VISU1311 | Emma D

Category: VISU1311 (page 2 of 2)

VISU 1311: Creativity Blog #3

In the reading titled “What Is Design?” by Kenya Hara, Hara’s use of language and history as he discussed the concept of deign greatly affected my viewpoint on purposeful inner-mechanisms of humans’ abilities to solve problems and communicate with one another.

One line that really struck me as intriguing was when Hara states that, “the beginning of human wisdom may have been the beginning of design”. As I read on, I began to understand design as more as a process of translating and planning a solution worked around a “problem”. The “problem” may be a defensive issue (in that case, designing a weapon would be a choice); or providing a house for a family (architectural design would work here). This understanding of my personal definition seemed to be consistent throughout the article. However, it did not seem as concrete when Hara began discussing the decorative side of design.

Although I would always hear, “fashion designers” and “interior designers” when I was little, I never understood the meaning beneath their work; I would always simply assume that they magically created things that looked nice or elaborately decorative for the consumers to purchase and enjoy. Even if this may be one main motivation for some/many designers, I never did track the origins of thought, motivations, and connections that actually went into creating the pieces and designs. What was the purpose of swirls on ancient vases, or the need to make objects or solutions interesting and aesthetically unique? I then began to think back to the need for communication and understanding among cultures. The intricate art within the process of design—across cultures—makes all of the difference in communicating styles and evoking emotions. Kara discusses this when he emphasizes the impact of industrially made products on the craftsmanship of designers. Although I may agree that producing monotonous products poses a challenge, I believe that there still are designers at work.

Overall Hara’s point of view made me realize that there will always be more for me to learn and experience with design because of its history, inspiration, and importance within our daily lives.

VISU1311: Creativity Blog #2

September 1, 2015 / edrumrig / 0 Comments

This article, titled “High Concept, High Touch”, by Daniel Pink, made me realize the general shifts in society’s needs that take place overtime as well as the importance of art and creativity in today’s age.

Pink discusses the different ages that have occurred and claims that we are passing the “Industrial Age” and entering the “Conceptual Age” of “pattern recognizers” and “meaning makers”. I agree with this because of the way that technology enables us to reach information with ease and express ourselves. We have enough stability technologically (to an extent) to have a higher number of people able to explore the significance of human connections and reach a higher level of thinking.

It excited me when Pink points out that we are moving towards an age where not just art, but emotional and empathetic understandings are being recognized as useful and valid advantages within many disciplines (in comparison to past eras when feelings towards one another were generally suppressed and untapped). He discusses how even in scientific and medical fields that they are becoming inspired and incorporating the useful perspective that the characteristics of artists supply.

In my view, art is very closely linked with human nature as well as complex, synthesized thinking, problem-solving, and expression, which makes it a very useful mechanism for many fields. I’ve been noticing (throughout high school especially) that creative and perceptive skills are being recognized more and more as valuable; many of our teachers motivated to view things in different ways and utilize various personal methods to synthesize our point of view. The students who worked creatively and adamantly seemed to retain more knowledge and understanding after projects than the students who only tried for the minimum.

I never fully grasped the concepts of “Left-brained” or “Right-brained” thinking, other than what both approaches entail (one analytical, orderly, detailed, and logical; the other creative, intuitive, visionary, and holistic). In the article, Pink states that “Left-direct thinking is indispensable”; however, “Right-direct” thinking is now rising from irrelevancy, to secondary, to now almost primary importance. What I found very interesting was the very end when Pink ended with the observation that in a way many people now aren’t mainly motivated by values of wealth, but more so by exhilarating self-fulfillment; not knowledge, but understanding.

All of these connections make me even more thrilled for the future of many disciplines…especially this renewed appreciation for art and design!

VISU1311: Creativity Blog #1

August 26, 2015 / edrumrig / 0 Comments

For our first reading in Visual Arts 1, we were given an excerpt, titled “The Photograph”, from Vilém Flusser’s Towards a Philosophy of Photography.

Vilém Flusser’s “The Photograph” relates a fascinating view on the complex and deceptive nature of photography. His philosophical perspective, which primarily focuses on the element of color to guide his argument, discusses the importance of recognizing the different variables (the photographer, the camera, the image, the photograph, the viewer) that interact during the production of a photograph. He presents each of these elements with their own personal intentions and dramatically close effects on one another’s behavior, purpose, and quality of existence.

Many of Flusser’s build-ups of theories enthralled my mind with new and complex ideas concerning photography. One point that truly entranced my thinking as I read is when he states that black and white photographs do not display an image of reality; rather, they display, as Flusser states, “the magic of theoretical thought”. Before this statement, he discussed the history of the human belief of light and dark cosmic forces and how black and white ideas cannot exist in the real, visual world but rather in real, conceptual thought. This link between philosophical understanding and the stark appearance of black and white photographs made me appreciate the idea of black and white photography even more; I began to understand Flusser’s translation of visual into conceptual thoughts and beliefs.

Flusser then transitions to argue that colored photographs may even be more misleading of the world than those in black and white. When adding color, the photographer adds many more possibilities for trickery, as Flusser states that colors in photographs are but, “transcoded concepts that claim to have been reflected automatically from the world onto the surface”. If color does not truly exist in the world (if it is simply translations of light), then how can we rely on a camera to produce real color as well? (Those as well as a few other questions sprawled around in my head as I read this portion). What I came to conclude for the most part is that we cannot read photographs as if they are reality, but rather as joint expressions of technology, science, art, and humanity. Each illusion of color acts as a mere symbol, and “every symbol is just the tip of an iceberg in the ocean of cultural consensus”. What I began to understand is that photography can be viewed so much deeper than as just the ability to capture a snapshot of the world; there are many interactions, some obvious and some obscure, beneath the surface.

From here, he treats the camera as a being, with its own objectives and threats against the photographer’s goals and potential. His statements of the camera’s connecting objectives and the photographer’s connecting objectives made me view the process in a new light. An observer and critic must distinctively recognize the relationships between the photographer, the camera, society, and the future in order to truly understand the significance of a photograph. The best photographs, he notes, are when the “human spirit wins” against the camera’s main and monotonous function to photograph and be improved upon by humans to capture a clearer “reality” (which cannot truly exist and distracts from the beauty of photography and the artist’s vision). Human creativity and understanding must shine through the drudges of the camera.

Although at times I became confused and a little lost within the many concepts developed within Flusser’s “The Photograph”, his presentation of these multifaceted ideas caused me to question the reality of color, the factors one must consider when analyzing a photograph, the relationship between an artist and his/her medium, and, most significantly, the artist’s true purpose as he/she faces the challenges ingrained into the creation of a successful piece. I began to understand that Flusser’s unnerving and mesmerizing ideas call everyone to constantly observe critically and create passionately, as if we are all fighting an ongoing battle not against machine or medium, but against ourselves and the mediocrity that arises when we do not actively pursue a deeper understanding of the creative process.