Research and Epistemology

This lecture basically just tell us to base our research topic on our own experience. This reminds me of last year's PPP lesson where we have similar topic and learn how to make good reflection and evaluation for our work and learn from mistakes. Research can be categorized into Primary research and secondary research which is from first hand resources like experiment, survey and taking photos and from secondary hand resources like reading books, journals and news articles respectively.

Although I know all the information by heart, I seldom think about these relationship instead I kind of doing these instinctively and which helps improve my work and myself unconsciously. Nevertheless, research enable us to learn from experiments and to solve a problem also to analysis the results in order to absorb new knowledge to upgrade ourselves. We can also know more about ourselves by finding informations that interested us and make us how we are. 

Censorship and 'Truth'

This lecture we had is all about 'truth' given from media. For example the photographic manipulation and the documentation of truth to the public and how these information change and affect people's thoughts in order to believe the given information is trust-worthy. The most common rendered truth is from photography especially it is related to political crisis, these could be seen as a conspiracy create by the government in the simulacrum. I think this quote is absolutely right about the world we are living in ‘Everybody everywhere wants to modify,transform, embellish, enrich, and reconstruct the world around him – to introduce into an otherwise harsh or bland existence some sort of purposeful and distorting alleviation’ Theodore Levitt, The Morality  (?) of Advertising, 1970. I always doubt when reading new articles and this is a trust exercise the government gives to the citizens, the better the performance (in this case the people who support the given 'truth'), usually the they are treated better than the rest. Historically, revolutions began by a group who question the world or the government and they believe in a different truth and contradicting with such large government, the only path is to success or disappear.

It is also interesting how text can change our interpretation of a picture. My first reaction is thinking how ridiculous these adverts are! This is extremely rude to use such sad accident to modify into commercial use however this is how they work in order to catch our attentions in either good or bad way. We have already absorbed so much wrong information in daily life whether we are willing to or not and this proofs the power media has when interfering our mind and I will say brain-washed.

Another example from myself is the current ISIS. There are a lot of doubt on the news and internet media whether they can exaggerated the events in order to gain more views or censor the information due to conspiracy. There is a radio channel in HongKong which I always listen to, encourage audience of the news to think carefully about the information and not to be affected by the texts. I do not think there can be a specific law to protect us from these censored 'truth' but to be smart and interpret the 'truth' on our own, put forward any individual thoughts and not to be lambs to follow the crowd which is also an advantage we have as living in this 21st century world.

We are talked about should art sit outside of censorship laws exercised in other disciplines. As an artist, I definitely want art to be not restricted politically or financially and sit outside the censorship law. However it is always difficult to be accepted by the public and not always successful in terms of spreading messages to the public since the majority do not consider art as a daily subject.

 

Identity

We had a lecture on Identity. Identity is an essentialism, it can also be the biological make up which makes us who we are and also it can be more theologically the inner essence like the experiences and the institution we involved make us who we are and who we identify ourselves as from pre-modern to modern respectively. However post modern identity accepts fragment and is constructed whom can be chosen.

We also look at identity we have in today's world- virtual character. Since facebook and other social media is so popular in nowadays, people are able to come up with identities they want and have a freedom on the internet. Some people use their online characters to commit goods whereas some do not take responsibility for their actions on the internet.

‘Fun they may be, these virtual communities, but they create only an illusion of intimacy and a pretence of community’ Charles Handy (2001), The Elephant and the Flea, Hutchinson, page 204

This is a serious topic we have to consider about as a member of this new generation. Is too much identity causing problems? Is it too much to handle with or is it simply not a wise idea to speak up their thoughts? I think the problem is growing because people demand when they are restricted, for instance selling animals' fur is not ethical but still some people will want it because some likes to challenge the law and the world.

I think it is worth challenging the identities I see in daily life. Are they really the people owning those identities? how could they be seen in different perspective etc This might be an element I will pay attention to when life drawing.

Core Texts / Essay Briefing / Link to thematic lectures

This lecture we looked at how to write our essay effectively from research to setting a question. We look at examples of harvard Reference and given the website www.jstor.org where we can look for journals, primary sources and books etc which are extremely useful when making research. The lecture has introduced an important issue of what is deconstruction. Deconstruction is an approach to texts which analyse their systems of representation -the systems which frames their communication. I want to look at my hobby which is Japan Anime and there is an issue of eroticism involving in the majority of the animation which makes me curious to find out the seed of the case and any cultural related problem. I am researching both primarily and secondarily by reading relevant books and journals and online resources respectively.

About the essay question, I have discussed with a couple of people like Ollie and Greta, they think my topic is interesting and have given me a lot of advices like where and what to search. After that I have planned roughly what I want to state in my essay:
-is eroticism necessary in Japanese Anime?
-Introduce the 'typical anime'
-when has this been happening in terms of involving erotic scenes
-Why?
-What does this mean to the Japanese in society-wise?
-What are the typical scenes
-Who are the target audience?
-Are there any females animators working on these?
-Define Anime
-Is this happened because of specific working style of studio?manga? or about the culture?