TRANSFORMATIONS

FINAL ACTIVITY

Look at all the scenes, each of these has a different way of representing the transformation. In fact, none of them respects the original story. But that is not a problem. How would we, in 2013, decide to represent it? What clothe would you wear? What effects? How long?

The final activity consists in recording a brand new transformation. The activity is divided into 3 parts. In the first part, we are going to record our own music. If you pay attention to the first video, that was released in 1920, it originally didn't have any music. Some musicians added it later. We are going to the same, what do you think the music should be like? Scary? Happy? Fast? Slow?

In the second part, we are going to record some voice-over that you are going to write. You can tell whatever you want. You can make Jekyll talk or you can just tell what is going on.

In the last part, you're going to shoot, by yourselves and at your homes, the transformation.

I will say some final words in Spanish so everybody understands:

Chicos, como verán, el trabajo tiene algunas consignas y etapas para cumplir. Sin embargo, consignas no es lo mismo que limitaciones ni prohibiciones. Espero que sean lo más creativos que puedan, y que realmente hagan algo que les guste. Una gran parte de ser creativo y artista reside en poder reconocer y crear los espacios que se nos abren para la expresión. Por eso, les repito: ¡consignas no es lo mismo que limitaciones!  Al momento de hacer el trabajo se van a dar cuenta que van a tener que tomar un montón de decisiones: ¿dónde lo filmamos? ¿quién se convierte en quién? ¿cómo nos vestimos? ¿qué música le ponemos? ¿cómo nos movemos? ¿cómo vamos a colocar la cámara? ¿cuántas cámaras vamos a necesitar? ¿cómo hacemos la transformación? ¿qué vamos a narrar en las voces-en-off?

Cada una de estas preguntas es un espacio y un camino enorme que ustedes tienen para inventar, crear y que en cada trabajo se note la marca de ustedes. ¡Úsenlo!

Finalmente, les quiero dejar un video más. Fíjense qué tiene de diferente, fíjense hasta dónde uno puede ser creativo, hasta qué punto ser creativo significa hacer algo distinto:

LITERATURE AND HISTORY: SOMETHING TO THINK ABOUT (sólo 3er año)

Let's resume the experiment of our last activity were we wanted to see how can many events can be arranged into many different ways and therfore, many different explanations of the whole scene. We then talked a little bit about history. If facts can be rearranged/reinterpreted into different explanations, what about history? Does this mean that there's hardly one unique way in which events happened? This a very hazard inquiry. What is the difference between writing a short tale and writing about history?

THE THOUSAND VERSIONS OF THE STORY

Chapter 4:  many things happen in this chapter, but the event that interest us is, indeed, the incident at the window. We have already talked about doors at the beginning of the course, it's now time to talk about windows. We said that doors were misterious because they represented the pass into the unknown. What about windows? What effect do they produce?

THE WINDOW EFFECT

In contrast to doors, windows show us something. But this doesn't mean that the effect is lighter or smaller. In fact, the effect is quite deceiving (click the word). We can see something, just as Mr. Utterson saw Dr. Jekyll behind the glass, but he only saw a very, very little part of the whole scene. He couldn't see what was behind Jekyll, and when Dr. Jekyll closed the windows he didn't knew exactly what had happened. Many things could have happened. It's all up to our imagination.

So, a window shows us only a part of a complete scene, we can't see the whole scene, we have to imagine it.

THE ACTIVITY

This is an experiment: we listed a series of 10 different sounds. We had to imagine that we were laying in our beds just about to sleep. There's no chance we could see anyhing because it was a very dark night. Suddenly we started hearing all those sounds. In groups of two, we had to write a story using them. We had to imagine how those sounds were related. Just as the window effect, we only know a small part of the scene, the rest is up to our imagination. Everyone is going to have a different story. We hope to understand how can we interpret a series of facts in many ways and create completely different stories.

FIRST AND SECOND YEAR

LIST OF SOUNDS:
1) Helicopter. 

2) A woman laughing. 

3) Bell ring. 

4) Surprised exclamation. 

5) Jump. 

6) Ambulance. 

7) Loud music. 

8) Dog barking. 

9) Door that opens. 

10) Door that closes.

Havenstein - Orlando

I was almost asleep when I heard the sound of a helicopter and I remembered that two thieves had escaped from jail that afternoon, then I heard that my neighbor was laughing, probably she was talking by phone. The neighbor’s bell rang loudly then the woman seemed very surprised and started to shout maybe the thieves who had escaped were in her house or had jumped over her!

Some minutes later I heard an ambulance that stopped there, at the woman’s house, my neighbor. Then for a while I couldn't listen to anything because a party near my house started to play very loud music. When the music stopped my dog started to bark a lot. My house door had opened and my dog went in, then I heard that someone came into my house and closed the door, leaving my dog outside and someone I think I didn’t know inside my house… 

Later I realized that “that person I didn’t know” was my mom that was coming to tell me that I had to sleep because it was too late already.

Álvarez - Gonzalez

It happened in the prision. One day I was laying in my bed and I heard a helicopter. I thought that it was the police. Then I heard a woman laughing and it was a very strage laught. Some minutes later I heard a bell ringing, and also at that moment a surprise exclamation. I thought that was a woman. 

I heard people jumping a wall. 5 or 10 minutes later I heard an ambulance, the ambulance stopped and I heard some loud music and a dog barking and I got scared. 

I thought that one prisioner was escaping and I heard a door opening, and two minutes later, the door closing.

Freites - Gigena

I was in my bedroom staring at the roof. In that moment I could hear a lot of sounds. I was listening to a helicopter, it was far away, but it was to noisy. A girl was laughing, it was a silly laugh. I could listen someone that was surprised. Someone was jumping, and I thought it was my mum. I listened to someone screaming and during the following minutes I heard an ambulance coming. So I supposed it was related to the scream before. I also Heard, that in the other street someone was playing music. I thought that the barks of my dog were because of that music. Then someone opened the door, it was my mum who was entering and going out of the bathroom. 

García - Rodriguez

First I was trying to sleep when I heard a helicopter and I thought that it was over my house. But I realized that was over my neighbor’s house, suddenly, I heard a woman laughing, and I thought that was a member of the bad girl's group that met every night at the corner of the street. I closed my eyes and tried to sleep but my bell started ringing, I got so scared that I covered my face with the sheets and I didn’t went to open the door because I was frighten. I was paying attention to hear others sounds when suddenly I heard a surprise exclamation, and someone jumped my back wall and fell to the ground. Some few minutes pass and I heard an ambulance and people shouting and a terrible loud music came from the corridor and my dog started barking very loud , then my door opened and suddenly it closed making a lot of noise. Finally I got up and I say “'OMG', I was dreaming.” 

Issidoro - Bett

When I was about to sleep I heard a helicopter. I thought it was the police because some hours before I had watched on TV that some thieves were escaping from them. Minutes later I heard my neigbour laughing, she is a little bit wrong, so I thought she was laughing about of the helicopter. A bell rang at my neighbor's, and I imagined that it was the police to alert my neighbor about the thieves, my neighbour got surprised because she saw them climbing a house! An hour passed and I couldn't sleep yet so I tried to listen what happened…I heard some people dumping over my neighbour's hall. I started to get scared. 30 minutes later I listened an ambulance, I couldn't imagine that my neighbour's husband was dead. My neighbour turned the music so loud and I thought that she was going to forget what had happened. I started to listen my dog barking because the thieves oponed my garden door but they got scared and they closed it loudly. Finally, I fell asleep.

Ludueña - Ibarra

I was just going to sleep ,when I started to hear sounds. The first noise I heard was a helicopter and I thought that was the police. Then I heard a woman laughing but I thought that she was drunk. I imagined that the helicopter was looking for a thief, so the man was running. Then I heard a bell ringing and a girl shouting. So I imagined that the thief hit that girl and jumped the neighbor's back wall, and that they called the ambulance. The man turned on the music loud and the dog started baking at him. He left the house afraid through the garden door so he opened and closed the door.

Reynoso - Valverde

One day I was in my bed, just about to go to sleep and suddenly I heard the sound of a helicopter. Then the sound became smaller because it was going away. After that I heard a woman laughing, I thought that was mi friend, Emily, but I couldn't see anything because I was in bed with my eyes shut. The bell rang at my house, but nobody opened the door. 

Far away I heard the exclamation of surprise from a woman but I didn't know why she was like that. I got scared because I heard someone jumping, I thought that a thief was trying to jump into my house. I covered with my blanket and suddenly I heard the sound of an ambulance, the sound of jumps were smaller. I thought that near my house was an accident because of the ambulance. Then the ambulance went away, and I started to hear loud music. I knew that was a party because my friend Emily told me yesterday that she was organizing one. Then I listened a dog barking because I think that my neighbor was coming into his house. After that I start hearing that a door was opening, so I realized that my neighbor was in his house. Then he closed the door. Finally, could sleep because there weren't any more noises.

THIRD YEAR

LIST OF SOUNDS:

1) Dog barking

2) Cat mewing

3) Woman screaming

4) Door opening

5) Man shouting

6) Footsteps

7) Door closing

8) Car starting

9) Woman shouting (again)

10) Alarm ringing

Altamirano - Lazo

At 9 o'clock I was trying to sleep. It was the third time. I went to bed at 8 o'clock but lots of noise were bothering me. The neighbor's dog was barking and the cat was meawing, maybe they saw something strange. I didn't care about it and I tried to sleep again, but another noise started: a woman was screaming. I guessed that it was mrs. Jacky, my neighbor. Probably she saw the cat and the dog that they where distroing some furniture. But immediately I heard a door opening and a man shouting. It was easy to think it was Mr. Jacky that saw the disaster. I thought that what the pets did was horrible. I tried to sleep again but I couldn't because I listened a lot of strong footsteps and a door closing. Then a car starting, maybe Mr. Jacky was very angry and decided to go out for some minutes and Mrs. Jacky was desesperated and starte to shout again. My neighbors were verry crazy! But finally I realized that this was not the fault of the pets. It was a robbery because of the alarm ringing.

Escobar - Márquez

One day I was in my house trying to sleep and I heard a dog barking. Some minutes later I also heard a cat mewing I thought that it was because the dog was barking at the cat. This happened in the street around five o'clock. Then, a woman started yelling and said "don’t kill me please I didn't do anything. I was so scared because I thought it was mi mother. Later I listened a door opening: it was mi mother coming back to her bedroom and she saw mi father next to the door screaming because he want to scare her. 

After that I heard some footsteps coming to my bedroom and suddenly the door closed. I went to the kitchen to drink some water. Later I heard a car starting, I imagined that my neighbors had gone out and at the same time I heard a woman crying again, I thought that she had cut herself with a knife.

Faraco - Pereyra

It was a dark night when I was reading my favourite book. I was in chapter 4 when I heard a strange sound. I thought that was a dog barking so I didn't get scared, but 10 minutes after I heard cat mewing, I thought that it was my neighbor's cat. When I finished reading the book I went to sleep. Unfortunately I heard a young woman screaming, when I wanted to call the police, suddenly, the door was opening. I knew that because I recognized the sound of that old door. After that I heard an old man screaming when he got quiet I heard foot steps. I was very frightened because something strange was happening. Then I heard that the door was closing. I thought that was a window that was closing. But I heard a car starting so there I became sure that one person was murdered because I heard the sound of a trunk opening open, the young woman started to scream again so I was sure that the father of the girl was the victim. A few minutes later my alarm clock ran. I knew that all this history was only a strange dream.

Quintana - Karakas

I was in my bed when I heard a strange noise... It was a dog barking. At first I didn’t care about it but then the dog started barking louder. I started to get worried and I heard a cat mewing.

Then I heard a woman that shouted “Help, help!! a dog is eating a cat” and immediately the a door opened then suddenly I heard a man that was screaming and his footsteps were very loud too.

Five minutes later the door closed and a car start going out. And then… I heard the same woman shouting “Stop there were a cat and a dog , wait you are going to ran over them”. At last, I heard a broken windows and I thought that the driver threw a rock at the house of the woman because the alarm started ringing, then in a moment I slept and I didn’t hear anything else.

Malbrán - Carrizo 

A week ago on a rainy day a dog started barking. My cat called yogi, started mewing, while the dog was barking. Some minutes later a woman start to shout and a door opened very quietly. A man was saying something to the woman and suddenly the man started screaming, he sounded like a woman, then, I fell asleep. When I woke up I heard footsteps in the corridor. My main door. Suddenly it closed very hard and a car started and went a way. The woman shouted again and started running towards my house. She entered and turned on the alarm, then she entered to my bedroom and she told me that a thief had stolen me.

Solanot

I was sleeping. Suddenly I woke up because I heard a dog barking and a cat mewing. I started to see by the window and a woman was screaming because she had seen something. Then the door opened and my dog bit him the man screamed. But after 30 seconds he stopped shouting. I heard footsteps near my bedroom. I shouted “go away I have a shotgun” the man went away, and closed the door. The police was coming so he hurried to steal any car. After he broke the window of the car and got into. I heard the sound of the car starting. The woman shouted again because the thief had just stolen her car. After 10 minutes I heard an alarm ringing: it was the police came.

Claure - Velázquez

One night when I went to bed I heard a dog barking I didn’t pay attention so I went to bed, a few minutes later I heard a cat mewing so I got scared because I thought that someone was breaking in a neighbour's house, then a woman was yelling so I felt very scared but maybe it was just a spider so I closed my eyes and tried to sleep. Few seconds later I heard a door opening so I thought that the neighbour had gone out to another place but then I heard a man screaming so I said “it is my imagination” and but seconds later I heard footsteps but I do anything. Then I heard a door closing and a car strating and some woman's screams, so I thought “hahaha” the neighbour almost ran over Miss Eva but then I heard an alarm ringing, I knew that the neighbour's car was stolen. 

WHAT IS TO REPRESENT? (sólo 3er año)

,

As I told you, this picture has a great story. The picture has an inscription that says "this is no a pipe". Quite crazy, don't you think? Everyone would agree without any doubt that the picture is a pipe, but if we think a little bit, there's a possibilty that the picture is not a pipe but some smeared paint. The picture is representing a pipe. Many of you have misunderstood the meaning of "represent". Look for the definition and try to see how does the definition comes in when we talk about art. What does representation has to do with art?

MURDERS AND ART II

The choice of a murder for this activity was far from being random. I have chosen this topic on purpose and with a specific objective: to experience how can things be turn into art. So, why a murder? Commonly, it is consider to be a serious thing. It seems that in order to be able to talk about murders we have to be very serious people. But this is not right. Art can help us understand murder in another way, in an artistic way. 

However, murders are not the only serious topics. Politics, religion, sexuality are examples of these kind of topics that we shouldn't talk about. They are also known as taboos (click the word). Art shows us different ways of approaching these topics and invite us to think them from another point of view. How many times have you seen all those naked greek statues? (go to the link). Certainly they have seen the human body under a complete different way, and maybe, each of us found something interesting in our photos. I encouarge you to keep trying and investigating through art, and most important of all, have fun!

"Un cuadro debe ser pintado con el mismo sentimiento 

con que un criminal comete un crimen"

                                                                     Edgar Degas

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!