Fall 2019 Arts and Activism

One thing that struck me from reading the article was the notion that prejudice is formed as an attachment to an "in-group". I found that interesting that those kinds of observations or summations that people make are not formed in isolation. I completed the test for prejudices against skin tone. I believe that the point of answering as quickly as possible is to record your gut response which would reveal your prejudice, that being said the objective is to  click correctly as if you are playing a computer game. The formatting of these tests that calls for individuals to deal with these 2 objectives simultaneously does not seem like it would collect a consistent and reliable data set. It was hoping for a test that would be formatted more creatively  because in that way I would less clearly see how it is operating and possibly receive more surprising results.

CW: Police violence The idea of implicit bias is exceptionally significant in the modern era. Split-second decisions like the ones we make while taking the tests are more common than we realize. Furthermore, subtle biases against groups of people, sometimes especially when we aren't aware of them, can influence everything we do. The most obvious example of instant decision making being an issue is in the case of police. The current law in regards to guilt in cases of police violence considers whether the officer's actions were justified in the split second where they decide to use violence. Most offending officers (MURDERERS) go free because their lawyers argue that in the split second it was "reasonable" for them to take the actions they took. While this law is used to allow killers to go free, and in my opinion should be abolished, for now it's on the books. While this is the case, the choices we make in the moment have paramount importance. If an officer has a...

After reading the article on "Hidden Bias", I took a few tests on the site... I took the Presidents test, and it said I had no preference of Trump over Nixon. That said, I'm not a huge fan of Nixon, but I very adamantly dislike Trump, so that was surprising and disturbing to me. Then, I took the Religion test. It said I disliked Christianity and slightly favored Islam over Judaism. My upbringing was Catholic, so the dislike for Christianity fits. But I was surprised to find out about favoring Islam over Judaism, because I feel pretty neutral about religions besides Christianity. Finally, I took the sexuality quiz. It really shocked me that the results said I slightly favored straight people to gay people, because  I'm pansexual, so that was a wake up call for sure. During this test especially, I kept messing up and losing focus, which could attribute to the results. That said, the article on "Hidden Bias" specifically says to not disregard the results ...

I found the bias quiz to be interesting, in both positive and negative ways. The questions and phrases asked about certain ethnic groups and Presidential candidates gave me a moment to really consider my honest response. And to not simply answer a certain way that I knew would sound acceptable. My result was that I had a preference to put "Vote FOR" with Democratic candidates and "Vote AGAINST" with Donald Trump, which is accurate. I also tested with a preference for Arab Muslims over Other People. However, I thought that parts of the test were created to trip you up, so I felt that the fast quizzes would mess up your brain. I made a couple of mistakes, but had to stop the quiz because it was frustrating me. I think that someone's results won't be 100% correct due to the time limit. None the less, I think this is something interesting to at least try a bit of to test what your knowledge is.

Highlights I wrote down this week: Art became commodity L'Art Pour L'Art - a movement against the idea that art has to have meaning What makes art art? Art does not have to have moral or didactic purpose Romanticism in Visual Art-- individuality over dogma Realism in Visual Art -- unidealized, revolutionary, and grotesque paintings and works, a response to photography Courbet offered new representation of underrepresented classes Realism in Theater --  aims to bring real life to text has believable dialogue common everyday setting protagonist rises up against injustice focuses on human behavior Paris Commune -- overthrew government, stole canons Industrial Revolution --  manufacturing begins children underpaid for dangerous jobs labor movements start of unions Questions I Had This Week: How was Smith's idea of "capitalism" received upon the release of his book? Why was the L'Art Pour L'Art movement created? What was the ...

This week I was really interested particularly in "The Social Contract" by Rousseau, "Man is born free and everywhere he is in chains" and how that idea connects with current society.  I thought that the topics spoke on in class gave a nice range of how different art forms connect with activism, considering the range of metiérs in the class. The idea of individualism seemed to be a through line with many of the topics. Especially with L'art Pour L'art and the Ted Talks we watched. Whether art is for a deeper reason or not, it has an effect on the viewer, and often times an effect on the world around it.

My biggest question after our pechakucha assignments, how did the political and cultural climate of the time mold a movement or philosophy? The way we made it seem in class was that there were spontaneous event of realization culminating in these movements. What wars, laws, natural event, plagues affected the way these people feel? Do artists shape the time to fit their ideas into the current climate or does our climate affect our art in such a subliminal way that we believe it is totally out own? Generally when women as a collective play an important role in history, they make a huge positive impact. Are men scared of things going the right way? How can one look into the future to fill a gap in culture that hasn't been made in the first place?

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