Selfie: Week 4

 

Julianna Menjivar-Sanchez, Son Alone in Kitchen

Julianna Menjivar-Sanchez, Mother Alone in Kitchen

Julianna Menjivar-Sanchez, Son and Mother Together in Kitchen

In my series of images, I am going with the idea that my son is always watching what I am doing and interpreting it in his own way, which can be with his toys. "Monkey see, monkey do." is the saying I go by when I am around my son. I always have to be cautious with what I do because he is like a little sponge who will do everything that I do, sometimes without knowing that it can be bad. So for this series, I am doing something good that he can imitate. I choose to portray in my later video that children can also copy the bad even when we think they might not be looking or even remember what we did. I want to portray motherhood and how our children are our little sponges who catch everything. Two quotes that I can relate to my series from this week's readings is "Seeing comes before words. The child looks and recognizes before it can speak." and "It is seeing which establishes our place in the surrounding world; we explain that world with words, but the words can never undo the fact that we are surrounded by it." by John Berger. The first quote is something that can relate to the saying, "Monkey see, monkey do." People look at things first and examine them, just like children do. This happens foremost before any words are spoken to describe what was seen and interpreted. Seeing is the most important thing, even when looking at artwork. Being able to see art is way different than hearing words that describe it. Art is supposed to be expressed with imagery or tangible things we can see to interpret it in our way. Just like with children, they have to see before they speak about things that might not have the same importance besides just viewing. In the second quote, it describes how important being able to see is because it establishes our place with where we are. Being able to explain things will never have the same importance as being able to see it ourselves than hearing about it through someone else. This can relate to my series because being able to see the reality of motherhood is better than hearing about it because some might not take it serious.

John Berger, Chapter 1 Quotes

"The way we see things is affected by what we know or what we believe." p. 8

"To look is an act of choice." p. 8

These two quotes talk about the importance of seeing/looking. The first quote talks about how what we see and how we interpret things is based on our own experiences or beliefs. This can relate to art, and how it can be subjective to many different people. And the second quote goes over how being able to look at something is something that we choose to do. If we look hard at something, we chose to do that and to be able to study it in our own way. Being able to look is a choice we make.

"A 24-Hour Love Letter to Performance Art" Quotes

"It totally changed the way I look at performance- it's about dedication, and never questioning the necessity of a genuine impulse."

"I'm within my comfort zone so long as I have agency over the poetics of that consumption."

These two quotes is about performance art. The first quote talks about how performance art changes the way people look and give meaning to things that is not just through a canvas or picture. The acts made in a performance give art a new meaning and new creativity to people to show genuine and heartfelt art. The second quote goes over how performance art is within the comfort zone of the artist- they choose how they want to express and show something to the audience. That poetic aspect is controlled by the artist.

Khan Academy Performance Art Quotes

"It often forces us to think about issues in a way that can be disturbing and uncomfortable, but it can also make us laugh by calling attention to the absurdities in life and the idiosyncrasies of human behavior."

"Shifting attention from the art object to the artist's action further suggested that art existed in real space and real time."

These two quotes goes over the the message being conveyed by performance artists. The first quote talks about how performance art can sometimes be uncomfortable for both the artists and audiences, but it calls attention to the audience eyes and minds to think deeper and understand what is trying to be told through the theme. The second quote goes over how art can also be an artist's action than rather only being an object. Art exists in any shape or form and any message can be taken from it by others.