Phobia

Why is it that we fear? After the 9/11 attacks the world has became so paranoid that the U.S. and the U.K. attacked Iraq to rid the world of terrorism, sort of like a global "cleansing" of the so called bad guys. When people pack their briefcases for a vacation, they have to put their liquids in a zip lock bag because of the fear that terrorists are going to one day blow up the planes with liquidized bombs. If that is not paranoia, I don't know what is? Now four years into the war in Iraq, terrorism is stronger than ever before because of the spread of Anti-Americanism. Countries cannot go into war with another on false accusations, especially a country that is in an area of an already strong resentment towards America. Fear makes people and even the most powerful countries in the world do stupid and unthinkable things.

Why is it that people like getting scared watching horror movies and reading horror books like "The Shining" and "The Stand" by Stephen King? The answer to this is really simple. People really enjoy being scared out of their wits. Now why is it that the U.S. has to show its fear in a way that means bullying everyone else. Fear is something that made the world go into war against an enormous enemy, terrorists, who will not be defeated until its purpose is done. The U.S. tries to cover up its phobia by making bigger cars, guns, military and showing supremacy toward other countries but what it's really doing is advertising its fear of the world around us.

The presentation was interesting with the lecturer talking about fear in the perspective of different authors who all had the same opinion on fear and its role in today's governments. The people of this country should not be afraid of its government but government should be afraid of its people, like in France for example. The American government on the other hand, uses its power to instill not hope, but fear into the people it governs.

Binh Danh Exhibit

The Binh Danh exhibit was a very different experience than I thought it would be. I thought there would only be a few art pieces but instead there were about 15-20 of them lined up all around the room. I liked the way the faces were drawn on the little leaves and the big faces "photographed" on the strands of grass. I didn't expect the faces of the young soldiers to be photosynthesized onto real leaves and grass. I think the reason Binh Danh used real vegetation is because of the fact that these men died using these kinds of plants to camouflage them from the enemy.

The exhibit is very much a testimony to the disliked Vietnam War because it shows the brave young men as they were before their deaths. The artworks give people of our time the "bigger" picture of how lives can be taken away but can also be captured. The artworks show the reality of life in the past, present, and future, the Iraq War being the present. The leaves and grass, I think, represent how the landscape is scarred and imprinted with these soldiers footprints and faces. The exhibit is a memorial and a reminder of the bravery of a group of men and the seriousness of what war can take away in an instant.

Sontag writes that by taking a picture, people gain control of the image which I don't think Danh is doing. He doesn't want to control the picture, he wants to honor, not only these men, but also the thousands of comrades who were part of the dead. He is not controlling the image he is merely trying to state that the war is something that has happened and will forever happen in this way. Meaning war will always destroy lives and he's trying to do his part by putting it into a different, lighter perspective because we are all affected by it. I do agree with Sontag on the fact that ,"Photographs do more than redefine the stuff of ordinary experience but also adds vast amount of material that we never we see at all.". Like in the exhibit, some of the art pieces had the name, date of birth, and place of birth of soldiers in the actual photograph, which we wouldn't have known by just looking at their faces. It also serves as a kind of memorial for the men who died in a, in basic terms, a useless and costly war.

Art was a proper name

Art is anything that we think it is. I once had to make a clay model of an elephant for my fifth grade class. One day I was working on it and my teacher came up to me and asked if I would like to have my piece shown in the local art show. I was surprised yet honored because only two other people were asked and my piece wasn't that great. Now that I think of it, it was probably the best artwork I had done during that time. I, of course, said yes but I didn't know that I was going to have to stay after school to finish it up in time for the show. Because of this time constraint we had to quickly finish our pieces, in which eventually caused me to accidentally spill black paint all over my nearly finished yellow elephant. My yellow, three tailed, and big eared friend was now covered in black paint, which made me feel like a failure after all that work. My teacher came over and said that she would try to clean some of it off. After about 30 minutes of cleaning, she managed to clean most, but not all of it. I finished painting it that day but there were still black streaks all over it. I still got a honorable mention ribbon at the show though, so I felt good about the whole thing.

I think art is anything we think it is. I think a chair is a piece of art because someone had to design and then build it. Like Duchamp, I think a urinal is a piece of art because of the same reason. Thierry de Duve says that the conception of art is different for everyone because we all have different opinions as human beings. I agree with him because like I said, "Art is anything we think it is."