Sunday, February 5, 2012

Seminar Questions for Wall-E


1.     I do agree in that the movie was able to draw various parallels to what our society is becoming like. “Wall-E” is a love story, as simple that takes place in an abandoned Earth, where besides the robots only signs of only a cockroach and a single green plant are seen.  Humanity is not dead in “Wall-E,” but much like today it has become to accustom to the routine and decaying conditions of life that few seem to notice the sad state in which they are. The world’s population is in a luxury spaceship that has kept generations of people on unhealthy diets and completely dependent on technology.  The people are too bloated to walk they float around on motorized but are happy shoppers.  Wall-E, Eve and the Pilot are able to fulfill their mission and break the people and machines our of their every day life and make them see the ability to rebuild ones’ own world.
2.     
      -Wall-E  is and allegorical romance because it s employ a love story between to objects (robots) that represents a bigger love, love of humans but even bigger love of humanity. Wall-E ‘s devotion to Eve and Eve’s devotion to serve humans show the need that individuals have to connect with others. The people in the luxury spaceship may have access to every technological, material and human need by the touch of a button but have lost the ability to acknowledge each other. Ironically the humans have become robots and the only two who are able to connect with others are the literal robots. Human communication is lost, there are no emotions interactions yet like the unexpected couple of Wall-E and Eve love eventually is able to reconnect the people.
3.     
      -That there will come a time where the environment will not be able to keep up with human’s destruction. However the world will be able to replenish its’ self but humans must re-create what they destroyed.

4.     -It questions human’s ability to make his or her own choices and decisions when conditioned to certain environment. The pilot realizes that the auto-pilot has been the true pilot and he himself has been the puppet.

5.     -It’s a commentary on people’s current tendency to focus on material goods and ignore their situation. The consumers are haunted by something they might have lost but are able to accommodate by engaging in simulations.

6.     -The light bulb. The idea of something so delicate surviving the destruction is poetic. 
7.     
----     -The Axiom is a paradise but it is a synthetic paradise. It’s perfect in that it contains every possible want of a human. However there is no room for flwas for human error. Perfection may be achieved but the natural beauty that exists in mistakes in human conduct and interaction is lost.
8.     It causes the audience to have to connect to the raw emotions of each cartoon. You feel Wall-E ‘s emotions you feel Eve’s annoyance the pilots feeling of incompetence. It allows the audience to connect in ways that dialog could not achieve.  
9.     
T   -The human condition of every member on that ship is planed, executed and determined by their environment. The spaceship has conditioned them to live in that way. However the nurture they have received is not enough to stop human nature when the time to act comes. They know they have to reclaim what matters. The human condition tends to place and keep individuals in their assigned roles but each has the ability to break free.
10  -The movie is like a reality in which the people seem to only remember the past on like dreams. There was a time in which people could step out and speak with one another, enjoy music, dance and see photosynthesis as an every day thing. This is what the Captain wants. He want to choose his life he doesn’t want to be treated like a toddler being fed, carried and nurtured for the rest of his life. He wants his life to have meaning. Survival offers him a long existence of pointlessness, living allows him to experience hardships and sadness but also offers him joy, music and emotions.


Notes on the Sublime

1)   Antennas-Sensors (allow to know surroundings). 
a)    States that people have another sense; it is this sense that allows each individual to connect to art.
i)     If you don’t connect with a piece of art, your antenna isn’t attuned to it.
ii)    All objects, all things have a way to connect to the antennas of other things.    
2)   Art is meant to Unite.                                                            
a)    Piss Christ- immortal, dividing people
b)   20th and 21st century removed this definition.
3)   Hume- Sensory perceptions come first.
a)    Feeling need expression and expression is conative.
b)   Spiritual not merely sensual.
4)   The Romantics – Value accuracy
5)   Lyrics have to be beautiful 
Alexander Gottlieb Baumgarten
·         purpose of art=produce beauty. "The point of beauty is to give pleasure and arouse desire."
·                            -beauty is to be found in nature, 
                        - highest aim of art is to imitate nature”
·         Sensual art – human form and perfection of nature
Hume
·            -Art gives pleasure and satisfaction to the soul
-      -Pleasure and pain constitute the essence of beauty and deformity.
·         Standard of taste + aesthetic judgments- ascertaining which features of art were most highly pleasing to qualified and impartial connoisseurs
Edmund Burke
·         The sublime- can be the aim of art: a feeling of beauty is a form of love without desire, and to feel something as sublime is to feel astonishment without fear.”
·         Sublime: high moral, aesthetic, and spiritual value; inspiring deep, or uplifting emotion because of its beauty
·         The sublime= destroy to create
·         Derives from need for social contact, \
Kant
·         - Taste is the faculty of judging of an object 
 m  -object of such satisfaction is called beautiful.”
Sensual delight = gratification
Disinterested enjoyment = pleasingness
·    
·                                              -Free beauty = nature, natural things, life
Derivative beauty = art, interpretations of life and nature  
·                                               -Production of beauty is the purpose of art 

Sublime and Nature

For Edmund Burke,  the "aim of art," is the sublime. Kant says that the sublime allows us to remain without fear in a state of security. He splits the sublime into two categories; mathematical and dynamical categories. The first influences our perception and the other tour in relation with a  piece of art. I think that at times art in its most raw  form is the most powerful form, nature itself may not be art because it wasn't created by us but it's art in that its naturally beautiful and sublime.  Sensual delight brings gratification,   disinterested enjoyment causes pleasingness and nature can cause both.