Half the Semester

Though it’s only been two months, we managed to cover a great deal of material and explore a world of ideas that could take an entire semester or even more to elaborate on. We experienced everything from time-tangled music videos like Sugar Water, to the mind-blogging movie, Momento, to various readings defining the concept of time and the many ways of recording time. Overall, the materials given in this course were helpful yet what really helped me was the class discussion aspect of the course. I always enjoy the opportunity to share my thoughts with others but what helps me the most in understanding readings or perplexing movies like Momento, is listening to the comments of other people and hearing what they think. What makes a class the most interesting as well as most engaging is when class discussion and group work are strongly encouraged. I like that we are given the opportunity to speak our mind, observe and illustrate, and work with one another as we do so. That is what I think the purpose of art is—to spark conversation, to be engaging and to be attention-grabbing. The course so far, to me, has a type of democratic environment. It exhibits an “artistic democracy” in which the course is not dictated by a single person, but rather by a body of people with a body of ideas to share and to teach to one another. And no one person is wrong and right—we are all equal with equally interesting and good points to present. Yet at times I was confused by the material we were given to observe. The most confusing was watching and trying to understand the manipulation of time in Momento. In trying to explain the storyline when I was writing my previous blogs, I ran into a rode block because I really couldn’t wrap my head around what was going on. Sure, I took notes—lots of notes—but even these couldn’t lead me to the concept. Yet, as stated before, what helped me was asking questions and class discussions. Truthfully, it wasn’t until we discussed the movie after finishing it, that I really understood it. And even today, I still can’t restate what happened. Class discussion on the readings also helped me understand the concept of art and time. Before I never really looked much into how time affects art. I really only knew of the used of space to depict time in art but I really didn’t know of all the ways time could affect art or vice versa. Yet I now know of how different cultures calculate and record time, I’ve enjoyed listening to other’s explanation or interpretation of the question “How did you get here?”, and their theories on the real story of Lenny Shelby in Momento. I also enjoyed the stool project where we recreated the images using the space in-between the drawn lines of our sketches. Of all the topics covered, I’d like to use the topic concerning the right side of the brain (as inspired by the reading and activity Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain by Betty Edwards) for future projects. The brain is indeed an art form in itself and I’d like to look more into not only the creative right brain side of it but also how it cooperates with the logical left side of the brain. I believe that I could research and write about how art engages both hemispheres of the brain. In art, both sides of the brain are necessary. The right side provokes one to create and the left side provokes one as well as their observers to think about what they’ve created or how they’ve created it. Three artists that I believe exemplify this and that I would like to do research on our Rene Magritte, Marcel Duchamp, and Salvidor Dali. These Dada or Surrealist artist use their work to push the boundaries of art and make people think and inspire them to create works of art that contradict, question, challenge the norms. With that in mind, I can say that all in all, this course and these artists have made me want to think and create and do so both creatively and thoroughly.