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My own personal idea of beauty is something that conveys emotion, it can be a painting, piece of writing, picture and many other different things. But in society today many people miss the real natural beauty in the world and just look at human as beautiful. For example, in todays society you never hear in the news about a beautiful art piece that is beautiful, you mostly hear about women or attractive men. In my opinion society has it all wrong I think every human is beautiful in their own personal way. It may not be in looks but in personality. With our society today focusing on personal traits like models walking down the run way it perceives young women to think negatively about their body. Armstrong states “When we recognize beauty in a piece of music, or the graciousness of someone’s conduct, we see things that we know we have neglected or betrayed and we feel an astonishing combination of anguish and delight”. I personal agree with this because I believe that beauty conveys emotion, but it may not always be happy or delightful it could be sad but still beauty at the same time. Armstrong also states “To regard beauty as a luxury adornment or a social signifier was to miss the true potential of the experience.” I agree with Armstrong with his statement because if you are just looking at an image just like a plain image in its physical form you are not getting the full experience, where it conveys emotion.

During our class, we had the pleasure to listen to many different ideas and perspectives of art. One of the presentations that was very strong and was very rememberable was Liv’s. Her presentation was about the children at Boston children’s hospital, and how there lives were changed through art. She presented her own personal experience with her friend going through cancer treatments at this hospital. She told her story though a slideshow with very powerful pictures, if she did not have these images her story would not have been as strong. One of the most rememberable pictures from her slideshow was two cancer patients that were painting during there cancer patient. I loved the emotion that her presentation had, it showed how emotional and helpful art can be in todays health care. During patients care at Boston Children’s Hospital they are allowed to paint and draw to help pass time during there long and hard cancer treatments. There is also many paintings lining the halls of this children’s hospital. This provides escape for many of these patients, Liv explained in her presentation. Many of the students walk down the halls and see many pictures of the outside world, this allows patients to have escape through pictures. This was a great presentation because it included my idea of art and how helpful it can be for children and adults during their hardest times of there life.

The main idea of Jonah Lehrer’s essay was to explain how art is connect to science and how we can use art to help further our knowledge of science. Lehrer used Niels Bohr’s observation of matter as an example of how art can help us further our understanding of science.

I understand how Niels Bohr connected science and art but in my opinion art is not essential to be successful in science. One sentence in the essay was “This meant that electrons weren’t like little planets at all. Instead, they were like on of Picasso’s deconstructed guitars, a blur of brushstrokes that only made sense once you stared at it.” This sentence took me back the first time I read it because it painted a picture in my head of how people did not understand electrons in the past and how they must have imagined it. I agree science is very linear compared to art but there are some different theories out there about space and time.

Cubist: Cubism is an early-20th-century art movement which brought European painting and sculpture historically forward toward 20th century Modern art. Cubism in its various forms inspired related movements in literature and architecture. (google)

Quantum mechanics: the branch of mechanics that deals with the mathematical description of the motion and interaction of subatomic particles, incorporating the concepts of quantization of energy, wave-particle duality, the uncertainty principle, and the correspondence principle (google)

Trajectory:the path followed by a projectile flying or an object moving under the action of given forces (google)

Lepidopterist:a person who studies or collects butterflies and moths (google)

 

1) What is the immediate context for this essay?

Necessary Edges: Art, Empathy, and Education was published on an online news and blog site called the World-Post. This site was created through a partnership between liberal news aggregator the Huffington Post and nonpartisan think tank the Berggruen Institute on Governance. Yo-Yo Ma created this essay and was published and features high profile contributors such as engineer and magnate Elon Musk. He is a cellist and songwriter e has won over seventeen Grammy Awards an has produced more than ninety albums.

2) What is the imposed context?

The imposed context is to learn the roles of the arts in the world, arguing that the elements of today. Yo-Yo Ma also introduces  STEAM education, which incorporates art into the science, technology, engineering and mathematics education. This article also illustrates and demonstrates how important empathy is important to learn in todays society.

3) What is the internal context?

The internal context of Necessary Edges: Art, Empathy, and Education Yo-Yo Ma explains how important empathy. “Empathy and imagination, the artificial layering of different realities, are linked.” He also attempts to incorporate art into the STEM education system. Yo-Yo also explains how finding meaning and living is all of what we do as humans in society.

4) Three unfamiliar words

Hyper-competitive: A situation in which there is a lot of very strong competition between companies, markets are changing very quickly, and it is easy to enter a new market, so that it is not possible for one company to keep a competitive advantage for a long time. (google)

interdependence: the dependence of two or more people or things on each other (google)

Bandwidth:1. the range of frequencies within a given band, in particular that used for transmitting a signal. 2.the energy or mental capacity required to deal with a situation. (google)

Part I

I used the quote “I think if we engage a new generation of contemporary artists to make new monuments that stand next to these old monuments and force those old monument into a dialogue, I think we have an opportunity to create a new civic space around these monuments that can actually help us move towards the resolution fo these years, these generations of racism that those old sculptures represent” and “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond; would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed in? even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say “no”- and yet most of us manage to ignore those dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world” I know these quotes are a little long but I believe that they fit very well with my argument that art is a ‘window’.  In my opinion I have a good introduction to each quote but I need to explain the quote in my own words after I state the quote.

Quote 1:

On NPR’s TED Radio Hour Episode called, “How Art Changes Us” Titus Kaphar, states, ” I think if we engage a new generation of contemporary artists to make new monuments that stand next to these old monuments and force those old monument into a dialogue, I think we have an opportunity to create a new civic space around these monuments that can actually help us move towards the resolution fo these years, these generations of racism that those old sculptures represent” Titus Kaphar believes that if we place new paintings next to the exciting paintings it will help move our society towards equality.

 

Quote 2:

In “Is Art a Waste of Time” Southan utilizes a quote by Peter Singer an australian moral philosopher which states “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond; would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed in? even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say “no”- and yet most of us manage to ignore those dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world” Peter Singer point is that art is a distraction to real world problems.

Part II

Adding Quote:

I agree when Titus Kaphar states “I want to make paintings, sculptures that are honest, that wrestle with the struggles of our past but speak to the diversity and the advances of our present. and we can’t do that by taking an eraser and getting ride of stuff.”.  In other words, Titus Kaphar believes that he should make pieces of art that address social problems like diversity.

Before:

I agree that our art throughout history is hurtful and discriminating but is amending and changing our art throughout history the right thing to do? Some paintings throughout our history give a bad impression of African Americans and other minorities. For example, in Titus Kaphar’s TED Talk called “Can art amend history” he explains a story of when he took his kids to the Natural History Museum in New York, “ I took them to the Natural History Museum. I had my two sons with me, Sabian and Dabith. And we go into the front entrance of the museum, and there’s that amazing sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt out there. You guys know which one I’m talking about. Teddy Roosevelt is sitting there with one hand on the horse, bold, strong, sleeves rolled up. I don’t know if he’s bare-chested, but it kind of feels like it. And on the left-hand side of him is a Native American walking. And on the right-hand side of him is an African American walking. And as we’re moving up the stairs, getting closer to the sculpture, my oldest son, who’s nine, says, “Dad, how come he gets to ride, and they have to walk?” This story from Titus really shocked me, because in my personal experience I have never thought about art as discriminating, before listening to this TED Talk, but art throughout our history is. The artist of the sculpture outside the Natural History Museum wanted to portray that Teddy Roosevelt was in a place of higher power and class compared to the Native American and the African-American and to discriminate and show their inferiority, just like how most of the world saw Native Americans and African Americans during this time period. This sculpture is a great “window” to the past because it shows how discriminating Europeans were to African Americans and Native Americans during that time period.

 

After:

I agree that our art throughout history is hurtful and discriminating to many minorities, like African Americans. In Titus Kaphar’s TED Talk called “Can art amend history” he explains a story of when he took his two kids, Sabian and Dabith to the Natural History Museum in New York. Here his son asked a very interesting question “Dad, how come he gets to ride and they have to walk?” this question was referring to the sculpture of Teddy Roosevelt at the front entrance of the museum. At the side of Teddy Roosevelt on his horse, is a African American on his right and a Native American on his left. While Teddy Roosevelt was on his horse the other two figures were walking. This story from Titus really shocked me, because in my personal experience I have never thought about art as discriminating, before listening to this TED Talk, but art throughout our history is. The artist of the sculpture outside the Natural History Museum wanted to portray that Teddy Roosevelt was in a place of higher power and class compared to the Native American and the African-American and to discriminate and show their inferiority, just like how most of the world saw Native Americans and African Americans during this time period. This sculpture is a great “window” to the past because it shows how discriminating Europeans were to African Americans and Native Americans during that time period.

 

Before:

A freelance writer Rhys Southan wrote in his article “Is Art a Waste of Time?” of the views and ideas of the extreme group called Effective Altruism. In his article, he uses a quote from Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 Oscar acceptance speech for best director which stated “I want to thank anyone who spends a part of their day creating. I don’t care if it’s a book, fold, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music. Anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experiences with us. I think this world would be unlivable without art” This quote is an excellent example of how art is a “window” to the sole because anyone who spends part of their day sharing their experiences has to allow the audience or viewer into their sole and world. Southan explains that EA wants to reduce suffering and increase lifespan and happiness of people getting high paying jobs just to give ten percent of their earnings to effective charities. The EA believes artists are not doing everything they can for the suffering of humans because they do not always make a lot of money that they can give to charity and they are just creating distractions from the suffering of people all over the world. In “Is Art a Waste of Time” Southan utilizes another quote by Peter Singer and australian moral philosopher which stated “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond; would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say “no”- and yet most of us manage to ignore those dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world”. This was a real shock to me because this quote is so powerful and it is portraying that are is just a distraction to the real suffering in the world. Also EA points out that “individuals works of art would have been negligible compared with, say, deworming 1,000 children”. In my opinion both these statements were false because without pictures, movies, paintings, book and more pieces of art people with high paying jobs would not know what they are donating to and would less likely donate. If you saw a starving child really thin and malnourished would you be more likely to donate than not knowing what cause you are helping to. Also if a person wrote a book about how many people are helping suffering people in Africa, wouldn’t you want to help too? This demonstrates that art can be used as a “window” to far off places that you cannot go to.

 

After:

 

Rhys Southan wrote in his article “Is Art a Waste of Time?” the views and ideas of the extreme group called Effective Altruism. In his article, he uses a quote from Steven Soderbergh’s 2001 Oscar acceptance speech for best director which stated “I want to thank anyone who spends a part of their day creating. I don’t care if it’s a book, fold, a painting, a dance, a piece of theater, a piece of music. Anybody who spends part of their day sharing their experiences with us. I think this world would be unlivable without art” This quote is an excellent example of how art is a “window” to the soul because anyone who spends part of their day sharing their experiences has to allow the audience or viewer into their soul and world. The EA believes artists are not doing everything they can for the suffering of humans because they do not always make a lot of money that they can give to charity and they are just creating distractions from the suffering of people all over the world. In “Is Art a Waste of Time” Southan utilizes another quote by Peter Singer and australian moral philosopher which stated “Suppose you saw a child drowning in a pond; would you jump in and rescue her, even if you hadn’t pushed in? Even if it meant ruining your clothes? It would be highly controversial to say “no”- and yet most of us manage to ignore those dying of poverty and preventable disease all over the world”. This was a real shock to me because this quote is so powerful and it is. Also EA points out that “individuals works of art would have been negligible compared with, say, deworming 1,000 children”. In my opinion both these statements were false because people with high paying jobs would not know what they are donating to and would less likely donate if they did not see pictures, movies, paintings, books and more pieces of art. If you saw a starving child really thin and malnourished would you be more likely to donate than not knowing what cause you are helping to. Also if a person wrote a book about how many people are helping suffering people in Africa, wouldn’t you want to help too? This demonstrates that art can be used as a “window” to far off places that you cannot go to.

 

Changes:

In the first paragraph I adjusted the long quote that I had in the middle of my paragraph. I got some great feedback from my peers which explained that the long quote was distracting, so instead of having a large quote I summarized the quote in my own words. In addition, to changing the quote I did a few local edits that my peers suggested about a few sentences. For my second paragraph I took out a few sentence that did not make sense or that were repetitive and unnecessary.

Throughout my paper I lack evidence and use long quotes that are a distraction to the rest of my essay. So my goal of my revision is to provide more evidence and cut down some of my quotes. The steps I plan to take to achieve this goal is to go back trough my text and write down each individual topic of each paragraph on a separate piece of paper. After having the ideas down on a piece of paper try to come up with one real life example, that is not from one of the texts we read during class. I have very good evidence from the texts but the quotes are too lengthy and are just a distraction to the rest of the text. Instead of having long quotes I can cut them down to a few words and summaries the quotes to provide more evidence or instead of cutting the quotes I could just provide a summary of the quote, to ensure I do not lose any of the evidence that the quote provides. To provide more evidence for my essay I plan to add in real life example that are not from the text. For example, my first paragraph is about how art is a ‘window’ to the past, to provide more evidence I plan on adding an example of how cave paintings are an example of this. My biggest challenge personally is going to be cutting down the quotes because they provide very good evidence but distract the reader from the thesis of my essay. If a challenge comes up that proves too difficult for me to solve on my own, I first would go to SASC the, learning center on campus, to see if they can provide me with any further help. If that does not work, I would then email professor Emerson to see if I could meet with her to talk in depth about my paper.

Ideas:

In his second paragraph he talked about how art can reach people all across the world and even from different time periods. For an idea I commented that he should add a few sentences about cave paintings and how they have lasted all these years.

Evidence:

For a comment on evidence I said “Can you explain a time this happened to you” If he included his own story or experience it would provide more evidence, and help make his argument stronger. I also commented that he should add a quote in one of his paragraphs to make his point stronger.

Organization:

For an organization comment I suggested to put his idea and what his opinion on art is in the first paragraph and not just in the concluding paragraph. If he adds his idea in the beginning of the paper we would not have to guess till the end on what his opinion of art is.

 

I enjoyed that we took a whole class to explain and learn how to do global edits because throughout high school we did peer edits but we were not shown how to edit a peers paper. I also enjoyed that we got to read peers papers because it allowed us to see what other student were writing about and that their take and ideas were on the subject. Global edits are more helpful than I thought in the beginning of the class because we were shown how to make little comments that were most spelling and grammar adjustments, but global edits I believe are more important because they can change your whole setup of your essay.

I really enjoyed looking at my peers introduction paragraphs for their paper because you got to see the many different ways you could introduce a very similar topic. For example, one of my peers used the definition of art from google as her beginning sentence. One thing I have learned form my peers was to incorporate a personal experience or idea I have about my topic. I could incorporate an experience I had with art and then state my opinion on the topic.

For the Ted Talk I choose to listen to and dig deeper into was was Titus Kaphar. In his Ted Talk, Can Art Amend History? Titus Kaphar demonstrates and explains how African Americans were treated and depicted in art throughout history. Throughout his Ted Talk Titus refers to a trip he took to the museum with his kids. At the museum there was a statue of Teddy Roosevelt riding on a horse while on his left was a Native American and an African American. Titus’s son says “Dad how come he gets to ride, and they have walk” referring to the Native and African American. This question let Titus to think deeply about how african americans are depicted in art all throughout history. Another example from his Ted Talk was an image of an white family with an African American child in the background, but the child was kinda blurred in the background. The viewer didn’t really notice the African American child because he was depicted as part of the background like he was not even there. Titus Kaphar wants to be able to amend histories paintings to show that African Americans and other minorities are more visible.

 

The article “Is Art a Waste of Time” written by Rhys Southan demonstrates his views on art and the EA’s views. This article most demonstrated the views of the EA on the importance of life. The EA’s ideas are that you should give ten percent of your salary to people in need. One part of the article was explained how the EA believes people should be happy and not suffer, but then the EA explains how people should have high paying jobs just to give back to the poor and needy. The EA also believes that art is a distraction to the real horrors of the world. One quote stated “working hard to earn money and then giving as much of it as you can to the needy”, this is showing that the EA would rather people work and give money to be happy with their own job and life. At the ending of the article Southan states his own opinion by saying “I’m not ready to give up writing. I’m not ready to take up some high-paid job that I’d hate in order to reduce the world’s suffering”

I agree and disagree with both Rhys Southan and Titus Kaphar, throughout both their arguments. When Titus Kaphar demonstrates how African American people were mistreated I agree with that statement. I also agree with the EA’s views on everyone should be happy and people including myself should try and do what we can to help reduce the suffering throughout the world. Even though I agree with this, I disagree with the argument that people should have high paying jobs even if they don’t like it, just so they can give to the needy. Titus Kaphar demonstrates that we should amend histories artwork to fix how minorities are depicted throughout history, I found this very interesting but in my opinion we should start making new pieces of art that demonstrate everyone how they should be treated. I believe we should not try to change the past but learn from it instead.