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[shuxinzou]

[Jun 24th] Final Critical Analysis--NBC ‘Hannibal’

When we review the past ten years, we would surprisedly found there is a big change in our entertainment ways. At that time, TV seems to become to the funniest activity for everyone, people were so fascinating about sit in front of the television and enjoy those show. Now the network makes the steam shows being possible, more and more audience can see more TV series online easily, and there are big developments and changes on TV shows. Obviously, TV shows are more complex and splendid than before, it might be affected by the TV production industries’ benefit and the technology changes, and also they become more close to the tastes of the audience to fit the wide amount range of people. The  TV series becoming complex though many different parts, we can see it from complex plots, the way of building the character, multiple storylines, variations storytelling techniques and relevant interaction between viewers all contribute to those successful TV shows. I would like to mainly analysis the ‘Hannibal’ from NBC and some other series about how the complexity makes TV shows so still attractive and fit into today's culture. ‘Hannibal’ is a very good TV drama, it started in 2013 and have three seasons, 39 episodes in total. In ‘Hannibal’, there are lots of small stories in each episode, but mainly it’s about the relationship and complex story between Hannibal Lecture and Will Graham. In this show, Dr. Lecter is a psychiatrist of FBI special agent Will Graham, Will have the ability on criminal profiling, he can found cues by imagining himself as the murder, but this gift is very dangerous to him, he might lose control and it brings him big pressure. FBI asked Hannibal Lecter to help him, but Hannibal is a serial killer and he eats people, he is a high-function criminal and no one ever doubt him before, he is a gentleman in front everyone, but he also curious about Will, so he misled Will and other psychiatrists, he framed Will and putted him into jail, but also his emotion is complex, he thinks Will is different from others, he doesn’t want to kill him, their relationship is between the friend and enemy. There are many cases in ‘Hannibal’, but only a few made by Hannibal. However, each of them has some relations and all serve the main storyline, to expose what did Hannibal do to Will and what did he really think about. The very first case, which is also the first case solved by Will and Hannibal—the ‘Minnesota Shrike’ is very important, Will’s nightmare came from the criminal he killed by himself in this case, and Hannibal use the Abigail Hobbs —who is daughter of the criminal to attract Will and also framed Will. It’s the hint set in the beginning and throughout whole 3 seasons of the show. And also every case in each episode are all very important, Hannibal set up traps step by step, and also we can track all the details through beginning to determine what’s his real goal, it’s necessary to see how each episode works for the story in whole. The show makes every episode have differences, it doesn’t follow any model like how to start with found a dead body at the beginning of a single episode and end with solving the case. It can be an episode with memories, or a connecting episode, or a climax moment. At the beginning of the season 2 episode 1, it started with Hannibal fight with Jack Crawford, and they have the knife, blood all around, and audience have no idea what happened. But in episode 13 which is the end of the season 2, it connects with a whole season story and we finally found out it’s not the reason, it’s a result. Also ‘Hannibal’ is successful in creating characters. Hannibal Lecter and Will Graham are not the same characters in the book or movies, it has their own complex personality, and also other characters such as Alana Bloom, Abigail Hobbs, Freddie Lounds, are also very complex and attractive. The producer Bryan Fuller re-write the Hannibal story and changed the background, also he changed the characters' setting to make them more close to a group of modern people live in these days. Hannibal Lecter is a very complex people, he didn’t hate anyone, he didn’t kill for certain reason, he is cold-blood, and he has his own philosophy, he doesn’t care about any people, and he has no problem to do anything to serve his own propose. But he also a good man in front of people, he is good at cooking, he is a good teacher of Dr. Bloom, he is a good psychiatrist for his patient, and he was a good friend of Will. Many audiences love this character, it’s hard to imagine how people will love a serial murder and he actually did lots of cases in front of the camera, but we still like him. He is not a traditional villain, he has his own charisma, he is so perfect in some way, not like a real human, he is calm and intelligent, he sees everyone and everything the same, he is a god. Also, the relationship between Hannibal and Will is a big part of the story. Hannibal cares no one except Will. He was curious about Will’s gift, and want to know will he found out he is the real ‘Chesapeake Ripper’. But after he did so much and spend a long time with Will, he seems have different pursue of Will, it’s a very complex emotion, he thinks Will and him can be the same kind of person, and he even got a plan— he and Will and Abigail will leave the U.S. and live together. He saved Abigail Hobbs for Will because Will think he is responsible for rising Abigail. He hurt Will many times, but never want him to die. In the season 3 episode 13, the final episode, Hannibal, and Will worked to together and killed the Red Dragon, Hannibal hugged Will and said: “That’s all I want.” Most of the fans think there is romance between this two characters and in the show, the reporter Freddie Lounds published a news about Hannibal and Will described them as ‘Murder Husband’. Will Graham changed a lot during three seasons, he was just an agent and want to catch the criminal at first, and after he was taken care by Hannibal, and after he framed by Hannibal, he neither become a weak person who afraid to trust anyone, nor hate Hannibal so much or become a hero who wants to kill Hannibal by his own hand. He is so conflicted inside, he influenced by Hannibal, and part of him attracted by him, too. In season 2 episode 13, he told Hannibal Jack Crawford was coming for him, he didn’t want him being caught, but in season 3, he put Hannibal in jail, and in the last episode, he stood beside Hannibal and told him what they did together is ‘beautiful’. I think it’s very real for a person to change his mind all the time, people are easy to be influenced, especially by Hannibal Lecter, Will has his own thought and what he did— hesitating between the side of Hannibal and ‘justice’ can be totally understand, what’s more, I think this conflict and complexity is made is story so good. It’s the new perspective on writing about the relationship between these two people from the original book, the writer put LGBTQ element not only in this obscure way but also on another character— Alana Bloom. Alana is also a psychiatrist work for FBI, she was Hannibal’s student and had a relationship with Hannibal. She is the friend of Will and she cares about him so much. After she found out she was cheated and hurt by Hannibal, she had a girlfriend in season 3 — Margot Verger. She has a big change during three seasons, not only on her sexual presentation but also she become a more independent woman, her emotion being hurt and she grows up through what she experienced, there is a very obvious change in her personality and how she sees and deal with things. This show use varies perspectives to tell the storyline, which is a good technique to increase the tension of the plots. In most of the cases, we are looking from the Will Graham’s perspective, but it causes some plots being doubtable, the pieces of information we get were limited by the perspective, the audience should guess with the character and found out which is true and which one is his hallucination. And also it will hide half of the truth when we see in the perspective of criminals, it makes a better explanation and also keeps them interesting. Like many other TV shows and movies, NBC ‘Hannibal’ has it own forum, blog, fans website, wiki, twitter, and expo, even it’s three years after the last season 3 end, there are still a large amounts of fans who are talking about and pay attention to any news about this show. It’s a very convenient way for people to communicate and found different people who also interested in what you interest about. It’s good for attracting the audience and keeping their fans. Even now there are still a bunch of fans hoping there will be season 4 for ‘Hannibal’. I think ‘Hannibal’ is a good making TV shows, it’s from an original story but bring audience good and new experience. It’s also a presentation of the complex TV shows today, it includes modern thinking and changes in our culture. I think these TV series are more fit to aesthetics of today’s people, the complexity and diversification are attractive and make people think more when they are watching the shows, and it’s where today’s TV dramas are developed from.

REF:

TV Drama Structure: Why TV Is the Future, and How to Write for It, John Truby, September 10, 2013,http://www.scriptmag.com/features/tv-drama-structure-why-tv-is-the-future-and-how-to-write-for-it

Why has TV storytelling become so complex?, March 27, 2015, Jason Mittell, https://theconversation.com/why-has-tv-storytelling-become-so-complex-37442

[shuxinzou]

[ Jun 15th] #3 sitcom show

The sitcom I choose is ‘Friends', it’s a very classic sitcom started in 1994 and end in 2004, it’s even before I was born.  ‘Friends’ is about six friends’ story—Rachel, Monica, Phoebe, Ross, Chandler and Joey, the story is happened in their daily life, and have multiple storylines. I watched the Season 2 Episode 11, in this episode, Ross’s ex-wife Carol is going to marry her girlfriend Susan, and Monica is the one who planned for this wedding; Joey’s acting is on TV; Rachel’s mom coming to her and told her that she is going to divorce her dad; Phoebe’s customer was dead on her massage table and her soul seems left on Phoebe’s body. Sounds like so many plots in one episode, but I think the rhythm is actually very good. The color it use is mostly the warm color, the interior, costumes, and objects are all very warm and make people feel comfortable, the scenes for a TV serious is quite limited, there are 3 scenes in this episode—their house, Rachel’s working place and wedding place, I think it’s the strategy of TV shows, to avoid confusing the audience too much. Their Character number is big, there are 6 main characters, but I think every one of them has very strong personality, and also have complexity in their characteristics. Rachel is a brave woman, she ran away from the guy she supposed to marry, and she cares about her mother, when her mom wants to divorce with her dad, she was angry and can’t stand about this thing, but she gradually understand her; Ross was shocked by Carol when her told him she is getting married, and he didn’t want to go to the wedding, but when Carol confused about wedding and asked for help, he is the one who supported her; Monica is very cute, she planned this wedding and acted like a German officer in the movie; Phoebe’s story is the fun part of this episode, she really change the way she talked and acting like there really a young lady in her body. Everyone helps continue the story and when jokes are overlapping, it because even funnier than itself. Also, the story really reflects the society in America at that time, Rachel is the one who is independent, and she against her fate, she refused to be a traditional housewife like her mom, and her mom was affected by her and started to find her own life from then. It’s the feminist part. Also, the LGBTQ is included, gay marriage was passed in the US in those years, but in ‘Friends’, there already have the lesbian wedding for Carol and Susan, although their parents were not that support them, their friends give them the best wishes. Comparing to the sitcom in these days, there are many similarities. For example, I watched ‘Two Broke Girls’, the content of storyline and elements are still very similar, Max is the very brave one who represents the feminist and bad teenager, Caroline is also an independent character and businesses woman, her cupcake businesses is more important than her personal life. And there is some difference between these two, I think they are more force on the comparison and society problem, more variation on different races, bigger age differences, human nature and more open topic on pop culture and yellow jokes. I like both of them, the sitcom is never too bored for me.

[shuxinzou]

[June 10th] #5 Crime TV Series

The TV series I choose is the NBO ‘Hannibal’, it’s my favorite TV show and it’s a drama and crime show and has 3 seasons till now. The story is base on the original Hannibal book with many big changes, the story happened in now at Baltimore, the special agent Will Gram have the ability to rebuild the crime scene by looking at it, it helps FBI but also attract Hannibal Lecter’s attention. The episode I choose is season 2 episode 3. In this episode, it’s about Hannibal and other people plead for Will Gram on the court, but the evidence is not good for Will, he might be put to death, and on the date of the judge is going to pronounce judgment of Will Gram, he was murdered, his body was fixed on the court by chains, and on his hand, he held a scale and his brain and heart was pull out and place on each side of the scale. For this TV show, it made up by multiple storylines, mainly it’s about the relationship between Will and Hannibal, and other cases were inserted also, and all of the stories is about to gradually expose the real face of Dr. Lecter. The audience can see what the characters can’t see, so the double sides of Hannibal are both elegance and cruel, which is both fascinating and confusing. When there is a new crime, it will show a part of how the criminal did this, but leave another half for Will or Hannibal to solve, and it makes the plot easy to understand as well as maintain the mysterious for the audience. Hannibal is a psychiatry, he manipulates Will and makes him doubt about himself, and the audience might also doubt what they show on the screen and guess the real plot. For this episode, this special case is related to the trial of Will, Will is innocent, we know that because it’s Hannibal make Will be in the jail, but he doesn’t really want Will dead, and during the trial, the judge is not doing anything and can not see the truth of what people said, he represents the authority, if judge think Will Gram is guilty, he will dead, but he is mindless heartless and blindness, his right didn’t match his ability, so Hannibal took them. Also, the brain and heart represent Hannibal himself as well, if the brain is rational than his heart is emotional, even he put Will in jail, his emotion doesn’t want he dead, so the weight of heart is heavier than the brain. Hannibal ignored the law, he has his own philosophy and uses some extreme way to turn the things into the ‘right way’. What he does is not right, but the unfair things happened every day everywhere, the mindless judge declare innocent people guilty, the heartless judge didn’t give appropriate punishment to criminal, the blindness judge ignore the victim and go under the authority didn’t bring the true justice. Those facts always make people angry but can’t help with it at all.

[shuxinzou]

[June 9th] #Gender

The TV series ‘Masters of Sex’ is a period drama, and it’s about the story of William Masters, how he and his secretary Virginia Johnson studied about human sexuality in 1950-1960. Dr. Masters is a gynecology doctor and he is a pioneer of research in human sexual response and diagnosis, the storyline is basic on his research and work area, and also around him and his wife Libby’s life. There is another main character Virginia Johnson, she is a very special woman in this show, unlike other women at that time period, she is more like a modern female character, she put more attention on her job and would like to get education, she has her own idea about her sex partner relationship and very brave to please herself during the sex. At that time, the society is not that open-minded, and it’s a male-dominated society(still now), the research about sex regarded as dirty and not assume it can be real sex, and woman has low self-awareness, their life depends on their husband. The study of sex leads to the sexual liberation in the 70s, besides sex itself, this study makes people have more understanding of woman body, and make people think what’s the sex all about, sex is a projection of power for thousands of years, woman don’t really enjoy it because they were told by people that sex is all about pregnant and man, that’s part of the reason that woman will fake orgasm. And their virginity is more important than anything, but there is no limitation on man, it’s unfair and unreasonable, Dr. Masters’ study break the wall for woman, there is no mystery, and woman should know their body and feel happy to enjoy the sex just like the man, feminist also work on this for woman. Also, this show contains a storyline with a lesbian character, how she lived at that time, she is conflicted because she like her lover but she thinks she should marry to a man and have a baby. And also the racist problem in the hospital, the black woman in negro ward can’t have the same medical condition as the normal patients. It’s a serious drama show and we can see how woman’s mind changed from that time to now, feminist still has a long way to walk, and every single one deserved the equal right.

[shuxinzou]

[May 19th] Assignment #2

From the very first episode, Mr. Robot is telling a story about Elliot’s life, and his whole life is different to others, part of the reason is his social anxiety, and also his father’s death leaves him a shadow over him. From Elliot’s mouth, this society is under some people’s manipulate, the man in black he said, often appears suddenly, gives the audience a feeling that he is watching by someone else all the time, we cannot sure what Elliot did has been found by someone or not. We only know as much as what Elliot told us, so we are doubting everyone though the story is going on. Also, the characteristic is changing all the time, Elliot hates the society, but he is not a person who will do everything to change the world into what he wants it to be, he cares about everyone’s life, he doesn’t want to hurt anyone, he hesitated when he has the option to expose what fsociety did, he decided to quit when fsociety want him to make an explosion. And also the fsociety is a complex organization, they are not doing all good things, they have some kind of twist value and regardless the rules of the world, it’s not a hero or positive group at all. I think they are going to keep bring the mysteries of fsociety and the conflict inside Elliot’s head, and the feeling of everyday everyone’s life is not so desirable and there is a sound inside Elliot’s head seduce him to Fxxx the society and help people, make audience think about our own world, and think about ourselves. I think is dark, lonely, conflict and depress mood will keep in 5 seasons. Mr. Robot is so different from other TV series because it's coming from everyone’s life, no like other shows, it’s about a normal person live in a society same as we do and have all the problem we have: students loan, bills, partner cheating on us, stupid client and so on, we feel so much empathy when we watch it, especially the way it tells this story, it’s like we live in Elliot’s head, and we are experiencing everything with Elliot, or we are Elliot. Elliot have many problems we may have, he doesn’t have a healthy personality, he is every one of us who wants to make choice but couldn’t. The first episode uses the flashback, and there is a multi-threads structure and telling several stories together. There are lots of flash arrows, the billboards on the street may suggest about the debts problems the characters have, the advertisement of the movie says ‘Evil always win’ may have some connections with the ‘Evil Corp’ I guess. It’s unlike other TV shows, it’s like we are making choice with Elliot. The concept of this show is novel and connecting to the reality, the perspective it choose is very close to audience’s life, especially the reason why he feels angry about this society, I think many young people have the same feeling to him, but Elliot is a hacker, he has the power to make the choice which we can’t, it’s interesting to see what would be happened in another world if someone really gonna change the world. Also, the way this show shooting and editing is different, it not only shooting the reality, it also shows how someone can see us through our computer, it makes the audience think about themselves, are they watched by someone all the time as well? Also, the social anxiety of Elliot cause a delusion, the audience needs to really think it that a delusion or just a metaphor? And we the fsociety people said to Elliot they can overturn the society, there is a cage of Ferris wheel coming behind the Elliot, I think it represents the actions they take. The music is fit to the scene as well when Elliot went to the meeting with E Corp, the music is on with one lyric “They go away.”, it suggests the theme. I don’t think Elliot have sympathy like other people, he has a hard time to communicate with other people, he sinks too deep in his whole world and won’t let anyone really know what does he thinking about. He does not really feel other’s feeling, he decided him to be a person who can save others, he is mocking everyone, and just did what he wants to do, he is kind of selfish in some way. I really want to discuss it’s there anyone has the qualification to decide should the world need to be changed? And how to decide is an anti-hero doing a good thing or something he thinks it’s good for people, cause some of the villains have the same idea with them, there really is a very thin boundary between an anti-hero and a villain(for example the Thanos in Avengers).

[shuxinzou]

[May 17th]On-demand Culture

Part 1

This article mainly discusses how should we think about the pop culture, and the author introduces some perspectives of what the TV shows and video games really do to young people and grown-ups’ mind. He suggests three developments of TV programs in past 20 years and how those developments trained and changed audiences.

Firstly, the author made an example of a new thriller “24”, it’s an unusual drama from what we saw 20 years ago. The show we see today have lots of big changes both in content and form, the plots in “24” can never be on the screen 20 years ago. For the content, “24” is about terrorists and have some cruel scene that people can hardly accept in the real world; and the form it has — 44 minutes show include 16 minutes commercials and 9 different narrative lines are not what we do in the past. “24” is an example of what audience look at today, and author think it fixes a theory called Sleeper Curve, which meaning what we see today on the TV screen and in the video game, is getting more useful and nutritional, rather than what we thought before—- people are only interested in dumb and simple pleasure, junk information and dark moral values are taught to teenagers.

Then, the author mentioned about three things about how those TV shows at now make audience put more intelligence on what they are looking at. The first one is about multi-thread, the drama before “Hill Street Blue” have their own structures, mostly their have less than 3 plots going on at the same time, and fewer characters. People were hardly accepting more plots in “Hill Street” but when more and more drama start to doing this multi-threaded thing, audiences were trained to get familiar about this structure, and able to figure out complex storylines. Which need more thinking to put in when they are watching it.

Also, the flashing arrow is another way developed for the audience to help them more sink into the story and really trying to found the clues on their own. By giving the audience what they really need to know, they can simply describe the complex principles that audience should know to understand the story and make a connection between what happened now on the screen and the plot happened before.

Though we talked about those good TV programs in old days very often, we have to realize that they are so outstanding have part of the reason it other programs at that time are suck. If we compare head to head and tail to tail, we will found out even the junks are improved. And if we went back to see those old programs, they will be so boring for the audience who already adapt the new structures.

The author suggest people see that pop-culture is not all doing the bad thing, they actually do help people develop the skill to understand others emotion, gain the ability of thinking, learn how the society works. The negative message doesn’t mean it can’t have the positive impact, people should have to think what really inside and we can’t ignore them and regard them all bad.

Part 2

Some of the view from this author I do agree, but not all of them are fit to reality. There is a common idea that people think the internet, TV program, the video game is junk and will make the child be stupid, some parents hate their child play those things and think they are keeping waste their life, and even learn the bad things from them. There are so many games and shows are publishes every day, and we can’t say all of them have the negative effect or positive.

Some TV shows do need more thinking and inspired people. Those dramas can be something happened in our life every day, for example, some social phenomena, and it will increase the discussion on some specific topic which needs people to more attention on it. Society need change, and how to make people aware of those things? We gain the knowledge from those shows. For example, there is a phenomenon in China, there are lots of doctor or nurse were hurt by the patience or their family, there are many reasons for that, but it’s a very bad thing and constantly happened in hospital, less and less young people are willing to choose to a medical student, and society is anxiety about it. Then there are some TV series talks about the career in the hospital, those patients can be any of us, but we never put yourself in the position of a doctor. From those stories, the audience may gain the empathy, they can understand others better and learn more about this society.

What’s more, TV programs and video games are better than before. Due to the limitation of the technology and the size of entertainment industry, there are far more people working in this field than before, and entertainment industry is taking a bigger part in people’s life, when the TV and internet starting to grow, there were less creative and thoughtful person who does these things, the information was more direct and straightforward. The only goal of a comedy is to make people laughing, a killing game is just for people to kill and satisfy some of their bloody and dark desire. But people are harder to be satisfied by now, the overall education level is higher, and TV programs and games have to put deeper though in their products. A comedy can be irony and suggest more beyond that; a game may have violence elements but there may more have meaning and propose behind. I do think the pop-culture things are more than what we see on the surface, and it’s unfair to compare what we called classic with them.

However, what we discuss are not appear in every case. There are many rubbish shows and games and films out there, it’s a waste of time to watching them, and it occurs for some reason. Many companies and media do think people like those shows and movies which can easily understand by people are more popular, our life in modern world have very fast speed, people don’t have much energy to deal with their every work and also spent intelligence on those things, people just want to relax, and don’t care much about have their entertainment activities development them. So there still a big amount of junks created by companies who only care is about earning money, and have no responsibility for what they did. Sadly, people buy it. Good technology won’t make a rubbish become a treasure, it only makes it become a good-looking rubbish. People feel numb about this facts and as long as they pay for it, there is always someone will keep making rubbish.

Also some flash arrow which mentioned in the essay, it not a new trick anymore, sometimes people feel tired about this already, every time when camera turned to some strange things which we have no idea why it’s there, and we already know it gonna be a clue, and there is no surprise, people are too lazy to think it deeply and always just leave it there, after all the director will tell you everything anyway.

Parents are responsible for what their children attached to, it still needs to carefully avoid kids and grown-ups too addicted to these negative things, they can rarely recognize what is good for them what is bad. Don’t reject everything and don’t trust everything at the same time.

[shuxinzou]

Final Essay of Critical Practice [Dec 6th]

Life of Pi

Thesis statement: Life of Pi explores the human experience, society, religion and nature through the eyes of it's protagonist, Pi, an Indian boy growing up in an emerging global society. Ultimately, the story is about self realization. About what's false and what's true. It is the constant battle within yourself, with every decision you make. It is about realizing your shortcomings and knowing if you can come to terms with them.

Life of Pi is a very interesting movie, the director Ang Lee implied lots of details inside this movie, and thought the protagonist, Pi, he told two stories behind the truth. This movie shows us about an Indian boy growing up in an emerging global society. Ultimately, the story is about self realization. About what's false and what's true. It is the constant battle within yourself, with every decision you make. It is about realizing your shortcomings and knowing if you can come to terms with them.

The main story is about the life of Pi, this Indian boy born and raised in French India, it’s a place where mix the culture. His life was affected by his parents, his mom had religion, but his father only believed in science. He believes Vishnu in Hinduism, and he likes the son of God, he worshiped like the Muslims, he is also a vegetarian. This mix of religions inside himself became to his own spirit. And that’s how he overcame all those difficulties on the Pacific Ocean during his long trip.

There is one thing without any doubt, Pi alive alone on the sea, through a really long time, and how did he make it? To get the answer to the question, we have to find out the truth of the story, what’s the real problem he met and overcame in that period of time.

In the end of the movie, we got two stories from Pi. The first one has hyena, zebra, orangutan, Richard Parker (the tiger), a rat and Pi, the second story contained the cook, the sailor, his mother and Pi. From his description in the movie, and we can find out the zebra and sailor both broken his leg, the orangutan slapped the hyena and also Pi’s mother did the same, so the cook is hyena; sailor is zebra; Pi’s mom is orangutan and Pi is the tiger. But there is one animal we forget, the rat. Who is the rat? We have no answer now, but what we know is Richard Parker ate the rat, and rat is also from the ship, that’s the common point of a real people exist in the story.

To learn about the real emotion inside the Pi, we can study the action of Richard Parker, because at the beginning of the movie, before the Pi had grown up, he tried to feed the Richard Parker, and his father found out what he did, he was so angry and said to Pi: “When you look into his (the tiger) eyes, you are seeing your own emotions reflected back at you.” And there are lots of scenes in the movie that Pi saw through tiger’s eyes, and what he really saw is his own emotions instead.

What’s the real problem of Pi to get survived on the sea? One is how to get the food, the other one is how to find the peace of the conflict battle inside Pi’s heart. Pi is a vegetarian, it’s obvious, and what’s make a vegetarian refuse to eat meat? Of course not because they think meat is unhealthy, mostly they think eat meat is killing, it’s abandon their belief. Pi have so much religion and they give him the strength and power, but now he had to give it up. The first time he fished a fish and killed it, he was crying on the raft, he worshiped to the Vishnu and said: “I’m sorry. Thank you to coming in the form of fish and saving our life.” He had to found out a reason to make himself forgive himself. He imagined that he was not obey his rules, the religion gave the reason to forgive himself.

Then Pi experienced a long, tired period. The tiger saw a series very mysterious picture in the sea, it’s a strange part of the movie, cause it doesn’t do anything on push the plot, but we can find the content of the image in the beginning of the movie. When we look at the picture in the sea, it’s dark and the color suggest it like the universe, and the light change to a lotus’ shape, this symbol also in the beginning of the story, when mom told Pi the myths of Krishna, a god in Hinduism, there is a universe inside his mouth. After the symbol, there is a picture of mother in the universe. The universe is inside the mouth of Krishna, and it claimed that what we see here, in the universe which Pi saw in the sea, is in the mouth, it implied that mom is in the mouth! After the orangutan killed by hyena, her body is inside the mouth of Richard Parker, but there is no Richard Parker in fact, so she was inside the mouth of who the tiger stands for —— the mouth of the Pi. That’s the deepest secret of Pi, the real reason he made him collapse, the rational part of him is the Pi, but the evil inside him, is the tiger. He had to separate him into two parts, but he can not live without any one part, even he hates it so much.

Pi convinced himself that all the things happened is the will of Vishnu, because in human society, he can not eat people, but in the desperate, he had to do so. If we still can remember the Anandi, the lover of Pi, we will remember there is a scene that Pi asked Anandi about the meaning of her dance, and Anandi said it means the lotus in the forest. It’s very interesting that Pi really saw a lotus in the forest, in the first story, he described a island with thousands of meerkats, he stopped beside the island and want to have a rest, but he found that the water became to acid and there is a lotus on the tree contained a human teeth inside when the night coming. An incredible story with lots of irrationality. Meerkats live in the desert, no one every seen this island before and after, so why he made up a story? Or the story can replace by another real event? ‘The lotus in the forest’ makes a connect to Anandi immediately, and also Pi tied the string on the tree after he arrived, that string is the gift that Anandi send to him. If we still have doubts, the teeth inside the   lotus and the acid explained everything, acid is the stomach acid, and the teeth is the bone left by a body. Anandi is inside his stomach, and this nonexistent island is the only thing he can imply of the truth, it’s so hard for him to accept the truth, even after all those thing he still can not face to the fact. So behind the story he told, Anandi is the rat in the first story, she eaten by Richard Parker, and it can explain why the rat felt so close to Pi and run to his head, but he didn’t save her, the hungry made him not him. After Pi left the island, we can see the shape of island is a lying people, it’s the Vishnu, again, who imply the food given by the god everywhere in this movie.

Not only the Vishnu is the emotional support, but also the god. When Pi is on the sea, there are two times he mentioned the god, the first time is  after a fight, there is only Richard Parker and he left, he saw the eyes of the tiger and trembling, he was scared by the tiger, also means he was scared by himself, the evil part of himself. He asked the god: “I give myself to you. Whatever comes, I want to know, show me.” He was confused, he had no experience about how to live on the ocean, what should he do and where should he go? He can only ask the god, and whatever happen then, is what ‘the god’ show to him, and he can convince himself to solve all the problems and difficulties because it’s what the god gives to him, he might give up the hope, but he will never give up his faith, because he is so devout.

The second time is near the end of the trip, there was a storm come, and there was a light  through the cloud, Pi was crying and screaming: “The compassionate, the merciful, longing for your words, come out! This a vision!” and Pi wanted Richard Parker come to see the god, but the tiger struggled on the boat, and he saw his eyes. He turned to ask the god: “ Why are you scaring him! I’ve lost my family, I’ve lost everything, I surrender, what else do you want?” He was hopeless at that moment, he asked the god, and asked his faith, he saw the power of the nature, which he understands as the god, but why the god can not save him? After that, he went to the island, and realize he can not lost himself, he believes that the god waked him.

Why that a story makes people believe in god? The rational truth is too cruel, and the only way to find the peace inside Pi, is to believe in god, everything is the wills of god, so that we can accept what happened to him. Pi’s life is not fantastic, is a bloody and cruel trip, the protagonist is a brave man, what he experienced is hard to imagine, but he finally faced all the decisions he made, and stopped him being eaten by the evil side of himself. He has a normal life now, and it’s what he learned during this trip, he found the balance between being survive and become to a psychopath, he is a great man and god of himself.

[shuxinzou]

Thesis statement Assignment [Nov 20th]

The movie Life of Pi claims that people need to have religions, the power of belief shouldn’t be denied by the science study we do today. People can overcome problems by using science, but you can only work out some desperate situations by your mental strength. We shouldn’t abandon our faith, people born with two sides, we can live with the rational side, and we should keep our sensual inside. The three stories in the movie are three layers of the personality of Pi, he hid the truth under the story he made up, but it also saves him to go crazy.

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Assignment [Nov 12th]

Black mirror assignment

The episode I choose is the Playtest , for me, a game player, it’s a very interesting story and worth to consider a lot. The entire story is so mysterious, and it’s kind of like the movie — Inception, which also a science fiction which talked about the relationship between the real and virtual world.

The story beginning with the main character left his house, the ring is the only thing through the beginning to the end. This man went to a game company to test the latest technology and earn the money of plane ticket to back home, and he experienced a series of things, all the things he thought real in fact it’s not, he saw he went to the boss’s office then went to an old house, but all he just sat on the chair and went nowhere, the time pass in his brain is half of the day, but the fact it’s only 0.04s in the real world.

It’s kind of like the ‘dream of dreams’ thing, people always consider that we can identify the real world and the dream, but mostly we won’t feel any uncomfortable in our dream, we won’t realize that’s a dream world till we wake up, so there is always someone questions about what if the world we live in is one of the dreams? This episode suggested about people should reconsider about the real meaning of exist for being a human, or we would lose ourselves in the future techniques.

Also we are on the point of VR start being used in our life, and we can see the holographic or something even more visual realistic will come to our life. What if we can not identify the game world and real life? My own experience makes me worry a lot, before I learned how to drive, I played lots of racing games, it’s so easy and normal to crash the building and people in the game, and when the first time I drove a real car, I actually felt some kind of numb about the environment, cause it’s not so different from the game, and I imagined if I crash something and how it happened in my brain! Our brain will confuse about the authenticity of what we see, the more and more realistic games or visual subjects will train our brain to cheat ourselves, brain is learning how to tell our body to treat the virtual world like it’s real, what if someday the virtual world have no difference with real world? Will people wake up from the ‘game’, or we will live in another world we create in our brain forever. The technique already does that, and we can not ignore about that.

The science fiction is the real world’s projection, it claims a problem we might not see but happens all the time, what if the time we spend is a relative quantity, and after we die, we will wake up and start another life? Or the ‘game’ never end? What if someone killed somebody in the game, and after we spend 50 years in the jail, and finally realize it’s not a game, or we thought we spend 50 years doing something and someday we realize it’s just a game, what we did means nothing. Be careful to use the power we have, unless we really understand who we are.

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Midterm         [Oct 31]

The documentary ‘We Are Legion’ is about the group called ‘Anonymous’, which is an interesting organization on the internet, this documentary helped people getting learn about what Anonymous is and introduced some events relate to them. The film-maker wants us to have a fully understand of what Anonymous is, who they are and what’s their purpose. What he claims about is they are searching for freedom, they are groups of people who are fighting for the information freedom and the right of speak on the internet.

At the beginning, to introduce this group to the audiences, they use the true story to give a sense of real life event, there is a teenager girl who was telling a story of herself as an Anonymous. After that is a series of TV news reports, which stated several events did by Anonymous, from the news we can see a bunch of serious social events and start to realize why Anonymous are matters. After showing what’s the society think about them, they were showing some videos about the protest people who identified themselves as the Anonymous, and what they think they are, what’s their purpose, why they are being part of this group, and we can combine these informations to get a rough idea about what Anonymous is.

Then the film start to touch this group deeply, they begin with their history. The teller went back to the very beginning, before the hack relate to the mean we understand today, and explain this group is beginning with the idea of people’s freedom. Also they introduced the way that hacker always use with the example, and then they talked about 4chan as the Anonymous’ name came from. There are 8 people in the video talked about their experience with 4chan and what’s their first experience of trolling people on the internet, it’s like a timeline we can see, and it’s the very first beginning of Anonymous’ action of an activity. Fellowing this event, the film introduced several big things that done by Anonymous, like scientology, Sony, Wikileaks… and so on, they talked about the beginning and processing very specifically, why, what and how Anonymous did all these protest, emphasizing the truth and what’s the freedom they are asking for, to reach the idea of clear the Anonymous statement ‘freedom on the internet’.

There are two part of the video are really good, the first one is the interview of Brian Mettenbrink. He talked about his own experience though the scientology events, and the camera went into his house, and while he was telling the story and his feeling, it makes being an Anonymous is so easy and close to our life, such a boy who like the mechanical thing and doing big things at his bedroom, we can easily feeling the empathy of his life. However after 6 months, he was arrested by FBI about what he does to scientology’s website, that’s so realistic and cruel, and he started to explain that people have misunderstanding of Anonymous and the reason he did that, Anonymous is fight for freedom on the internet, his experience is the best support of people lacks of freedom in society. After he went to jail, after he paid the price of what he did, in this video, Brian still felt no regret of what he was doing, and the belief of every Anonymous is good explain thought his mouth. Only the people have strong spirit and fully understand of what he did can have such a confidence after the experience of go to jail, and it makes the reason they are being Anonymous so persuasive.

The second one is the political event. The film used some short scenes took in Tunis at the beginning, and people here were beaten by the police, people here want freedom, also there is a scene that Tunisia people were holding the Anonymous mask and said that they are together, it showed us the power of internet that how to connect the people in different place in the world still can fight together. The way the film use, to explain a some thing from different person in different perspective is good for audience to learn how the things going on at same times. Also the people in Egypt, those videos we can see here is the same video they saw at that time, and we can fully understand the emotion they got, and the motivation from where. There is also the most exciting part of the film, while at that moment the Egyptian government shut down the internet, what Anonymous did is make the internet reconnect again, it’s so great and shows their power is really strong to fight with a government, and Anonymous really matter to the modern society. Also really told the whole story about how Anonymous saved the freedom of people in Egypt.

So in the end of the film, they use more short videos and let people see what Anonymous did in the real world, which is connect to their ideas that fight not only on the internet but also every place needs people to protest, their actions say more than the words, and the more and more people who get involve into part of this thing, which means more and more people fight for themselves, everyone who was shot in the video, have the strong belief of being an Anonymous, they use this way to show their power of influence things, changing the real life by people’s power, all the movement they showed us are good examples of freedom fighting in modern life, which enclose our distance to this group and helped people understand what their doing by connecting with ourselves.

This film is a good one for people have a completed understand of Anonymous, it aim to remove the misunderstood of this group and trying to ask people be a part of them. The film made the word ‘freedom’ as the label of Anonymous and made lots of explains of the events for past few years, what’s they make people believe is the hacker is not evil, Anonymous is on the side of democracy and free.

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Assignment   [Oct 23]

The monster ——— ‘Guy Fawkes mask’

Guy Fawkes mask is easy to connect with the movie ‘V for Vendetta’, it makes this sign being so famous. V for Vendetta is a comic and film that famous a lot, I have been watched the movie. Actually it’s a wired film, the ‘hero’ being described both evil and hero, or more like a freak, V himself is a monster, he is the result of human experimentation, he saved the world in an extreme way, he made bomb and assassinated people, but all his purpose is for everyone’s happiness. The monster V represent a group of people who have the same willingness and wants to save the world, they don’t need to have a name to become a hero, they learned from V, who always wearing the mask and never shows his face during whole movie.

Hackers are always hated by people, they attack the internet and lead the server being paralysis. However, there is an organization of hackers which are not intend to destroy something, this organization gather a large group of people who have responsibility and want to change the society, they called ‘Anonymous’, anyone can be Anonymous, people come together without knowing each other but have same purpose, they get involved in lots of social events, such as they declared the war to ISIS after ‘November 2015 Paris attacks’, and also ‘Occupy movement’ in New York and support ‘Wikileaks’. The sign of them is the Guy Fawkes mask, which came from‘V for Vendetta’, the sign of the ideological group who wants to stand out like the hero in this movie.

To choose this symbol as their incarnation is so meaningful, ‘V’ is the one who took this Guy Fawkes mask, and he was totally a freak, he killed lots of people, he cheated with Evey (the main character), he acts like a terrorist (let others watched he blew up the Old Bailey criminal court building, dramatically playing the song —‘1812 Overture’, it’s like a psychopath…), but on the other hand, what he did are totally for whole society, he knows people are under the control of a dark government, this society needs revolution, people need fight for their rights. In the movie, there are people dead because he kept a Quran, there are people who imprisoned because she was homosexual, there are lots of people who have been treated inequality, and V fighted for them.

It’s interesting to analyze the details in the movie, the mask— which came from a historical people—Guy Fawkes, he was attempted to blow up the House of Lords in London, it’s highly matched with the act of V in plot, also while V blowed up the court building, the song—1812 Overture, it’s the the writer Tchaikovsky commemorate Russia's defence of its motherland against Napoleon's invading Grande Armée in 1812 (from Wikipedia), V used this song to celebrate he blew up the building. At the end of the movie, tons of people start the revolution with this song, also implied the victory of the freedom fighter.

Anonymous is like ‘V’, the hacker is not an openly group, what they did are always (or mostly) not obey the law, they describe themselves like the ‘V’, the Guy Fawkes mask represent them, the ‘V’ in real life, a group of people who did the same thing for the society, where have inequality, and they will be here for help.

They are strange, and they are the monster I think. What they master is the technology that very few people in the world can stop them, what if they are clever than the government, and a crime like this will so hard to be caught; they act strangely, people who want to do good thing are not intend to do another illegal thing to achieve that; who are so strange, the members are flexible, and none of them stepped into the light.

Anonymous is famous now, and their obvious sign is showing us ‘Now we stand here to protect the equality and freedom.’ The Guy Fawkes mask becomes to their culture—who fight for people, who are selfless, who against the terrorist, who speak for victims, their enemy is whoever wants to break the world peace and anti-human, so not only the Anonymous are using Guy Fawkes mask, anyone has same belief wearing masks like that.

Guy Fawkes mask is a culture we can see now, but I believe that this mask itself comes from a group of people at that time, they don’t have a name, but their effort is remarkable, they are summarized as the group of people who wear Guy Fawkes mask, and in the film, the character ‘V’ is all of them. Like what was written in the ‘monster culture’, the monster is the culture, the Guy Fawkes mask group is the freedom fighter.

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Assignment  [Oct 16th]

The review of Guillermo Del Toro Exhibition

The first time I went to the exhibition, and saw the giant sculpture on the outside of the hall I suddenly know that I love this guy, I really into this kind of dark and creepy thing. Before I went to the exhibition, I didn’t really do lots of research on him, but while I was watching, I saw lots of movie that I like made by him, it’s really surprise me and I feel so exciting about seeing all those crafts, illustrations and costumes. Although most of them are creepy, they are actually gorgeous. This exhibition include lots of things, most of them are from or relate to movies made by Guillermo, and he has his own style— dark and horror fairy tale, strange monster, Victorian style and so on. It’s interesting to divide the different kinds of artworks they created, and the differences between them didn’t make any of them being weak than others.

The first part I think is the artworks comes from black fairy tales, it’s easy to explain why people are really infatuated with black fairy tales, those tales we heard from long long ago seems being the monsters hidden in the memories of our childhood, people are fascinated about this style. When we stepped into the exhibition hall, the first thing we saw is a doll with sad face hang on the wall, and there are some old pictures over there, which we could not say they are horrible, but these items already give an atmosphere of black tales or horror movie which include these elements. Also there are lots of crafts shows are all have this specific feature, some of them are the old style tools, or the hand- made exquisite scenes, the beautiful steam age clock with gears, and also the horrible fetus model inside the can. They are lovely, but in a case if everything looks normal, but one detail is strange, that’s what really make people feel horrible.

Also his creature design is really creepy but outstanding, he did lots of different kinds of monsters and design, what they do are exaggeration, making contrast and combine things together. On the exit of the exhibition, there is a giant monster which has two spots as eyes instead of really one, on this monster we can see it’s actually is the exaggeration of human body, he removed all the muscles and exaggeration the skin, also make bones more obvious, when we look at it the only word in our mind is ugly, but it’s smart. There also have a sculpture in the middle of the last room, it’s a naked woman lying on the ground, it’s a perfect body if you see it in front, but when I saw the back of her, there are lots of disgusting pustules on her back and legs, this’s really works and shocked me a lot. The most ways they use to make the monster is combining things, like they put two faces melting into one, or the fish bone on a woman’s lower body, or add the strange head on a human body, all these unlikely creatures are so interesting and unique.

And I can’t ignore the costumes they designed in Crimson Peak, it’s a nice movie and all the costumes are just beautiful, the dark green and red victorian style long dress, and every folds and lace they made are so gorgeous.

Lots of designs in here are also come from mythes and historical stories, the mysterious of the culture is the deep reason of its attraction,  monster culture not only have the dark side to understand, but also the symbolic art value are fascinated.

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Assignment  [Oct 8th]

[Bitch better have my money] By:Rihanna

For this music video, I could say it’s an extremely dramatic one, one of the reasons is the revenge plot and also lyrics of the song itself, the techniques they used is nice, when I closely watch it, I found some details are really interesting.

From the every beginning, there is a scene that was a box on the grass and a pair of leg hang on the edge with lots of blood, and the camera is zoom out. Then there is a fair lady who was doing the make up, the background music is kind of classical one, that white lady with blond hair and in a bright house which claims that she is fairly rich, also the act she did —— get her lipstick and try on her jewelry, it’s a very obvious sign for a charming high-class white woman, the lipstick suggests she had a husband and the jewelry suggest her husband had lots of money. Then the Rihanna appeared, with a dark lip color and poker face, she drove to her destination and pulled out a big box. At the same time, that fair lady brought her cute spitz and leave home, also ‘the spitz is gentle-ladies’ pet’ is a cliche. Both of them entered the elevator, and the light inside that cage is blue and purple which really different from the warm light outside. After a while the door was open, the really music is on, and we can only see Rihanna was standing inside with spitz.

Now the music start, with the lyric ‘ bitch better have my money.’ Rihanna’s partners put the big box into the trunk, while she was smoking we can see her tattoo clearly, a red light source was casting on her hair, then they drive a car with the naked lady on the backseat, they went to a warehouse hung her upside down and swung her. After a phone call, they went to the gas station, Rihanna looks so angry and broke the phone, the camera also in and out to give some rhyme of the song. Those girls burned the car and left with the lady inside the box, the back-light on them make their faces in shadow, which looks so cold, she had her cigarette again.

Then the screen turn to a cruise, they kidnapped the lady and spent lots of money like had vacation, the whole color is sweet and girly, that lady was tied and dressed up by them, but Rihanna threw her phone and shoot it.

Next screen is they was lying down and a sheriff passed in front of the, he attracted by them and even didn’t see one of the girls broke the glass bottle on that lady’s head to stop her asked for help.

They drove to a motel, it’s worth to notice how they create the atmosphere here, the environment is dark and only have red and blue light, really make people got a  psychedelic feeling, Rihanna was wearing a transparent plastic coat and black bikini， which is really sexy, the camera started to rotate, it’s like everything is twisting, there are green, red, and blue light in room, and Rihanna was pumping smoke, the camera language combine to this very will.

Next scene is the sheriff officer again, he stepped on the edge of the swimming pool and watched Rihanna was greeting to him, but right down to the inflatable cushion there was that lady flowed, he didn’t know there was an unconscious woman, and the camera really focus on Rihanna’s hips, it suggest their sexy bewitched the officer.

Then they back to the house at the beginning of the video, and Rihanna started to select her weapons, that lady was still inside the box, and every weapon has label, the electric saw has [CHEATER], one of the knife has [FUCKED UP MY CREDIT], an ax has [UGLY], with the blue backlight compare to her red hair, we see the accountant tied on a chair, and we see he is the rich husband of the lady at the beginning of the video. He had golden ring claimed he married, and while he had Rihanna’s phone call, that scene have both red and green light on his face, which really evil, then it start to flash several pictures, they are black and white, those scenes contained white plastic sheeting, and have bloody knife with broken hand on it, there also have the tape with [CRIME SCENE DO NOT CROSS] and cards with numbers, they always being used by police. After that, Rihanna came to the accountant and he closed his eyes.

At the end, it back to the grass scene, now we can see Rihanna sat in a box of money, she was naked and played a knife, and it’s the end of the video. After that, there is a big close up of her bloody face, like an avenger.

Video telling a story, so mostly they implied something by using the stereotype, Rihanna described the accountant’s wife in that way, the lady who has a rich husband have a life like her. From the lyric we can see the main character is a bad girl, so Rihanna has the same feathers as a bad girl: tattoo, explosive head, sexy wearing, dark blue lip, poker face, lots of exaggerated accessories, cigarette,  roadster, cruise party, showing herself off to man, that’s how people defined a bad girl. Also there are lots of stereotype of man, the accountant is a bad guy, so he had a wife and played with whores, the sheriff can’t move his eyes from those girls, and ignored the criminal twice. It suggests men always connect with sex women, and that’s what makes them stupid. The lyric contained lots of words like foreign car and Louis 13, also the cruise in the video, it’s a stereotype of rich people.

Rihanna defiantly rather ‘become’ to the bad girl she played in the movie in a not too aggressive way, but we can see those girls are really open and do whatever they want, they fight with accountant, which is a man, they cheated sheriff which also a man, they play what they want and finally successfully revenged [ in an exaggerated way], all in all, they are not like the accountant’s wife at all, and if that suggests a part of Rihanna’s personality, this video must be showing her feminist way of doing things.

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Assignment  [Oct 1st]

McLuhan had a very interesting idea that not one thought before. In fact in real life, people are hard to consider much about ‘what’ and ‘how’ question, the life speed is so fast, we are busy on catching the step of the newest technology without thinking, but at the same time the technology is changing us when we didn’t even noticed.

Like what McLuhan claims —‘ the medium is the message.’, which I understand as the medium influence the way we feel the world a lot. Human have basic sense functions, our visual organ eyes, feeling organ skin and so on, but phonetic alphabet change what we used to sense the world, the technology we invented become the extension of ourselves, another part of human body, we should realize what the change is and avoid when it starts to shaping us, human are easy to make us get use to an environment, that’s how our body to protect us, but the change of environment will also lead our body change for it, like our nervous are being numb to adapt what the modern media brings to us —massive and fast news, people are hard to think all of them so what we do is equally ignored them, or I would say not pay attention to any them. That’s not our purpose, but we did it automatically, the fast medium forced us to do so, and if the medium is different, we will treat the message differently by how we received. Now the medium are shaping us, but what we want is use their features to touch the sense we want to achieve.

We should all learn about this theory, it’s related to us and worth to think about it, we all depend on the technology we use too much, and learn it deeply is necessary for such an important revolution in human history, something happens with a much deeply internal meaning, being more familiar with it and make it a better use is the right way for us to study this phenomenon.

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Assignment [Sep 25th]

According to these two speeches, I can feel a strongly different attitude to the life between those  two people, Steve Jobs was a really positive man who always have passion and strongly have a goal to achieve, David Wallace more seems like a depression people who trying to tell the students how to avoid being so disappointing about their life.

For me, I would say I agreed both of them, and I don’t really think there is a conflict between what they said. Steve talked about his life—as an example of being a successful person, his life is more dramatic than most of us, he dropped off his college, he had been fired by his own company, he was told that he would die after few months, and after all, he’s been all good and talked about his own experience to those people who haven’t start their life yet. Every important point of his life might be a great frustration if it happens on ourselves, but Steve made every step being a new start and all of those experiences achieved him. The main point which he stated at the end of his speech is “Stay hungry, stay foolish.” I understand this as we should always unsatisfied with the knowledge and never thought we already know enough, staying an open mind to see this world. He made himself as the example to support the idea, all the examples are tough to face, but he did it with his spirit, for many times, isn’t it enough to make us believe in him? We can easily connect him to ourselves while we are in trouble because what Steve Jobs faced were even worse. As a celebrity, what he said make more believable  than others all the time. We can compare his history with him at that time in 2005, and it’s the best explain of his advice, he did this, and he is Steve Jobs, of course everyone will take his advice, why not?

David Wallace used another to make his speech. His mean point is what we should do as an educated person to live in this world, which is not about any knowledge, it’s about the way we see the world and fight with our default setting, it’s a sacrifice in our mind. David created a scene that everyone might be involved in someday, which makes us can easily put ourselves into the story, we see the story in first person perspective, and he used lots of description verbs to make us feel more like we have the same emotion as the people who actually in this scene, it’s a really interesting way to show us and explain the thought, no one would disagree with him and it seems like we can put this story on all of us, then he explained the same thing in a different perspective, and we found everything looks different. It’s true that there are differences while we see things in others perspective rather than in self centered way, we always put ourselves in a default setting self centered model without notice about it, and that’s make us hate the world, but as an educated man, we should think for other people, this is the sacrifice that he claimed about. He helped us step out from the default limited vision and the first time to use the new way to see the life, it’s a lesson he taught us. To test the truth of his word is easy, we can feel the change of our mind immediately, we use what he taught right now, and absorb as our own property. His speech is absolutely successful.

I would say both of them are really wise person, Steve lived longer with his passion of life, David suicided because he dived too deep in his mind, none of their ideas have right or wrong, better of worse. I give my highest respect to both of them.

[shuxinzou]

The image I found is down below, which you can see several crosses on the ground, every one of those cross ties a man, those men are all wearing the uniform which can be easily recognize as the policeman, above the policeman there are boards with word ‘CITY OF BALTIMORE’, and below the board it writes ‘POLITICS’. And there is a speech bubble and someone said : “CRIME IS OUT OF CONTROL! WHY WON’T YOU GUYS DO SOMETHING?!” , and it’s obviously speak to those tied men.

Those officers are tied by strings and could not move at all. The pose is as same as the Jesus, the Jesus sacrificed himself, and I think in this image it claims that the police are the victim of politics. 

From the information we can see the city Baltimore has been mentioned, it’s not hard to connect this image with the news happened last year in Baltimore. Last year there is a protest about policemen arrested a black man, he suffered by spine injured and finally dead. People felt angry about the police and started to consider that policemen had too much right to do anything on whoever being arrested. Public might feel unsatisfied of lots of things, this protest just a point for them to throw their emotion out, but government will consider this as a really serious thing and limits the police office to appease the public. According to this event brought a negative effect to police office, police must being really careful about their behavior, which not always a good thing while they are trying to deal with the suspects. The police will really worry about their behavior might be judged by public and afraid about the hurt the suspect, of course it absolutely increased the crime.

People felt dissatisfied about the crime, and blame the police, the police restrict by the political reason, the politics become the cross, and the judgment of public being the strings, people think the problem is on the police, but they are innocent, they were just the victim of the politics. This comic which is an irony about the people, the artist claims that what people want can also influence their life in different perspective, and while you are asking for something, being careful about all there result it can be caused. 

(picture from http://instigatornews.com/police-brutality-political-cartoon-a-f-branco/  byA.F.Branco ©2015)

[shuxinzou]

Critical Practice Assignment [Sep 18th]

From the article, the author claims that the taste of people in last 20 years had rarely changed, which it’s a fact that I never thought before, but after I read this article, I found something which can be ignored by people all the time. The taste of people might under the control of economic facts, the design, fashion, art and technology become not to change a lot is to meet the need of human. We didn’t change because we don’t want to. It’s very strange, everyone seems like already accept the idea that we all live in a society which would change immediately every single day, but in a wide vision we have very less progress.

When we open our closet and find the cloth of our mom or dad, you definitely will say it’s out of time, but how? The jeans and shirts, actually not far different from what you can buy from HM or GAP. When I was born, it’s nearly 20 years ago, I had the photography of mine at that time, it’s still be the way to record the first day of a new born nowadays; as I can remember, there were already had personal computer when I was in primary school; and the thickness of the computer screen even didn’t change a bit. Truly there are differences between the phone from 20 years ago to now, but we should know before we got the first mobile phone, we could not even think about there would be a communication tool can be like that. So compare with the ‘exist or not’ difference, the design and function change seems not too exaggerating. People really didn’t change their life for two decades, I realize that and wondering why.

How people change their taste? It’s seems to be a weird question, because we usually don’t think about it. The company says they change their products by the need of their customer, but people will think they are buying the latest design from companies and they lead the fashion. For me, I think it’s an interact effect, both of them control the flow of fashion, but none of each control it all. People choose what they like, but only can choose between what companies provide to them; companies design the product based on the customer, but they have the ability to make products both satisfy part of customers and can make more benefits.

The economic issue influence everything, too. Usually some new product being popular because of the society change, but last 20 years, we are in a relatively stable society than ever, compare to the World War one, World War two or revolution of industry and economy. People don’t need to innovate something just for the purpose of cheap and efficiently (we consider more about comfortable and fashion), the art not inspired by the pain or death, people repeats their daily life, and the lifestyle didn’t change when we are all live in a stable life, considering the fact, the big innovation seems no need for us, most of us feel satisfy about our life, and the capacity of get progress being much less than 100 years ago, scientists start to explore the space which not that necessarily connect to our life.On the other way I could say the whole world less stimulation, and I personally don’t think it’s a bad thing, because mostly the simulation comes with worldwide change, and if that’s the price for getting progress, we’d like not to pay for this.

To sum up, I agree with what the article tells, I would like to claim that this phenomenon brings by the peace of the world. Also we come to a point which technology can change the way to see the world, VR is a revolution of visual art and the way of interaction, it’s a dimensional change, according to the mathematical definition of dimension, we can see this new technology will redefine our entire life models. It’s just a beginning, we might wait for this change for two decades, and I believe it will be amazing for us, because the change might need time to accumulate, and we will observe the future.