Blog #5

The document The Declaration of Sentiments was written by Elizabeth Cady Stanton in 1848 was written in support of women's writes in the United States. The title is borrowed from the famous Declaration of Independence, it is in my opinion used as a social critique of the document. Thomas Jefferson wrote his declaration in 1776 but his sentiments were much older than that. His words were partially borrowed from the philosopher John Locke, who first said that men were created equal, and deserved certain inalienable rights. Several generations later America had won its was for independence and was a free country, but there were still a few inconsistencies with their governing. America was indeed a free country by many standards but for all of the talk of righteousness and equality, women were still not allowed to vote, in fact not too much had changed for them, they were seen still as caretakers for the family, meant to clean and raise children, they were almost second class citizens. This document by some accounts was the first big step towards women's suffrage in the U.S. It came at a pivotal time in the history of the nation, it had been many years since America had won its freedom but it still seemed to overlook many of its own ideas. There was still slavery and women were not yet allowed to vote. This movement reminded that in order to stand behind lofty ideas of freedom and rights, America had to walk the walk instead of just talking the talk.


This document obviously marks a very important step in the slow and arduous fight for universal suffrage, it was not until the 20th century that women even had the right to vote and even longer still until it was guaranteed for African Americans. We as a nation have to remember the past as it was and remember the truths that we stand behind, instead of just using them as a crutch. Our nation is founded on the idea that everyone is equal, and yet it took much more than a century for us to actually adopt many of those inalienable freedoms. In this time of acceptance we must remember that we are in fact a free nation of reason and must seek everyday to uphold those reasons past petty things like ignorance, it is our responsibilities as citizens of the free world to uphold those freedoms in hopes that some day, everyone will enjoy those inalienable rights that we as humans are entitled to.

Blog #4

In the article The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism by Johnathan Lethem a series of questions are imposed in the subject of the arts, or rather on the copying of the arts. Throughout the article Lethem asks questions about the nature of plagiarism, in a society where the word "sue" and "copyright" are everyday words, what does it mean to us when art is "stolen." He mentions that Thomas Jefferson saw copyright law as a necessary evil, something that was more in place to advance the progress of the arts. It is impossible to truly define what is stealing and what isn't, he mentions Bob Dylan's ideas about appropriation, or the borrowing of someone's ideas and implementing them somewhere else. Is this stealing? Its pretty impossible to draw a clear cut line, does someone's influence on you and your use of their ideas in your own creations count as theft? In a capitalist society where art is viewed as a commodity and where money makes everything happen, copyright is in place to protect one's intellectual property, or rather to make sure that you are paid handsomely when someone takes a few to many liberties with it. Lethem poses the question "is that right?" Well there is no real answer, our society is the way it is and that's pretty much final. But where is it that we draw the line. He mentions a music historians conversation with Muddy Waters, Waters sings him a song that he wrote, describes when he wrote it and why. The historian notices similarities to a song written by the extremely influential blues man Robert Johnson and asks Waters if he knows anything about the song. To his surprise Waters recounts that he heard the song by Johnson from his own teacher, he recounted his own personal conception of the song while at the same time acknowledging the source of influence, there was no concept of stealing, it was simply part of the creative process. Finally what I found a very interesting addition to the paper is at the end Lethem broke down every paragraph of his paper and revealed the sources of his sentences, the whole time he had been making references to all sorts of creative media, whether the reader picked up on it or not, and cited every one from movies to books to quotations. I found this the strongest part of the article, a cementing of the idea that our society is made of its past and indeed its influences.
My own impression of the article is on of fascination, its something that I have thought of many times myself. We are built on our influences, nearly everything we do is in some way drawn from something that we have taken in at some point. In fact I would maintain that the things that we collectively experience in that exact combination is what makes each of us individuals, an individual formed out of other people's ideas. Indeed it seems that no one example of art contains no reference to something that came before, whether the artist is aware of it or not. Our idea of aesthetics comes just as much from our evolution as it does our personal ideas of what looks or sounds good, which just ties back to the things that we have seen. I found the article very informing and well through out and indeed readily added to my own thoughts on the nature of plagiarism and influence.

Blog #3

The article "Art in the Age of Digital Distribution" is an in depth look at the future of new media art in the aftermath of digital society. It pays very close attention to the doc com boom, in that it was a time when society began to take the internet into mainstream focus, in turn art had to adapt. With so much focus put into advertising on the internet art had to change, where much of the advertising art was still analog and the most complicated technology required was a printing press, art had to become purely digital. It discusses the impact that the pop art movement had on today's digital artists and the aesthetics that digital art began to take on. how many of the artists today had no affiliation to a company, whereas most digital art is generated through a large corporation for advertising, many artists choose to use technology for their own personal art. In the article it is discussed that many forms of conceptual art rose in the eighties, meaning that they earned their recognition, but due to its close ties to the internet, new media art was introduced as a mainstream art form. Because there was money to be made by this form of art it was very quickly adopted just because of the vast sums spent on it by companies looking to earn profits on the internet.

This article helped to put into perspective the use of digital art in this society. It helped to place this art form in society instead of simply presenting it as it is. It is extremely important to know the origins of really anything worth knowing. And choosing to become a digital artist in a digital society requires knowing digital arts place in that society. The article discussed the advent of conceptual art in the early nineteen-hundreds and the impact of pieces such as Duchamp's fountain. We are in a time that is still feeling repercussions of the conceptual art movement and its very important to be able to place digital art within those bounds. Because while so much of the art is simply there to sell products, it still has an origin and it still holds a place in art. In other words it has a past and a foreseeable future just like any art movement.