Art for arts sake and room for commercialism

Okay, so, truth be told I haven't gotten to read the whole of the article because I haven't gotten my hands on a copy of my own yet, but thank you Trisha for letting me peak at yours. BUT I was in class on friday and I kept thinking the whole time about theory, and how artisotle or plato or one of those dead guys that Iwaniki goes on and on about is relevant here!! I never thought I would admit that something I heard in that class was relevant to the real world, but it's like.. the more i learn, esspecially this semester, the more all my classes start to like.. enter-lock... it's kinda weird.. BUT.. Why do we have to find meaning in EVERYTHING.. one of the texts I recently wrote a paper on said, this is my haphazzard way of quoting because I forget all the important stuff like author, that trying to overlay meaning onto anything.. literature, movies, art.. is a sign of displeasure with the actual thing itself, like, we for some reason can't just take things for what they ARE so we have to dig out some kinda meaning that may or may not be what the author/painter/producer intended. It kinda makes me sad. But if we didn't do that what would advertising people do with thier time? And how could we close read things for classes like Banash's? Still, I think there is something to the notion of being skeptical about how we symbolize everything, of find symbols in everything. It's like that secret decoder ring prof Allison talks about.. Damn, they are all enter weaving...

Also, our discussion about the italianicity thing reminded me of a documentary i watched in another class this semester, see they ARE ALL dovetailing, about Italian men (memees or something like that) in italy who are in thier like 40's, rich, successful and living at home with thier parents until they are married despite the fact that they own HUGE LOVELY homes of thier own. Anyway, one of the "experts" on the issue was an italian sociologist and he took aim at american's saying it's our image, the lone ranger, out on the prarie with only his horse and pistol by his side that makes us all want to move out of the house and live alone. That is funny becaues we don't see ourselves as cowboy like, but many europeans have that picture in thier head about all americans. Just as we see (or I see) the sopranos as the image of all italians. So, if we wanted to make an ad for beans and cornbread in the same style as that pasta ad and market it to italians we could use red and blue and a few picutes of cowboys over campfires. We wouldn't get it, but they would. It's so bizarra how we have such stereotyped images already in our head that like, subliminally control us. I think its weird to be over 20 and sleeping in a twin bed that your mom makes every morning. It also makes sense with this image thing about the third reich stuff that Iwaniki gave us. Images are So powerful because they are so sublinimal. We are persuaded and pushed and pulled by them everyday, but we don't notice it really. It all comes together. But I would become a wacko if I walked around constantly trying to find the hidden meaning in everyhting, they call those people paranoid schizophrenic I think and remind me of the movie Conspiracy Theory. Now I am just blabbering...

I guess I should talk about images in terms of computers since this is eng 480, but that seems assinine because techonology produces so many of the images that we see today.. even photographs are digitally touched up. The only thing that isn't i guess is "fine art", maybe that's how you can tell the difference (see my reply in Trish's post). So why try to isolate only computer images, thats was a dumb idea...

I guess the connection with theory and the image topic is that they are both so multi-faceted. I don't think this post makes any sense. I know what I am thinking, but can't articulate it right now. My day has been long and I want to end it soon. See you all tomorrow in class I hope....