#long story short: media doesnt exist in a vacuum!

[dungeons-and-dragon-age]

Feel free not to answer this if you feel uncomfortable or it's just not something you want to talk about, but where do you feel is the line in joking about the Chantry explosion? Is there a certain tenor of post, vague or specific, that you feel goes too far or generally gets too real? Not asking you to call out specific people and posts, but I was just curious what your thoughts were, because you make a really good, valuable point. Again, sorry if this is a question that for any reason you don't feel like answering.

No worries at all!

Tbh it's kinda hard to define a clear line.. first ofc because it's gonna be different between me and other people, but also for what I personally don't mind and what i find uncomfortable it's kind of a case by case basis depending on the tone etc. so uhh. Maybe it's easier to define my issue with it?

So basically. For me personally, as a muslim (this isn't exclusive to muslims obviously, plenty minority groups get similar media treatment; but this is the experience that i personally can speak of), the entire Chantry Bombing Scenario TM is uh. Not Cool. Because it feels very reminiscent of how muslims and islamic extremism have often been portrayed in media, and from the setup it's pretty obvious that it was supposed to have a similar effect. It was supposed to be a big shock moment to make the player re-think if mages really do deserve freedom, because "but look what that one did!! What if more of them are like that??". And the fact that it was quite literally done through the bombing of a place of worship does Not help.

Which is the other point. Because terrorist attacks like that do happen. It is very much a reality for more than enough people, and having that made light of or even glorified, which.. happens more than i'd like in this fandom, is also not cool to see. Yes, even if it's fictional, and even if it's is a counter reaction to how the game is trying to frame Anders's actions.

So i guess the bottom line is, i don't mind jokes about, say. the absurdity of the bombing. Because it kind of is, in that usual Dragon Age way. Or about inconsistencies surrounding the event, or anything like that. Where it gets uncomfortable is anything that feels like it's making fun of terrorism. But again it's kinda difficult to draw a clear line of where it's just silly and where it starts having Weird Implications

I'm sorry if this isn't very well explained, but thank you for asking!! <3

[devon-spregg-blog]

What we understand by the term Art.

The dictionary's definition of art is: the expression or application of human creative skill and imagination, typically in a visual form such as painting or sculpture, producing works to be appreciated primarily for their beauty or emotional power and the various branches of creative activity, such as painting, music, literature, and dance as well as a skill at doing a specified thing, typically one acquired through practice.

Art is looked at from many different perspectives and is spoken of in several ways however fine art ( visual arts ) is the foundation of what art is, as it covers all subjects such as drawing sculpture, printing and painting .Art is a subject where the artist expresses their feelings ,ideas and thoughts through a given media .Some people argue that some  art isn't art however art isn't just a beautifully painted landscape or a perfectly drawn portrait art is literally anything with somebodys thoughts and beliefs behind it which is turned into something practical .For example Jackson Pollock works in a very loose abstract way ,his work doesnt necessarily give an impression of him being a perfectionist however an artist who works quickly translating his ideas from his head to paper as quick as possible by splatting paint on a extremely large scale . Fine art is a visual form of work, such as drawing, printing or painting whereas general art is different, but they link with each other in the `Artworld`. The modern system of Art is no more than 200 years old, now artists have freedom to create work in any form whatsoever whereas throughout history artists have often had commissions off the church therefore they would have to paint what was asked for. In the old system of Art, Art was made by a craftsperson or artisan and it served a function ,only fairly recently have we come to understand the term ˜art/ ˜fine art ‘to mean a particular practice which is created to show meaning and creativity.

Andy Warhol explains art in a very short sentence `Everything has its beauty, but not everyone sees it.`Many people often say `how is that art? ` or `what has that got to do with the art world? In this short quote Warhol explains that everything is art through an artists eyes literally anything, whereas one person may believe that extremely objective paintings are art another may disagree by saying a print is art or even work like Rachel MacLean's digital pieces. Warhol showed this perfectly and after the modern system of art was created ideas and artworks have begun to evolve. One of Warhol's controversial pieces is the Brillo box exhibition in New York, many argue how is this art when the boxes are the same as the ones you could buy in the shop anything is art when it is being seen through an artists eyes or the viewers eyes. Therefore, Warhol made it no longer possible to distinguish something that is art from something that is not, as everything can be made into art.

Edgar Degas said `Art is not what you see but what you make others see’ this quote can be interpreted in different ways therefore a certain artwork may effect someone in a very positive way whereas it may affect others in a negative way. It could also mean that the artists original idea isnt massively important and that the viewers opinion on the work is more important as everybody will have different opinions on it. I agree with this quote as the artist can only have one opinion on their art however a crowd of viewers will have many opinions and things to say about the art for example how was the work created and what the story behind an artwork is .

In E.H Gombrichs `The Story Of Art it states `There really is no such thing as Art. There are only Artists. Once there were men who took coloured earth and roughed out the forms of bison on the wall of a cave.There is no harm in calling these activities Art as long as we keep in mind that such a word may mean very different things in different times and places. `Throughout time ideas have shaped the world and throughout time ideas change as does culture and society. Ideas that are relevant at a certain time period shape the culture and the art which is produced.

We don't know exactly when art was invented however cave paintings are the earliest collections of art. The El Castillo is thought to date to 40,000 BCE. In addition, sculpture was another example of early art, many of the sculptures focused on Gods &Goddesses making the sculptures appear to be the perfect body as Gods were seen as being perfect. After this there was Egyptian Art, Cycladic art, Gothic art and the renaissance where the art was focussed on detailed pieces often commissioned by the church as well as the other works renaissance art was made to support religious views.

Art isn't created in a vacuum it didn't just appear out of the blue one day, culture and society has always effected art as without inspiration, art cannot come into existence. For example, cave paintings were mostly inspired by nature and without the inspiration the art may of never been created. As art progressed more things such as religion began to inspire artists .In my opinion to create art you must be inspired in a subject for example still life , you must research the subject and also add your own thoughts into your work ,when I create art I often research artists which relate to a certain subject to learn the process of their work ,sketch in the artists style and test in different medias then add my own thoughts and process to my Art.Therefore Art cannot be created without inspiration or motivation its about taking things from the real world and taking them into the ˜Artworld` .