Tuesday, May 1, 2007
Waking Life
I think that the movie "Waking Life" was alright and it brought up some interesting subjects, but I think that the way that it was made almost distracted from the main goal of the movie. All the shaking and color changing and movement in the animation of the movie may have been for a purpose, but I would have to say that they went a little too far and it kind of took away from the different concepts that they were trying to bring up in the movie. Maybe you are supposed to watch the movie a couple of times to get more out of it, but I really didn't understand half the things that were going on just because I was always looking at the background and wondering what kind of stupid changes were going to happen next, I even lost some of what they were saying before I realized what was going on just because it was so distracting.
Voice
Adam Kilwine
Instructor: Wayne Berg
English 121-12
Due: 5/4/07
Voice in its Many Different Forms
How does a person really define a concept like “voice?” Sure, a person could probably look up the word voice in the dictionary and come up with some kind of answer that has to do with a person’s speaking voice, but the “concept” of voice can be shown in many different ways, shapes, or forms. Although some people may not let it surface as much as others, everyone has their own voice and they portray that voice in many different ways. It might be through some kind of visual or performing arts, it may be through writing or just the way that a person speaks in front of others, or it might just have something to do with the way that people act in everyday life. There are infinite ways in which a person can show their own form of voice, privately or out loud for all the world to hear.
In the movie “Smoke Signals” and the story “The Toughest Indian in the World,” Sherman Alexis seems to show certain types of voice through the cultural and traditional qualities that his characters seem to hold so close. In both cases the main characters seem pretty racist toward whites; not to say that that is how all Indians feel. He almost seems to play up this racist behavior a little more than it really should be. Maybe the reason he does this is that it is the way that he was raised or just some past experiences that have given him that racist attitude. Who knows, maybe that observation is very accurate for Indians like these characters. The main idea here isn’t actually where this racism is coming from, but just that it is there and through this racism that Alexis is planting in these characters he is trying to get some point across. He uses these characters and their thoughts and actions to bring out concepts and ideas and in doing so he is building up this major form of voice in his stories.
The other big idea that comes out of both “Smoke Signals” and “The Toughest Indian in the World” is just how the certain cultural and traditional differences can have a big effect on the thinking of these different characters. In both of these stories Alexis mentions the reservations that these Indians have been raised on and they seem to have had a big impact on the lives of certain characters and what is more is that he goes even further in his stories in that throughout he seems to bring up events that compare cultures like life on the reservations with life elsewhere such as in the cities for example. They may seem to be insignificant little changes, but its presence is definitely shown and just having this kind of a presence shows that there is probably some significance higher even, than anyone probably realizes. Again, however, this is just another form of voice that is coming out of these different stories. These forms of voice may not always be as evident, but it is definitely there and much of the time it can make a bigger impact on a person than things that are much more evident.
I am actually starting to see more of these little elements that can actually help me to show some kind of voice through the projects that I have been working on in my first year of architecture. It is often the smallest elements that make the biggest difference. Through the projects that architects design they can show voice through the certain shapes and forms of their buildings whether it is more linear or radial or in some kind of a grid pattern. Then they use methods such as gestalt to add smaller, deeper connections between different parts of their designs. The designs are often influenced by things like time, light, movement through the space and many other variables in order to almost tell a story. These are the kinds of things that help to show an architect’s voice.
Also, this whole idea of culture and tradition showing voice in the two Sherman Alexis stories is an idea that has a huge influence on an architect’s design. This is why buildings are often much different in different countries and even throughout the United States. This is why a building in the city is going to be much different from a building in a place like a little farm town and why something like and apartment building is so much different from something like a church. A successful design should usually have some kind of relationship to the location and the purpose that they have been made for. For example, in some of the latest projects that I have done the landscape and location of that landscape had a huge influence on the design. Architects take what information that they have and use it to their advantage, then they add a personal touch. Looking around an architecture class shows how different one persons voice can be so much different even with the exact same site and information that they are provided with.
These are just a few of the many, many ways that a person can show voice. Everyone has their own form of voice whether they are some kind of influential writer or just some average person in a low paying job trying to get by in everyday life and there is no one way that these many forms of voice can be shown.
Instructor: Wayne Berg
English 121-12
Due: 5/4/07
Voice in its Many Different Forms
How does a person really define a concept like “voice?” Sure, a person could probably look up the word voice in the dictionary and come up with some kind of answer that has to do with a person’s speaking voice, but the “concept” of voice can be shown in many different ways, shapes, or forms. Although some people may not let it surface as much as others, everyone has their own voice and they portray that voice in many different ways. It might be through some kind of visual or performing arts, it may be through writing or just the way that a person speaks in front of others, or it might just have something to do with the way that people act in everyday life. There are infinite ways in which a person can show their own form of voice, privately or out loud for all the world to hear.
In the movie “Smoke Signals” and the story “The Toughest Indian in the World,” Sherman Alexis seems to show certain types of voice through the cultural and traditional qualities that his characters seem to hold so close. In both cases the main characters seem pretty racist toward whites; not to say that that is how all Indians feel. He almost seems to play up this racist behavior a little more than it really should be. Maybe the reason he does this is that it is the way that he was raised or just some past experiences that have given him that racist attitude. Who knows, maybe that observation is very accurate for Indians like these characters. The main idea here isn’t actually where this racism is coming from, but just that it is there and through this racism that Alexis is planting in these characters he is trying to get some point across. He uses these characters and their thoughts and actions to bring out concepts and ideas and in doing so he is building up this major form of voice in his stories.
The other big idea that comes out of both “Smoke Signals” and “The Toughest Indian in the World” is just how the certain cultural and traditional differences can have a big effect on the thinking of these different characters. In both of these stories Alexis mentions the reservations that these Indians have been raised on and they seem to have had a big impact on the lives of certain characters and what is more is that he goes even further in his stories in that throughout he seems to bring up events that compare cultures like life on the reservations with life elsewhere such as in the cities for example. They may seem to be insignificant little changes, but its presence is definitely shown and just having this kind of a presence shows that there is probably some significance higher even, than anyone probably realizes. Again, however, this is just another form of voice that is coming out of these different stories. These forms of voice may not always be as evident, but it is definitely there and much of the time it can make a bigger impact on a person than things that are much more evident.
I am actually starting to see more of these little elements that can actually help me to show some kind of voice through the projects that I have been working on in my first year of architecture. It is often the smallest elements that make the biggest difference. Through the projects that architects design they can show voice through the certain shapes and forms of their buildings whether it is more linear or radial or in some kind of a grid pattern. Then they use methods such as gestalt to add smaller, deeper connections between different parts of their designs. The designs are often influenced by things like time, light, movement through the space and many other variables in order to almost tell a story. These are the kinds of things that help to show an architect’s voice.
Also, this whole idea of culture and tradition showing voice in the two Sherman Alexis stories is an idea that has a huge influence on an architect’s design. This is why buildings are often much different in different countries and even throughout the United States. This is why a building in the city is going to be much different from a building in a place like a little farm town and why something like and apartment building is so much different from something like a church. A successful design should usually have some kind of relationship to the location and the purpose that they have been made for. For example, in some of the latest projects that I have done the landscape and location of that landscape had a huge influence on the design. Architects take what information that they have and use it to their advantage, then they add a personal touch. Looking around an architecture class shows how different one persons voice can be so much different even with the exact same site and information that they are provided with.
These are just a few of the many, many ways that a person can show voice. Everyone has their own form of voice whether they are some kind of influential writer or just some average person in a low paying job trying to get by in everyday life and there is no one way that these many forms of voice can be shown.
High School/College Writing
I really though that I was going to have a lot more trouble with this class just because I always thought that college writing would be a lot harder than high school writing, but its really not. I actually had this really hard english teacher throughout my years in high school and that had to be, by far, the hardest english class I had ever taken, but it really prepared me for college writing and so far I really haven't had a problem writing an essay ever since I took his classes. I couldn't believe it, the writing that I have had to do in college so far was actually a lot easier than his classes and he was a lot more strict on the way that we wrote our papers and there was probably about three times as much writing in his classes. I would have to say that that is probably the only class that really prepared me for college and it really payed off.
Voice Through Architecture
One thing that I have noticed while taking this class along with my major, Architecture is that Architecture actually shows a lot of voice. Pretty much everything that an architect does in the designing of a building, for example, shows some kind of voice. The project that I had to do for my final durring the last few weeks was to design two towers to put on a landscape of my choice and design these two towers to represent the mind and body. In doing so I designed a very light looking tall, skinny tower with a winding staircase going to the top in order to represent the mind and show that it is almost a higher power and that it has this higher purpose that the body does not. Then I created a much shorter, heavier tower that I designed to represent the body and its very different, but important purposes. Then I used things like materials and different forms and ideas in order to connect the to show that they may serve very different purposes, but that one can not survive without the other. Even looking at past projects where everyone was given the same landscape and information, projects still came out very different from each other and that just shows that people all have their own form of voice and that can be shown through architectural designes like these.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)