winterinmyheart179

[winterinmyheart179]

Jiawei Li

Critical Practice

4/6/2017

Ever since I watched the movie “ Life is Beautiful”, the deeper understanding of cultural identity and diaspora had came to my mind. Guido is the main role in the movie “Life is Beautiful”, throughout the movie, he has three main identities. At first, his friend and he are just two poor young jewish man traveling to a new town, after awhile he met the love of his life, Dora, and had a second identity, husband, years later, Dora and Guido had a boy together, which started his third identity as a father. The warfare happened around the time of the World War II, and how Nazi persecuted the jews as the background. Just when I thought the movie might be turn into a warfare film, what happened after that had completely changed my mind. It is actually a movie about how a father pass on his wisdom of life to his son and also to protect his little boy.  The most important identity he had during the movie is as a father.  

Here are six equation about life which I think completely explained in the movie:

1) Reality - Dreams = Animal beings

2) Reality + Dreams = A heartache (usually called Idealism)

3) Reality + Humor = Realism (also called Conservatism)

4) Dreams - Humor = Fanaticism

5) Dreams + Humor = Fantasy

6) Reality + Dreams + Humor = Wisdom

Guido, in the movie is the sixth type of person. The director vested many other identities on Guido, such as a jewish man who is suffering the Nazi’s persecution, a hard-working workmate for all other jewish people that are forced to work at the concentration camp, and a nobody in the whole big warfare and historical period. However the most remarkable identity out of all, is as a wisdom father.

At the beginning of the diaspora, when they are suddenly informed that they have to join a concentration camp just because they are jews, Guido didn’t express any complain and sadness in front of his son, Giosue. Nevertheless, Guido told Giosue that they are about to go to  the most amazing trip ever. And he can not wait for it anymore, so that they have to get on the train as fast as they can. Moreover, in the crowed trains, Giosue was exhausted from the standing, but Guido said, “ When we come back, we are going to take a long distance bus, bus is not crowed as the train.” Guido also protect Giosue from knowing the world’s malevolence. When Giosue see a sign that has “ Jews and dogs are not allowed” on it, in front of a bookstore, Giosue asked Guido purely, why would the bookstore put up a sign like that? Guido explained to him that maybe some people just don't like Jews and dogs, for example, ike me, I don not like barbarian, and we can put up a sign says “Barbarian and spiders are not allowed” on the window of our bookstore, because you do not like spiders.  When they arrived the camp, Nazi asked if anyone understand Germany that can translate what he said into Italian. Guido pretend that he understand Germany so that he could trick his son, Giosue, into believing that everything is just a game, and it is the most exciting game ever, whoever got 1000 points first can win the final prize, which is a tank, a real tank. And when the Nazi announced that whoever doesn’t follow the rules will be executed immediately, he translated that into “We have to follow the rules, pretend to be scared of the people who shouts at other people, not crying for mommy, and not asking for food when one is hungry. Otherwise you loose all the points that you accumulated.” Giosue totally believed in his father, and also played some other game such as “hide and seek” “not letting anyone find you” and more importantly “silence game” which is not talking whenever Giosue is around all the Germany kids. Giosue grew up without any painful memories and had enjoyed this one and only special game in his childhood. However, all of these is because of Guido’s love, given, and sacrifice.

At the end of the movie, the part right before Guido is about to get executed by Nazis, because he pretend to be a women and sneak into women’s groups, trying to check on his wife, Dora, to see if she is safe. Guido told Giosue to hide in a big electricity box that is already empty when he gets back from looking for mommy. If Giosue hides well and nobody finds him, he will directly got 1000 points from the game, and win a real tank.

Unfortunately got noticed by the leader of the women workers group. On the way to execute Guido, they passed the electricity box that Giosue was hiding in. A nazi is pointing his gun behind Guido’s back, Guido winked at Giosue and started walking like a puppet doll just to tell him it is just part of the game. Giosue saw everything and winked back, and said “we are going to win” in his heart. But what he doesn’t know is in all the gunshot and chaos, one of the sound is Guido being executed by the Nazi.

Later, when the dawn comes, everything seems to be finished and it was so quiet outside. Giosue came out of the electricity box, it was when the American came, a american soldier standing on a tank, asking him: “Hey, boy.” Giosue was so excited, “We win! It is a real tank!”

Although Guido died, what he passed on to Giosue will never disappear, his wisdom of life, is knowing the reality, but still believing in the dreams and face them with your humor.

[winterinmyheart179]

Summer Li

02/25/2017

Critical Practice

RenHang, who is well-known as a Chinese photographer, committed suicide just two days ago and died at the age of 29. He had implied his intention of suicide in his poem through out the time and through his social media just one month ago. I have heard of his name and maybe had a glance of his work before all this happened, but I don't really have a deep understanding of who he is and what does he represents for. I would have to say that Ren is one of the most important photographer in the whole Chinese history. Moreover, he is the only Chinese photographer whose work had been used as the cover of “Aperture” magazine. The topic of this series works are called “Queer”.  Which I think described his style of work and the culture he represents. His work was created during a very unstable network social media circumstance. He started his photography career approximately ten years ago. And this ten years was the time period when China has developed the fastest, whether on economy, technology or internet. The standard of people’s aesthetics was constantly refreshed. On some level, the change of Chia in the recent decade can even compare to the change of America in the recent 30 years or more. Ren’s controversial art work would caught attention if it is in some other time period, but especially in this time period when the society are not completely developed, his art work are too shocking for most of the population in China.

Most of the people who looked at his work would think that they are just nude pictures. But actually in his work, there is a strong intention of fusion. Even though they are naked, Ren still try to blend the separations between different genders and sexualities. I couldn’t really put all of his work into the same category, because his works are pushing all the boundaries together and try to tell us something, but confuses people at the same time. That is also the reason I think the topic the “Aperture” magazine give his work are so suitable - queer.

Taking nude photograph is already different enough to stand out from all other “normal” photographer, but Ren was still not satisfied with it. His work are not necessarily nudity, but there is always a vibe of revealing and freakish in his photographs. He doesn’t take the perfect lightening or position of the model, but he always captures the weirdest position which people will never think that human body can pose. Some people appreciate his scene of beauty, but some others “fear” his difference or even think that he is misleading the aesthetics nowadays.

I find it more interesting than creepy to look at his work, expect for one picture that really freaked me out, is called “My mum”. In the photograph, there is a hand holding a huge cut-off real dead pig head, and his mother is kissing the mouth of pig head. Her hands are around the head, and her red nail seems like a connection to the blood on that dead pig’s head. I don't know what gives people courage to kill themselves, but I definitely know that someone takes photograph like that would have so much more to learn about. In some of his work, the way he shoots photos just like a rebellious kid, or as an art student what we are learning, know the rules but break the rules. People analyzed his work under a type of photography called softcore porngraphy. On some aspects, his work belongs to that categories, but on other aspects, his work are so out of the boundaries of all the categories. People are actually afraid of this type of art, because they see it, but they don’t know where to position it. The darkness in his artwork are definitely existed, as what himself committed. But people are also respecting his art, because what I mentioned at the beginning, people’s aesthetic standard are constantly refreshed.

Finally, Ren’s photography brings out the flaws in people’s society, such as the sound of criticize, and following the crowd blindly. Ren’s death not also brought up his reputation, but also made us realize what exist in out normal and daily life, just like the monsters exist in the “monster culture”. It will never disappear and it will always kept us think and discover the flaws in our society.

[winterinmyheart179]

Summer Li

Critical practice

02/11/2017

The “Monster Culture” by Jeffery Jerome Cohen is a fiction that specifies desires by applying those features on monsters. Moreover, there are seven aspects of the monsters that Cohen defines. Firstly, “The monster’s body is a cultural body” , in the fiction, monsters are symbol of cultures. In certain time period, monsters represents different cultures. Just as what Cohen stated in the fiction that monsters are embodiments of certain cultural moment.

Secondly, the monsters always escape. People will never catch the monsters or destroyed them, because they will always return after they got caught or something is always left over. For example, monsters’ footprints or a small glimpse of monsters. On some levels, monsters are seemed as fear, and it can never be killed.

Thirdly, “Monsters are Harbinger of Category Crisis”. Monsters don't belong to any category of human being or animals. Based on their all kinds of characteristics, monsters are crossing the lines of all categories of animals or human being. Sometimes, monsters can be both human and animal, or neither human nor animal, or half human being and half animal at the same time.

Fourth, “Monsters dwells at the gates of difference.” Monsters include all kinds of things that are assumed as different. For instance, in the story monsters have different cultures, races, genders, economies, religions, appearances, social positions and political positions. They are perceived outsiders. Even among monsters they are different as outsiders, because of the different aspects listed above. Also, the monsters always violate conformity, which means that the monsters always takes opposite side of what majority of people believed is the truth.

Fifth, monsters represents unknown, mysteries and possibilities. Monsters make sure human beings are following the rules and stay what people usually do, and not try to explore more about them by scaring people. They restrict people’s curiosity, which proves what people usually say, “Curiosity killed the cat.” After certain thing being explored, monsters warned people do not try to explore further than their understanding of that certain thing, and they keep people away from exploring unknown area.

Sixth, monsters actually appeals people’s desire. For example, the fear of the monster is a type of desire. On some aspects, monsters symbol attraction and fear ate the same time because monsters exhibit human’s hidden desires. People creates monsters because that people can find out about what would be a taboo. The monsters indicate different and weird aspects of gender, sex, aggression, location or domination, since they can destruct and harm, and not being guilt or punished by the government and authorities. Monsters made people to act like the role of different identity, such as people dresses up like ghost or demons on Halloween.

Finally, “Monsters stands at the threshold.” They brings out flaws in people’s society, so that people will test their culture power and have thoughts about the assumptions people usually have about other people.That really made people thing about the deep, real purpose of creating these monsters, and the monsters also helps people understand more about their thinkings and what they are really believing for.

[winterinmyheart179]

Jiawei Li

2/5/17

critical practice

I choose the music video of “Mockingbird” by Eminem, this music video starts off with an old photographic film and sound of old projector playing videos. The first scene is Eminem’s little daughter comes out wearing a clown’s costume. The scene looks like it was shoot from real life long time ago because of the old photographic film.  The point of view is proposed, which is a father’s point of view to his daughters. The following scene is Eminem sat in a dark room with a projector next to him, playing this old video tape. While he is watching the  old video tape, I can tell that the point of view is from him. Also, the lyrics of the song gives me the same impression that is a monologue from a father to his daughters. The way this music video designed is very fascinating, a video within a video. This type of music video strongly gives people the impression of postmodernism that media reality is the new reality. The way the camera set up gives the audience the illusion that they are the one who is sitting on a couch and watching that old video tape. From the second part of the old video tape, that Eminem is feeding his little daughter breakfast, which gives audiences the impression that this part of the old video tape is from the mother’s point of view. There are several other scene that Eminem’s ex wife was holding their little daughter, implies the relationship between Eminem and her. The video is trying to communicate with the audience that the old time of their life when Eminem, his ex wife and daughters were happily lived together. At that time their life was just the same as any other ordinary family, the lifestyle was very much endorsed. Along with that, most of the scene are the close-up view of their little daughter smiling and laughing, which represents their happy life style at that time, and also how Eminem really missed his daughter and the time they spend together in real life. The music video talks about almost the same story of his life, but a little bit alter.

There are scenes that Eminem’s little daughter grow up a little bit, and the expression on their faces were started to change, they started to stare at the camera more instead of laughing, which in my opinion is a hint of the change of their life. Eminem started his music career and had to leave their home very often, and his ex wife was sentenced.

From that point, there are plenty of scenes are only Eminem and his daughters playing together, not much things seems to be different, but people can tell from the expression on his daughters’ faces, life are not the same anymore.

A picture of Eminem and his ex wife shows up, and Eminem looks frustrating in front of a projector when he is looking at it. In their life, there are a strong stereotype happened, which is the guy are often too busy at work in order to support their family, but actually he is drafting father apart from his family. Since that point, I understand it is not only a song about how he misses his daughters, but also his happily lived family.

He only mentioned Mockingbird at the end of the song as a connection to the theme. In my opinion that mockingbird is a symbol of his life and every falls apart but he tries to put them back.  In my opinion, this music video is one of the videos that represents post modernism. Because it really blurred the gap between the media reality and the real reality.

link to video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S9bCLPwzSC0&index=6&list=PLFEBB0E6826D236B5

[winterinmyheart179]

Summer Li

01/28/2017

critical practice

                                                      essay week 2

When I first see this print ad, the first impression I have is disgusted by it. They looked like sushi rolls that I used to eat all the time. But when I look closely, I realized that instead of the seaweed that are supposed to wrapped around the rice, they are plastic bags, and inside the rice, instead of vegetables and seafood, there are plastic pollution. If i only look at the two “sushi rolls”, I wouldn’t be so sure that if is talking about ocean pollution, but there are chopsticks that are put next to them and the text below that says “WHAT GOES IN THE OCEAN GOES IN YOU.” had really give me the picture of ocean pollution. Although, not everyone eats sushi, but it is a suitable metaphor and gives people the illusion of pollution became our real food. In the picture, there are mostly blue color which remind people of the ocean. Based on biologic chain, the pollution within sea creatures are added up while the biologic chain goes. For example, when people liter in the ocean, there are liquid pollution or solid pollution absorbed by sea plants or eaten by small sea creatures. When bigger fish eats those small sea creatures, the pollution inside them are accumulated in bigger fish’s body, and there will be other creature such as, sharks or whales that eats thousands of small fish which will accumulated much more pollution in their body. And when human, ourselves, actually fishing in the sea, we eat all kinds of seafood that already have a lot of pollution inside them, which are polluted by ourselves. So that within human body, there will be plenty more pollution that will damage our health.

Ocean pollution have became a big topic nowadays, because of the development of our society. Big companies pollute their liquid pollution direct into the sea, and tourist liter on the beach or inside the sea, will all cause unchangeable problem to our health. On the one hand, we are at the top of the biologic chain, on the other hand, we are at the very bottom that absorb the most pollution.

“RECENT STUDIES ESTIMATE THAT FISH OFF THE WEST COAST INGEST OVER 12,000 TONS OF PLASTIC A YEAR.” This statistics really surprises me by using a specific number, and it also helps me illustrate the picture of how bad the ocean pollution is nowadays.

[winterinmyheart179]

Critical Practice Essay week1

Summer Li

01/28/2017

Critical Practice

I agree with what the author said in the article “You Say You Want a Devolution”. I have never paid attention to problem like this. Within the eighteen years of my life, I do realized that the fashion trend and lifestyle was slightly changed throughout time. According to old movies and pictures, I notice that people’s dressing style and haircut were dramatically different in the 50s and 70s. However, fashion trend is always a circle, everything comes back as a new trend after decades.

Popular songs nowadays are almost the same style since the 00s, I listen to all types of songs, when I actually listen to the 50s or 70s songs, I can totally tell the various styles between them. For now, I still listen to songs that are popular decade ago, they are not out of style at all. This situation happens in a really interesting time period when the society are almost frozen in a stable environment. There are no wars, no dramatic economy decline, and no political volatility. Although, in other country, there might be different situations based on the development of their society. They didn't get as much technology as America did at the past decades, but they catch up with the world quickly, therefore, the gap between decades in their countries seems bigger than the US. But in my opinion, they are going to face the same situation as the americans do right now in a very short period.

Speaking of technology, computers and information digitalization had created a big gap between the 50s, 70s, and 90s.  Moreover, it also affected people’s social life in some aspects. Nevertheless, music, art, or fashion can always come back to what had been popular decades ago, but only for technology and science, there are only evolution, but devolution. Therefore, the development of technology on some level determines people’s life style, including taste of arts, music, and fashion. Back in the 50s and 70s, there are no videos plays on computers, but when we look at the recent decade, youtubers have became one of the most popular careers. Also, there are no age limitation or topic limitation. Basically, anyone can make videos about anything, and upload them online in order to make money. All of these are based on the internet that has been actively used during the recent twenty or thirty years. Because of that, people are stuck in a stable circumstance with convenient information. Because of that, the fashion trend remained almost the same since the late 90s or early 00s. Designers always adopted ideas from the past fashion trend, but that doesn't make much difference nowadays.

“When you are not going forward, you are actually going backward.” Our society is proving this statement  by slow down their steps chasing unknown technique, but I believe, as long as people face the situation here and motivate the society, there will always be a way that lead america to a new era.

[winterinmyheart179]

Lol

Leopard cubs love waking their parents up early on Christmas mornings, just like human children. This image captures the parent’s look of surprise at being pounced on at 6 a.m.

[winterinmyheart179]

If you don’t wanna do a thing then you’ll have a thousand reasons to not doing it no matter how easy it is,but if you really want to do a thing, you would try everything to find a way to make it work no matter how difficult it is for you to do