Project 4- Artist Statement

Morality is something that everyone is familiar with, whether they have any or not. We all learn them at a young age and carry them with us throughout our lives. But where do we learn morals? Is it society, philosophy, religion, or the individual self that constructs these sets of morals? It could be any of them! Many people would say that morality was taught when they were children at a young age. Comic books are relatable to both adults and children. Adults now, grew up with Batman, Superman, and Spiderman comics. Children today still read those along with any of the newer ones that made their way into comic book stands. What do all comic book storylines have in common? There is always a hero and always a villain, a god guy and a bad guy, and “right and wrong” dilemmas where “right” always comes out on top.

Project 3 Artist Statement

For Project 3, I chose to make a comic book on morality. This project is made on regular wide-ruled notebook paper, just as if a child were to make one. On the front cover reads "Morals?!?" colored in with red and purple crayon for the comic effect. Inside this booklet are different comic squares that I found on the internet pertaining to morals and moral dilemmas. I added color to them with crayons and markers and filled in the blank spaces to make it more cartoon-ish.
My first decision I encountered with this project was which topic to choose from. I chose morality because I'm interested in how morals come to be. This topic is also something that many people are familiar with (whether they have any or not) and you don't need to know a whole lot of scientific terms or zero in on a particular sub-topic- although you can if you want. My next decision was what medium to choose. Morals are usually learned at a young age. Parents will teach their children what they think is right and wrong and reward or punish for certain acts. I look at comic books as a child's entertainment more than a grown ups and there lies the answer as to why I decided to make my project in that kind of medium. Children are interested in comic books and find them fun to read and they also learn lessons from them. There are always the bad characters and the good characters in each story line and a kid always knows which is which. The good guy is constantly looked at as a hero.
This piece of work can compare to other creative projects such as Batman, Superman, and Spiderman. They each had their own villain and at the end the super hero prevailed.
This project on morality is based on all of the guiding questions. It is different for projects done about hunting or beliefs on stem cell research because that requires to have a set opinion. But what are opinions mostly based on? Morals.
My message of this piece, that I hope people understand, is that everything comes back to your morals. Every decision you make and every action you decide to take has a thought process behind it. And on that train of thought, morals are aboard. Whether you were taught one thing or learned from your own experience, everyone has a set. Parents are the first to pass these on when their children are young so they can grow up to what they hope to be a respectable and decent human being.
My comic book had both specific situations and a general outlook on morality. It could have been made a little more organized and kept the same type of cartoon throughout the project.

Shaun Slifer - Railbiking

1. The fact that I see a bicycle on a railroad track itself draws me to it. I see the picture of this invention and think it is a little bizarre, but cool.
2. It is compelling because this is an on-going project for one thing and I would like to see how this turns out. It is interesting to think that these two means of transportation are being used as one. There must have been a reason as to why this railroad is abandoned, whether its because there were no funds or it leads to nowhere, but it's interesting. It makes me conjure up questions.
3. One time this past summer, some new friends of mine had brought me to hang out on abandoned railroad tracks by a Tony's grocery store. I thought it was the coolest place ever. We had to climb up a slope which wasn't too bad but the way down was worse. When we got up there though, we started walking down the middle of the tracks and they seemed to go on forever. I wondered how far they went and how long they have been abandoned. It was a chill place to think.

Can you turn the bicycle around to ride it back to where you came from? What would be considered illicit for this particular project?

Project 3 Idea

I plan on doing project 3 on the science of morality. I am going to try a photography medium by showing pictures of situations in which people contemplate what is right and wrong and what we see as moral or immoral.

Consciousness: Philosophy, Science, and Art - extra credit

I attended the Consciousness: Philosophy, Science, and Art discussion on Wednesday, April 8th at the Chicago Cultural Center. When I walked in, practically all the seats on the floor were filled so I had to find a place on the window sill. To be honest I really wasn’t expecting it to be that crowded. There were four different speakers that had backgrounds in four different fields of study: Psychology, Philosophy, Evolutionary Theory, and Art History. They all related their fields to consciousness. One speaker talked a lot about Artificial Intelligence and its differences from human/animal intelligence. He mentioned the “binding problem” which I wrote down in my notes so I could later look up what it is. There are two different interpretations of that term- one being how the brain segregates elements into complex patterns of data and the other being how the unity of conscious perception is brought about by the distributed activities of the central nervous system. One of the other speakers talked how the mind was OF the body, not just in it. He mentioned the term “qualia” which, among many others, I didn’t know what it meant. I now know it is a term of art used in philosophy for sensory occurrences of all kind. I found that very interesting, like thought experiences versus real experiences. The speaker who majored in Art History was very much into surrealism and talked a lot about a novel titled Nadja written by a French surrealist, André Breton. She even brought the novel with her and passed it around the room for everyone to flip through and take a look at it. One last thing that was said that I found interesting was that real events, emotions, ect, result in unconscious thoughts and not vice versa. It seems very simple and almost like common sense, but thought-provoking. After all the speakers finished, there was time for a question/answer session when people can bring up any questions they had about anything that was said. Overall, I really liked it but I didn’t have the capacity to fully understand what they were talking about, which is why I wrote a few things down. They were also speaking fast but i’m sure that was only because they had a limited amount of time to talk.

Whale Rider Response Questions

1. One situation where Koro ignored signs of Pais ability to lead was when she was eavesdropping and looking in to one of the lessons through a window and one of the boys came out. They started to fight using sticks as taiahas. Pai was able to succeed and knock it out of the boys hands. Koro came out and saw this but just got upset. Another situation was when she was able to start the motor with the rope that Koro said was a piece of crap. He went to get a new one and came back to see the motor running and only told her that was a dangerous thing for her to do.
2. Since Pai was not able to recieve lessons about taiaha from her grandfather, she decided to ask her uncle. Rawiri used to be very good at it and even won a trophy, but had not done it in years. When he began teaching her, he became a new man and more involved.
3. When Pai walks alone towards the big whale, I think she realizes who she is and what she needs to become.
4. When Pai is in the hospital, they know Koro has changed his attitude towards her because we see that she is wearing the whale tooth necklace which he found out Pai had retrieved from the water. One could also tell his attitude had changed because of the emotions he expressed through his face.
5. The significance of the waka is to voyage out on the water and connect with ancestors. The part that struck me the most was how dressed up everyone was. The people all seemed to be wearing traditional clothing and chanting in Maori. It showed the togetherness of the Whangara people.

Project 2 - Artist Statement

For project two, my group and I chose the medium of a recipe book to depict the Wicker Park neighborhood in Chicago. The book is made of different color construction paper and held together by brown twine pieces. The cover reads “Wicker Park Recipe Book” and on one side, lying vertically, is our gleaned object- a red ribbon that was tied around a cement pot in the park. When you open to the first page, it has the recipe for “Resident Soup” with its ingredients and directions underneath. There are also pictures of the ingredients scattered- such as, a woman in high heels, a man playing guitar, and friends playing basketball. If you turn to the next page, you’ll find a recipe for “Wicker Park Stir Fry.” The stir fry includes the trendy retail stores, bakeries, bookstores, any sort of shop you can find in the neighborhood. The pictures for this particular one show Reckless Records, Mojo Spa, and a vintage sign we found in one of the windows. On the third page is the “Wicker History Cake.” As you can tell by the name, this recipe includes all the bits and pieces of the neighborhoods background. There is a picture we found of Wicker Park in the mid to late 1800s and a photo we took of the statue of Wicker. This book is all hand-made and hand-written and all of the pictures inside are the pictures we took when we went to visit Wicker Park, except for the one from the 1800s of course!
The first decision we encountered was what neighborhood to choose. I have been to Wicker Park a number of times with my mom, aunt, and cousins. They like to go to different neighborhoods and explore the shopping and restaurants and I love to tag along. My group members haven’t really been exposed to that neighborhood so I thought it would be fun. I would learn more details about a neighborhood that I otherwise would think nothing of, and my partners would see a different part of Chicago. Our next decision was what medium to choose. A recipe book seemed to make the most sense. We would be able to each do our part and show the make-up of Wicker Park in a simpler form. The next thing to decide was where and when we were going to meet. We all have different schedules for work and school so we had to find a day that we were all off, which happened to be a Sunday. Also meeting at the actual park seemed to be the most practical. We were all pretty easy-going and communicated well. We didn’t have too many problems deciding who would do what part of the recipe book.
What is the relationship between the realities and perceptions of a community, among what communities are, what they believe themselves to be, and what they wish they were? As soon someone steps off at the Damen blue line stop, and sees the view above Milwaukee Avenue or even as soon as they step out on the street, they can judge that this is a very trendy neighborhood. Wicker Park shows itself as a colorful, historic but hip neighborhood. From the pictures in our recipe book, and even in the ingredients, you can see how the people dress and what the stores look like. It’s almost as if a shop that weren’t vintage or cater to hipsters’ style would not blossom in this neighborhood.
The message of our recipe book is to show the personality of Wicker Park. Chicago is made up of many neighborhoods- big, small, ghetto, upscale, and many different ethnicities. I hope that the audience found out some new information and got a feel of how the Wicker Park community is.
For this project, we could have had more “recipes” instead of just generalizing the community into three separate categories. We did however, make our recipes in a clever way and different from everyone else’s recipes- we used metaphorical ingredients. I feel this really shows the make-up instead of using actual ingredients for real meals.