When looking at the other group’s collage, I saw many pictures that were related to sex and relationships. One image that clearly depicted this topic was the first image, where there was a man and a woman in bed, which the caption “Let’s go!” Then from the second image, I saw a woman with a photographer next to her with the word “Fantasy” over her image. Based on the third image, I saw two men fighting over a woman. The fourth image showed a woman who was pregnant. These pictures, although all were put in different contexts, they all had one thing in common, which was some sort of sexual activity. However, besides the idea that they all represent sex, I thought these images specified how society views sex today. It has changed from traditional views and can be portrayed in many different ways. For example, from the picture that has a man in bed with the words “Sex” and “Brothel” over his picture, automatically reminded me of Lamar Odom. This Ex-NBA player was found unconscious in a brothel, where it was reported that he had every drug possible in his system. There are all different meanings and it cannot really be rooted back to one definition in today’s society. Analyzing these pictures made me think about the fact that in today’s world, it is hard to set one definition for everything since it would limit it so much. Therefore, like Gordian’s knot, you cannot use one definition to slice the knot in half, but instead, the definition will remain a knot, with all different possibilities.

The pictures on my assigned collage are:

1. A bed with a man and a woman pasted on top
2. A pregnant woman
3. Lamar Odom on a bed with the picture “Brothel” on top
4. A woman in a bikini
5. Lady Gaga Showing a picture of her leg
6. and three other pictures which I thought were pretty random if you consider the patter of the first 5.

There are three words that pop up into my mind.

The first is sex. I came to that conclusion from the picture of the man and the woman on the bed as well as the picture of the woman in the bikini.

The second is intimacy, or rather, “sex with the purpose of family” and this conclusion is drawn because of the picture of the woman who is lovingly rubbing her stomach.

Third is “risqué”. The work means “to shock by being sexually suggestive”. Magazines and the media in general have a tendency to over exaggerate natural things such as a leg but they also have a tendency to exaggerate actual risky things or serious things in general, like Lamar Odom’s health scare. The reason why I think his situation is “risqué”, however, is because he was spending time at a brothel… a place where men pay to be serviced by prostitutes…

As for the other three pictures… I don’t see how they would relate to any of the other categories…

This collage definitely portrayed freedom or flight to me. In the middle is a big picture of a bird, and surrounding it are words such as “peace, air, flight” and “open.” It was interesting that there was also a picture of a gavel on the collage, and a picture of the lady of justice. This somewhat counteracted the freedom in my head, but a gavel can certainly portray both freedom and restraint. It also said “Ask me anything,” which would express freedom to me. If someone is open to be asked anything, then they are generally free and not closed minded.

I also liked the quote on the poster which said: “Everything other than responsibility is extremely appealing to you.” Just reading the quote made me feel free like the bird in the picture. The whole poster works cohesively, even though it is made of such separate entities. They all are connected to one another in some way.

It is also pretty interesting how a picture can have different meanings to different people, as with the gavel. I liked this activity because it allowed us to make any connections we wanted. It allowed us to form the poster without having to rethink and second guess ourselves.

“Hot guys of summer.” “Hot guys and hot models.” “Emojis, hearts, crushes, and pink.” Once I saw the collage, everything about it was screaming HOT. By just looking at these pictures, you can immediately think of various topics and not just one. It can represent sex, desire, passion, etc. But then I see an image of a pizza, an avocado, and a plane soaring through the clouds and from that I immediately think that this can relate to Global Warming. The gradual increase in temperature and climate change. A pizza is round so it can represent the earth’s shape. The avocado has an egg in the middle which can represent earth’s core. The plane soaring through the clouds shows us the atmospheric pressure. Pictures can have a thousand meanings and that is why you cannot just put a simple word or definition to these images.

The collage was colorful and everything seemed to be pasted in all places. There was no uniform way or style of putting the images together. The one bold thing that stood out was the word HOT. The mystery word may deal with the word hot and I believe it is the main clue to the mystery.

“A picture is worth a thousand words,” an expression or quote that a simple image can convey so many ideas. It can tell us a story without using words. The idea of visualization allows us to freely express our thoughts in our minds. There is no right or wrong answer because visual art is made to be looked at a thousand different ways.

When I first looked at the picture that we were  assigned to do, my first impression was that the topic related to science and technology, because this group used a lot of newspaper parts to do their collage. Most of the content seems to relate to technology; for example, they included headlines such as “Science,” “Technology,” an article relating to Uber, and a picture of a car.

However, when I went home and looked at the picture again, I saw something that I had not noticed before. I was able to look at the whole picture since I had taken a picture with my phone. I saw that the parts were all assembled into the shape of a ram/buffalo, so now, I believe their topic may relate to animals.  I think that they had purposely assembled these parts in this way in order to help us realize their topic by looking at the picture as a whole.

From this activity, I learned that we shouldn’t only look at anything at only one angle; sometimes, when you look at something from other angles, you may see a totally different view.

Love is never directed toward this or that property of the loved one (being blond, being small, being tender, being lame), but neither does it neglect the properties in favor of an insipid generality (universal love): The lover wants the loved one with all of its predicates, its being such as it is.

— Agamben, The Coming Community.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kdY0hX68psI

Realism and Naturalism are both literary movements mainly to shape human character and discuss believable everyday reality. There is industrialization and objective thought. Additionally, a change in communication, rise in world literature. Realism attempts to show subject matter truthfully, avoiding implausible supernatural factors. In A Simple Heart, Felicite demonstrates the basic elements of reality, it is relatable. She lives a normal, basic life being a servant and it is reasonable and relatable. There is no exotic super natural elements. Naturalism depicts the social, heredity, and environment conditions that play in shaping a character. In Hedda Gabler, Hedda’s background plays a big role in the story. Her dad is a general and she has a infatuation with pistols. Ironically, she ends up committing suicide with a pistol.

I think both realism and naturalism have the meanings of human desires and human needs. Since human’s desires are always endless and people always want more to fulfill themselves spiritually, people make selfish decision cause the cruel reality. And we are facing realism and naturalism everyday.

In “A Simple Heart”, the maid Felicite was the example of realism, because she was given up by her lover because of her low social status. Also, the story “Separate Way” is another example of realism. Okyo left her friend Kichizo for a better life since she said she had no choice and that was her only way to life better. Kichizo was hopeless after he was abandoned again and again. It was so realistic that no one cared about his feeling because Okyo’s desires was above Kichizo and she had to think of herself first.

The drama “Hedda Gabler” is a naturalism reflection. Since every characters’s behaviors were affected by their social status. For instance, Hedda’s characteristic was so uninhibited that she cheated on her husband and forced Lovborg to die because she grew up in a high class family and she was spoiled.

In my opinion and as my understanding, realism is devised by “someone make an decision for obtaining something they want”; and naturalism is ” someone has an act because of a reason of natural”. Both ideals come from society.

Realism and Naturalism are a shift from Romanticism to the social struggles of the 19th century. We also see that it is no longer the relations of the court but the relations of classes. In the story we read by Flaubert, we had a strong sense of what kind of person the maid was and how she acted with different social classes. We have the working class and middle class that have never been brought up before.