ART in Lord of the Rings.

Lord of the Rings, probably the world most famous trilogy ever existed, contains a lot of art. The first art work we see is obviously the ring. The Master ring may look very simple on the outside but I believe there can be no other ring existing in the world that can replace the master ring. The simple spherical design makes the ring look so perfectly spherical that its perfection even entice the audience to want it as well.


The second artwork I want to talk about is Minas Tirith. Minas Tirith is a castle controlled by Gondor. Minas Tirith, also called the white city, represents its name very well, as we can see in the movie, the entire castle is carved out of white rocks and when the white light shines on the castle, it reflects the white color so much that it makes the audience imagine the Minas Tirith as the holy city.

The last artwork I want to talk about is Rivendell, the house of Elrond. i believe if was given a chance to choose a house to live in, my choice would be Rivendell. The harmony between nature and Rivendell is so strong that sometimes I feel like Rivendell is the nature it self. Not only is the outside of the Rivendell beautiful but the interior design is marvelous as well.

The visual essay

The visual essay presentations we did this week were very interesting. In such a small area, we were able to pull off different interpretation of the public art. Not only that but some students were even able to pull off different interpretation from a single object.
The visual essay presentation really pushed me to think through everything so that I can try to understand why certain things are designed in certain way. My visual essay was about trashcans and how the history of trashcan is the best representation of the development of human civilization. When I was taking pictures of trashcan I was surprised by how significant the common thing as trashcan could be in explaining the development of human civilization. In fact the more common something is the more important because it is something that we demand more.
The presentation of other students really helped me think about different arts deeply and helped me realize many things I that would never have thought of. Such as the symmetries formed between the nature and human designs, or the meaning that different fences portrays. I feel like these visual essays really helped me take a step forward in the meaning of art and how we should appreciate art more.

YIN YANG public ART

The symbol of Yin and Yang is probably one of the the worlds most commonly known symbol by people. It is a Taoist symbol that symbolizes harmony. There are two sides to all things and through harmony of those two sides, everything exists. But why is there a white dot on the black area and black dot on the white area. Because without those dots, harmmony cannot exists. The only reason why two sides can coexist is because both side have a little bit of each other. The lines on the side represents the different elements that are thought of as the fundamental element of the world. The main five elements believed by the Taoists includes, fire, metal, water, wood, and rock. Many people may dislike taoism because they don't like to accept other religion but take a look at the symbol and try to think  of harmony between anything. You will realize how it is not a non  sense idea.

from http://www.international-relations.com/CM4-2/tao-chinawb.htm

Civilization

Civilization, what does it mean? What does it represent? The random house dictionary's explanation of civilization is 'an advanced state of human society, in which a high level of culture, science, industry, and government has been reached.' People have always been saying how we are more civilized then the people in the past. We are more organized, stronger, and better educated. We can talk days about how we are more civilized but where is our proof. If we can go back in time, how are we going to show those old philosophers that we are more civilized. Because clearly to those people empire and kingdom is a better choice. The answer is Trashcan. 

From http://www.armchairempire.com/Reviews/PC%20Games/civilization-4.htm

Religion and public ART

Public art is a great method to motivate the public to head for a certain goal. In the case of religion many public art is used to attract the public to become its believer. For example, cathedrals, mosques, temples, and performances that just look so magnificent to the publics eyes. Using public art to attract the public is good in that it is very affective. Public art can be seen by anyone, can be approached by anyone, and it is also less criticized for however it looks. However it is bad in that it can give a very one sided view on the religion. For example, if a person looks at a mosque or cathedral, the person can easily connect Islam and Catholicism  with wealth or power. These two religions are definitely powerful but not in every places. Also not every Muslim and Catholic is wealthy and powerful. So when public art is used, we should be careful not only to give a good view of what it is representing but also be careful to interpret the public art.

Importance of public ART

Public art. Why do we even have public art? Public art exists because it is the symbol of civilization and development. As number of humans increased in the past, we started to become organized, classes started to form, and difference in individual became visible. As these changes occured, people needed a symbol that can represent their position, belief and ideology. To represent these, public art began and people started to display themselves through art. For example makeup it is a very organized way to expose one self's emotion. Many people in the world do makeup because they want others to view them in a certain way. Some wants other to be attracted to them, some wants  to hide one's feeling from others, some even wants to display ones emotion through art by paintings such as bees on the face before a football game. Makeup is not the only example where we can see people becoming more civilized or organized through public art, another great example is trashcan. many people don't realize that trashcan is a public art and how it represent organization or civilization. before trashcan existed, people threw trash anywhere, its like chaos, there was no limits, there was no rules. However, since the existence of trash can, people started to gather useless junk in one area, although most of the time we don't know what to do with a large pile of  trash but still, they are piling in one area, not every where in the world. This is why public art is important, because it symbolize civilization and every single public art can be used in many different ways!

best public ART

Public art. It is the most commonly seen art, but it is also one of the most affective art that exists. Public art is an artwork that well represents the area it is located in, it gives identity and reflects on the daily life of that public area. With this definition, I believe there is no public art better then the national flag, for example the Korean national flag, called Tae Gek Ki (태극기). National flag is the best public art because it is created around the culture and the ideologies of the nation it is representing. It is made to symbolize a country, a public area to the people with that nationality. When ever there is a national event, or presentation about a nation, one of the first thing people talk about is the nations flag and how it reflects the nation it is representing. It shows how naturally we seek basic knowledge of a nation from its national flag, which shows its importance.


In the middle of Korean national flag, there is a circle with two colors on it. This represents yin and yang, which shows how much influence Confucius has on Korea. The red represents the sky and the blue represents the ground, It is because Koreans believe they are the sons of God, they believe that one of their ancestor was married to a prince in heaven. The three bars on top left is called Kun, it represents heaven, spring, east, and relationship. Four bars on bottom left is called Kon, it represents land, summer, west, and justice. Five bars on top right is called Kam, it represents the sun, fall, south and courtesy. And lastly the six bars on bottom right is called Li, it represents the moon, winter, north, and wisdom.

from http://canyon.tistory.com/tag/%ED%83%9C%EA%B7%B9%EA%B8%B0

manga, the caricature of imagination, the source of ART

Manga. I feel like when ever a person cannot express an idea through plays, dramas, or movies, they would turn to manga because in manga everything is possible. In fact, the only limit we have with manga is our imagination itself. My favorite manga is the Gundam series. I like it not only because it has a great storyline and a great actions, but also because of the interesting ideas people have with machines. A connection between human and robot that will be used to bring peace to the world is I think the best dream that an engineer could have.

Manga is such a great tool for communication, especially with younger audiences, that the audience tend to accept many things displayed in manga without questioning why. This leads to a good side and a bad side to manga. The good side is that it is easy to communicate and give information to the audience. The bad side is that because it is so effective in communicating, people might confuse it with reality and actually start to imitate things that happen in manga. This could lead to danger and even threaten one's life. So just like plays, dramas, and movies, we should be careful when watching manga and really think through and understand what the manga is trying to tell before watching it.

http://darkstarr.wordpress.com/2009/03/

The best reality reflecting ART

Since long time ago, people have been interested in creating plays, dramas, and movies. One interesting thing about these things is that they always seem to reflect the reality in some sort of way. For example, Romeo and Juliet is a play about strong love between two people, which is commonly seen in reality. Or the movie Matrix reflects on the contrast between good and evil, development of AI, and the ideas people have about reality, in the real world.
Just like an artwork, plays, dramas, and movies communicate, and it is done by asking questions to the audience, such as ' what if the world you are in is not the real world?' By asking these questions, plays, dramas, and movies, help the audience think deeply about the reality and really try to understand the reality more. However, we do have to realized that plays, movies, and dramas sometimes focus on one side of the reality so much that it starts to skew the reality and create a caricature of reality. This caricature does so well in skewing the reality without making people notice, that they it starts to have more and more influence on the person. So it  is always good to watch plays, dramas, and movies, but we also do need to be careful. Make sure that we are not accepting what is wrong or what we shouldn't accept and always watch out for the influence a single movie can have in our future.


from http://www.sacred-destinations.com/israel/caesarea-roman-theater.htm