MURDERS AND ART

INTRODUCTION TO THE ACTIVITY

To resume our discussion about artistic objects, we planned a very intensive and interesting activity. In the third chapter of our story, something very shocking happens: Mr. Hyde kills Dr. Danvers Carrew. A murder in a story? A murder in a work of art? How can that be possible? Why hasn't anybody complained about such a thing? It is unacceptable! A murder is a very serious matter, it is a highly punishable act. People who kill go to prision for that.

Despite the danger, we decided to give a try to the crazy experience of turning a murder into a piece of art, into an artistic object. If we said that everything can be transformed into an artistic object, then we should not have any problems with this. The task was to think about another way in which Mr. Hyde could have killed poor Dr. Danvers. In groups of two, we should represent that in a photo. This time we chose different means to represent, last time was shadow theater, this time photography.

MURDERS, DEATH AND ART

In fact, we are not the first ones to try this. Murder has been considered and respresented by many. many artists since art appeared. Why? Why has been murder a matter of concern? Well, maybe because murder is  intimately related to death and death is something that we, humans, care a lot about. Perhaps, murder is also related to many strong emotions (remember what we said about feelings): envy, anger, vengeance, etc. Of course, you can find many other reasons.

It is very easy to find some examples about this: in Ancient Greece, people enjoyed listening to stories about wars. One of the most important books in the history of literature, the Iliad (Troya, the movie about Aquiles) describes with many details how warriors killed each other. What's more, an Argentinean writer, from Cordoba, wrote a poem back in the XIX century that talks about a strange and cruel method to kill people, you can read it here.

OUR OWN EXPERIENCE

THE TRIAL (activity for 29/3)

Now suppose a judge sees all these pictures we have taken. He decides that we are all crazy and that what we have done is a crime, he charges us with attempted murder. Write your defence, explaining why this is not a real murder but a work of art.
Each group must send to me, by email, a Word document with the activity. You have time until next Friday (29/3). The activity is really short and I will accept no excuses, we will work on this next class. You shall  find all our previous discussions very helpful.

Have a good weekend and enjoy your mini-holidays! See you in April!

FEELINGS AND SHADOWS

Going back to our last reflection, we will now focus on one specific word of our art definition: feelings. Feelings and emotions are one of the most important aspects of  humankind, and this is not something that we realize frequently, perhaps because to feel is so common to all of us. To understand art, we need first to understand feelings. Fear, anger, happiness, sadness, solitude, interest, anxiety, ease, love, friendship, are these are different types of feelings. We saw that feelings are not homogeneous, this means that whenever we feel, for example anger, it is not only anger that we feel. Maybe we feel angry and disappointed too, because a friend did something wrong. Or we may feel happy because we bought tickets for a concert, but we also feel anxious and interested.

SHADOW PLAYS 

Art, as we said, has a lot to do with feelings. Almost every piece of art involves feelings, just as the little story that we have been reading. The activity consisted in identifying all the emotions that were in Chapter 2. We formed groups of three students and every group chose a feeling. The task was to represent those feelings in a short shadow play. The idea of the shadow theater is to explore another way of expression and representation. The spectator can not see what is going on behind the curtain, all we can see are shadows and forms. So the question raises: Do feelings have forms? Can we represent an emotion only with shadows?   The shadow theater puts us in a very creative situation, because we have to learn to use the shape of our bodies to communicate. And not only of our bodies, the shape of every element or tool can be useful. We learnt that the size of a thing behind the curtain depends on how far or near it is from the light-bubble and that in this way we could make really crazy things. We could create a monster or a pair of giant scissors!
Now let's see some of the things that you did!

Here is an excellent image from Luquitas. It is really, really expressive. Anxiety, perhaps?

A nice work with hands. This is a perfect example of the meaning of shadows and shapes.

Here is an excellent example of the use of sizes. Agos is really little, while her partner is really big. We have to remember that we are not trying to copy reality, we are dealing with impressions and effects. It would be difficult to find such a small girl and such a big man in the real world, but here, they suggest an interesting relation; maybe they're father and daughter, or a dog and its owner... who knows? Reality doesn't matter here, all we care about is  interpretation.

The use of different elements and tools to make them look as an other thing.

This is also really expressive. Happiness?

Finally, a short video. Look at the effect that causes Magui's shadow when she approaches the curtain, it's fantastic! It looks like a monster's attack!

MORE ABOUT FEELINGS (sólo para 3er año)

We discussed a little bit more about feelings, here are some of the questions that remained without any answer during the class and that I would like you to think a little bit: How important are feelings in our everyday life? Is it true that reason is opposed to feelings? And if that is true, what happens with the common opposition between science and art? Do we choose when to use feelings  and when to use our reason? Or is it simply that we use both all the time and we can't choose no matter what?

Good luck with the extremely fun adventure of thinking!



Aviso: el texto puede resultar difícil por algunas palabras nuevas, pero deben hacer un pequeño esfuerzo por tratar de comprender las ideas más generales. El diccionario siempre es buen amigo!

ART DEFINITIONS

Luquitas gently introduced us to the first problem, he gave the first art definition: "Art is a way of expressing feelings". So far so good. This is our Luquitas' definition. But, whose feelings? "The artist's", we all shouted. And, what do we, the spectators, have to do with the work of art? Caro's definition stated the following: "The spectator feels what the artist wanted to express". According to this, the relation between the artist and the spectator is 1) linear and 2) unidirectional. What does that mean? It means,   in the first place, that the bridge that connects the artist to the spectator has no flaws, is short, and it is pretty clean. In other words: the spectator receives exactly what the artist sent. Secondly, by "unidirectional" it means that the bridge goes one way only. There's no feedback.

We realized that Caro's definition wasn't enough. But Caro came up with another definition: "The spectator sometimes feels what the artist wanted, and sometimes he doesn't". So far we have Caro I and Caro II. There's an enormous difference between these two. According to the last one, the relation is no more linear. Our bridge now is dangerous, we don't know if we shall ever get to the other side, we don't know if what we send is going to be received in the same way! This definition seems to fit a little bit more with what actually happens when we watch a movie, read a book or listen to a song.

But we still have one problem: the direction of the bridge. Due to this, we are only passive spectators. Is this true? How do we take part in the artistic phoenomena as spectators? It is sure that we are not passive spectators, but active. Think about it and try to elaborate a complete definition with all that has been said, including this last relation.

Finally, there´s one more thing you should think about, and it is probably the most important point. This point reveals the huge difference between Caro I and Caro II. If we pretend that Caro I  is true, art would be very, very, boring because we would all feel the same. On the contrary, Caro II  suggests something very interesting... Caro II is suggesting that art occurs in the dangerous bridge! In other words, Caro II is giving to interpretation an important rol in art. How important do you think interpretation should be? Try to apply all these concepts, for example, to simple and common conversations with your friends or relatives. It seems that language is fair clear and direct and there's no room for big interpretations, but we may be wrong...

Luquitas nos introdujo al problema cuando aportó la primera definición de arte: "El arte es una forma de expresar sentimientos". Por ahora vamos bien. A esta definición le vamos a llamar definición Luquitas. Pero, ¿los sentimientos de quién? Del artista, por supuesto. Ahora, ¿qué es lo que tenemos que ver nosotros, los espectadores, con la obra de arte? La definición Caro nos decía lo siguiente: "El espectador siente lo que el artista quiso expresar". Según esto, la relación entre el artista y el espectador es 1) lineal y 2) unidireccional. ¿Qué quiere decir esto? Significa, en primer lugar que el puente que conecta al artista con el espectador no tiene desvíos, es corto y bastante claro. En otras palabras, el espectador recibe exactamente lo que el arista envío. En segundo lugar, "unidireccional" significa que el puente se dirige hacia un solo lado. No hay relaciones de vuelta, del tipo espectador-artista.
Rápidamente nos dimos cuenta que la definición Caro no era satisfactoria, así que Caro propuso otra definición: "El espectador a veces siente lo que el arista quiso expresar, y a veces no". Vamos a llamarlas respectivamente Caro I y Caro II. Entre éstas, hay una enorme diferencia. Según la última, la relación no es mas lineal. Nuestro puente se ha vuelto un tanto peligroso; no sabemos si podremos cruzar con seguridad o si lo que enviamos llegará sin distorsiones! Pero esta definición parece encajar un poco mejor con lo que nos ocurre cuando vemos una película, escuchamos una canción o leemos un libro.
Sin embargo, todavía tenemos un problemita más: hemos arreglado la cuestión de la linealidad a nuestro puente, pero no hemos podido cambiarle la flecha, es decir su dirección. Por ello, nosotros somos espectadores pasivos o participantes pasivos en el fenómeno artístico. ¿Es verdad? ¿Cómo es que nos relacionamos nosotros con la obra? De seguro que no somos simples participantes pasivos. Piensen sobre esto y traten de elaborar una definición completa utilizando todo lo que fuimos reflexionando y concluyendo.

Todavía queda un problema más, y es quizás, el más importante. Este problema nos hace dar cuenta de la gigantesca diferencia entre Caro I y Caro II. Si suponemos que Caro I es verdad, el arte sería bastante aburrido, porque todos sentiríamos lo mismo. Por el contrario, Caro II sugiere algo muy interesante... lo que está sugiriendo es que el arte ocurre en el puente! En otras palabras, Caro II está dándole a la interpretación un gran rol en el fenómeno artístico. ¿Qué tan importante es la interpretación? Piensen e intenten aplicar todos estos conceptos a las conversaciones cotidianas con sus amigos o parientes. A simple vista, parece obvio que nuestro idioma es bastante directo y claro, y que no deja mucho espacio para interpretaciones, pero siempre podemos estar errados...

Aviso: como verán, he estado traduciendo los contenidos del blog a ambos idiomas. El único propósito de esto es que, como sé que a algunos les cuesta realmente, no se pierdan las reflexiones y por ende, no pierdan interés en la clase. Sin embargo, a partir de la próxima entrada, y porque las consideraciones más básicas ya hen sido introducidas, ya sólo encontrarán la parte escrita en inglés. A quienes les cueste, deberán tenerse confianza y saber que no hay nada que con la práctica y la paciencia no se arregle. Leer, aunque sea estos pocos párrafos, va a mejorar su agilidad muchísimo. Aquí les dejo un diccionario muy bueno que seguramente van a necesitar. Les recomiendo que lo usen, en vez de utilizar el traductor o preguntarle a alguien que sepa.