Please read chapters 1-3 for Tuesday and 4-7 for Thursday. Check your Thoreau essay comments on the papers I've put in your folders this morning. Please see me during tutorial with any questions.
Sunday, March 30, 2014
avoidance, approach & assumption
Here is my video triptych.
This series of videos start w/ pretty direct responses to dramatic elements in the environment- a late March snow and a hike in Canyonlands.The first expresses despair at the snow and cold we had during spring break and personifies nature. In looking at it now, I'm struck by the lack of color compared to the second. Here I feel some of Jack London's naturalism. The second is a response to that despair, a trip to Utah's desert warmth and drama where I again feel what Romantics called 'the sublime'. I don't know how long that awe would last if I lived there. But when I lived on the beach in Morocco, the pounding surf amazed me the entire time. Some elements of the natural world have that power. The first snow of the year often does as well, but the last snow feels quite different. Finally, the third video challenges the emotions of the first two landing on a less emotional and probably more 'real' truth. My greatest impact on and therefore relationship with nature is my carbon footprint based on the daily commute. Commuting and communing (with nature) are nearly identical words with opposite meanings. Living 24 miles away from work and consuming the fuel, the vehicles and the freeway system puts me pretty squarely in Ishmael's prison industry of 'consuming the world.' Commuting and prison do seem pretty synonymous.
What has evolved in these videos is a focus on a fragmentary gesture like walking or driving as a representation of my role in nature. The first version of the first video showed my feet walking in the new snow. I prefer the text of this one, but the opening of the other one connects the three better. Overall, I'm more pleased with this assignment now having wrestled with it some. I'm really looking forward to seeing how you handle it.
This series of videos start w/ pretty direct responses to dramatic elements in the environment- a late March snow and a hike in Canyonlands.The first expresses despair at the snow and cold we had during spring break and personifies nature. In looking at it now, I'm struck by the lack of color compared to the second. Here I feel some of Jack London's naturalism. The second is a response to that despair, a trip to Utah's desert warmth and drama where I again feel what Romantics called 'the sublime'. I don't know how long that awe would last if I lived there. But when I lived on the beach in Morocco, the pounding surf amazed me the entire time. Some elements of the natural world have that power. The first snow of the year often does as well, but the last snow feels quite different. Finally, the third video challenges the emotions of the first two landing on a less emotional and probably more 'real' truth. My greatest impact on and therefore relationship with nature is my carbon footprint based on the daily commute. Commuting and communing (with nature) are nearly identical words with opposite meanings. Living 24 miles away from work and consuming the fuel, the vehicles and the freeway system puts me pretty squarely in Ishmael's prison industry of 'consuming the world.' Commuting and prison do seem pretty synonymous.
What has evolved in these videos is a focus on a fragmentary gesture like walking or driving as a representation of my role in nature. The first version of the first video showed my feet walking in the new snow. I prefer the text of this one, but the opening of the other one connects the three better. Overall, I'm more pleased with this assignment now having wrestled with it some. I'm really looking forward to seeing how you handle it.
Video Triptych
What can you communicate in a few seconds of sound and image? Early film makers started asking this question with Edison's kiss, Muybridge's horse & Lumiere's train. Vine and Instagram have allowed all of us to answer this question as well. Recently, a UNH prof created the #walkmyworld project asking people to use video and social media to share poetry experiences. We're going to use the same approach to consider natural ones. (Note- there's a great video introduction to using Vine in the Walkmyworld site above).
This assignment pairs something new with something very old- the triptych. In fact, as I write this it's possible some of you (Jared and Mary?) are looking at one of the most famous ones in the Museo del Prado called "The Garden of Earthly Delight". The still image is below, but check out this cgi animated version w/ description & this history. Here the view of nature as heavenly garden starts beautifully on the left side, then goes rather wrong on the right. Here's a great close up of the right panel although oddly 'one minute art' didn't do the others.
Hieronymus Bosch (circa 1450–1516) [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons
An original reason for a tryptich format was practical.When the church service ended, the two sides of the picture could be closed and the image protected.Our reason for a tryptich is also practical- 7 seconds (or 15 if you Instagram) isn't enough to say much. Yet, three short reflections on your relationship(s) with nature allows powerful visuals but requires serious focus.
The goals for the assignment are (surprise) threefold- Represent three different attitudes toward/relationships with nature, connect the three scenes with either a visual element/sequence, a narrative approach, or perhaps audio elements, create vivid, dynamic visuals. Then write a brief explanation of your tryptich. If you don't have access to Vine or Instagram, you can record 7 second videos with any camera and upload them directly to your blog.
This assignment pairs something new with something very old- the triptych. In fact, as I write this it's possible some of you (Jared and Mary?) are looking at one of the most famous ones in the Museo del Prado called "The Garden of Earthly Delight". The still image is below, but check out this cgi animated version w/ description & this history. Here the view of nature as heavenly garden starts beautifully on the left side, then goes rather wrong on the right. Here's a great close up of the right panel although oddly 'one minute art' didn't do the others.
An original reason for a tryptich format was practical.When the church service ended, the two sides of the picture could be closed and the image protected.Our reason for a tryptich is also practical- 7 seconds (or 15 if you Instagram) isn't enough to say much. Yet, three short reflections on your relationship(s) with nature allows powerful visuals but requires serious focus.
The goals for the assignment are (surprise) threefold- Represent three different attitudes toward/relationships with nature, connect the three scenes with either a visual element/sequence, a narrative approach, or perhaps audio elements, create vivid, dynamic visuals. Then write a brief explanation of your tryptich. If you don't have access to Vine or Instagram, you can record 7 second videos with any camera and upload them directly to your blog.
· You can represent a sense of place, attitude or relationship with nature in image, gesture or word. Consider ways the three might
interrelate, create dialogue, or even contradict each other. How might you
connect the three visually with perspective, lighting, shape, gesture, or
framing? Finally, creative approaches are harder to name. You're probably better at this than I am.
· Finally, write a blog post with the three videos and
explain your intentions and decisions
Saturday, March 8, 2014
extinction & de-extinction
NOTE- Final essays due in DROP FOLDER @ 3:00 on Friday.
Are we with within nature, or is it in our hands? Most of our opening Venn diagrams placed man within nature, but many conversations since have questioned that assumption. While climate change dwarfs these examples in importance, these two strangely opposing stories reveal specific ways we are taking remarkable control by using science and DNA to recreate the extinct wooly mammoth. This sounds like sci-fi, but there's real money and science behind it, not that I believe it will or should happen. Ironically and simultaneously we are using bad science and DNA to delist, or to stop protecting wolves in the lower 48 states. Of course wolves haven't lived in most of the this area for years. As you may know, wolf hunting has actually resumed in Minnesota and Wisconsin this year. Some would view this as a success story, a species learning how to survive in modified habitat and coming back from the brink of extinction. This article points out that another way of seeing this decision is a narrower definition of habitat than some see as the purpose of the Endangered Species Act. What both articles also reveal, is that the definition of a 'species' has gotten more instead of less complicated with DNA analysis.
Are we with within nature, or is it in our hands? Most of our opening Venn diagrams placed man within nature, but many conversations since have questioned that assumption. While climate change dwarfs these examples in importance, these two strangely opposing stories reveal specific ways we are taking remarkable control by using science and DNA to recreate the extinct wooly mammoth. This sounds like sci-fi, but there's real money and science behind it, not that I believe it will or should happen. Ironically and simultaneously we are using bad science and DNA to delist, or to stop protecting wolves in the lower 48 states. Of course wolves haven't lived in most of the this area for years. As you may know, wolf hunting has actually resumed in Minnesota and Wisconsin this year. Some would view this as a success story, a species learning how to survive in modified habitat and coming back from the brink of extinction. This article points out that another way of seeing this decision is a narrower definition of habitat than some see as the purpose of the Endangered Species Act. What both articles also reveal, is that the definition of a 'species' has gotten more instead of less complicated with DNA analysis.
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