Author: JOANNE HUANG

I want to creat a tool that can help to put all of your makeup in one sitting. Probably within a few minutes? I know that a lot of people struggle with their time spend on putting themselves together after they wake up, this tool can be used before they go to bed so that when they wake up, they can be ready to go right away! This tool can be a robot that is given instructions what to do, and each step to follow. It is also weightless, you wouldn’t feel anything while this is being put to use.

In Walter Benjamin’s The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, the part about the “Aura” really stood out to me. Benjamin explains the Aura as the unique feeling you get from something authentic, like an original piece of art or a special place. He describes it as a mix of closeness and distance, it’s something you can’t really recreate or duplicate. But then he talks about how film changes all that, and I found this part both fascinating and a little unsettling.

One part that stuck with me was: “With the close-up, space expands; with slow motion, movement is extended… it reveals entirely new structural formations of the subject.” To me, this is where Benjamin shows how film breaks apart the Aura. By zooming in or slowing things down, film makes us see stuff we’d never notice otherwise—like the texture of an object or the weirdly smooth way someone moves in slow motion. That’s cool because it gives us new ways of seeing the world, but it also takes away the specialness of experiencing something naturally. I also had the experience to go into a darkroom and develop a film myself, the process of screening a picture on to the paper in the dark is really magical. You have to test out which strength of light works best with the film you took and it really takes a lot of patient. Instead of this, we rarely use film anymore, taking pictures on our phone is just so much more easier and quicker.

This idea makes me think about how we experience art and media today. We’re surrounded by photos, videos, and TikToks that recreate moments over and over. Does that mean the Aura is gone? Or has it changed into something else? I’m not sure, but I do feel like Benjamin’s point about film “revealing” new things is true. We can see beauty or details in ordinary stuff that we’d miss otherwise. I still wonder if seeing it through a screen take away the magic? For me, this part of the reading got me thinking a lot about how we connect with art and the world around us now.

The others: In today’s society, we tend to place socialization in the first place. What many people do is for their sack of being in a certain circle and have involvement in the social group. As the internet become more and more technological, the ways to communicate has also evloved. Social media platforms like instagram, TikTok, Facebook, twitter has became viral for the celebrities using it. When people surrounding you starts to use it making it a “crime” action for you to not use it and it seems not normal for this. As time passes, the way people think also starts to change as different technologies increase its performances.

Jobs: Over the years of studying, I noticed how technology is being incorporated in the education. While in high school, many teachers weren’t allowing cell phones but towards the end of senior the use of iPad for writing down notes were allowed. In college, it’s completely normal to use a laptop or a iPad during class and for any education purposes. Throughout the years, many professors also switched from using the blackboard to using a projector with prewritten lecture to teach students. AI is also a rising technology that almost everyone is using whether it’s for work, school, or even daily usage.

As someone growing up watching anime, it’s always interesting to know about the history and how it became what it is today. The picture processing faster than our eye making the illusion that its moving forms the animation itself. As someone that has ADHD, I guess that is the reason animation allows me to sit still and be able to watch it in one sitting rather then reading through a whole book and million different words. Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Steamboat Willie: I’ve actually watched this animation before. This was one of the first clips that Walt Disney released and it has a lot of exaggeration through the clip, this can show that people creating animation at that time was just going through the invention of the anime itself and it has a lot of childlike elements to the clip of the traditional Mickey Mouse. Astro Boy: its really impressive knowing that animation is so common now a days and leads to the modern people forgetting about them used to being hand drawn picture by picture and taking millions of pieces to form a short clip.Miyazaki Hayao also has really great animation movie and he still Insist on drawing the original manuscript by hand which is crazy considering his age and he announced retirement but still came back for another piece debut. Op Hop – Hop Op: watching this actually kind of gives me anxiety but the vision was really impressive and the sound effect along was impressive. The changing shapes and the sudden blackness in between was kind of interesting. I started to think if there was a certain pattern but maybe not? im not sure. #MeToon: this piece reminds me of a traditional animation. A classic voice over with different scenes of drawings reflecting to the voice and there were cut outs of the person interacting with the drawings which was pretty classic. It’s like a podcast in someone’s mind thats very creative. A thinking process when someone talks to you about their life. I can kind of relate because my mind always flows all over the place and I was socked with my friend telling me some people doesn’t have images when they think.

A swirling murmur:gentle yet in constant motion. It rises and falls, far and near, like something flowing in a liquid medium, sending ripples but never settling

1. In the art of noise, Russolo describes sound as something very different from traditional music. As machines and industrialization improved, he started to see how noises in everyday life could be incorporated into art. I also can connect with what he is talking about because, in NY, people always sing and play instruments in the subway. The sound alert of the subway about to come and the singer still standing in the crowd performing is truly a type of art to me. I like how Russolo thinks about the freedom it offers. He mentions there are no limits to what can be used to create art.
2. In the sound of noise, when Russolo sees the art in noises, Cage further expands the idea that even silence is meaningful and that randomness is part of art. I like how Cage encourages people to listen more deeply and really dig into the meaning of things. When recording a CD, artists tend to film in a quiet studio but Cage emphasizes that the background could also be an art and a specialty to the music.

The documentary basically talks about the rise of the copyright infringement and how people like girl talk using/copying others work. In the early times, the government didn’t restrict whether or not copying is something that’s illegal. People then started to rampantly copy and make billions of dollars. With the Great Domitian still encouraging people to develop and grow technology, a young men invented the printing press machine that allows one to copy easily and quickly.  The statue of Anne gave author exclusive rights to their work but the law was meant to have balance. The first copyright law is to maintain a balance between the author and the public. And 14 years later, public people were allowed to copy anything. The copy machine kept improving over the years and getting better, resulting in destruction to the work industry. This is when the music industry came in and profiting over 13 billion dollars. 

1. Culture always builds on the past. Culture is build upon the past since it is when the people started to have any traditions. The past coming first, started the culture that was set up. But the people now are also making culture to the future.
2. The past always tries to control the future. Many people might have assumption towards the future like: if we are doing certain things then people in the future would also. “Controlling ”what the future is being thinked about and what and not t
3. Our future is becoming less free.