I enjoyed reading the article about distinguishing the difference between art and reality. my english teacher in my highschool used to say, ” no matter how beautiful the image. the site itself is even more.” so my opinion on whether art is real or not, is that its a copy cat. it may look like a duplicate, but its just an impersonation. Art can look however it wants to, but the thing is its subjects can never really change.

the second article was really interesting in the fact that i could pin point some images that have become icons in modern day. kanye’s done it. there are also plenty of jokes of mount rushmore, where the heads of the presidents are swapped with other characters.  brands are seen as an element in todays world.  they are much more than the name of the item. they stand for every stitch. logos for brands and mottos are what are remembered generally. advertisment campaignes have just set out by stating the logo and the motto, and they have bee quite successful in doing so also. my five minutes are up, and all i have to say is that violence is manupulated by the media that we see in teleivsion and video games and brands are brands by the end of the day, but we still perfer some over others.

this experience was really crazy. i noticed how many errors i had created. i felt as if i made a tremendous amount and i know when i had messed up. i actually had to stop my self from pressing the backspace button. i got alot of my ideas that i wanted to share out. and i do believe that you can make out what i was talking about. i think this process is riviting because you never know what you are going to write until you write it. i prefer doing free writes with a pencil and a sheet of paper. im conditioned to press backspace when i make a mistake, its really hard to keep myself from not presing it when i do infact mess up. just thinking really hard about not making mistakes i think is really helping me out. i have a good feeling that i have fewer mistakes in this than in the earlier blog. when i would type, i would do so with my eyes closed and i could visualize the words i was spelling correctly and incorrectly.

Tennis has turned into a part of my life. this picture was taken at our last home game. these are my buds

The text reveals that it agrees with my view of the world. I view the world as shallow. That many of us look for the pretty before really searching for inner beauty. There is not something necessarily wrong for liking to look for people who are pretty or handsome, it only reflects what type of person we are. In my opinion if looks are to be first priority that only shows that that person pays attention to where they are on the social ladder. People should care about how they are viewed by others, but not if that causes us to act false to please others. Elaine Hatfield, a psychologist at the University of Hawaii, said, ” Most people assume that good-looking men and women have nearly all positive traits.” This to me makes no sense, its just like judging a book by its cover, you never know whether you will enjoy the read or not until you try.

In Susan Bordo’s Never Just Pictures she states, “Fat is the devil, and we are continually beating him – ‘eliminating’ our stomachs, ‘busting’ our thighs, ‘taming’ our tummies – pummeling and purging our bodies, attempting to make them into something other than flesh.” This quote shows how some people perceive beauty. Having a nice body will not make a beautiful person, it will make you visually appealing to the mass.  “Glamorous images of hyperthin models certainly do not encourage a more relaxed or accepting attitude toward the body, particularly among those whose own bodies are far from that ideal.” Many boys and girls today suffer from eating disorders and unhealthy dieting. This is mainly because of models and actresses who unintentionally portray beauty giving the idea that their image is the closest to perfection.

What i found interesting was how Daniel Goleman had added the dimensions to a beautiful face. I had never really looked at it in that perspective. Beauty to me is the chance of a lifetime to spend it with someone who shares similar values, hobbies, and aspects of life. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and it certainly isn’t glamor.

The Vision Thing: Mainly in the Brain written by Denise Grady focused on the ability of our brain to not just perceive  but also understand what the picture is telling us. Denise Grady used a quote from Anstis which said, “The brain must process an immense amount of information as fast as it can, using any shortcuts it can…it has to find a minimum hypothesis to cover a maximum amount of data.” What i liked about that quote was that it stated that our eyes pick up lights and darks and in the end of the process our brain will do what it can as fast as possible to give us the insight into what we had just witnessed. without the brain’s capabilities, having vision would be pointless.

“A negative world, with light pouring down from the sky like black paint, shatters those basic assumptions. and when we violate the assumptions, confusion reigns. Reverse brightness , as Anstis di, and critical clues about the world are subverted.” I really enjoyed this quote from Denise Gradys  The Vision Thing because it took me a long time to understand what it meant. What i think it was going at is that we cannot percieve the world until we realize that we do not know it whatsoever. If we think of the world upside down we may figure out how it is the right-side up. After some thought the quote made me realize that not knowing the world is a good thing. The less we know the more we can learn of how it properly functions. In Annie Dillard’s Seeing i understood that what we see is totally up to preference. we choose to not believe some events and in the same we we choose to not see them either. Annie Dillard said, ” The secret of seeing is, then the pearl of great price.” The quote can be taken in many different ways, but what i understood from looking at it from an independent thought was that it sums up the rest. To me it meant that seeing is much more than what you expect or how great something you may think really is. If you have that expectancy to see somthing great, you will always see the faults in it. And the same goes for when we expect something very little, we tend to see the best qualities from it.

I learned this insightful information by reading the passages from this first chapter. While i was reading i couldnt stop to think that most of what we see is exactly what we want. we tend to look through objects and people sometimes. What i never really thought about was how the brain is supercomputer that does every move for us without hesitation. Im not saying that i didnt know that the brain was vital to our survival, but that it does so much work for us to have an idea and opinion for an image we may have seen on the drive back from school etc. What astonished me the most was the exercises available for foveal, scanning, and peripheral vision. My opinions have changed to the extent that i realize that there is alot going on that we dont perceive and that there are some things we cant understand until we look at them in different ways in our minds.

In Annie Dillard’s Seeing she had said,”Seeing is of course very much a matter of verbalization.” Communication is key to anything and ours ability to perceive opinions by sight is very helpful. I gained alot of information form this first chapter. Understanding what and how vision works helps us understand what vision is and does for us when we dont even know it.