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Friday, April 4, 2008

"Artistic Mediation"

We live in a country were we are free to question; free to question different religious beliefs, free to question the governments decisions, free to question ideologies and simply free to ask why. However, just because we are able and free to question, that does not mean that all of us do. Many people assume others now what is best, that what they hear from the media is true, that people in high levels of power know exactly what they are doing. Because many of us do not necessarily sit down and think about every issue in the world and question why it is happening or question ideologies, we need people like authors, speakers, artists, musicians, historians and other people to draw to our attention to different point of views on issues and different ways of seeing everyday ideologies.

An artist sees, reads, creates and translates. They illustrate their thoughts, emotions, and opinions through their artwork. Art creates emotion in every viewer; it can cause sadness, happiness, excitement, puzzlement and awareness. When we connect with a piece of artwork, we remember it forever, we question why we connected with it, or why we felt the emotions, we did? It is because of these questions that are raised when we see artwork, that artwork can be used to alter political thinking or effect political change.

“Speech for the Last Day in America” had many examples of how “artistic mediation” can effect political change and alter political thinking. Through out the speech we saw different events such as 911 and Hurricane Katrina interrupted in different ways. Images and narrative were used to display events or certain people in specific ways. For example, the narrative and images in the presentation portrayed police officers as overbearing and controlling. By portraying police officers in this way, it causes people to question how police officers really are. One example that I loved in the presentation was the grave of America with television screens of news channels and the media on top of the grave. The image offered many meanings and called upon the viewer to question, why are their TV monitors and why would someone display the grave of American in this way? It called to attention how much of an impact the media has on the world.

People respond to things that cause emotion, and artists have the talent of portraying their ideas and ideas of others through artwork, that connects with people. It is because of an artist’s ability to connect with its audience that they can effect political change and alter political thinking.

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