Tianyi Ding: January 2013

Wednesday, January 30, 2013

Response to Hornby “Nipple Jesus”

It is real an interesting story, which surprised me a lot in the end. Dave got a new job at the gallary and tried to protect a weird picture because of its author and its special idea intriguing him, but it turned out to be planned by the author of this picture to take a flim that showed intolerance. Hornby describes the Dave's process of first seeing this picture, thinking its meaning, guarding and defending it seriously detailedly. It is, a kind of stepping stone that actually aims at shocking readers in the end of the article. Candidly speaking, I really like this writing style, the careful dipiction of character's psychology. About the Nipple Jesus, I would like to say, it is such a bold innovation. Making sacred Jesus out of segments of breast can hardly be accepted to normal people. Then Dave tended to think the purpose of picture's author and finally not only accepted it, but also regarded it as a wonderful piece of art, even though the beauty of author cannot be excluded from reasons. It is not surprising to me because the more weird it is and the more people dislike it, there is a higher probability that some people will pretend to appreciate it to show their understanding of art. Maybe I should not criticize such people, but I think Dave is such sort of person after reading the whole story. I do not appreciate what the young lady did, neither. Cheating persons who like her work and fooling them in order to get a film of what she desired and planned as a piece of art is not what an artist is supposed to do, even though sometimes capturing art may need kinda weird way.
What I am confused about this article is the serveral pages before talking about his working experience in the art gallary. Why does Hornby mention Dave's job in club? And a bunch of words describing people such as nutters and blokes used throughout the article, is weird, but somewhat interesting. Actually I was thinking what if I see this Nipple Jesus? Will I feel disgusted or interesting? I am not sure. Maybe I would find it a special one with a special idea, think it a piece of special art that beyond my appreciation, but I am not going to smash it up or insulting its author because I do believe there exists difference among people' appreciation of art but all works need to be respected.

Thursday, January 24, 2013

Response to article on Ono

This article is almost confused me, it is too abstract for me to totally understand such a weird but amazing woman. She goes out the limit of art and capture impossible objects to complete impossible task. She is so characteristic and different from other females. She does not care about what others think and whether others can accept her works of art. The life experience of such a special woman also shocked me a lot. She believes in the right to drift. Her theme of art is bareness and peace all the time. Even though most people cannot understand her edgy idea and art, she is still persisting her style.

The negative attribute of Ono that the author mentions is that her rampant commercialization of Lennon. Also she is not easy to get along with. Probably this is because of artist's loftiness. I can hardly understand it and accept it. Overall, this article is a profound description of Ono, somewhat interesting and weird.

Monday, January 21, 2013

Micro Project 1

1. Asymmetrical image - an overlook of paths on Oval

2. symmetrical image - Thompson Library

3. radial image - steamer

4. person and their surrounding space

5. person up close

6. An image from the point view of an ant

7. An image from the point view of a bird

8. a stable image

9. an unstable image

10. name on campus

Comparing to the first experience of taking ten images, the second ten are more intentional and goal-directed. The first ten were taken randomly. I just choose what catches my attention in daily life. Then the second ten are chosen based on the fixed requirement. It is more complex to to find such things in order to meet the requirement. Layout and arrangement of objects are also not so easy as the first time. The process of finding a view from the point view of an ant and a bird is enjoyable because I need to imagine me as an ant or a bird. Supposing I was standing on the chair as a bird and marching on the grass as an ant are a pretty amazing experience. The unstable image is my favorite one because I took this for several times in order to catch this fantastic moment. I can really feel the tendency that the drop was going to fall.

Thursday, January 17, 2013

Ten pictures

Response to Walker's and Barrett's articles

As its heading saying, "big ideas and artmaking" is the core idea of Walker's article. In the beginning, the author defines "big idea" and then gives the relation between big ideas and artmaking. It is pretty convincing as he states that big ideas can expand students' concern and engage them to think deeply, thereby leading them to endeavor to making art. Then the author lists how to distinguish big ideas with subject matters and theme by providing a bunch of instances of famous artists. I quite benefit a lot from such detailed explanation.

The following examples he offers intrigue me. In Jennifer's case, she presents her big idea - rules and order, through depiction of subject matter - garden, which is quite meaningful to her. She aims at rules as her core conception and tries to figure out how to break rules. Meanwhile, she set up a series of artistic rules and bent to rules in some way, such as choosing the paper of same size. She provides us with an implication from her artmaking process that rules show people's attempt to impose order.The second example of Deborah is also interesting and meaningful to me. She sculpts horses all the time due to her passionate interest in ranch, even though it is uncool for a girl to focus on horses as she said. I appreciate her spirit of persisting.Overall, this article is easy, educational and beneficial.

The second article "cut and paste" is mainly about interpreting denotations and connotations in visual art. The interpretive analysis of magazine ads provided by Barthes is quite wonderful. From his vivid depiction, I can feel the freshness of fruits, even the composition and lighting of the ad. Then the case of a group of art teachers readily apply strategies of interpreting to a image lead to an interpretive conclusion that the denotation would never ruin the connotation of the original meaning of the picture. This is what I learned from it. The most interesting part is overwhelmingly the discussion of a magazine cover by students in class. It's about three women standing with their legs spreading in shape of triangle, with some words encompassing. They all did a good experience with the entire cover, but due to different genders, cultures and some other factors, they came out different connotations of sexuality. The following investigation of students in different ages also intrigues me. It came out that learns of all ages can successfully denotate the connotation of stuffs. The responses of preschoolers to the question "how come your teddy bear not scary" is so cute!
What puzzled me in this essay is that the linguistic message "Panzani". Why did the author put this here? The Italian word both denotate and connotate the image, but Italians are not aware of the hidden usage of this word. Does he want to mention us that the interpretation should consider cross-culture and intuitional reaction of readers?

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

Response to the Kidd, Hickey and Weschler "Uncanny Valley" articles

In the first article, the author talks about structures and forms. More specifically speaking, he mainly aims at these four formal matters: Left to Right, Top to Bottom, Big and Small, In Front Of and In Back Of. Which I find the most interesting is the discussion of supposing a situation in the fourth dimension and then extending to infinity. It leaves us much space for thinking. Another part which attracts me is about Big and Small. The author gives us an example of tomato to demonstrate that if we think too hard about it, we will go mad. He mentions that blowing a tomato up until the entire one fills the picture if forcing it to be huge enough, will definitely cause the tomato no longer be read as a tomato. Such an instance reminds me of some cases that I fell into before when I desired to make something like what I extremely want it to be and I can learn a lot from this discussion.

But this article still confused me a lot. What is the author talking about in the first page? Bacterias within people’s bodies? What does the enemy mean? Candidly speaking, I cannot agree with the American orientation of hierarchy of importance. I can hardly understand why the director of a play would place a character on the left to show its importance. Maybe it is closely related to cross-culture because we Chinese are used to put the most important in the middle, rather than from left to right.

In Hickey’s article, he mainly talks about rules by starting with dramatic
Basketball shots. The depiction of Kareem’s perfect defense and Erving’s instantaneous response is pretty intriguing and attractive. The elegant response to rule, then, leads to the discussion of rule. As he mentions that, our life need perpetual terror and self-regulation, otherwise, we are living in a world full of barbarian. I cannot agree more with this opinion. Our world need rule to regulate, and each of us is ought to obey it. It seems convincing as Hickey says that liberating rule that civilized us yesterday will inevitably govern us tomorrow. I cannot totally in favor of this perspective, but I do believe that every coin has two sides. If rules are overused, it becomes too suppressing and then, somewhat turns to violent regulation.

Candidly speaking, the later part of this article is too abstract for me to completely understand. The case that Hickey gives us about Jackson, to a certain extent, is a little bit confusing. Is the hell Jackson favor of drip paint, or actually prohibitive to it. What I can see from superficial words, saying that, “institutional edict: It's bad not to drip! the art coaches said. It means you got no soul! Yikes!”, seems like satire. Maybe I am wrong, and I am almost confused by the author’s writing style. Additionally, the author sets some relationships between fine art and basketball, which is also confusing to me. Generally speaking, I do not like this essay because it is too difficult for me to totally understand. I know nothing about basketball rules and I am just getting started to know something about art! It’s beyond me!

“Why is this man smiling?” is about digital difficulty in making a face alive. I think the example of Nicholas in the beginning of this article is pretty interesting. He made a circle by cutting a triangle to n-sided polygon, however, the problem emerged as the more sides the circle had, the farther it get away from itself. It implies the ultimate difficulty that making animation face alive has. Then, he compares the digital making with the property of milk, which more comprehensively describes the tough task that animators are facing.
But, what I cannot agree with is the opinion that says the animators job is to fool the audience, once audience believe, their work is done and actually they do not have to make a perfect face. I think it is their job to make a face more and more vivid. Even though the challenge is enormous, the pursuit of art should never stop.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Welcome to know me!

Introduction

Hey guys, I'm Tianyi. So lovely to know you all! Now, I would like to do a brief introduction of myself to let you know more about me.
I come from a beautiful city in China and this is my first year in Ohio State University. My majors are Actuarial Science and Financial Math.
I love shopping, just like many girls they do. Swimming is the only sport that I enjoy, but I started to get interested in football because our school team is such an excellent one! Traveling is the most exciting event to me because I enjoy exploring a new city and savoring the best that nature offers us. Also, I love dogs, especially huskies.