. It's just an incredibly fascinating thing to look at and examine. Same goes for trees, clouds, rain and how bright or dark the sky is to create the right mood for the film.
I really liked doing this project. I viewed it as something that was out of the norm and didn't focus on conventional art style and tried to focus on telling a story through nature and art. It was spiritually refreshing to shoot all the footage and come up with this story, and was a good stress reliever.
Art is subjective. Some might not view this as art. Some might say graffiti itself is amateur. But I consider it to be very interesting and very fun to examine. There is no reason, there is no why, there is just the images and what they create in your own mind. That is what makes them special.
The day had been long. Sunny, my eldest dog looked up at me with a miserable look on her face. She was thinking exactly what I was thinking. Another day, another unsuccessful hunt. The other dogs were tired and miserable as were the rest of us. Spears across our backs, our dreary eyes strayed to the horizon as we saw our town. Life continued for them like it does everyday. But here we are, tired, lonely and without food.
Waking up every goddamn day when the Sun rose, and hunting until the Sun fell on the same day. It was trivial, it was tedious, but this was the life we had chosen. This was the way we supported our people. How disappointed they would be when they found out that we had come back with absolutely nothing but the clothes on our backs.
Some days we were successful, others we weren't, but we hadn't had a successful day in such a long time. Longer than I could remember. Food was scarce, action had to be taken. As I looked into the eyes of my companions, we all knew without one word that we had to find some meat tomorrow, or our rations would become low and all of our lives would become endangered.
The realism of this work is just- wow, it's insane. The stone looks completely like flesh in every way. You can even see in the forceful way he touches her, I mean those look like fingers pushing into skin, and the body parts look absolutely real. It took me a few times to look at this and realize this was actually a sculpture.
What also interests me is how different this sculpture looks at different angles. I was looking at another picture of the work, and it didn't seem as impressive from a far away angle, but the closer angles really reveal the true mastery of the breathtaking realism that this work truly holds and it can't really be experienced until you see it up close. It just adds so much more to the work.
The myth behind the work:
The sculpture depicts an old story in Roman mythology. Proserpina tries in vain to escape her attacker, Pluto, lord of the Underworld, wants to her to become his wife. Proserpina, as you can tell, isn't too wild about this idea and neither are her parents.
Jupiter, her father sent Mercury to free Proserpina from the evil clutches of Pluto, but before agreeing, Pluto made her eat six pomegranate seeds from the Underworld which meant she could no longer return to the world as a mortal. She would spend six months with her family and six months with Pluto. This symbolizes the changes in seasons that we have and in Roman mythology, is the reason we have seasons in the first place.
