May 2 lecture blog

“Our fine arts were developed, their types and uses were established, in times very different from the present, by men whose power of action upon things was insignificant in comparison with ours. But the amazing growth of our techniques, the adaptability and precision they have attained, the ideas and habits they are creating, make it a certainty that profound changes are impending in the ancient craft of the Beautiful. In all the arts there is a physical component which can no longer be considered or treated as it used to be, which cannot remain unaffected by our modern knowledge and power. For the last twenty years neither matter nor space nor time has been what it was from time immemorial. We must expect great innovations to transform the entire technique of the arts, thereby affecting artistic invention itself and perhaps even bringing about an amazing change in our very notion of art.”
The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical – and, of course, not only technical – reproducibility. Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis-à-vis technical reproduction. The reason is twofold. First, process reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction. For example, in photography, process reproduction can bring out those aspects of the original that are unattainable to the naked eye yet accessible to the lens, which is adjustable and chooses its angle at will. And photographic reproduction, with the aid of certain processes, such as enlargement or slow motion, can capture images which escape natural vision. Secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. Above all, it enables the original to meet the beholder halfway, be it in the form of a photograph or a phonograph record. The cathedral leaves its locale to be received in the studio of a lover of art; the choral production, performed in an auditorium or in the open air, resounds in the drawing room.

     I get that when you copied something, you didn't get the real thing.  Because for something to be seen or heard by a third party supplier of evidence, you could not get the nature of something.  But because time goes by and history fades with generations that die, recordings in the masses can be used technologically to the point out things we couldn't detect with our own eyes.  Hence there is progress.  Original pertains to the time it was recorded.  The present pertains  to how it was done and what it meant to us historically, socially, and technologically. It seems that original meant a sense authenticity, which was valued then. It give us a chance to look back.

April 25 Lecture.. Bridging Culture with politics

In war, when shells fly past our bodies at high speeds, we sense clearly that no level of intelligence, virtue, or fortitude is strong enough to deflect them, not even by a hair. To the extent this threat increases, doubt concerning the validity of our values forces itself upon us.

but it has also produced a long series of practical measures typical for the human spirit of the past century, such as–to name just a few–the abolition of torture and the slave trade, the discovery of electricity, vaccination against measles,

Born in full enjoyment of all these blessings now taken for granted, it seems to us as if in truth rather little has changed

Since Liberalism fades out and totalitarianism is the new progress.
War and evil is what affords us the pleasures.
This concept then means from these previous  passages that we must see things accordingly.

I see these group of statements to be hinting that we do not associate pleasure with pain.  Pain is felt at the moment by the indvidual fighting to build our power to choose our pleasures.. But to associate pain with pleasure is not possible. We create values in reflection of pleasure.  We do not associate pleasure with pain.
But we want be sure that we do not misunderstand what pleasure means.  There are sacrifices.  However, the sacrifices can have consequences.  We may be made to think that we can come to expect peace.  However, in order to maintain peace, there is pain.   Pain can be the harmful actions that we overlook to procure values and pleasures.  We have to watch our back at all times. We enjoy pleasure, but with a doubt that nothing is permanent.  We also experience pleasure it as a uniform society. But politics will deal with the pains to organize pleasures of life  through technology  We want freedom and pleasures, but we have to make sacrifices of evil actions to make it possible. If we share things, we may have to deal with a consequence of how we use or develop with our pleasures of life. Nothing is permanent. Progress is made through control, not by enjoying pleasure

March 28th Lecture on Weber

A passage from Weber in the Lecture.


Will you simply and dully accept world and occupation? Or will the third and by no means the least frequent possibility be your lot: mystic flight from reality for those who are gifted for it,


This quote is stating that it wants to know if the person assigned to public service is wanting to do it full time or part time as a vocation.  Is he discipline to follow the assignment which consist of passion and non emotional discipline.  Weber is asking are you loyal and committed enough to follow the procedures of your Ruler or are you more geared to emotional interaction with your land and production from your following.  He also states that it is delusional to think that you would think it is effortless. Since the knowledge and rules may not agree with the serviceman, it may get into his soul.  So he wants to know if the structure is there to do what he is told or will his emotions get in the way.

Albie March 21 lecture

Article 109
All Germans are equal in front of the law.
In principle, men and women have the same rights and obligations.
Legal privileges or disadvantages based on birth or social standing are to be abolished.
Noble titles form part of the name only; noble titles may not be granted any more.
Titles may only be granted, if they indicate an office or occupation; academic degrees are not affected by this regulation.
The state may no more bestow orders and medals.
No German may accept titles or orders from a foreign government.

Article 181
The German people, by the means of its national assembly, has passed and ratified this constitution. It takes force on the day of its proclamation.

Article 108
In accordance with a law, a supreme court will be established for the German Reich.

Second Part
Basic rights and obligations of the Germans

Article 1 The German Reich is a republic. State authority derives from the people.

If I am to interpret these two articles as a whole, what I understand is that they have a federal government. However, it seems to have a wording of central control, rather than an individual state control.  Since it cannot simply run as individual state policies, but only federally, I sense a mechanism for dictatorship to blossom here in this format.  It seems to have the right idea in terms of supreme courts and federal government with Article 108.

With article one, it also seems to imply that what is best for the people is what its purpose it.  However, the basic rights and obligations title seems to have an undertone of possible interpretation from a government official clash from administration to administration.  These articles are too loosely worded. Since everything is federal, something can go wrong with the interpretations from region to region.

109-181

These articles depict that under 181, protesting is forbidden.  You can't tell someone that laws are permanent and are enforced without a protest.

Then, 109 is stating that the German is to be loyal to his country and not abide by any rules from foreign countries.  It also states that no special family name is going to get you any special privilege status. I you are part of a political party, it is because of the office or occupation that you declare with your accomplishments to be part of the government.  Men and women are equal.

This one is a little lighter and more plausible.

The March 14 Lecture on a line from the Luxemburg The Junius Pamphlet essay , Chapter 7

But there is one thing that the firemen in the burning house have forgotten: that in the mouth of a socialist, the phrase “defending one’s fatherland” cannot mean playing the role of cannon fodder under the command of an imperialistic bourgeoisie.

Social Democratic Party controlled the labor union. They did not want there to be a war. They wanted to keep the classes to remain stable and in order. They supported the imperialistic rule. Meanwhile, the revolutionist who were proletarians or the working class were of mass numbers.  As the social Democratic Party became more organized, so did the working class. Basically, Luxemburg depicts that when social democratic party is at its peak of exploitation in regards to imperialism. The working class will have formed their new opinions as they break away from their past ways. But while it is still developing, when you say that a fodder is not in a role of imperialistic bourgeoisie, it is saying that the middle class will not risk their lives for the proletarian. The bourgeoisie is superior to the working class. If there is a fire or war, the middle class are not going to be in the frontlines of war nor a house fire.  The risks of life are taken by the expendable working class. The social democratic party make decisions for the working class. It may or may not be favorable for the working class. While the fireman thinks he is “defending one’s fatherland”, they are really just laborers that must follow a role put upon them to do physical labor and act in a way that is inferior to the bourgeoisie.

The movie M  is disturbing in the very beginning itself.  It reminds me of the movie "Children of the Corn" where a group of children are worshiping a scarecrow to create demon icon.  This movie has kids playing an ineminemynemo for who is to be killed.  When you put children to think about these things, it creates wild fantasies that have no right and wrong distinction because it' shared with kids in the dialogue.  If a movie is going to be responsible in telling a story, it has to be in a way that this dialogue is not allowed by children to speak.  It should have gotten the strongest rating for viewing by the general public.

And of course, people like to see horror films.  When we feel fear, it keeps us on the edge of our seats.  We love thrills. Just like a move filmed in that era called "Freaks" was filmed before some rules were launched to prevent humiliation of people with impairments.  We all face fear in our daily lives because of obstacles.  But why should we teach people how to be animals and crazy when we are not developed enough to understand these values of morals

I guess the crazy side is the side that makes people feel alive, which give Nihilism gives fuel again to kaos

I wonder if the root of all evil came from Germany.  It certainly looks this way.   We as a society cause each other to be a wreck.  I know that for us to live like animals is how the rich man stays in control of our moral errors and natural imperfections in behavior.

Lecture February 28 in Class. The Blue Angel Post song lyric post

Lecture February 28 in Class.  The Blue Angel  Post  song lyric post

Title :Just a Gigolo  Marlene Dietrich

There will come a day, that you will sleep away, what will day say?

Translation

Es wird der Tag kommen , dass Sie weg zu schlafen, was heute sagen?

The means when you die, what will people say about your life. It is said that Dietrich was bisexual when she lived.  But it wasn’t told until she died.

Title :The Velvet Underground- Feme Fatale

Here she comes.  You have to watch your step. She’s going to break your heart in two.  It true

Translation

Hier kommt sie . Sie müssen Ihren Schritt zu sehen. Sie wird dein Herz entzwei . es gilt.

Dietrich in Blue Angel was seductive sexy woman.  She basically took the professor out of his repressed life to experience her limitless life of desire.   Then she cheats on him toward the end of the movie.  Since he then wants to be a professor again, the lyric hits the nail on the head with “watch your step”

January 31 lecture homework 1

Albie Llada                                                                                                                                          Professor Murdaco

Introduction to Nihilism                                                                                            March 5, 2015

Home Work #1 redone

.  Missing Original since I had posted it on Blackboard or Blogger without an account on blogger.

Take a quote from Nietzsche and explain it and then write something about Germany that interests you

Use the links on my blog page: Nietzsche, CIA WorldFactbook.

Professor.  I couldn’t find your link. All I found was a facebook with a CIA link that had nothing on it but advertisement of the site itself

I found a quote said to be from brainyquote.com of Friedrich Nietzsche  “We love life, not because we are used to living but because we are used to loving.  My head is spinning having gone through blogger like you said I should under your link.  I still don’t understand that platform for searching things. I’ll leave it at that.  I can’t seem to see the lecture you posted on day one anymore on Blackboard.  So I am using this Microsoft word-file as my medium.

This quote above in my document is hinting me that Nietzsche is complaining that society is trying to be spiritually repressed, and that he feels that it ought to be about his own experience of living life.  Since our lectures have pointed upon Nihilism with its history of being a story that life is lived in the moment without resistance, I gather that he is stating that people are being conditioned to behave with tradition that is holding one back from a real experience of their own. I also think that he may be stating that because he is experiencing his life to the fullest, he then feels satisfied with it as he uses words that could be of religious context to be heard more mainstream.

In recalling something I read about him in other quotes in other lectures from him, I visualize a person who is not wanting to live for others he never met, but for moments he is living in present in his surroundings.  Somewhere else I recall reading that he is sick in spirit.  I picture that he is not content on how society guides him to be as a person.

In regards to how Germany interests me, I would write that this Country was a raw place for many years.  People expressed freely their desires.  Unfortunately, I view this world where good and evil exists and clash.  I would never want to meet a person with this perspective.  I would in my opinion be like meeting evil.  Germany however, is a place of powerful history.  It is truly a unique part of the world where misery and evil were common thing and place.  It is amusing to understand how life can get so out of hand.  Germany is a tourism spot for me one day because it will make me feel something in the air that was once awful see in that era of war and unrest.

Posting of February 14 Lecture Home work 3

Since I see no book or books of reference to pick a quote out of, I am choosing a quote in the text of the lecture/book quote enclosed.
“I have experienced on my body and on my soul that I needed sin very much, I needed lust, the desire for possessions, vanity, and needed the most shameful despair, in order to learn how to give up all resistance, in order to learn how to love the world, in order to stop comparing it to some world I wished, I imagined, some kind of perfection I had made up, but to leave it as it is and to love it and to enjoy being a part of it.—These, oh Govinda, are some of the thoughts which have come into my mind.”
This quote explained that Siddhartha became more wise and philosophical because he took it upon himself to experience the view point of a beautiful world, a lustful world, a business world, childhood of innocence world, an isolated world, distant world from his world, that all started with his own world when he was a child. He basically concludes theory of Nihilism that focuses on living and not resisting and the dada perspective in terms of a collage that he builds mentally that explains itself with the analogy of the river. He is also using the different individual with the universal world or the unity of opposites in the context of his experiences. He saw that nothing really changed. He just realized that he lived to know what live can be for him. 

Posted on February 15 Lecture from February 7 home work 2

Albie Llada                                                                                                                                             February 15, 2015

Professor Murdaco                                                                                                                                                 Nihillism

Home Work 2

choose a passage from the "Dada Manifesto" by Hugo Ball and 2) choose one of the artists from either expressionism, dadaism, or new objectivity.

"Dada Manifesto" by Hugo Ball

Quote for Dada Manifesto. I found this on Wikipedia.

“Dada is the heart of words”

For written assignments choose a specific piece of the text that you want to quote. Write out the quote. Then interpret the quote, what is the meaning of this quote, why is the author saying this? Then explain why you chose this quote, do you agree or disagree? Did the quote make you think about something or challenge you? Does it relate to anything going on in the present?

I believe that the quote “Dada is the heart of words” is stating that in the pictures of art, Dada is simply the explanation of nothing. It is then and there.  The word has no meaning.  This is the same concept as Nihilism. You see something and it has no bearing on anything. Basically, the word is just a sound.  It just sound like something that isn’t really happening now. I chose this quote because it was straightforward with what you can get with its definition in the Manifesto. The sound is the heartbeat of this words and of many words.  It is simply an example of just its’ appearance and sound.  You are saying the word, but you are saying nothing.  I don’t agree with the term because it still stamps an image of a mixed idea of objects in the art.  You can still identify time, culture, and society’s interest in art. It makes me think of how our street corners were designed to make us identify with where we live.  There is supposed to be a consistency of appearance in our society. Obviously, Nihilism with its word “dada” take on the same point of view.  It is like the president’s speech on change.  It means nothing because our lives remain the same.  In terms of how I relate to it today in my life, I am still going look the same, regardless of a portrait in time in my own eyes.  I am still me.

 The trauma of the war however created an entirely new form of artistic expression, known as Dadaism.

These picture are from your lecture

3) your interpretation of the piece, try to describe in as much detail as you can the physical appearance of the piece (how does it look, what kind of techniques are being used, what kind of colors, light etc are used, what kind of actions are going on) and the meaning of the piece what is it trying to say, what themes does it address, especially paying attention to nihilistic themes.

Use the Modern Art Timeline link on the blog for assistance. Choose three examples from one or more of the artists, and try to depict what is going on in the piece, and what meaning it may have, especially drawing attention to how nihilistic themes show up in these pieces or how it reflects social conditions.

Professor For this assignment, I have no link to this art you want to me write about.. Therefore, I am using the art from lecture

.

"Cut with the Kitchen Knife through the Beer-Belly of the Weimar Republic," Hannah Höch,  

1919

I see nothing but images of animals, machine parts, people thinking, and people looking like the way a dog might look at you.  Not understanding anything.  It is like you can’t take anything away from it from the perspective of expressions.

November 1, 1889 – May 31, 1978) was a German Dada artist. She is best known for her work of the Weimar period, when she was one of the originators of photomontage

Raoul Hausmann, a member of the Berlin Dada movement. Höch's involvement with the Berlin Dadaists began in earnest in 1919.

ABCD," Raoul Hausmann, 1923-2"4

In this image I see meaningless numbers, hands, letters, currency, and face with letter clinging on painter’ teeth.  It seems like there is an expression of being consumed in crazy world of meaningless information in the context of numbers and letters.

Wikipedia.

Raoul Hausmann (July 12, 1886 – February 1, 1971) was an Austrian artist and writer. One of the key figures in Berlin Dada, his experimental photographic collages, sound poetry and institutional critiques would have a profound influence on the European Avant-Garde in the aftermath of World War I.

"Adolf the Superman: Swallows Gold and Spouts Junk," John Heartfield, 1932

The wording of the portrait of Adolf Hitler along with the picture itself saying that Hitler knew nothing on how to make his cause mean anything.  It was nothing but garbage.  There was no vision because vision is not real.  You just do “dada”. Nonsense and with no purpose. Wealth was not anything of meaning. I guess in terms of color, the picture is kind of gold in the sense that his world appears in the color gold.

John Heartfield (born Helmut Herzfeld; 19 June 1891 – 26 April 1968) was an artist. He was a pioneer in the use of art as a political weapon. Some of his photomontages were anti-Nazi and anti-fascist statements. Heartfield also created book jackets for authors such as Upton Sinclair, as well as stage sets for such noted playwrights as Bertolt Brecht and Erwin Piscator.

In 1917, Heartfield became a member of Berlin Club Dada, Heartfield later became active in the Dada movement, helping to organize the Erste Internationale Dada-Messe (First International Dada Fair) in Berlin in 1920. Dadaists were the young lions of the German art scene, provocateurs who disrupted public art gatherings and ridiculed the participants. They labeled traditional art trivial and bourgeois