2014-11-23Channing Nielson Book

Our life experiences determine how we view, interpret, and relate to new experiences. This is why a piece of art does not make everyone feel the same emotions or why a song speaks to some and not others. Our life experiences also determine how we express ourselves and how we choose to do so.
In the Radiolab podcast Straight Outta Chevy Chase, one topic of discussion is the meaning of “true hip-hop” and who decides what true hip-hop is and why they feel that way. In the podcast, Andrew Marantz introduces us to Peter Rosenberg, a middle-class, Jewish, white guy from a Maryland suburb, who becomes a hip-hop DJ on a hip-hop radio station. Rosenberg’s main job at the radio station is to discover underground talent and find the next big artist. In 2012, Rosenberg, a fan of Nicki Minaj early on in her career, was not impressed with her song Starships and deemed that it was not “real” hip-hop. He expressed this openly at a music festival he was covering for the radio station. Nicki Minaj was performing at this festival and once she heard what he said, refused to perform because of it. This incident at the music festival started a yearlong feud between Minaj and Rosenberg. Eventually the radio station sat the two down for an interview, and they hashed everything out.
In this mediated interview, Nicki stated that she did not think that this white guy she had never heard of before had any right to criticize black rappers and work as a DJ on a black radio station. She had grown up with that radio station and was familiar with all the DJs who had worked there for a long time. When this new DJ on the station started criticizing her, she felt that he did not have the resume to warrant the right to criticize her. She also expressed that many men had told her throughout her life that she would never make it or amount to anything. She saw Rosenberg as just another man telling her that she wouldn’t make it.
Now, when I think about this story, I wonder, did he have any right to criticize her song? I don’t wonder this because he is white but because it’s not his song. Of course everyone is entitled to their opinion, but why would he feel that he had the right to say that her song was not real hip-hop? Rosenberg had been told that he didn’t fit in as a hip-hop DJ and that he could never be a hip-hop DJ even though he was knowledgeable about the industry and had a passion for it. He had to fight for his passion, so why did he feel that he could just bash someone else’s? He didn’t know what that song meant to her or how it made her feel, just as she didn’t understand that he had any right to be a DJ on a black radio station.
Another point brought up by NPR’s Frannie Kelley was that when a song is referred to as “real hip-hop,” that is code for masculine and aggressive and not feminine. And when a song is referred to as “for the ladies,” it implies that women would not be able to understand or relate to the content of any other songs. Rosenberg may not have even been aware of the undertones of what he was saying, but Frannie Kelley’s thoughts on the subject are uncannily accurate. Rosenberg did seem to favor the old-school, male-dominated hip-hop sound, and the second Nicki Minaj deviated from that platform, he openly criticized and questioned her ability as a hip-hop artist and declared that her song “Starships” was not real hip-hop.
Personally, I do not think Rosenberg had any right to judge Nicki Minaj’s song as not real hip-hop. Does anyone have the right to decide what is real and what is not? Now Nicki Minaj is not my favorite artist and “Starships” is not my favorite song, but I don’t believe that I have the right to tell her something she created is not real. I can express how her music makes me feel and what I associate with it, but that is as far as I will go.

Memory is a large part of our life. It’s how we survive in reality. Memory is also one of our most cherished possessions. It seems that most people fear losing their memories more than losing anything else. Memento demonstrates the chaos associated with memory loss and the possible downward spiral we could take if put in the same position as the main character, Leonard.

Memento is told through two intertwined story lines. One story line is shown in black and white and is told in chronological order. The second story line is a series of color sequences shown in reverse order. The two story lines eventually converge at the end of the film. I believe the director did this to display how memories can be distorted. I also believe the director used the two intertwined storylines to demonstrate the main character’s life spiraling out of control.

Memories are complicated things. On one hand, they are cherished, and we would be lost without them. But on the other hand, sometimes our brains block certain memories as a part of self-preservation. We instinctually protect ourselves from memories that we feel we cannot face. This protection does not always last very long though. The truth tends to leak out in small ways through dreams or even just as memories that we cannot control.

Memory is the very heart of this film. Memento is largely about memory and the ways in which it affects and defines identity. We define ourselves through our memories and our life experiences. Our life experiences determine how we react to new experiences and situations. Even though our memory tends to be unreliable, it still holds a crucial role in our experience of the world.

Memory defines us and because of that we cherish it. We use it to remember the successes of the past but also to forget the mistakes of today. Memory is what helps us determine how we experience the world we live in, and due to its unpredictable inaccuracy, we do not always know how we will experience the world. If we lose our memory, we lose ourselves.

Power and ignorance are a dangerous combination. In the movie, Schindler’s List, this disgusting combination and the resulting horror are apparent. Oskar Schindler, a wealthy businessman, saw the devastation the Nazis were causing and had to pretend to be sympathetic to the Nazi cause in order to save the lives of over 1,200 Jews.

Control, another form of power, has a way of tempting a person and perverting them into something unrecognizable. Control can create a monster with the desire to consume anyone and anything in its path. Power is the only reason or explanation for what Hitler was able to do to the Jews. The human devastation he caused is impressive in a sickening way. To think that the world let this one man and his followers inflict that kind of destruction is unthinkable.

To display this kind of suffering and destruction, Spielberg chose to film the entire movie in black and white except for a couple of elements. I believe the reason he chose to do this was because he felt that black and white filming was the best way to convey the rawness of the emotion in this story. Personally, I believe that color can artificially inflate a viewer’s emotions. With black and white, the actions and events that are taking place on the screen are what dictate the emotions that viewers experience during the film.

One element that Spielberg chose to do in color was the coat of a little Jewish girl who was only three or four years old. The little girl and her red coat represented the innocence of the Jews. Oskar Schindler saw this girl twice and recognized her by her red coat. The first time he saw her was during the liquidation of the Krakow ghetto. The second time he saw her was when her body was being carted away with the other dead bodies in a concentration camp.

The convergence of the hunger for power, the exertion of control and the tolerance of ignorance created the perfect storm in the case of the Nazis. The amount of human suffering they caused has been unparalleled in history. Hopefully, with any luck, this will remain the case forever.

Throughout the ages, the art world has been constantly changing. As the art world changes, we as artists attempt to keep up. To keep up with the changing art world, artists and viewers must constantly have an open mind and be open to new ideas. This is probably one of the most difficult challenges to face as an artist and as a viewer of art.

Art has come a long way from supposedly primitive cave drawings to beautiful paintings and sculptures to installations that make us think in new ways. I believe the point of McLuhan’s “Medium is the Massage” is to demonstrate that media influences how the message is perceived. When I listened to “The Medium is the Message,” the audio version impacted me in unexpected ways. Usually when I listen to music or the radio, I can divide my attention and do other things as I am listening. This audio file consumed my entire focus, however. I was no longer able to hear anyone or anything else. I believe this was due to the nature of the record. It was jumbled which made it difficult to tell what was going on. Therefore, it required my entire focus to be able to maintain focus.

I had a much easier time reading the book “The Medium is the Message.” It was printed in a font that was easily readable and had pictures to reinforce its ideas. I am a very visual person. Being very visual makes looking at pictures and words a much easier means of comprehending a message than listening to someone say words.

McLuhan believed that the medium influences how the message is perceived. In these two forms, he demonstrates this belief and to an extent, it works. The recording has more of an impact and seems more tangible. While the visual version makes the message easier to understand, it also makes less of an impact on me, personally. So the media seem to make a difference.

McLuhan’s “The Medium is the Message” is a hard concept to grasp. It requires thinking about objects around you differently than you have before. The medium influences how the message is perceived. Maybe I should have turned this paper into a recording and it would have made more of an impact.

This video was very enlightening to me. I do not know much about the Berlin Wall, and now I know slightly more. What intrigues me about the situation that led to the wall is that the Germans thought they could keep the east and west apart. They may have been successful in separating the east from the west for a short period of time, but one thing they did not account for is the ingenuity of humans.

It amazes me that when humans are presented with an obstacle or told they cannot do something, their first instinct is to find a way around the obstacle or prove that they can do what they want. Where does this quality stem from? Are we spoiled children who want what we want? Or are we good children who want everyone to be able to play equally so we find a way to make that happen? I think the reason people found a way around the wall was because they had family on the other side. It seems like most of what we are driven to do in life is driven by our family and our need to provide for and prolong the life of our family.

Now if family drove the need to get around the wall, maybe it also drove the need to put the wall up. Everyone was leaving the east to be with their families in the west. The west also offered better job opportunities. Did the government think that if they blocked the way in and out of the east with a giant wall for 30 years that people would forget about their families and be content to stay where they were told? If anything, this obstacle would make them want to see their families in the west even more.

Instead of dividing the east and the west, why could they not come together and help each other? I guess controlling a fractured city seemed easier than controlling an entire city. Control seems to be another component of human nature that presents itself to me as a double-edged sword. On one hand control can be useful in maintaining structure and order, but it can also be oppressive. I wonder if we can ever truly have control. No one has maintained control for as long as they would have liked People seem to always find a way to take control back from tyrants, so maybe control is something we can only ever achieve in our own minds.

I hope one day that we will stop building walls to keep people in or out and stop trying to control humanity. To think that we could control people like that is foolish. In the end human nature will win out. The obstacle will be overcome, and we will be reunited as one.

The central principle of Gestalt psychology is that the mind sees the whole image before it sees the smaller components that create the whole form. At first glance, Stan Brakhage’s video, Stellar, seems to fly in the face of Gestalt. The splashes of color come and go so quickly that it is almost impossible for the viewer to perceive anything except chaos in this video. What this video actually is, though, is a blank slate. The chaos of the colors and shapes and movements allows the brain to see what it wants to see, almost like an inkblot test, to create order out of the chaos.

It is actually difficult for me to watch this video. My brain cannot process the images fast enough, and it begins to feel as if my brain is playing “catch up” the whole time. After watching the video over and over again, my brain was finally able to comprehend what I was seeing, but that only brought more questions. What was I looking at exactly? Sometimes the splashes of color looked liked a thick liquid, sometimes they looked like pieces of tree bark that had been painted. Could other people see what I was seeing?

Was this the intention of the artist? Did he want people to create their own visions using his video as an outlet or was he trying to convey his own vision hoping that others could also see it? I think he did want everyone to see something different. He wanted everyone to see their own ideas and visions. I believe the mission of this video is to reveal the state of the viewer’s mind and open up the viewer’s imagination to what could be.

I believe Stan Brakhage also wanted to demonstrate the fluidity of the mind. This is why he varied the speed of the video. As the video sped up, it forced my mind to work faster to figure out what I was looking at. As I came up with different ideas about the images I was seeing, the video changed speeds again forcing my mind to start all over again with a new image.

While this video may seem like chaos in its purest form, it really is Gestalt psychology in its purest form. It makes the mind create order out of the chaos. That may seem like its only goal, but maybe it is more than that. Maybe its real goal is to demonstrate that there does not always have to be order. It all depends on how we perceive what we see.

In recent years, society has begun to reevaluate emotions that previously were considered to be useless or to make a person weak. Now these emotions, such as empathy, sympathy and compassion, are considered to be extremely useful in society and business and crucial to a person’s emotional well-being.

As children and students, prior to reaching adulthood, we are tested on many levels with tests that claim to be able to accurately predict a student’s aptitude in life. But how can a test do this accurately if there is no emotion or artistic movement to these tests? I personally believe it cannot completely predict a student’s aptitude with this crucial piece missing. This belief is becoming more widely held throughout society and business as well. More and more companies recently have begun looking for more creative and emotionally-in-touch employees.

Company’s today are now seeing the advantage in utilizing people who are more in tune with their emotions and rely on R Directed (or right brain) Thinking to support their employees who use L Directed (or left brain) Thinking. In my opinion, this is an improvement from the past where right brains and left brains did not ever cross paths and probably could not even get along. The right brain thinkers, in my opinion, cannot help but improve and enhance any industry that they are brought into. They bring creativity, compassion, empathy, and are good at approaching projects in new ways.

People who utilize R Directed Thinking may also have MFAs, which some may consider to be the business world’s new MBA. This made me wonder if at some point the MFA would lose its luster, novelty, and prestige. If the business world becomes overrun with right-brained people and MFAs, would the pendulum swing once again toward the more analytical left-brained members of our society? Is it an endless cycle that the world will continue to go through or will a new hero emerge? Perhaps we might actually begin to value the differences and complementary natures of both types of thinkers.

Emotions are complex sensations, and some people believe they are best left at home. But that school of thought has been overturned in recent years. Many, including myself, believe they are worth bringing into the work place.

Nothing sees the world like my eyes. This observation fascinated me as a child, and it fascinates me today. No person, no thing, nothing sees what I see. Photography provided the closest means I could find to share what I saw in the world. The more I worked with cameras, though, the more I realized they also could not convey my vision completely.

I prefer to shoot with black and white film. The process feels more tangible to me. There are no colors to complicate or distort. Color does nothing for me. Rather, it gets in the way of the true message of the photograph. Black and white images are stripped down to what is truly important: the shapes, the spaces, the lightness, and the darkness. In my mind, colors serve the purpose of distracting…as if to distract the viewer from delving deeper into the photograph. Colors can block deep emotions that a photograph might evoke in the viewer and only feed into the superficial emotions.

Not only do I feel as if the colors get in the way but that the world itself inhibits my ability to record what I see around me. I do not buy into the theory that the camera is trying to control what I do and see, but I feel as if the world is trying to keep me from showing what I see. The world holds a secret and I have seen that secret and I keep trying to share it with those around me, but my attempt is foiled every time. The world conspires against me and the camera – when the camera loses focus because the sun is too bright or a glorious moment is fleeting and gone – to guard its secrets. If anything, the camera is an ally trying to help me in my quest, but it simply falls short.

In theory, I would trust all art to my hands and mind only, but even then my hands fail me. My mind sees clearly what I want to portray, but my hands are not skilled enough or disciplined enough to create what my mind wants it to. With this struggle I turn to the camera, knowing all too well its limitations in my hands.

I am not naive enough to believe that I am the only artist struggling with sharing what I see with the world. This same frustration must be, and must have been, a universal experience for anyone wishing to convey their particular artistic vision with those around them. As I strive to overcome the limitations of my own hands and my chosen medium, I share a kinship with those who also “see it.”