Graham, 9 / 24/ 09

I think that going to the art museum was really beneficial, because it helped me to better understand the readings that were assigned in class. We discussed the concept of what is the first? What is the original? It is hard to determine, because there are copies and sketches and prints…so it becomes difficult to say exactly what the first one was.
Then, we went into the 2nd exhibition, where the photographer took over a hundred photos of people reading. I thought that this was creepy, because the people did not know that they were being photographed, so it was almost like they were being spied on. I think that the point of this project was to show that different people read in different ways, and they also read different things. In some photos we saw people sitting under a tree reading, but in some photos we saw people stopping and reading newspapers that were scattered on the floor. I didn’t understand this at first, but after someone pointed it out I thought that it was really interesting.
I also liked the 3rd exhibit that we saw, with the faces of the celebrities, and other everyday people. I found it interesting when someone asked why he put white powder on a majority of the women that he photographed. The group leader said that women cover themselves every day with all types of makeup and everything else, so it was just something that was “normal” to do.
In Thursday’s class we went over some more architecture that we did not get to finish the week before. We also discussed the realness of products. For example, Diet Coke…is it real coke? They just try to sell the product and make it more popular, but by doing so they are taking away the very thing that made the product popular in the first place. People like the taste of Coke, but they do not like what it is doing to our bodies so we sell them the same products without caffeine and sugar. Advertising is a crazy thing.