On Andy Warhol

Andy Warhol was a central figure in the pop art movement who made art out of easily recognizable icons from American popular culture. He was also a filmmaker, an author, and a notweworthy public figure. His art included themes of consumerism, mass public appeal, and reproduction. Andy Warhol's ideas on the nature of art are, as he writes in his The Philosophy of Andy Warhol,"Making money is art, and working is art and good business is the best art." Because of statement like this, Warhol could have had motives for his work as an artist that would benefit his lifestyle and status. He was known to comment on this aspect of American society though his art; of embracing celebrity and affluence. I would say Warhol's works us a mode of a media saturated universe and prompt evolution through theft.

Love's Refrain and Sunlight

Based on Frampton's formula for what a film is about, I decided that Love's Refrain was about sunlight. Origionally I was going to say that it was about shadow, but I realized that sunlight is more accurate because all of the shots (except maybe a few) were outdoors, and sunlight is what is creating shadows. I don't think the fact that sunlight was the most prevalant object in the film helps me me much to understand what the film was about. It may be a part of what the film was about in that it establishes a happy, warm feeling for most of the film or gives a sense of contrast between the light and shadow. Maybe this contrast represents the title of the film by suggesting that love's refrain is a constant cycle through times of light and happiness and darker, gloomier trials. However, I think the meaning of a film such as this can't be realized through such purely quantitative method as Frampton's. You could make an arguement that a film must be about whatever appears the most based on your definition of what "about" means. I think that the meaning of a film, though, can be found in a key second or two of a film. For example, if a film is about an idea or has a moral, these can't be physically shown on screen. The characters can be shown learning the moral or experiencing the idea, but according to Frampton, the film would then be about the character, not the idea/moral of the story. Frampton's definition keeps films from being about broad universal truths, because the limitations of what the camera can capture on film focuses the truth onto one or a few characters and their actions as they experience the truth. Rather than being what the film is ultimately about, these characters are simply the mode through which the idea is communicated. The whir of the projecter could be considered the most prominant aspect of Frampton's lecture, but that doesn't mean that every film shown via projector is about the projector. Just as every film is not about film, every sculpture is not about clay, every painting is not about paint, and every poem is not about ink and paper.

Concert in Music 180

After getting out of class on Thursday, I began walking to Klotche as I always do to go to work. It was a little after 11am, and as I passed the Music building I heard some unusually loud music coming from the recital room where we have class for 201 on Mondays. I decided to postpone going to work for a bit to check out what was going on. I poked my head in through the door and was surprised to see that the place was pretty packed. On stage was a three-piece band cranking out some loud progressive rock sounding music. The band consisted of a drummer, a guitarist on electric, and a keyboardist who was also taking care of the vocals. I looked closer at the keyboardist and realized I knew him. I had hung out with him at a Dave Matthews Band concert a couple summers ago (he was friend's brother's friend I believe). I remembered him playing through a bunch of Dave Matthews songs and singing while we tailgated and it was impressive enough to warrant a few beers from delighted people wandering by so I stayed, somewhat intrigued. The band turned out to be pretty good and I ended up being quite a bit late to work! While the sound was a little too loud for the venue (the vocals probably suffered the worst), the band played pretty tight and the songs were interesting. Plus it was fun to see someone I knew doing his thing. I didn't catch the name of the band, which was too bad because I'd like to check them out again in a different setting more suited to a rock band.