declarations

The first article is the Declaration of Sentiments that pretty much mimics the the 1776 Declaration of Independence, but instead is written for the rights of women. It goes through the rights that were put forth in the original Declaration of Independence and then proceeds to talk about the rights that have been taken from women. The Declaration of Independence is remembered for its powerful words in the regards to basic human rights and this new Declaration is reiterating those rights that have already been set down.

What I found most interesting about these two pieces of work is that they are both saying basically the same exact thing, but it took them 72 years to realize that our government was not actually following our country's original beliefs that they set down in 1776. The Declaration of Sentiments is almost exactly the same as our Declaration of Independence except they are asking for women's rights, something that should have been given originally with the first Declaration. It shocks me to see how women had to deal with such absurd circumstances when the men of our country claim to believe that "all men are created equal". Although, it does say men, who is to say that the women of the country are less then any man. I think that the effect of the Declaration of Sentiments being written in the same style as the Declaration of Independence really made their point even more obvious. I enjoyed reading these two declarations and thinking about how far our country really has come.

The Ecstasy Of Influence Response

  This article was titled The Ecstasy of Influence: A Plagiarism and was written by Jonathan Lethem. In the article he discusses plagiarism and how it is perceived to be such a bad thing. The points he makes throughout the article is that plagiarism is what almost all art forms consist of. If we didn't get the idea from anywhere then, where did it come from? His opinion is that our culture is built through the copying, cutting, and pasting of ideas to create new things.
  I really enjoyed this article. At the beginning of the article he talks about the story of Lolita being taken from a man who was alive 40 years before the book was written. He speculates on whether the author intentionally took the story or if he had heard it some time ago and did not realize. Today we are overexposed to every little thing in the country. If something happens then we have heard about it. Even if it was on in the background while you were getting your hair done and you didn't realize you were listening. So who is to blame you if you come up with an idea you thought was completely original and turns out it had been on tv while you were getting your hair done. The overload of media today makes it hard to not recycle, or refurbish old ideas into something new. I found this article refreshing because he used such great examples to get his point across.

reviewing an interview with Charles Cohen

     In the interview with Charles Cohen there are quite a few topics that are touched on. Professor Cooley starts out the interview asking Cohen about his use of presence/absence in his work. Cohen explains how he wants the viewer to experience three different effects from the cut outs in his work. He goes on to explain how the cut outs in his different series can give such different feelings even though they both involve the idea of two people in some sort of relationship. Cooley also goes into depth to asking about Cohen's take on technology and wether or not all of these things we use daily are actually isolating us instead of further connecting us. Cohen says that he thinks it does cause a sense of insolation and distancing between people. He also touches on the idea of cut outs being used in commercialism.

     Reading this article was interesting to me because it felt like an overview of class on Monday. I thought that the discussions we had in class were very closely related to this interview so that was interesting for me to see it written down to get a better idea of it. I liked reading about the differences/similarities between Cohen's two series and how even though they may seem very much the same they were still very different. I especially liked how he mentioned that he won't put the two series in the same room or display so that they won't compete with each other. I think that his work is very interesting. I aslo liked his take on technology actually isolating us more than connecting us. Overall, I think this article was most interesting because it recapped our Monday class.