The Importance of Being Ericsson

Birthdays are good for you. Statistics show that the people who have the most live the longest. – Reverend Larry Lorenzoni

 

Find out interesting things about your birthday! I knew I was limiting myself to just the Greek horoscope! I now have a plethora of tools at my disposal!   

Things I really liked reading were my life path number , birth tree, native american astrological sign, and chinese sign.  You can also find some cool sites about your greek sign too on my earlier post. From these 5 or so sources, I must admit one would be pretty much able to figure out everything about me! For morbid facts about your birthday, go here. 142,078 people died on my birthday.

I really liked the postive attributes (good for the self esteem – curt nods in agreement), but the negative attributes were often spot on and hilarious; my birth tree was especially harsh:

Poplar, the Uncertainty
very decorative, no self-confident behaviour, only courageous if necessary, needs goodwill and pleasant surroundings, very choosy, often lonely, great animosity, artistic nature, good organiser, tends to philosophy, reliable in any situation, takes partnership serious.

Excuuuuse me, birth tree. 

For 8/6/1984 As of 4/20/2008 3:06:44 PM EDT
You are 23 years old.
You are 284 months old.
You are 1,237 weeks old.
You are 8,658 days old.
You are 207,807 hours old.
You are 12,468,426 minutes old.
You are 748,105,604 seconds old.

Hooray!

SCHOOL IS OUT! 

 

Protected: “Entertainment” – Introspective

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Entertainment

This is a compilation of violent scenes from films. This video is meant as a rhetorical critique regarding the amount and varying degrees of violence being filmed as a means of entertainment. I wonder if a violent scene, even if used with purpose (as, ironically, was my intent for this very video!), serves nothing but to perpetuate and encourage violence itself. I wonder what it says about the state of our society that we not only view these films, but encourage the production of them.

Be advised that this video is extremely violent, watch it at your own discretion.

The following is an excerpt from a previous discussion with a friend…. there is far more and this friend did punch many, many holes in my argument, but I will just post a general glimpse of my inner confusion in relation to this topic.  I do not know what to think, but I do know that I do not think violence in film should be banned.  That said, after making this video and thinking about it, I am not sure if I would ever myself create a certain type of violent film…. or watch and be blindly entertained by violent films in the same manner.  The research that went into the creation of this video made me physically sick. 

I think a problem with cinema, in general, is that it portrays people in black and white, good and bad… and once somebody is “bad” it is somehow okay to smash their head in with a baseball bat. Isn’t it a little odd that often the “good guy” kills far more people than the bad? You don’t think there’s something wrong with applauding death, no matter the circumstance? Furthermore, I think their is a transference of those ideals to everyday life; black and white, us and them, and i think that is dangerous, because it gives “us” justification to kill, an obvious example being war. I’m sure you and I aren’t pro-war, but the fact is nevertheless wars occur. I love that you trust people, but I don’t know if I do, so much around me says otherwise.

It seems that the nature of film encourages us to give more credence to the reason than the fact. Is that right or wrong? I don’t know, but it’s interesting to me…. our evaluation of reason will constantly change, but what is will never leave us. 100 years ago people truly believed that segregating First Nations people into reservations, and filtering their children through residential schools would help ease our cultures together…. now what do we believe? All I know is that it is true that killing is wrong, and if I show it, even if I believe my audience will know better, even if I believe my intentions just, I will never escape the fact that I am showing it.

Just because something is fantasy, it does not mean it cannot affect us or affects us less. Ifanything, I believe it can affect us more! Because as we enjoy these things we absolutely let our guards down. For example, there are hundreds of stories in the bible, parables, that are clear cut fantasy, yet people obviously take those lessons to heart; a metaphor can be more powerful than fact. Further yet, the creator is a person in himself – what does it mean when people choose to fantasize about things like, for instance, “Natural Born Killers?” Is it okay that we are giving people a way to express abusive behavior? Just because you would never do these bad things we see, and I know you never would, is it okay to laugh/be entertained by it? What if somebody is entertained by watching simulated, fake, staged child pornography, is it okay for them to watch that under the condition they would never act on it? How about that genre of extreme torture porn?

There are many examples of children and adults directly emulating behavior on television and cinema. In Norway two children beat another child to death, it was later found that they did so because they were trying to be like the Power Rangers! In the U.S. a teenager shaved his head, and killed his parents after watching “Natural Born Killers.” John Hinkley, an adult, shot Ronald Reagan to impress Jodie Foster, or rather, a character she played in a film (Taxi Driver). You can say that these people are screwed up to begin with, but that is like saying people will kill anyway, why restrict gun access? Furthermore, these instances, and there are many more, are directly inspired by violence in film. That is, I believe that if said violent films did not exist, these specific cases would have never happened. My dilemma is – what happens if I make a violent film, and I find out that somebody, somewhere, killed another directly because of my film? Am I really going to say they would’ve killed somebody, someday, anyway? How could I forgive myself? I know I can’t live life being afraid of the actions my choices might incur on others, but I also can’t make blind choices. It’s a delicate line, I don’t have an answer.

Their was an interesting study I just read about – basically, it analyzed crime rates in the United States, Canada and South Africa between the years 1945 to 1974 when South Africa did not have television whereas both the United States and Canada had television. His results concluded that the homicide rate in the United States increased by 93 percent [and] in Canada the homicide rate increased 92 percent. In South Africa the homicide rate declined by 7 percent. I mean, there are so many things that point to violence in media as a definite problem. Am I going to disregard that, because its not a problem for me?

Darfur

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.”
-Mother Teresa

I found some pictures drawn by children from Darfur, and they really affected me, so I wanted to share a few. Without much adieu:

Abd al-Rahman, Age 13
“I am looking at the sheep in the wadi [riverbed, or oasis]. I see Janjaweed coming—quickly, on horses and camels, with Kalashnikovs—shooting and yelling, ‘kill the slaves, kill the blacks.’ They killed many of the men with the animals. I saw people falling on the ground and bleeding. They chased after children. Some of us were taken, some we didn’t see again. All our animals were taken: camels, cows, sheep, and goats. Then the planes came and bombed the village.”

Taha, Age 13 or 14
“In the afternoon we returned from school and saw the planes. We were all looking, not imagining about bombing. Then they began the bombing. The first bomb [landed] in our garden, then four bombs at once in the garden. The bombs killed six people, including a young boy, a boy carried by his mother, and a girl. In another place in the garden a women was carrying her baby son—she was killed, not him. Now my nights are hard because I feel frightened. We became homeless. I cannot forget the bad images of the burning houses and fleeing at night because our village was burned…”

Doa‘, Age 11 or 12
Janjaweed descend on a village on horses and camels, a woman flings her arms in the air as she is targeted for sexual violence or execution. A soldier takes a woman to be raped. She has a cell phone next to her head: “She wants to call the agencies for help.”

Salah, Age 13
“There were soldiers from Sudan, Janjaweed, and planes and bombs. I saw the Janjaweed take girls and women. The women were screaming. They seized them, they took them by force. The pretty ones were taken away…Girls were taken, small girls too, I think 5 and 7 and 14. Some came back after four or five hours…some we haven’t seen again.”

Magda, Age 9
“We were running from the burning houses. Janjaweed and soldiers with guns and planes and bombs came, all together, quickly. They were shooting…my uncle was shot. I saw them taking women and girls away. All of us—my family—we were screaming and running from the Janjaweed to hide in the wadi [riverbed or oasis]…holding each other by the arms to keep together. Here in camp we are safe, but my father…he was lost.”

Ala‘, Age 13
Like many other children, Ala‘ witnessed conflict between rebel groups and the Janjaweed. This drawing depicts a rebel soldier first shot in the arm, then executed by gunshots to the groin. Ali, a teacher in a refugee camp, said the rebels are killed this way to emasculate them. “They [the Janjaweed] know what they are doing,” he said. “They are doing it with purpose.”

You can view more drawings here

Indeed, the irony became savage today when Annan went on to invoke Edmund Burke’s famous declaration, “all that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.” For “nothing” is precisely what Annan and the US administration of Bill Clinton engineered in response to the desperate plea for intervening troops from Lt. General Romeo Dallaire, UN force commander at the time of the genocide in Rwanda.

Moreover, “nothing” also comes perilously close to defining what the international community is providing in the way of means for halting current genocide in Darfur…

It is incredible to me that what is happening in Darfur is happening.  It’s shocking to me that I don’t remember reading anything about it in the paper the past couple of days…. not even in the back pages!  I mean, this is genocide!  What’s even scarier is that it’s not the first time something like this has happened, and not the first time we have turned our backs.  I’d have thought we’d of known better by now. It’s a commonly held belief that things have to effect us before we can effect them… but why?  It makes sense, but I don’t understand it!  It’s so confusing to me, and its not fun to think about, but it tears me up.  Everything I do seems senseless in the face of these horrible things.  I’m really confused, nothing makes sense right now, so I’m going to stop writing.  Here are some links to some interesting sites, some regarding Darfur, some not:

• http://savoheleta.livejournal.com
• http://coalitionfordarfur.blogspot.com/2005/08/genocide-and-statistics.html
• http://hrw.org/doc?t=africa&c=darfur
• http://www.passionofthepresent.org/
• http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/3496731.stm
• http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2007/mar/14/comment.sudan
• http://www.americanthinker.com/2006/12/how_the_media_and_the_left_hav.html
• http://www.amnestyusa.org/Darfur/Reports_and_Background/page.do?id=1041056&n1=3&n2=52&n3=1172

Although statistics are hard to track or validate in Darfur, here are some general ideas:

• The conflict has affected more than 2.6 million people in Darfur and Eastern Chad (US Govt., UE, UN)
• 1.85 million people are displaced within Darfur (UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs)
• 15,000 people die each month (International Coalition for Justice)
• 200,000 have fled to refugee camps in neighboring Chad (UN High Commissioner for Refugees)
• More than 20% of children under five years old are suffering from severe malnutrition and many are dying each day (UN World Food Program)
• Only 50% of persons in need are receiving food assistance (UN World Food Program)
• In March 2005, UN Undersecretary-General Jan Egeland, warned that as many as 3 to 4 million people could need food aid in the coming months.
• In April 2005, the World Food Program announced that a drastic funding shortfall would force them to cut food rations by one-half for one million Darfurians.

 

Critical Review – Stephen Waddell, Contemporary Art Gallery

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.”
-Scott Adams

Today I ardently stumbled into Stephen Waddell’s show at the Contemporary Art Gallery.  Considering my  glorious mood (sarcasm intended), I was pleasantly surprised to find myself basically alone.  It was just me and the art. I went in knowing very little about Stephen Waddell or his practice, only having glimpsed briefly a few of his photographs.  I wasn’t excited, but I also wasn’t apprehensive, which, perhaps is the best state to be in when viewing something; alone and without care.  That doesn’t sound very appealing, but I assure you it’s meant to be.

Considering I later found out that the show was intended as a sort of retrospective, featuring many of Waddell’s earlier works in order to give perspective to his more recent ones, I fortunately stumbled into the room full of his earlier works first.  Initially, I was overwhelmingly unimpressed; the first thing that caught my eye, fittingly (I’m a film student), were two super 8 videos being projected on to a couple of walls (at right angles to each other).  So I sat down and let myself watch these videos; one was a series of people, shot from behind, unknowingly being followed, the other a long, over-cranked shot of a person with a shirt over their head, just sitting.  Both were interesting in a voyeuristic way, but made me feel empty.  Being I wasn’t particularly in the mood for empty, I continued around the rest of the room, a series of photographs and paintings.  Although, I couldn’t have cared less for the paintings (in my opinion, lazy Impressionist imitations), I must say the photographs did strike me.  They were beautifully composed, yet the content found within seemed, well, “found;” it felt like street photography, but it did not look it.  I found myself staring at these photographs, and losing myself in a kind of visually beautiful voyeurism.  I had never associated something aesthetically beautiful, or, in fact, any beauty at all with voyeurism, so I was pleasantly surprised to find myself having a somewhat unique experience.

This was a good introduction, or warm up, leading into my exploration of the second room, full of Waddell’s more recent work.  Thankfully, there were no paintings here, just an array of physically large photographic prints.  Each single print was colorful and vibrant, beautiful, yet still contained that voyeuristic element.  I found myself entranced, I have always believed in the magic of life, of the random, of the small, seemingly ineffectual things, and here I saw parts of that feeling captured.  Most of the photographs were mundane snapshots into stranger’s lives, for example, a photograph of a woman, looking and walking away, half obstructed by an out of focus tree.  Or a picture of a man simply fishing.  I found myself questioning, curious, as to whether or not these scenes were constructed or directed, but the question concurrently seemed rhetoric; somehow I absolutely knew they were not.  It’s strange how you can look at a photograph and tell whether the subject is conscious his or her  picture is being taken or not, even if only by their posture. 

Interestingly, the piece that struck me most was the only one devoid of people.  I wonder if this says something about me?  Anyhow, the photograph (which can be seen below), is titled, “Pile,” and is basically, well, a pile of of waste.  This photograph struck me for two reasons, the first being that my first thought upon seeing it was, “there will never be a painting as beautiful as this.”  I don’t now agree with that statement, but that’s what I thought at the time.  My second realization was that if I had seen this scene in real life, I most likely would have been disgusted by it, or at least felt impartial.  Essentially, Waddell has succeeded in forcing me to look at something in a completely different way.  

It is fascinating to me how the photograph of something, or rather, the representation, irregardless of medium (film, literature, whatever), somehow transfers purpose, meaning, to it’s subject.  Even me, just writing this review here, rather than telling you how I felt face to face, seems somehow more poignant.  Something always seems inevitably lost in the articulation, but at the same time found, and I think that is one of the things that intrigues me most about art.  There is something about the translation of reality, that almost insubstantial place, that seems so insurmountably far removed – and because it is far removed, that much more profound.  Perhaps that is what grabbed me most about Waddell’s photographs – he has captured the everyday and removed it from the everyday, giving frame to the mundane.

“Life is the art of drawing sufficient conclusions from insufficient premises.” Samuel Butler