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.