Photography Project

On that day I woke up checked my facebook then I went to college were I couldn't take pictures in class, then I came back watched some TV programs then decorated the Christmas tree and ate some chips then I stayed on my laptop the rest of the day on facebook, listening to music, and studing too.

Video Project

Since I came to the United States and people know the I'm from Egypt I hear weird things from them like that we live in tents, pyramids and we ride camels and we don't have cars as if it is ancient Egypt so I got the I idea of doing a video about that.
Here is the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9c-4zjnncqU&feature=youtube_gdatad

Bowers Museum, Santa Ana

For the museum i visited was the Bower Museum in Santa Ana. This museum has art from many different cultures such as Art of Asia, Art of Africa and Native American Art. I liked that museum Although I don't like going to museum but it was really nice.

Beauty

Beauty is something that cannot be defined by one simple definition. Different people choose to see different aspects as different things. I would like to say "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" but only because we were begged not to. In truth, it’s both very similar and very different to this. In truth, beauty exists on different levels, many of which contradict each other. In example there is Physical beauty, emotional beauty; Inner beauty (people), there is beauty in a story or concept, and beauty in the way a well told lie or deception is thought out, and beauty in music. Using these layers it is easy to imagine something that is both beautiful and hideous, like a painting with beautiful composition and painted perfectly but has a gruesome subject matter, or the reverse, a painting that, visually isn't as "pretty" But has a deep, beautiful meaning or emotional pull. I personally think that beauty is deceiving especially the Physical beauty because it makes people think in a different way just because of its appearance and I think people get deceived because it is a cultural thing since we were kids watching cartoon we know the beautiful Cinderella, Snow white, and the Mermaid VS. the Ugly wicked witches. So we learnt that whatever looks beautiful is good and whatever looks ugly is bad and wicked.

November 1 lecture notes

We watched a documentary about the Terminal 5 Project at Kennedy Airport. Terminal 5 was an architectural masterpiece created by architect Eero Saarinen. The TWA Terminal at John F. Kennedy Airport opened in 1962 and is considered the first step to the future of travel. Following the tragic day of 9-11, in 2001 after which many airports lost a lot of money, the site was vacated and closed to the public. The movie documents the 2004 project, curate and inspired by Rachel Ward that aims to bring Terminal 5 back to life and open it to the public as a contemporary art exhibition. There were many inspiring works of art that I enjoyed in this exhibition, and also some I thought were senseless. Kevin Roche said in the video that the terminal looked like a skate, and I agree because it has a lot of wide open space, a lot of curved railings and platforms, and the openness of the terminal really is reminiscent of a Vans skate park. One of the artists, a graffiti artist or “bomber”, put graffiti on the rolling gates that gave the exhibition a city-like type of feel. Vanessa Beer croft’s piece consisted of many African women painted in all black, and I did not particularly like that piece because I felt the women were too exposed, and I could not imagine these African women getting on a plane and traveling thru this terminal. My favorite part of the exhibition was the gift shop because of all of the clever puns implied by the gifts and I especially liked the “Play with these matches”. The Terminal 5 art exhibition featured work of 19 artists from 10 different countries to give the presentation a premise that showcases international travel. The show featured many different kinds of art including lectures and temporary installations drawing from the terminals architecture. The art project took about four months to complete and the exhibition opened on October 1st, 2004 and official closed on January 31, 2005. Unfortunately it also closed very abruptly the same night of the opening gala because people got drunk, vandalized the building, and stole some of the art. Apparently the opening night did not draw the ideal crowd, and many referred to this crowd as “coked out hipsters”.

October 25 lecture notes

We watched clips from the movie The Reader starring Kate Winslet. In the clips that we watched it shows Kate Winslet who is an illiterate woman who has her lover/boyfriend read books to her in flashbacks of the main story. Mr. Z then showed us that in the future this woman is put on trial for murder, and accused of writing incriminating letters. The majority of women who took the stand said she wrote the letters, and I have no idea why because we didn’t see that part of the story. Anyways, when the judge asks the woman (Kate Winslet) to write on a paper so that they can compare her handwriting to that of the letter, she is so ashamed of her illiteracy that she confesses to a murder that she did not commit. Then we talked about text literacy, visual literacy, network literacy, and education literacy. Text literacy was things like stuff we read in books magazines. Visual literacy is stuff we see and draw a message from like a stop light. We learn that green means go, yellow slow down, and red means stop. There are no words that tell us what these mean. When we see these colors we automatically know what it means. Or when someone puts their finger over their mouth you know they mean to be quiet. There are no words involved, rather we read the sign and know what it means. Network Literacy I believe he said it means like the internet and text and phone etc... We also talked about education literacy. This is all about literacy done for school as well as things teachers teach. I don't completely remember the entire lecture too well but I do remember that we watched a video on visual literacy. It talked a lot about the things we see on TV and how the media affects the way we see things. We also watched clips from the movie called the reader. In the end, the girl would rather admit to writing a letter and committing the crime than for everyone to find out that she couldn't read. Overall, we talked about all the different kinds of literacy and how education literacy maybe disappearing due to all the other kinds of literacy. I don't believe education literacy will ever disappear. I just can't imagine being taught by a computer can be more effective than being taught by a teacher. As far as I’m concerned, education literacy will be around till the end of my life at least.

October 18 lecture notes

We watched avatar which, I got to admit that it was pretty cool. In the movie Jake Sully, a disabled veteran got the chance to have an avatar, which is a new body which he has a genetic link with lives in when he sleeps in a machine and he has full body functions. As time goes on, as he keeps switching from body to body, his worlds begin to blur together and his realities melt together and his alternate reality starts to feel like his actual reality. Then we talked about people’s vision of themselves in another world. We talked about identity. Glenn showed us 3 other people’s version of their animated self. We then watched a short clip about a little Asian girl. It was a cartoon story.

Counterfactual Identity

I created two accounts one for a female by the name of Catherine Marino and one for a male by the name Tri Lee, and I added all my friends on both of them but they only accepted the friend request of Catherine but didn't for Tri. And It was funny how my friends acted with Catherine as on of my friends asks to be her boyfriend without even knowing her but only when he saw her pictures.

This a picture of Tri Lee's and Catherine Marino's facebook accounts that I created.

Presentation #1

I really like ancient art because anybody can understand and it is talking about facts and stuff the happened not some lines that is drawn and everyone understand it in his way which made me think of presenting on an ancient artists but the problem is that ancient arts are known by the name of the king of that time and the name of the artist is not mentioned at all. So I chose to present on king Ramses II of ancient Egypt (reigned 1279 BC – 1213 BC) and the artistic things that belong to him because he is one of the most remarkable ancient Egyptian kings as he had a lot of victories also most of the Egyptians know him because he has many statues.    Most of his statues are really giant and tall which was to show how great he was.

King Ramses II statue in cairo

Most of his statues are really giant and tall which was to show how great he was. I also liked how it was sculptured perfectly and very well detailed even the writings on his belt and on his shoulder. 

Abu-sibmel temple. 

Abu-sibmel temple was built at Ramses II time. It is one of the biggest temples of ancient Egypt and it is sculptured in a mountain which was really hard to do with the tools that was used at that time. It is a really huge temple that contains huge statues.

Abu-sibmel temple amazing view and its artistic location in a mountain and surrounded by water and sand.

Sun rays shines on King Ramsis II head in Abu-sibmel temple only two times a year on February 21 which is his birthday and on October 22 which is the date of his coronation. That happens every year for more that three thousand years.

King Ramsis II marble statue in the Louver museum

  

                Marble is a material that is very hard to shape or sculpture  because it is very rough especially  if you are using old tools. What I think is magnificent is that is the face of the statue have a really smooth surface which is could be done easily with marble on a flat surface like a table but very hard to do on a face that have curves and wavy even with our modern equipment.                                         

King Ramsis II statue in the British museum

King Ramsis II and his wife Nefertari marble statue in Turin                 This statue is very glorious and really amazing as I mentioned before it is hard to do with marble and harder to have it very detailed.

Queen Nefertari's tomb        It is very colorful and has great  paintings about her life and her after life judgment. Again these painting and colors are more than three thousand years old and didn't disappear.

It has really amazing colors and a lot of Hieroglyphic letters that is what I call the ancient origin of Graffiti.

In this picture you can see that it is not just painted it is also sculptured on the wall. Again you can tell what she is doing with out knowing what is written on the wall and that is what I love about ancient art because it is great and simple that any body can get without thinking a lot about it.

Outdoor lecture

Last week’s class was very interesting and I liked it a lot as we went all around the campus looking for pieces of art and marking it or framing it with tape. My group found a piece that we called rock tree it’s next to the Fine Arts building. It consists of a metal stand that looks like a wooden stand and it has some rock on top of it as you can see in the picture.

We thought that this piece is our college because it represents educations as we thought that that metal stand symbolizes the society and the rocks symbolizes the students that started as normal people as it is normal to see rocks on the ground but the person that picked up these rocks and placed it on top of the metal stand is education that changes the students lives to better lives and palaces them on top of the society.

art 100, what do you think about art?

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