Category Archives: Blog Post #1

The Persistence of Memory

The contents of an image have changed after the invention of the camera. Camera movements and image availability alter the way we interpret the story and meaning of an image. The use of the camera today has made art like this easily accessible to the general public creating more possible meanings for a given image. The invention of the camera is used not just as a mechanism that manipulates the meaning of art externally but can be used internally as part of the image itself. Surrealism paintings often had a photographic likeness to them, which added a modernized feel.  Surrealism was a 20th-century movement in art and literature that used irrational imagery to evoke the unconscious mind. 

The Persistence of Memory is a 1931 surrealist painting by artist Salvador Dali. The four clocks look to be as they are melting while the white almost faded looking figure on the ground appears to be sleeping. The Persistence of Memory possibly represents the dream state. The clocks depict the passage of time in reality. The melting of the clocks and then ants on the clock furthest to the left represent times powerlessness in the dream state. Since time is something we deem very precious in the everyday world, the distortion of the clocks shown how irrelevant our conscious worries are to our unconscious mind.

 

Before and Now Era of Camera

ENG 101/0845

I have encountered a message that has been conveyed by an image and it was when my history teacher back in high school teaches us information about those historians that contributed to the world using images. At some point, by using an image, there is a possibility that the meaning or appearance of an image might change because it has been seen by a lot of people and we have different kinds of perspective so we understand things differently. But if we see images and paintings in its original concept, we might realize the differences between the original and the one used by the camera. In the original piece, you can see the uniqueness of art, you can see the thickness of the material used in that art. But in terms of using a camera rather than to see it with our own eyes, the meaning of an art change because we just lost the originality of it and you will certainly see a drawing that means a lot of insights came from different kinds of perspectives of people. 

For me, it fits with the idea of Berger because they mean the same perception, that you will know the real meaning of a painting if you will be able to see it with your own eyes or in reality. 

I think it brought us a realization that after camera was invented and much online stuff that popped up, it changes the world and it changes how we see things in different ways, I would say social media affects our lifestyle by seeing so many advertisements everywhere that we didn’t notice we are being addicted to it. Unlike before that, there weren’t cameras, people live in a society that writes their own stories with their own experiences and not influenced by social media. 

 

Cameras, News and The Boogie Down Bronx

ENG 101: Blog Post #1

In Berger’s first Episode of Ways of Seeing, he touches on the use of cameras use to convey a conversation with its user yet took away a sense of truth, originality and personality from paintings and potentially real life. This piece aired back in the 70’s, the height of color television. I felt that his ideas towards cameras and their use was justified. From Advertisements, television, movies, magazines, to the news. Cameras brought images from around the world to bring about a new way of living and communicating. Society has embraced it so much that, in present day we are still surrounded by its images. We use the combination of words and imagery to give us our most basic of information and state it as fact. This new format of communication is easy to understand, you watch, and the assistance of words, music and imagery builds the scene for you.

The news is broken down to a mere 60-minute segments on a click of a button. Yes, we are more well informed and understand so much more about the world and people around us but with this grand invention comes an invitation of grand misuse. The news reports brutality in poverty-stricken areas alongside the celebrity puff pieces, molding its unknowing viewers to feel on the edge. To feel the need to remain informed out of the fear as opposed to knowledge. I have been asked personally so many times “is the Bronx that scary?” “Is the Bronx as dangerous as they say it is?” they ask me these things because rather than show the positives of the Bronx they will show images of crime, murder, drug use, homelessness and death.

The evidence of its impact even shows on your Google searches.

What isn’t being shown is the community trying to help one another in the community centers, the important landmarks and beautiful parades and art that flow throughout the Bronx.

The news finds a way to amplify the bad in a community struggling to survive without sharing its accomplishments, because good news means less views. I felt this topic and the images of the Bronx was closely related to Berger’s opinions back in the 70’s because even though cameras helped the world learn about each other , the use of imagery can be used to manipulate its viewer negatively about the world.

Blog Post #1

 

A couple of months ago, I found a page related to children around the world while I was scrolling through my Facebook account. I saw a picture of an African kid who was starving to death. He was so skinny that his bones were clearly visible. He was sticking out his hand hoping to receive some food. His condition was so miserable that I couldn’t stop tears from coming down my cheeks. I felt so sad with the cruel reality. It left me with a thought that there are so many people around the world who waste food knowingly. On the other hand, there are thousands of kids in other parts of the world who are starving to death. I have many pages in my Facebook that post about food. I think that is why I immediately thought the child needed food. He also had no clothes or shoes. I am not sure if he even has any shelter. But because of all the food posts on my Facebook, my immediate thoughts were regarding his hun

my mother never knows where I am…..

I was 11 years old, walking to my middle school when I bent down to tie my shoe near a bus stop. When I looked up, I noticed the advertisement behind the glass. It was a photograph of a young boy sitting on a brownstone stoop, with the caption, “Its 9 AM, do you know where your kids are?”. In episode one of Ways of Seeing, Berger talks about how reproduced images can be warped and manipulated anyway one sees fit, and how that image can have a completely different meaning than the original when put into the right context. Without those bold letters of that caption, it could have very well been an advertisement pushing back to school clothes, or even an ad for a DS. If I had seen that child sitting on those steps at nine o’clock with my own eyes, I would have thought nothing of it. However, with that quote on the photo, it gave the image a more serious and urgent tone, a warning to anyone with a young child. Turns out the ad was a campaign to boost attendance in New York City schools with the hope of limiting the number of drop outs per year. As Berger said, cameras made it possible for images to convey all kinds of messages. That image sent out a very powerful message, which would have otherwise been just an average child sitting on his apartment steps.