Final Blog Entry

I really got a lot out of this class. I was excited from the beginning that I was going to learn more about technology and the internet because it is such a vast and evolving phenomenon. I enjoyed the exploration of apps and how we often utilized the internet to create physical art pieces. Overall, I learned a lot this semester and I am very proud of all of the projects that I completed.

EXTRA CREDIT EFFORTS:
(If yes - provide the URL to the entry and/or EMAIL me documentation)
1. LinkedIn Recommendations? Yes/No.
2. Swede Film Festival submission? Yes/No.
3. RunKeeper GPS art? Yes/No.
- http://haleighpurvis.blogspot.com/2014/05/runkeeper.html
4. Course Survey completed? Yes/No.
-Emailed
5. Digital Art: Chapters Intro-3? Yes/No.
-http://haleighpurvis.blogspot.com/2014/05/digital-art.html

Digital Art

Read from Digital Art: Chapters Intro-3. In your blogs, research two relevant figures/artists/artworks referenced from each chapter and share your findings. Do NOT copy and paste from Wikipedia. Demonstrate your research, processing, and responses to their roles/contributions/artworks. Images/Source URLs/multi-media posts encouraged.

Intro

Douglas Davis orchestrated a performance via satellite telecast to over 25 countries. He took part in one of the first international satellite telecasts with his live performance The Last Nine Minutes. Along with himself, Nam June Paik a couple other artists preformed. I think that this was the beginning of the digital age because Davis wanted his art to reach as many people as possible at once. He was one of the first to utilize satellite telecasting in an art performance piece. 

Keith Sonnier's Send/Review Satellite Network was the first artistic project to connect groups of artists via public satellites. There are two parts to the project: Part 1 studies the politics of using satellite networks for two-way communication for the public instead of controlled by large industries and mass media. Part 2 takes a live, interactive, satellite feed that stretches between NYC and San Francisco and lasted about 15 hours total. The point of this project was to express concerns about peoples right to access satellites. 




Chapter 1





Chapter 2





Chapter 3

Runkeeper

Get the hang of it and make your own more impressive GPS masterpiece before the end of class for extra credit! Screenshot your phone to showcase your work and the details such as date/distance/time, etc on your blog! 

Tilt your head left, and Its a golf flag on the green. 

Internet Art: Chapter 4

Jonah Bruker-Cohen's "PoliceState" was very intriguing to me. The remote controlled cars were linked to a police scanner that once it detected certain terrorist related signals it would control the cars movement. The idea was to make the "police become puppets of their own surveillance." It highlights the bigger question of who has power over information and who should. I find this experiment/art instillation to be very relevant and creative in it's attempts to  express the artist's feelings about the idea of "Big Brother."

Yucef Merhi was the most inspirational artist in this chapter. He hacked the Venezuelan presidents email for years then created a wallpaper-like instillation using the messages. He did this to show that Venezuela is weak in its cyber defense by showing that even an artist can hack into the government databases. I thought that this was a bold move and it sent a strong message to the Venezuelan government.

Internet Art: Chapter 2 & 3

The Barbie Liberation Organization was a publicity stunt in which the voice boxes were switched between nearly 300 Barbie and GI Joe dolls. This caused an uproar in the media, which was the very intention of the BLO. Mothers should have thought of this as a movement and a message instead of a prank to confuse their kids. The main point that the BLO was trying to make was that toys encourage negative behavior in children by exposing them to violence and sexism that Barbie and GI Joe represent.

Personally, I thought this was hilarious. As a babysitter I have seen the negative effects that certain toys and games have on children. It is sad that the innocence of a child can be overlooked as ignorance. Just because they may not fully understand the idea of sexism and gender rolls, little boys still have a habit of making fun of kids that play with toys like Barbie and therefore will grow to see women as less superior. I thought that even though parents were upset about the who dilemma, that there was no real harm done. If anything, the kids had a good laugh about it and probably looked at Barbie a little differently ever since.

Valie Export was an icon for feminist reform in the late 60's.The idea of letting strangers grab my boobs does not instantly strike me as art. After reading this chapter I began to understand the reasoning behind such a bizarre attempt at a statement art piece.  She used her body as the focus of the piece which showed her radical feminist strength.  She called Touch Cinema "the first genuine women's film." Her bravery and shocking approach caused the public to really think about the power of the human body and how women should contain the will to express their bodies without fear or meditation.

Letters to a Young Contrarian: Ch. 10-13

"I repeat, what really matters about any individual is not what he thinks, but how he thinks. Our conversation has been about the constituents that might go to make up an independent and a questioning person; a dissenter and freethinker. This project cannot best be approached or undertaken in a kneeling or prostrate position."

We use faith as a guide and tool for making our OWN decisions based on our own freethinking mind. He thinks that because someone has faith that they cannot think for themselves. However, this is never the case. Dare I say never? I do. I say this because having faith in a higher power does not cause our mind to become brainwashed mush, but rather to look at the world in a different light. One can simultaneously think freely and also believe in a higher power.

Believers (myself included) doubt, question, and challenge our faith in God on a regular, if not daily, basis. It is only human to think freely; the belief in something does not hinder your mind from making its own decisions. That's like saying because you think aliens exist that you look for aliens everywhere you go and it effects every decision in your day to day life; absurd.

Wouldn't someone who considers themselves to be a "freethinker" consider the possibility of a higher power?

Can someone who counts it out as an option completely consider themselves to be a "questioning person?"

He seems to question things, but only things that he wants to. Does that make him a dissenter or biased and arrogant ass hole?

Does the authors absolutism make him a hypocrite?

Does his judgmental and biased book serve as a tool for creating a dissenter, or for creating a follower?

Letters To A Young Contrarian Chap. 8-9

Okay, for these couple chapters I was irritated to say the least. I don't mind hearing another point of view on the sensitive subject of religion, but something about his wording angered me throughout my reading it.  I'm going to spend this post quoting and debating some interesting points he has made. 

"He or she must also claim to have at least an inkling of what that Supreme Being desires." 

In this point in the book, he is basically calling believers arrogant because they feel like they are doing God's work and they are therefore godly; and that very well may be true for some believers, but that does not mean that a person cannot have faith and be humble. 

There are believers that can stay humble give all the credit to God, never take credit for the good they do nor do they look at themselves as anything nearing godly. To Christians in particular, we strive to be godly, but we know there is no human alive that can ever come close to God in comparison. We are all sinners and just because God has wiped our slate clean does not mean that we see ourselves as perfect, but we see ourselves as loved. 

There is an apparent difference, but obviously not apparent enough for Mr. Hitchens to see. He seems to be someone who has a lot of hate and anger in his heart, therefore it does not surprise me that he finds some of the most humble people on Earth to be the most arrogant. I find it sad that he sees something as beautiful as faith to be so undeniably ignorant.

"So the whole apparatus of absolution and forgiveness strikes me as positively immoral, while the concept of revealed truth degrades the whole concept of free intelligence by purportedly relieving us of the hard task of working out ethical principals for ourselves."

I laughed... out loud. Okay, lets think of this philosophically shall we? There have been ethical leaders throughout the existence of man. People have been creating morals and ethics forever. What makes this any different than finding morals and ethics within the bindings of a Bible? The author of the ten commandments can be compared to philosophers such as Aristotle or Kant in the way that they spell out what they know to be good and bad, right and wrong, ethical and moral. 

My point is, there is no difference in "working out ethical principals for ourselves" through the guidance of a Bible, Immanuel Kant, or your very own mother. 

As a conclusion to this post and as a little note to Christopher Hitchens, I will quote non other than Immanuel Kant himself; 

“I believe that the existence of the Bible is the greatest benefit to the human race. Any attempt to belittle it, I believe, is a crime against humanity.”

Well said Mr. Kant. Well said.