Appropriation

Appropriation

The Original Piece is named Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer who was one of the greatest painters of the Dutch, but his life was miserable that he didn't sell one painting when he was alive, and he had been forgotten by people for more than one century after he died. Until the middle of the 19th century, his talents and achievements were finally recognized.

This oil painting is one of his famous works which drew a girl who wears a pearl earring is watching towards the painter of the audiences. Her lips open slightly, as if she is telling something. And her eyes are beautiful and pure, which just like the pearl that symbolizes the pure soul of the beautiful girl.

 This is the new image I appropriated. The icon I use is Marge Simpson, who is a cartoon figure in the famous animated sitcom The Simpsons. This animation by showing family lives of the Simpsons to humorously satirize the lifestyles, social and cultural phenomena in America.

For the appropriation, I subvert the original painting which is beautiful and makes people feel comfortable and serene into the new image which is funny. The appropriation gives the new meaning that when the girl is looking at you with the face of Marge Simpson, it has no longer the feeling of pure beauty which is aesthetic but restrained and distant. Instead it gives the sense of humor and intimacy, which makes audience feel easy and closely as if she is looking at you as your friend. 

Reconsider Traditional Definitions of Love

How to get the reader to reconsider traditional definitions of love (or at least not dismiss the new idea immediately).

From the fiction Killing Alec, it is clear that the love showing in this story between Alec and his four girlfriends is not a love in traditional meaning. To consider the traditional definition of love, it should be loyal, devoted, kind, and harmless. However, in the story Alec is dating with four girls at the same time, and the girls therefore plans to kill him. The story makes this causality quite naturally, which is wired and makes us doubt the real definition of love. The girls actually quite love Alec, but they are also very excited when discussing how to kill Alec, and seem enjoy the process of killing him a lot. And Alec, on the other hand, although is dating with four girls, but he shows his sincere love to them all. Therefore, although it is a bit unacceptable to many audiences, there is the possible that the romantic love between people can be un-single. It may be alike to family love that we love the one as much as we like another. So maybe the universal love is not less than the exclusive love, and though it is not well-recognized, we could not reject it. 

When Does Appropriation Become Creation?

Answer to the question: "When does appropriation become creation? When is it only copying and derivative?"

Firstly, to define appropriation, it is an action to borrow some ideas or similar elements from the original work which is famous or well recognized as successful one. In my opinion, if an appropriation is considered as only copying and derivation, then this work must be just simply copy the elements from the original one such as its image, style, ideas, or the similar meanings. It is the same when we say “appropriation” in a painting or picture. The copy does not have its new creation but merely piece two different icons or images together, which seems like to have fun and tell others never be too serious to art. However, if we want to make appropriation become creation, it is necessary to change many things from the original work, not simply the appearance like the image and style, but also create a new meaning which is to subvert its original meaning and has a strong distinction. The contrast will be showed striking and make the audience to think the new meaning rather than what it used to express. 

Response to the City of Tanfy

Response to the City of Tanfy

It is an interesting fiction that the story happens in a strange place Tanfy with many strange things occurrence. Firstly, the story creates the overall atmosphere of the city very well, which is unknown, mysterious, and wired. It arouses the feelings of a bit scary and curious which make the audience want to understand more about Tanfy. Secondly, the story is quite creative. From the plots the narrator begins to know the strange custom of the city has that people eat cold food and they dance in a crazy party. It disturbs narrator, the consumption of cold meat is threatening and makes both narrator and audience feel uncomfortable, and the description of the taste of meat makes it seems like cannibalism. Then the show up of the butcher makes the plots change a bit that he seems like a helper that brings the narrator warm food, or in another possibility he could be the evil person who condemns him to a bad end. Generally, the story puts a lot effort in making the city Tanfy more mysterious and has many unknown factors; nevertheless, it also brings audience much confusion without giving enough information or explanation in the story. The writer mentions lots of issues but not describes them clearly, and some the plots are not connected very closed or naturally.

The Story "Killing Alec"

This fiction tells the story of four girls (include narrator) who find out they have the same boyfriend named Alec who is cheating on them, and therefore they decided to kill him. In the story, it can be seen that all the girls love Alec very much and they care about him a lot. But yet they still decide to kill him without hesitate but even feel very excited when discussing which way should he die. And Alec is a careless and muddleheaded man. At first, he made the mistake that dating with four girls, but then when they decide to kill him, he did not agree but also not show strong opposition. He even took a stand that he liked manhunt most as the way he died.

I think what is working in this story is the element of absurdness. The whole events happened in this story seemed very abnormal and wired, but the narrator tells them in a very normal mood just like they are the ordinary things happen in daily lives. And this feeling makes the story more interesting and mysterious that the reader wants to know more with the story developed. And the thing need to be change is that this story seems to please the reader with absurdness and unreasonable plots which is very interesting and creative but also make confuses. So maybe in the end of the story there can be something happen that are more rational and arouse the audiences’ emotion which gives the story a meaningful ending.

Visual Art Appropriation

Visual Art Appropriation

The Original Piece is named Girl with a Pearl Earring by Johannes Vermeer who was one of the greatest painters of the Dutch, but his life was miserable that he didn't sell one painting when he was alive, and he had been forgotten by people for more than one century after he died. Until the middle of the 19th century, his talents and achievements were finally recognized.

This oil painting is one of his famous works which drew a girl who wears a pearl earring is watching towards the painter of the audiences. Her lips open slightly, as if she is telling something. And her eyes are beautiful and pure, which just like the pearl that symbolizes the pure soul.

This is the new image I appropriated. The icon I use is Marge Simpson, who is a cartoon figure in the famous animated sitcom The Simpsons. This animation by showing family lives of the Simpsons to humorously satirize the lifestyles, social and cultural phenomena in America. For the appropriation, the new image looks funny because of Marge Simpson is identified as a comedy character. But also, she is a mother and wife that full of tolerance. So when looking at her eyes, in some moment I can also feel the tender emotion just like I feel to the original one.

Poster Design for the Journal

Poster Design for the Journal

For this Wednesday, my small group (Martin, Sherry, and me) designed a poster for the propaganda of our Journal Lying Cotton Review. We will send this poster within the e-mail for this journal, and also post it in school buildings.

1.  

2.      We decided to use this one as our propaganda poster. In this poster, there is the Oscar statuette which is a trophy for the winner. It suggests the meaning of competition as the title written in the below, and also to attract more people join this competition and win an award. 

(The final poster will make a little change than this one.)

Website Design for the Journal

Website Design for the Journal

I am one member of the design team for our journal Lying Cotton Review. For the designing of website, we try to decide the main style of our webpage at first. For this purpose, we divided ourselves into small groups, and every group designed the webpage with different styles from each other.

Our group designed two webpages by using “MIX" website design software.

1.      Website style: traditional, artistic

2.      Website style: entertainment, colorful and youthful

Here are the links of all five different styles our team designed for journal website:

http://lyingcotton.wix.com/lyingcotton

http://lyingcotton.wix.com/lyingcottonsimple
http://zhujing.wix.com/art-style
http://zhujing.wix.com/entertainment
http://lyingcottonreview.wordpress.com/

Reflection of the Story about Vietnamese Priest

Reflection of the Story about Vietnamese Priest— “What does the story want to be?”

We watched the two film clips tell the different stories of the Vietnamese priest. In Marty’s story, the characters are not complex and the plots are too simple. The Vietnamese priest is an entirely anger and vengeful person who does not show any other emotions in the film. There is a scene he kills people in a very violent way that shows the intensity of his anger, but this violence and anger have no real meaning actually, which are gratuitous. And the hooker in the film is just sexualized and objectified. She is careless and ignorant, and lacks depth and emotion. Ultimately, the story tries to be interesting and complex, and it uses the intense historical violence of the Vietnam War to give it certain meaning. In Han’s story, the characters are much more complex. The Vietnamese has violence directed but is also extreme selflessness that he self-immolated to protest the war. This story reflects his destruction in a much more complex and meaningful way than Marty's story. And the hooker in second clip is more humanized and emotional. She has a high level of education, and she has pity for the priest who burns himself in the end. Generally Han’s story corrects the problems or flaws in Marty’s story, and he makes it much more complex and meaningful.

Response to Billy's Story

Problems:

1.      Jack shows up in a graveyard alone and unarmed to return the dog and get peace, while he knows that the mafia boss is a psychopath.

2.      The gunfight just begins without any reason or forebode.

3.      One of Jack’s friends is carrying a white rabbit when he is shooting.

4.      Marty is taking notes during the gunfight and did not get injured.

5.      Kaya just wanders in during the gunfight to say sorry and she loves Marty, and she’s got killed. Billy says her head does come off.

6.      The Mafia boss’s head exploded after being shot with an arrow.

7.      The story ends with all the people are died except Marty and Hans, but the animals are both survived.

8.      Every character in Billy’s story is simple and not thoughtful.

To fix the problems, I want the characters in this story become more complex and have more contact with each other, to make the story plots more reasonable. In new story, Jack gets the Mafia boss’s dog and asks him to release Marty’s girlfriend Kaya who is kidnapped by Mafia boss. They make a deal and Jack agrees to meet Mafia boss in a graveyard tonight. He also asks some of his friends include Marty and Hans to come together with him in case of emergency. However, something unexpected does happen. The Mafia boss is inconsistent, and he just shows unsatisfied to the deal they already made, and disagree to give Kaya back even if they will return his favorite puppy Bonny. He is overbearing and impatient, and since Jack and Marty not allow him to break his promise, he gets really angry and orders his men to kill then all. So the gunfight begins. Jack and his friends are not afraid. They are very brave and they fight back. Marty is the smartest one of them that he observed the overall structure of this graveyard and brings his notes here. With the help of notes, he presumes the most possible place the Mafia hide his girlfriend Kaya, and he finds her successfully. Kaya is also a clever and calm girl. She distracted the people who monitoring her by persuading them to help their associates who are fighting with Jack and his friends. And she gets out eventually when Marty came to find her. They escape, but right before they reach a safe place, the Mafia boss noticed them. “Don’t try to escape from me!” He lifts the gun and aims at them. A gunshot rings out. But the Mafia boss falls down slowly. And they see Jack in behind, who still looks tense with a gun in the hand. This is a successful rescue, Jack finally gets to save his best friend Marty’s girlfriend. He sets Bonny free before they leave the graveyard, which he believes is a right way to get peace. 

Oct. 27 Class Discussion

In Monday’s class we have a discussion of Martel’s “Manners of Dying” and talked about how we understand the story, and how to understand these different versions of the same event.

There are several possibilities to this question. Firstly, the author just wants to compare how one person but with different characters would behave when facing the same event happen to him. It is an interesting but also challenging practice because sometime it is difficult that we creates many characters in one story, and they both have distinctive image features so we need to describe them differently since they must not behave the same even in the same plots. I think the author did very well that he writes a same story with the same protagonists Kevin who shows different characters in nine versions. Another possibility is that these nine letters are separate templates that the warden Harry Parlington keeps in his office and just filling out the name of the individual when necessary. It is a reasonable way to understand if we related it with story plots. The third understanding to this question is that we consider these 9 situations that are all equally real or possible, the just happen in parallel universes. Therefore, Kevin is a person really exists and is going to face up his execution. In one universe he is timid, and shows extreme fear before his death. But in other parallel worlds, Kevin can be clam, humorous, spiritual, or thoughtful which reflect in different letters. 

Response to “Manners of Dying” by Yan Martel

“Manners of Dying” is a epistolary fiction composed with 9 letters written from Harry Parlington, who is a warden of Cantos Correctional Institution to Mrs. Barlow, whose son Kevin Barlow faced up to his execution by hanging for the crimes which he was convicted. The letters record and tell about all the things happened to Kevin during the last twelve hours before his death. And the letters are written with objective and official tones without much personal emotions.

However, what makes this fiction particular is the way that the author writes 9 different letters just with the same protagonist whose name is Kevin and the same events happened to him. I think it is a very interesting fiction to read, although the generally same plots just like to make fun. In these nine letters, the protagonists and story plots are not changed, but in every version, Kevin has different characters and he has very different behaviors when facing execution every time. It is interesting to see one thing repeated happen to the same person but different characters, and how he would behaves with every different character. I think it is a good fiction, because the general fiction creates a protagonist with specific character, and describes and enriches it with the story plots goes on. But it is more difficult when we create a character but changes his characters and describes what would he behave differently when facing the same event happen to him. It is also a good way to practice for describing various different persons created in fictions.