Every few weeks, I take a trip down to Clemson, SC to visit my girlfriend over the weekend. As you approach the campus you will find Clemson paw prints on the road, marking that you have entered Clemson territory and Clemson-clad automobiles speeding towards the campus with paw-print stickers and flags flapping from their windows. On days where there is a home game on a Saturday, you feel as if you are a part of some massive pilgrimage to a holy site. I think it's safe to say that football is a defining characteristic of Clemson, given how crazy and dedicated their fans can be.
Most football-crazy schools have traditions and rituals that are performed by the players. At Clemson, the players and staff make an extravagant entrance before the start of the game, which can be seen in this video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbvtdXHXaLU
You can see from this video of how much excitement is incited by this ritual. The stadium becomes this "ritualized space" for football, filled with orange-garbed fanatics, screaming "GO TIGERS!" Perhaps the most interesting part of the ritual, is that all the players touch the rock halfway down the hill onto the field. It's as if this rock has a power that can turn the tide in their favor before the start of the game. In this week's reading by David Chidester, players often perform ritual actions to control the 'unforseen' (747). This action, performed before the beginning of each home game, has an effect that strengthens the team and if performed correctly can give them the advantage even before the first snap. From an outside perspective, it seems like a silly superstition, however, to those fans and players, touching that rock is an integral part to the game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmeLvrDRQ5c
Monday, November 10, 2014
Monday, November 3, 2014
What is Art?
During the Spring semester of my freshman year of college, I took a visual arts course. Prior to taking the course, I had very limited exposure to fine art, never once taking an art class - well except for culinary arts in high school. Nevertheless, I had mixed feelings of trepidation that this would be a struggle for me to get through and curiosity at a topic that I had not put much thought into. The course consisted of a mixture of lectures and class meetings at art museums in Uptown Charlotte. Among the museums that we visited were the McColl Center, the Mint Museum, the Gantt Center and, my "favorite," the Bechtler Museum.
As the course progressed, I gradually developed an appreciation for the arts, noticing the artists' motivations behind each piece and taking in the aesthetics of these works of art. Everything was fine and dandy until we reached the Bechtler. Modern art has been and continues to be a mystery to me. I understand that artists are always looking for new ways of visually expressing their emotions - and I admit that some of these new expressions are actually personally aesthetically pleasing and meaningful - but when do these works cross the line between a work of art and something that doesn't belong among the great works of art.
This had me thinking of how we consider something to be a work of art. Is it something binary, as in it contains a set of criteria that must be met in order for that particular piece to be considered art? Or is it more subjective and can be viewed differently from person to person. Perhaps in my case, art is in the eyes of the beholder similar to how Mary Douglas defines dirt. In "Classifications and the Philosophical Understanding of Art," Ruth Lorand explains different philosophies behind the classification methods of art and what can be considered art. A major point to take away from this reading is that the concept of art is not binary. We do not simply look at a statue, painting, poem, or novel and decide whether it is art or not. Instead, we would state, "Oh that was a beautiful work by Picasso," or, "This poem is awful!" Art is described based on a qualitative analysis, which means that although I might dislike the modern paintings that depict random colors on a canvas, I still see it as a work of art, although an awful one at that.
As the course progressed, I gradually developed an appreciation for the arts, noticing the artists' motivations behind each piece and taking in the aesthetics of these works of art. Everything was fine and dandy until we reached the Bechtler. Modern art has been and continues to be a mystery to me. I understand that artists are always looking for new ways of visually expressing their emotions - and I admit that some of these new expressions are actually personally aesthetically pleasing and meaningful - but when do these works cross the line between a work of art and something that doesn't belong among the great works of art.
This had me thinking of how we consider something to be a work of art. Is it something binary, as in it contains a set of criteria that must be met in order for that particular piece to be considered art? Or is it more subjective and can be viewed differently from person to person. Perhaps in my case, art is in the eyes of the beholder similar to how Mary Douglas defines dirt. In "Classifications and the Philosophical Understanding of Art," Ruth Lorand explains different philosophies behind the classification methods of art and what can be considered art. A major point to take away from this reading is that the concept of art is not binary. We do not simply look at a statue, painting, poem, or novel and decide whether it is art or not. Instead, we would state, "Oh that was a beautiful work by Picasso," or, "This poem is awful!" Art is described based on a qualitative analysis, which means that although I might dislike the modern paintings that depict random colors on a canvas, I still see it as a work of art, although an awful one at that.
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