The compare/contrast of the artist statement.

The compare /contrast of the artist statement.

I think artist statements are kinda weird in there very nature. Artist talk about there work and what motivates them to do this work or what the work is about. I find that odd and unnecessary. People should be able to see those thing in your work. The artist shouldn't have to tell me what he is about and what drives him because if its good passionate art I should be able to tell from the paints and canvas or the photo of film. Thats just my personal opinion on what I know of artist statements right now. 

Now to the homework, I looked at two modern painters with 2 extremely different artists statements so it was fun to look at the two side by side. The first piece was a lady named LEANNE VENIER, she approached art in an interesting way. She approached it from an phycological aspect, I really liked this because I have never really heard of anyone directly using  phycological research as an inspiration for her paintings, she the work of Carl Jung to inspire her, so that was new and cool. What I didn't like is that she is a little to over the top hippie healing ways, she's a little crazy and I don't disagree with her I believe in all of that stuff but she is just a little to over the top. 

The next artist is did similar and way different all at the sometime. His name is Mike Kelley and his artist statement was all about using mathematic equations from ancient Egypt and Greece and make them into organic form. Like Leanne, Mike is a little cooky but it seems as though he is truly passionate about what he does and I think that is something we all can appreciate.

http://www.leannevenier.com/mbr_statement.php#.VWYqrGBH1AY

http://www.mikekelleyart.com/mbr_statement.php

Murder!!!!!

Murder!!!!!

Ok! I have read a lot of blogs today and I'm finally getting caught up on all of this reading/writing. My final evaluation of other peoples thoughts on rhetoric are, that its dumb, or that its bullshit or not useful. I COULDN'T DISAGREE MORE!!! I really believe that being able to understand and recognize it in your own life could be one of the most useful tools that anyone could take from an english class. I really enjoyed the murder scene analogy but I'm going to do my own example of rhetoric just so I can apply it to my own life and prove how valuable it can be. 

Scenario: 

A meeting with universal studio head, to talk about an upcoming feature, that they are searching for someone to direct it. 

Now how do you attack this situation and how do you use rhetoric to help you land this gig? 

First you identify what kind of person the studio head is and you go from there (knowing your audience). In a situation where the stakes are high and you're so close to your dream job you have to carefully think and select every word that comes out of your mouth, now the brain is an amazing thing and is doing this in milliseconds but it is extremely important. If you went into an interview like this and let everything that came to your mind out of your mouth you could be portrayed as something you didn't want to be portrayed as. In a situation like this you are in competition with probably 100 different people and you have to convince this man or woman that you are the person that will solve all there problems and win them an academy award. Without being able to sell yourself, without choosing your words wisely, without knowing your audience you will never be able to land this gig and rhetoric plays into all of those things. 

Now thats how I see and how I have come to understand rhetoric so if I'm way off just let me know and ill see what else I can take from it.    :)

Rhetoric

Understanding Rhetoric

Rhetoric seems difficult but we all do it everyday of our live, even if we know it or not. I have come to understand it as the tone of how you are speaking or like my father use to say “its not what you say but how you say it.” I believe this to be true. We go out into our daily live and we adjust how we speak to other different groups of people. We are not usually aware that we are using rhetoric, something in our subconscious tell us that we should alter and tailor our speech to our audience. For example, while speaking to your grandmother you would not walk up to her with your hood up and your pants sagging saying, “Yo granny? Whats the good word old timer?”  Well, most people wouldn’t, most people speak to their grandmother with respect and tailor their speech so granny can follow along and she doesn't think you are on drugs. People speak to their friends a whole lot different then they do to a figure of authority. When I speak to people who don't know anything about film making, I don't use the slang or trade terms to get my point a crossed. I use common words like great and fun, instead of saying camera angle, shutter speed, depth of field, exposure and techno crane. Rhetoric is all about know and communicating to your audience. How does this come full circle back to writing? Well it goes the same for writing, story telling, photography and graphic design. You first understand your audience, so if you're writing an essay to your science professor, you could get away with using big scientific words or slang and your audience would still understand. I believe that understanding Rhetoric is single handedly the best tool for networking and communicating with others and we should all get much more familiar with it. 

About me

 Hello everyone, 

Ok I think I finally figured this all out, I am officially blogging! I have never really blogged so setting it all up took me a second. I don't follow directions so good. 

ok, so now about me, most of you already know me. My name is Ethan Zimmer, I'm 24 years old and I am in my 3rd semester at brooks. Whoa getting up there. I am taking six class this semester like I did last semester and the one before that. I'm trying to get to the real world as fast as possible so I can immediately regret it soon after. 

I come from a small town in Oregon and to me Ventura is a big city, any thing over 50thousand people is a big city to me. I like the small town life but for right now and probably till I retire or die I will be in a big city. Hmm what else? Oh yes I am a film student and I have been enjoying the hell out of it. I find it fascinating to study what entertains people and how to trick them into seeing only what i want them to see. I hope to one day direct my own feature film but competition is tough and it seem as though that everyone who enters film school has the same aspirations, so I'm not really new with a fresh idea, I just have to work harder and want it more than then my counter parts. Thats how I see it, I don't know how everyone else sees it but I come from a long line and history of competitive sports, so naturally I make everything into a competition. Some might see it as a bad thing but America was founded on competition and no one gets better without it