NOTICE: PLEASE WIPE YOUR FATE (thank you)

(WARNING: AUTHOR HAS NO IDEA WHERE THIS BLOGPOST MAY GO, SO PREPARE YOUR "IM OFFENDED" FACES)

        Thinking about it now, wouldn't it be fantastic if our lives were already pre-written? and there was a way we could find out exactly what was going to happen to us? I can just imagine it now.... (cue thought bubble) walking into your local fate clinic (similar to a doctors office),  Taking a seat in the colourfully painted, overly sanitary, crying infant-filled waiting room. Filling out your proof of insurance form (Im assuming fate would probably be some form of preventive care), and then waiting for your turn to see the fateologist. and waiting. and waiting. AND WAITING. Ironically wasting a good chunk of your life to see your future. Finally! The fateologist will see you now. This fateologist (probably some older man (or woman) with wrinkly but firm hands) hooks you up to the fateomotron via suction diddleys and doodleys placed on your chest, also perhaps an ice cream stick looking gadgeridoo that slides (uncomfortably) into your mouth. All in the name of accurate fate prediction. Suddenly, your fate appears on the large fateomotron ocular presentation device (also known as a screen) 

Oh my god!! its you waiting for your more predictions! What a future you've  got ahead of you!!

  Now that that extremely anticlimactic, and seemingly pointless intros over, time to move onto the meat of the post. 

       Fate is not something I think about often, but when i do, i get pretty heated about it. So be prepared. 

      The concept of Fate is something described in many different mythologies/ religions as some higher judgement (not implying that religion is mythology) (just trying to look out for my hide) but anyone can craft a fate for someone else. Take the witches in macbeth for example, they could just be some decrepit looking old hags that love toying with youthful, muscleheads. There was no evidence to their claim. So when they presented Macbeths so called "fate" to him (murdering king duncan), The docile Macbeth, who hadn't even thought of putting the sharp end of blade anywhere near, let alone murdering the king, was now convinced that he was going to murder the king and that it was unavoidable. The idea had become firmly "planted" in his head. 

The witches could have said anything at all from reading a good book, to eating a pile of cats for dinner, it doesn't matter. Once the idea of unavoidable fate was planted in his mind, he was inclined to go about making decisions towards fulfilling his pseudo-mind-implanted-fate. 

TL;DR Fate is not real, it is simply the very human power of suggestion

      Keeping my latest conclusion in mind, I do not believe that shakespeare believed in fate. True, he was from a time where witches, magic and all thinks supernatural existed. But in the story, while macbeth learnt of his crowny-throney-king of glamis-fate, so did banquos son. Why would two different people receive the same fate? Alright, alright that could happen maybe. but Banquos son never did become King. Surely if it was his fate and fate was 100% supernatural superstition (supernaturastition) He would've became king eventually. Conclusion? Shakespeare did not believe in fate.
(unless im missing some facts that may invalidate this entire paragraph, and if so, please leave some harshly worded criticism in the comment section)

(Youve made it to the last paragraph congratulations!)

    Well here it is, the personal connection paragraph. Time for my official stance on the matter. . But first, ill write this disclaimer just incase i go on a semi offensive tangent. (You never know) Is everyone disclaimed? Good.

    Moving on: As for me, I used to be a big chinese food eater (Actually that was a lie i still am) anyway, when ever my family and i would gather around the dining room table for the eating of said chinese we would make it a ceremony to read out our fortune cookies. Going around the table each of us would individually unwrap our fortune cookies and read for the rest of the eager beavers at the table. After each reading, my mother would immediately jump on each of the fates and relate them to your life, for example if my fate was "Money will be the way of lint this month" (in your pocket) She would say ooh! its so right! you'll be receiving pocket money soon! or ooh! your birthdays only in 8 and 3/4 months! She would also bring up the fortune every single time me or money was involved in anything. She thoroughly believed the fate prescribed by this almighty fortune cookie. I was along with it myself, truly some divine power with an omniscient knowledge of everything and anything had crafted this mystical cookie. But no fortune cookie could predict me, whilst strolling past a shop in asheville, witness a local man typing out fortune cookies on his macbook. Was this the conductor? the controller? the almighty omniscient being of lore?

Nope.
This was a just a person. A person who gets up every morning and (hopefully) puts on a new pair of underwear like me, a person that loves a good back-scratch like me, a person that thoroughly enjoys the movie "pulp fiction" (who doesnt) like me.

     Now i dont know if this man was a prophet scribe, or had some inside Nostradamus-esque visions, but this man was controlling people like my mother with these "fates" that he was prescribing. It made me realize that changing a persons view on their life is as easy as typing a prediction, and anonymously sliding it in a cookie for them to open, contemplate, and apply to their own life. This power, "the power of suggestion" is a brilliant thing in that way.

     Drawing upon my past conclusion from previous paragraphs, Yes, i beleive fate is a completely manmade construction. But that does not mean it is an all bad thing. When presented with a Fate, in the end, is what YOU make of it, if YOU are presented with a negative one YOU have two choices, either accept your negative prescribed fate and just let it happen. Or YOU try to change your fate for the better.

(drags soapbox slowly and clumsily offstage)

Give me a (paintbrush) long enough and a (canvas) on which to place it, and I will (paint) the world. - (ART)imedes (This is a blogpost about Art)

Step 1: walk through entire exhibit.

          As I walked through that entire exhibit (Which exhibit was not identified in the question so i'm just assuming the entire museum) (Btw NOT TRYING to make a dig on any of Mrs Gs instructions) I was astounded by the use of various mediums. Modern art can be expressed through so many different forms and technologies that new styles of art, much like a faceful of pubescent zits, seem to pop up almost overnight. I found many of the art pieces combining 21st century technology like video and live cameras and digital surround sound to be extremely entertaining and innovative, and serve as a brilliant way to captivate the minds of people (young children, angsty Teenagers not in class)  who arent necessarily interested in staring at a canvas or statue for more than 5 seconds. So congratulations columbian artists. 

       The feeling I got from this "entire exhibit" was not a jovial one. Like many modern-day-pieces of art depicting real life, there was a sense of being unhappy with the world around us. I think this is due to the self evaluating/reflecting nature of the current generation. Constantly examining the faults in the world (such as loss of cultural identity and assimilation or climate change) leaves you (anybody) feeling quite morose for the future. The use of washed out colours and grayscale emphasizes this.

Step 2: (If you havent bawled your eyes out yet)

     I chose to examine Stacey L. Kirbys PARTicipate. I found this to be by far the most interesting piece as it was an interactive, performance (interactaformance) piece (or performative interaction piece if your name is Stacey L. Kirby) 

Step 3: The Analysis

(BEN citation): PARTicipate - Stacey L. Kirby - furniture and performers (medium) - Varying depending on location (size)

          The "piece" is quite modern in style, making an attempt to emulate those bureaucratic offices that we know and love. Although it is "modern" it is not too modern. The multitude of technology used in the actual piece is from all different ages of bureaucracy. There are typewriters from the 50s and radios, clocks and time stamps from all across the 20th century. This makes pinpointing the actual time period of this piece quite difficult. So im just going to say its "modern" (in other words, its from the grey-office-building-cubicle-generation).
      The subject of the piece would be the declaration of your on-person belongings. To elaborate, The woman in the exhibit handed out notary slips that the "viewer" or "audience" (you) would then list their (your) personal belongings and place the slip in a well organized bureaucratic file cabinet.
The idea behind this declaration was to have people think about what they have on their person at all times. This could be your wallet, your socks, belly button lint, 2014 AFI list of the top 250 movies, and for someone who really wants to engage the main idea/concept. Something ideological.
This leads me to the main idea/concept. The main idea was to declare what ideas/ experiences made you unique from the rest of the people in that room.  (I realize that there were other things going on in the room at the time, with other main ideas but i didn't ask questions/partake in those. Also i dont want to write an E-book on this. Saying that, I should probably stop typing this side note)
This "style" of interactaformance involving the audience writing things on paper while actors act a part is not a new concept by any means (Just think about any theme park where people dress up in those less than sanitary character costumes) but it is an interesting and artistic take on it.

Step 4: (Final part i promise)

This piece seems to have many different layers of meaning to it, making for a rather wordy summarization. (hint hint) We all know about the concept of declaring our "personal belongings" making us consider our preconceived biases, our characters, our histories, and all other things we "bring" into the room. However, This concept is only one part of the big idea. Other aspects of this "big idea" include the entire look of the room. Its all bureaucratic and cubicle-y. This cubicalness serves as a bit of a protest against the common desk job and the loss of individuality. By having us declare our personalities in the most un-creative fashion possibleand assigning us a registry number to represent us, it illustrates how de-individualizing modern day business culture is. and therefore showing how unimportant and meaningless modern culture makes us. A thought that makes any modern day office-working, swivel-chair-sitting baby boomer shed an oh-so tiny tear from their dull, dull eyes.

So the message Stacey L. Kirbys trying to portray? All work and no play makes Jack (or Jill) a dull boy (or girl).
And on that jovial note, good night.

     

An AD-astrophic post.

CRS Crisis Relief - Feb 17 2014 - "Liking isnt helping"- AD - (BEN style citation)

(SPOILER: MORBIDITY) (DISCLAIMER: NARRATOR IS UNRELIABLE) Upon my formal examination of the ad (denotative analysis) I notice right from the gate that the picture has a grayscale filter, indicating that its going to be warming to the heart and will most likely leave us with the fuzzys-feels (Verbal Irony, this ad is clearly going to be one of a more morose nature). The ad features a legless child lying on a hospital bed, in a hospital that seems to be rather dilapidated.  There is blood all over his wound, so his leg was clearly just sliced off in some sort of medical operation. Sorrounding the hospital bed is a group of people with their thumbs up in the fashion of Facebooks "Like" icon (Likon). The childs face also plays a role into the picture. The face is not crying like what you would expect a hurt child to be doing. He is completely complacent and calm. Too calm. When a child or anybody has completely given up emotionally on a situation like this, especially a child, then you know you may have a problem.

Shifting to my deep, philosophical, IB-like examination (connotative examination) lens I instantly know that the hands are referring to Facebook "like to save this girl" type pictures. These pictures are abundant around the social media-verse. This ad points out the fact that simply liking a photo does not actually do anything for the people involved in the picture. These hands are physical representations of the deadly sin sloth. (slothiness). The sin sloth is essentially apathy, which is what this ad is trying to convey about modern "internet" society.

As I previously stated, the ad is clearly targeted towards internet using audience. Ironically, i can foresee this being shared on Facebook and other social media sites. While this is targeted towards an internet audience that is typically of a younger crowd, Using my knowledge of teenagers (of which I have a decent amount of) I don't think many teenagers would share this photo or do anything about it. They would view it probably say something along the lines of "thats messed up bruh" or "OMG Aw look at that baby!", and swiftly scroll on to a picture of a dog in a gangster outfit or something and completely forget about what they  just saw (Purely my opinion on the matter).  The people that would share and acknowledge this (Yet again my opinion) would be older, more experienced people.
I can just see my mother calling me into her room to have a lengthy discussion on what this picture means and having to explain the intended message as apposed to the message she got out of it. While talking about the picture is good and spreads awareness, it doesn't actually do anything for the amputated infants of the world. Proving the pictures point (and my point about Sloth)

Given that the intended audience are ones that spend a majority of their time on mobile devices and social media, i can infer that they would probably be of the first world variety. The picture and the company its from are targeting them in particular as they are the ones with the money (or their parents money) to fund the organizations future non-profit escapades.

The intended audience would probably understand that "no leg = bad for infant" and "poverty = bad for anyone" and cause them to sympathize. I think the tougher part to chew, swallow and digest would be the statement about today's society. When an ad makes a statement of this caliber, it doesn't give a way to solve it. So you are left sitting there with a grimace look on your face and no way to get rid of it. (Unless of course you go and do some charitable work instantly after and then you may feel better but then you wake up the next day and realize that there is still poverty, suffering and amputated infants in the world even though you spent 6 hours at a soup kitchen the day before)

Saying that previous paragraph, the ad really does take a cheap shot to the heart and deliberate pull at our heartstrings. Poverty exists, yeah. but again, we cant just solve it automatically. And calling people a bunch of sloths isn't exactly helping either.


Thanks for nothing, ad. (Unless you convinced someone to go out and donate to charity or provide wheelchairs for amputated infants. Then, in that case, good on you, ad).

FREEBIE

BEOWULF? MORE LIKE BAE-O-WULF (also names and all sorts)

        My name, the combination of Ben and Fisk (or Bmt Fisc if you are Beowulf), are two of my favourite assets. Due to the short syllable count in my name and the common assonatic (assonantic?) (I have just received word that the correct term is "assonant") properties it allows me to use my name in a variety of nicknames, puns and rhymes. This works out brilliantly for me as i loveto incorporate puns and rhymes into my everyday performance. (You might say i like to rhyme all the time as it is not a crime, but not for financial aid in the form of a dime.)
       While I enjoy having my name for the literary qualities, I do not let my name define me (or at least i attempt to) My father is always referring to the "heritage of the Fisk family" and all the storys about lion killing Fisks, barbaric pillage-y Norse Fisks,  and things of that nature. While they are quite interesting storys, they are not who I am, nor will they define my actions. (unless I have to write a blog post about them)
      As far as if I get married (IF). If the woman (Or man, you never know) I marry has a more interesting, and useful name than mine, I may consider changing to theirs.


      On the idea of the dual ordeal, I think about it almost everyday. I live life everyday as Ben Fisk (or whatever you feel like calling me) and struggle with my everyday struggles such as procrastination, School work, The Jeep, Time management, whether my hair is looking good that day, whether I look decent that day, am i narcissistic or not?  (The list goes on). But, as I lead the singular life as Ben Fisk, I am a part of another timeline. The human race as a whole. Dire environmental problems, and how the future of the earth will play out, concerns any loyal BBC reader every single day. I have no personal control of these matters, but I certainly contribute to and am actively involved in the cause and effect.

Wing Young Huie and Margaret Atwood

Wing Young Huie - April 12, 2014 - http://photos.wingyounghuie.com/p988258601/e14f28fd8

At first, all we see is two stuffed rabbit creatures lying on the floor sorrounded by filth, rubbish and discarded things. Probably an image from an old torn down house or something. They are also sorrounded by a hard brick wall.

Upon closer, metaphorical, connotative examination. We notice that these are two soft, loveable creatures lying together in a rough environment. In a world where they are surrounded by  things hard and sharp, that could easily tear the soft and permeable exterior of our creatures. At least they have each other. We also notice that the world around them is rather grey, and they are a bright-ish white, a true sign of individuality. Upon further metaphorical examination, we learn that both these cast out creatures have been much-loved in the past, and received constant love and attention. Now, however, in this new world, they are lonely and afraid.

(Othering: The concept of being different from the rest) - B

Othering in the Wing Young Huie photo is shown through colour, and visual texture. While in the  Handmaids Tale it is shown through ideological differences.