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Project 3

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Project 2

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Response 15: Doomsday - MF DOOM

Daniel Dumile was born in London on 9 January, 1974 to Trinidadian parents. He and his family would later move to New York where Dumile spent most of his adolescence. He and his brother spent their days reading comic books, playing video games, and would eventually start a group called Kausing Much Damage (KMD) in 1988. They produced two albums together, Mr. Hood (1991) and Black Bastards (1993).

Due to the controversial nature of the cover art for Black Bastards, KMD was dropped from Elektra Records and the album was shelved. This came on the heels of the death of Dumile's brother who was hit by a car earlier that week. Dumile, without a group, spent some time living on the streets of Manhattan. Little did he know that Black Bastards was released online and had gained a cult following.

A few years later, Dumile re-invented  himself as MF DOOM, hip-hop's one and only super villain. Inspired by Doctor Doom, Dumile wears a mask on stage in protest of an "Industry that so badly deformed him." The mask and his adoption of the super villain persona was to show that it doesn't matter what the artist looks like, what matters is the music that they produce. He said as much in the song Beef Rapp: "He wears a mask just to cover the raw flesh/A rather ugly brother with flows that's gorgeous."

I'm not the biggest rap fan, but I've found a special place in my heart for DOOM. My growing love for him is a result of his incredible instrumentals. My problem with most rap is the beats. A lot of beats in rap don't have much of a melody to them. Many of them are dark, overly bass heavy (that's coming from a bassist), and only serve as a back beat for the vocals. DOOM's instrumentals are so good that they can be enjoyed on their own.

They add texture to his smooth delivery and the two play off of each other very well. As for the beat in this song; It's probably my favorite DOOM beat. I love it so much that, I've arranged it on guitar and jam to it frequently.

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Response 14: Umbilical Moonrise - Lotus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hU0BxPUkdP0

"Is this Lotus?" I said after my friend, Emily, put on some music with her aux chord. "You know Lotus?" she said in astonishment. "Yeah, Chase and I used to jam on a mashup he made of this and 'China Cat Sunflower' back when we were roommates. This song is in G major." I said. "Lotus is my favorite band. This is off the "Travel" album." she said.

This is one of those songs that I've heard many times (through jamming) but never knew what it was called. After that interaction between Emily and I, I was determined to find out what the song was called. I scoured YouTube for at least an hour until I finally came upon the track. "Umbilical Moonrise" is actually off of a live album by Lotus called "Germination."

As soon as I was re-acquainted with the song, I began to jam to it immediately. It felt like old times again, all of those countless hours Chase and I spent jamming to his mashup came flooding back. It was a beautiful feeling, like seeing an old friend after quite some time. In addition to refining my improv to the track, I've also begun to learn the actual bassline to it, a simple tapping riff, to give me a starting point from which I can improv the rest.

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Response 13: The Death of the Plane.

Art is not something that should be defined nor contained by any one plane. Essentially, what Lygia Clark is saying is that a plane is a man-made construct satisfying our intense need for order and equilibrium. From the plane, we derive shapes such as squares and rectangles that only further our containment of artistic expression. Really, the artistic process is such an obscure, nearly indefinable process that we can only express through rigid concepts such as words or images. The ephemerality of the expression of art can only truly be captured at the moment of conception in the artist’s mind. Everything following is only an attempt to relay that expression via concrete means of the outside world. 

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Response 12: Docile Bodies

I think what Foucault is getting at is that bodies become docile through discipline and discipline is a function of controlling the time and space in which a body inhabits. When someone immerses themselves in a discipline such as biology, their interaction with such is relegated to a specific time and space. We commonly see this in university. One’s biology 101 class takes place in a specific class room at specific times over the course of a semester. In this way, the discipline of biology regulates some of the time and space of those who study it. Docility in this case refers to the allowance of a discipline to control one’s time and space. Other disciplines include the military and monasteries as they too regulate the time and space of its adherents. 

This is extremely relatable society in America, particularly in Fairfax County. It feels like everyone around here is running around on tight schedules trying to get all of their work done. It’s reminiscent of how many of my friends in high school took all AP classes, were involved in multiple extra-curricular activities, and sometimes had jobs or other activities outside school. I used to be jealous of that, like, why couldn’t I do everything at once like they could? One day I realized that that’s no way to live. Going from day to day jam-packed with activities and work, where’s the time for fun? Or where’s the time for relationships, self-reflection, hobbies, and other things? It’s these sort of things that I feel a lot of people in this area miss out on because they are so pre-occupied with doing one million activities at once to serve whatever goals they feel they need to achieve. Just remember to take the time to step back and reflect on it all. 

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Response 11: Analysis of Any Colour You Like by Pink Floyd

Pink Floyd is my favorite band and The Dark Side of the Moon is my favorite album. I’m going to analyze the 8th track off of the album, “Any Colour You Like”. Right as Us and Them ends, Any Colour You Like picks up. They go right into it, wasting no time as they all play in unison, grounded by Richard Wright’s synth chords. It has a warm, caressing texture to it until 1:19 when David Gilmore breaks that texture with hard, wailing guitar notes that play as an interruption to Wright’s chords. After some improv by Gilmore, the band re-convenes at 1:59, building a passionate texture around Gilmore’s guitar. This song is about pure emotion. It describes without words emotional energy via raw musicality and is quite the delight to listen to. It’s honestly one of the best and most underrated tracks on the album. It’s just so beautiful to listen to an elicits feelings of tranquility in the beginning and controlled chaos by the end. It hits a wide range of emotion in that way and fits nicely with the theme of life as emotions are a large part of it.

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Response 10: The Man with an ear on his arm

Wow, that was pretty weird but I loved it! How crazy do you have to be to construct an ear on your arm just for the sake of it? I wouldn’t call it crazy though, it’s actually pretty cool! The whole process behind it was really fascinating to me. They implanted biocompatible material in the shape of an ear into his arm and over time his body fused with it and it became a feeling part of his body. That honestly sounds like something out of a science fiction movie, but it’s not. I wonder what else he would be willing to grow on his body? Maybe in a few years we’ll see the same guy only this time he’ll have grown a nose on his other arm. And then we’ll somehow send all of his smells over wifi so everyone can smell everything he smells. I’m kidding, but it begs the question: what else will he or anyone else grow on their bodies? 

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This photo was taken 50 years ago today - and shows Pink Floyd outside EMI offices in London

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Lmaooooooo

After years it has finally been found

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United Airlines removing overbooked people from flight 3411

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Response 9: The Medium is the Massage/Message

This reading really resonated with me. Media has a profound impact on our day to day lives. Of the plethora of effects elicited by media, one of the strongest and potentially most damaging is framing. Basically framing is The way in which a story is presented (the specific words and images used). In turn, the way in which a story is framed influences how the public will react to it. A prime example of framing is the U.S. media’s depiction of the Iraqis in the Gulf War of the 1990s. Much of the media’s discourse was aimed at depicting them as brutal savages that killed babies and would not engage in diplomacy. The sheer amount of stories framed in this way allowed for the widespread dissemination and overall acceptance of this narrative, making war the only “logical” choice. We know now that it was all lies to get the U.S. into the middle east, probably for oil. But this show the power of media framing. It can be so powerful that it mobilizes a nation to fight for false reasons. It’s quite dangerous, people’s entire worldview can be shaped by media framing at the expense of the “bad guys” who might not even be bad at all, at least not for the reasons the media says they are.  

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Response 8: Critique Method: Interpretation.

This part of the critique method is actually my favorite. I very much enjoy interpreting things and assigning meaning to them. I just like to analyze, and I think it’s really cool that people use art to express their ideas or criticize aspects of society. The piece I want to interpret is actually one of your pieces, the one with the scrolls with some type of hieroglyphs rotating on a dry cleaning rack. To me, that piece is about how certain stories in mythology are recycled and retold under different religious or cultural contexts. Take for instance the story of Noah’s Ark and the flood myth in The Epic of Gilgamesh. Both stories revolve around angry gods or God angry with humanity and bent on renewing the world by means of a great flood. Both follow a chosen man tasked with building a boat to protect him, his family, and many if not all of the creatures of the Earth. And both have the chosen man sending out birds at the end to find dry land. At one time, I’m sure the story in Gilgamesh was regarded as historical fact just as many regard Noah’s Ark as historical fact. But what’s more likely is that both are allegorical tales designed to point out the sinful nature of man and advise against it lest the world be flooded again. It is the cyclical nature of these stories that I felt you demonstrated the best in your piece. Also, the piece stood out to me simply because I love mythology. I’ve read The Epic of Gilgamesh, excerpts from The Torah, Qur’an, and The Bible (revelations specifically) and Edith Hamilton’s Mythology cover to cover at least three times. All of which I consider mythology. 

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Response 7: More on The Precession of Simulation

Another thing this article got me thinking about is mythology. Mythology, for the longest time, was created in times before science as a means to explain the world around us. Mythology was also used as allegorical accounts of things that may or may not have happened (though they may have been considered truthful around the time of their inception) to impart lessons or morals upon the listeners/readers. With that being said, is mythology nothing more than stories simulating events of the times that again, may or may not have actually happened. Is the point of creating these stories to simulate events that might occur in our own lives? To some extent, yes. They may not simulate the events to a T, but they use characters as templates for ourselves so that we may learn from their mistakes. Take The Odyssey as an example. Odysseus was punished for his insolence towards the gods (specifically Poseidon) and was scattered all over the Grecian landscape for 17 years. It was meant to teach people to be respectful of the gods lest they incur their wrath. To us, these are just stories, mythology, if you will. But at the time, this was considered an account of history and was revered as such. But again, it’s just a story. You can see how fictitious tales meant to be allegorical can become reality if one believes it really happened. The same idea can be applied to other works of mythology and even religion. So what is real? Is all that we touch and see real or is what we simply believe in without any confirmation from our senses real? Or can they both be real? Can stories in history be reduced to mythology thus making them nothing more than simulations of events that could happen? Not exactly, but the morals these stories impart have a very real impact on our lives.

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Response 6: The Precession of Simulation

Essentially, what Baudrillard is saying is that people no longer distinguish between reality and a constructed representation of reality or a simulacrum. He uses Borges’ fable of the cartographers to bolster this point. I think he’s really on point with this analogy. People can pick and choose which world events they pay attention to (if any at all) and base their worldview on whichever information they have. It reminds me a lot of the theory of Cultivation Analysis in communication. The theory states that people will construct their view of the world based on what they see on TV (or other media). It follows that those who watch shows depicting a variety of violent crimes or violence in general, they will come to see the world as more violent and dangerous. Our perceptions of reality are based on what we know and what we have experienced. But how do we know what we know? How do we know that reality itself is not a simulation? Epistemology, the branch of philosophy that examines how we obtain knowledge asserts that our senses are valid and that they are our only means of obtaining information about the outside world. But how do we know that our sense are valid? What if everything is a simulation and we are living in the matrix? Questions such as this are impossible to answer but I liked that the article tackled the idea of simulation and it got me thinking about this sort of stuff again.

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Roger Waters Robert Plant XD

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First Project! I think it turned out decently and I hope you enjoy it!