PictureOfTheDay

PictureOfTheDay

Aura...What is it? Where does it come from?

I like to post my incredibly well written and deeply philosophical essays from my Intro. to STaC exams. Here's another:

Prompt: Write an essay in which you speculate on what it is that produces an "aura" that does not rely on tradition in contemporary culture. Be sure to use at least one specific example of some contemporary thing/person with "aura". And be sure to speculate why that happens.

     Something that has an aura has an ethereal quality. 'It' has specialness, originality, some sort of uniqueness. It's not just new things or new people that have an aura. Andy Warhol's work has an aura, his work isn't new, he's not new, he's dead, but still his artwork has that special something that gets people to go to the museum. What is fascinating about Andy Warhol and his work is that when you look at it critically, his work and life and fame is based off the exploitation of images of everyday commodities, like Coca-Cola and Campbell soup. And his artistic medium wasn't paint or sculpture; it was screen printing, which means that his work had the ability to be massed produced. 
     How could someone's work have this 'aura' when they actually never produced it (Warhol had assistants screen print his artistic visions)? Warhol is famous for pop art. Maybe that is what gives Warhol's work aura. The fact that he was the one to really popularize the style and get it out into mainstream culture. The fact that a large population knows Warhol's work when they see it and know that that is 'pop art' is what gives his work an aura. But that would mean that what creates the aura, all the fame around his work, is the fact that it's accessible to a large population. 
     This defies what the meaning of aura stands for. Something with an aura should be one of a kind, it should be rare. Warhol's work has an aura and one could describe his work as iconic, but it doesn't have super special quality. You know when you see Marilyn Monroe's face in columns and rows on a canvas in bright colors, you know it's a the work of Warhol. Perhaps, it's the fact that the work is iconic that produces the aura. A Rembrandt has an aura. It could be the way he uses the light, but he's not considered an Old Master for no reason at all. 
     It seems that lots of things in pop culture today are said to have an aura. Some say the Gangnam Style music video featuring PSY has an aura. Is it the bright, neon colors? Is it the catchy beat? There doesn't seem to be anything special about the music video, we've seen bright colors before and listened to catchy beats, yet some still say it has an aura. This could be said for Warhol's work as well, yet something about it creates the effect of the mysterious aura. 
     It seems that aura is a paradox. There is no one defining quality that precipitates an aura. It could be originality, uniqueness, rarity or specialness. It could be accessibility, in the case of mass produced art, images, literature, film and consumer goods. But it doesn't seem like accessibility would have a part in the 'aura' effect, yet practically everything with an aura is accessible (it just may take a fourteen hour flight to another country to see a piece of art and/or a large sum of money). It must be a combination of uniqueness and some innate human flaw, perfection and imperfection that creates and aura. The aura, in itself, is a magical, mysterious property of human nature.


See?? Pretty good for 40 minutes.

PictureOfTheDay

PictureOfTheDay

Here's.... Teddy!!!

Not at all scary like Jack Nicholson in The Shining....."the shining" (sotto voce)... hehe

Most Amazing Essay as Part of an Exam Ever Written

I wanted to post my Intro to STAC essay when I got it back. Well, I got it back. The essay (below) was written as part of an exam - took me 20-25 minutes to write. To give you the idea of the prompt, it's something like this:

"A producer wants to finance a suspense/action/horror film and must choose a concept A or B. Your job is to recommend A or B. Explain why your choice would make a better film. Include a general storyline." I chose A: The world is being overrun by self-propelled, self-directed machines - robots. They are fast, strong and violent. They reproduce by scavenging materials from the world around them and building more versions of themselves."

Here is my essay that is 100% original. DO NOT STEAL IT. Even though, I can totally see why you would want to - because it's awesome...and amazing. 

Think “Aliens” meets “I am Legend” meets “I-Robot.” That’s my pitch for a suspense/action/ terrifying horror film. Robots reproducing by scavenging materials, violently attacking everyday people, going to war against our human armies and eventually taking over the world, because after all, they don’t need sleep and food to keep them alive, only humans do.

            While a non-visual source of terror usually does instill more fear within the audience, we humans still have a great aversion and fear about nonhuman beings taking control over our world. We like to fantasize that aliens would ‘come in peace’ and robots would just be servants. But since the birth of the automaton, robots have been the source of inspiration for suspenseful films, novels and play’s, like Rossum’s Universal Robot’s.

            Although a virus infecting the digital network is really non-visual to the audience, it’s also an abstract image that would need to be represented in some visual way and that just wouldn’t appear as visually frightening in any way that an ultra-strong, vicious, unintelligent ‘mechanical beast’ would appear. This is primarily due to the fact that human fears are related to the unknown and to things that look like us, act like us, but would really prefer to kill off the human race instead of living within our world harmoniously.

            To really give the audience a jolt, a great move for such a film would be to take a rather pessimistic outlook on the situation. Humans love when humans conquer other worldly invaders (think ‘Marvel’s The Avenger’s’) and hate when humans appear to be the inferior race. This is precisely why we have more superhero action films than human’s are the losers films. So, the film would end with the entire human population massacred and heartless, fearless robots living all over Earth. That will surely have the audience leaving the theatre without warm fuzzies, and an intense fear toward beings that mimic some of our more negative qualities, physically and mentally. And it may be thought only subconsciously, but even the ruthless robots that dominate the film do share similarities, mentally, with that of psychologically disturbed human beings.

            By taking a wholly negative outlook at robots multiplying by scavenging, an act humans view as barbaric, and destroying humanity, a suspenseful horror film is born. Nothing is more terrifying and worse than seeing your own kind being destroyed.

I know I haven't posted anything in quite a while - I've been busy - and I had two exams today and I have two more still to take today (that's a grand total of four in one day!). I actually have another Intro. to STAC exam later today, and I will have to write (an) essay(s). I will see how it goes before posting it on here. :)

PictureOfTheDay