Koyaanisqatsi Film Score-Phillip Glass
Destruction of Pompeii and Herculaneum
Both of these were examples in class that struck me right away and so I have decided to include them in my examples.
O Fortuna-Carl Orff
This song is one of my prime examples of sublime. The energy it carries along with the rising and falling of harmonies create an intense and powerful feeling which inspire sublime within me.
Planet Earth by the BBC Natural History Unit
This is just one episode of many more but Planet Earth offers some of the most sublime shots of the natural world. Their team creates stunning results through years of filming and also, David Attenborough’s voice is amazing. This is the most visually stunning documentaries I have ever seen.
Lord of the Rings: Return of the King
While there are many shots throughout the entire Lord of the Rings franchise that offer examples of the sublime, this one from the third movie is probably the most powerful. The scene is of Gandalf riding towards a troop of Gondor soldiers while fending off the Nazgul with his staff. The music and cinematography create a blissful contrast against the chaos that ensues from the attack. The fear of their attack, along with the pleasurable serenity offered by Gandalf’s protection create a very interesting mood in the scene, one that could be comparable to the sublime.
Restrepo directed by Sebastian Junger and Tim Hetherington
This is a documentary that follows a group of soldiers in the Korangal Valley of Afghanistan, one of the most dangerous places in the world. The raw grittiness along with the actual danger these soldiers face is unparalleled in any documentary I have ever seen. The shots are comparable to those of Planet Earth, just not as high quality and containing a different subject matter. It is more powerful however as the danger these soldiers face is so real, yet their story is told in a way that eases the blow of this danger. It is a powerful sublime movie that is filled to the brim with fear and pleasure.
On Friday, September 25th, I attended the visual symposium on liberal arts held at KCAI. The symposium discussed the different liberal arts and the opportunities they offered. I did not pay close attention to the art history presentation as it is not something I am very interesting. I absolutely love history, especially American history, yet something about art history bores me entirely. I think it is mainly due to the fact that the methods and intricacy of pieces are never fully examined and only shown as they were found. The exact way things were made, and the reasons they were made are only briefly mentioned if at all. This takes away from the interest these pieces create and causes me to lose attention.
The poetry presentation was pretty amazing, however. It was interesting that it did not start at a certain time frame, but showed where poetry was at in this moment in time, while also incorporating poetry over the course of history. It’s befuddling to see how open ended poetry is but that also somehow interests me even more just like philosophy. It is a philosophy of language instead of logic, and so incites some creative philosophy that takes understanding farther than reason can. Overall I enjoyed the concept of form and content that analysts of poetry are concerned with, and how the lines that separate them are very fine and must be examined thoroughly to find the differences, if even at all.
On Friday, September 18, I attended the Visual Symposium over Painting at Kansas City Art Institute. The presentation was decently delivered, but my perception of the painting department has changed dramatically. As the two spokesman got deeper into their presentation, I felt myself becoming more disinterested in what they were saying. The type of art they were getting into is something that I highly dislike. In my opinion, it takes away from the true value of art as things lose meaning. I understand that the painting department is extremely old, along with the field of painting in general. I also understand that painting can be so much more than just paint and a canvas, which is really awesome as it allows artists to explore an immense field of study. But when things start to get too ambiguous, they lose their right to be called art. To me, art is creation with purpose. From what I got from the painting department is that you can create anything and as long as you make up some deep meaning around it, it can be considered art.
In a way I find this cheating. Ambiguous forms that have no semi-clear meaning are little more than trash to me. If something is very abstract but I can see the technicalities that went into it, or that it is visually stimulating then I can appreciate it, but when things are randomly thrown together and then you are forced to search for a meaning with no context clues and no idea as to what the artist was saying, than in the end its hard to consider a lot of it art. It felt as if the speakers were only trying to justify why it is that what they do was art. Again it’s very awesome to have that sense of freedom, but when things become too out there, how can they change someones perspective or add to their life in a way that stimulates their senses or cognitive functions? Overall painting would interest me, but some of the things they do would most likely frustrate me as well. It was an interesting presentation however and I can’t disregard painting as a major just yet.
Ol’ Dirty Bastard
Terminator 
Cornholio
I have always looked at the ‘Selfie’ as a slight form of narcissism. While I have participated in the act of selfie taking, it was out of necessity for social media profile pictures. Never before have I looked at selfies in the way these articles described them. The idea that humans cannot experience their own body in a subjective manner means that we are always trying to get a sense of who we are through outside eyes. This can be seen as a self affirming action that stems from the ego, making it seem a little more natural than I had previously thought.
The question I still have however is whether or not the act of taking excessive selfies is still a conceited act. Is it conceded, or is it a reaction to the new social media sites in which a selfie can be your only identity? If so, it would be best to take many selfies in order to create a more rounded idea of who you are as a person. The only problem is that the pictures are still two dimensional, leaving a large amount of the content open to interpretation. Even so, the selfie can still act as a buffer between an online persona and a real one, with a larger collection being able to come closer to defining who you are as a person. Either way, I don’t see the selfie as something that should be shunned. It’s a persons choice on how they wish to document their experiences. The only problem that comes from a selfie is whether the person is able to see around the screen and appreciate the truth that lies in the real world around them. I see too many kids these days documenting every action they participate in. This takes away from their experience as they are looking through their lives on small screens. Screens that show only the highlights, and not the dull, slow, in-between moments. It is detrimental to human experience as people lose the ability to enjoy the present, always searching for the next highlight reel to impress their friends. But then again, maybe this new form of social interaction will open the door to advancements in communication never before seen. Only time will tell whether the selfie could be the next email, or an emoji the new form of hieroglyphs.
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austinlionberger 
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