-Next, create the QR code for your page.
-Print and duplicate them
-"Laminate"
- Apply to appropriate locations
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For people looking to complete CECs or if you're interested...
-This Friday, April 20, 7:15pm in the D-Lot the automobile orchestra score "motor vehicle sundown" by fluxus artist George Becht will be performed. Everyone is welcome to watch (or if you have a car, you can also perform). To receive CEC credit, write about how performance could be used as a form of activism.
-Wasteland Screening, food and panel APR 25
to receive CEC credit for this, attend and write about the panel (but please also enjoy the Brazilian food and the film)
Wasteland highlights the work of artist Vik Muniz in Brazil. Muniz grew up in Brazil and became a well known artist. His idea was to change people's lives by using the material they work with everyday. Some would say Muniz went to the extreme. Muniz went to Jardim Gramacho, a garbage disposal in Brazil, where the garbage pickers separate recyclables for money. The working conditions are extremely unhealthy and many of the pickers are not in any position of leaving this job.
ReplyDeleteThis artist certainly performed activist art. Muniz used his artist's voice to bring a positive outlook to the people who worked at Jardim Gramacho. Since Muniz established a huge influence throughout the world, he was able to use this fame as a powerful tool to help others. Muniz assisted the Brazilian workers first with making their story known. The more awareness that is brought to an issue, the more possibility of solving the problem. Muniz used the workers that were photographed to help make their own image. This took the workers away from the their environment. When these workers saw their masterpieces, they immediately looked at garbage differently and were open to more possibilities. Not only did Muniz help his fellow people mentally, he also assisted them financially. Many of the laborers received assistance. For instance, the association president, Tiao, was able to improve some of the working conditions with the money he received.
Within the film, I noticed the Brazilian people using activist methods. Many of the workers from the garbage disposal were picketing for the ACAMJG. The association was seeking better labor rights and working conditions for the pickers.
This film was shown in conjunction with Earth Day. I found Wasteland to be powerful. When I first saw the poster for this event, I simply blew it off as another piece of artwork. After seeing the film, it definitely made me look at the image with a different perspective. Vik Muniz's work is amazing.
CEC for Wasteland and the video game presentation.
ReplyDeleteI thought Wasteland was a great piece of film and much better than I expected it to be. A good documentary like this took an active role in the lives of its "characters", not just simply showing the audience how terrible the conditions are. It wasn't statistics and a narration of what life was like but an actual look into the lives of people taken into these conditions out of desperation or hope or something.
I did have some ethical issues with the film as I was watching it. What they did for these people may have seemed generous and all that but to me it seemed almost cruel. They go into their everyday lives and show them something special for a few months knowing that they will eventually have to go back to wading in refuse. The one woman was hysteric at the thought of working in a dump again, begging Muniz's assistant for a job. It just seemed like giving the people in Plato's cave Netflix for a day and then leaving them with dancing shadows on a wall. The art they made may have also caused these feelings in the Gramacho workers, that they could both literally see themselves in the garbage and metaphorically see that their lives were tied to it.
The video game lecture wasn't bad either. It was cool to get an insight into how narrative arts change once the audience has a direct effect on the action. The tools a developer uses to create the illusion of choice was also really interesting. The guy showed the different techniques in graph form for how different paths could lead to a different outcome entirely or right back to the same point regardless of decisions. I could immediately think of several examples for both scenarios. Bioshock for instance had a simple choice to make: harvest the girls or don't. Something like Mass Effect takes a little more consideration into the consequences but still has a relatively limited scope to those choices. Reminded me of this image I saw the other day titled 'the illusion of choice' http://i.imgur.com/k0pv0.jpg
One thing in particular I thought was interesting was how one of his games about a haunted house designed for boys had a greater audience with little girls. It made me think about how intentional or unintentional a game's popularity is with kids under 18. The guy also mentioned how secondary the story of a game actually is compared to the gameplay, which I don't think is the case at all. Point in fact: All the Final Fantasy games. Turn-based menu combat is about as boring a concept anyone could think of yet they still sell very well for some reason.