Category: Individuals & Societies

The Evolution of Japanese Art: Evaluating the effect the arrival of the Europeans had on Japanese Art

Courtesy of doegox

Original ukiyo-e woodblocks often portrayed courtesans, geisha, and kabuki actors as their common concept. Yet, as Japan opened up to exotic western cultures, western-style prints, books,and artistic ideologies brought in by foreign merchants inspired the Japanese artists to begin integrating both cultures into their works. As a result, this influence allowed artists to produce artworks which included foreign elements such as the use of landscape/horizontal picture planes, “Prussian Blue” pigment, and one and two point perception through shading techniques. Here’s a few examples how the Europeans influenced the Japanese art industry:

1. Change in Artistic Muses

Courtesy of Toyohara Chikanobu & The Floating World of Ukiyo-e (Library of Congress)

Japanese prints often modified existing compositions and themes to suit to cultures of foreign audiences. For instance, portraits of bijinga, beautiful courtesans, would be translated into a foreign theme by simply substituting foreign women into the piece. But, since a limited amount of foreign women resided in early Yokohama, artists would often use Western females from fashion plates that appeared in imported Western newspapers and magazines as muses for their traditional woodblock prints.(Yokohama: Prints from Nineteenth-Century Japan by Ann Yonemura). One great example would be Toyohara Chikanobu’s True Beauties (1838-1912), is a collection of finely printed portraits portraying contemporary Japanese women who thrive to survive in the newly westernized Japanese society. The colourful jewelry, background, and furniture contrast greatly against the monochromatic, dull kimono. This illustrates the artist’s struggles to incorporate both cultures into his work; the glasses and jewelry depicts the illustrator’s need to follow western trends, whereas dull kimono represents his refusal to give society’s expectations and risk losing his traditional background. As more foreigners came to Japan, local artists shifted away from portraying beautiful courtesans and kabuki actors to incorporating European models to please their exotic customers. This transformation of muses suggests the growing demand from western and rich, aristocratic Japanese buyers and the diminishment of local culture.

2. The use of “Prussian Blue”

Courtesy of Katsushika Hokusai’s “Great Wave off Kanagawa” & Wikipedia Commons

Berlin blue, or officially Prussian blue, is a blue synthetic pigment which was introduced to Japanese artists by the Europeans. The vivid colours is produced contrasted greatly against the traditional natural resources used in the woodblocks, becoming popular amongst the native people. This artificial dye was also the first time the Japanese used anything other than natural minerals for their paintings (Kevin Carr). The introduction of Prussian Blue brought a fundamental change in the tradition of colour usage in Japan. Original prints based their pigments on organic, natural minerals, which produced the infamous “floating-world effect”; however, the debut of this synthetic blue pigment turned a new leaf in the history of traditional Japanese art. What led to the usage of this faint-resistant dye was the relaxation of isolationist policies which resulted in the exposure of Japanese art to European techniques. The utilization of the artificially-manufactured pigment by native artists illustrates the influence European knowledge and technique had over the Japanese artwork during Edo period. Prints including Prussian Blue, such as Hokusai’s The Great Wave of Kanagawa, indicates how Japanese artists accepted these foreign techniques to appeal to the public’s interest to Western technology, thereby increasing their own success by promoting the popular vogue in their work. Images using Prussian Blue were interpreted as creative and exotic to the public. The transferral of tradition from Europe to Japan led to a swift change in artistic depiction across the world.

3. Landscaped Ukiyo-e

“Winter Evening in Japan” – Katsushika Hokusai
Courtesy of www.katsushikahokusai.net

The transformation from vertically aligned portraits to horizontally oriented paintings allowed artists to expand their perspective and also include landscapes. This is illustrated through Hokusai’s pieces; early works mainly showed beautiful courtesans in a vertically positioned format, however, after the arrival of the Europeans, his works were horizontally depicted much like his notable work, “The Great Was off Kanagawa” (1829-1833)(source) The shift towards a horizontal plane by the ukiyo-e artists is a significant change that provides evidence of Western influences during the Edo period, as the change allowed artists to incorporate a wider view, creating new themes such as meisho-e (landmarks), all of which were sponsored by rich patrons fascinated by landscaped ukiyo-e. This suggests that although the public were interested in these Western ideologies, sponsors demanded for ukiyo-es to depict their everyday life, representing their undying compassion for their culture and its scenery. The shift can also be interpreted as merely a product of practicality as it widened the artist’s perception.

In conclusion, the effect of the arrival of the Europeans had on Japanese art was immense, as its influence was clearly evident by looking at the change in artistic ukiyo-e muses, the widespread use of Prussian Blue, and the transmission to horizontally oriented prints. The incorporation of foreign-styled muses show how Western appearances greatly affected Japanese ukiyo-e prints as well as the transition to foreign muses which implied the increase demand for such techniques. The usage of exotic pigments insinuates the depth of influence the Europeans had, and their presence drastically altered the Japanese’s traditional use of organic materials. The orientation of the prints not only demonstrates the Japanese’s attempt to mimic European styles, but also shows the change the styles of ukiyo-e art, which allowed artists like Hokusai to produce countless legendary works.

Project: Sustainable YIS

In a world where our ignorance leads to pollution and global warming, terms such as renewable energy, eco friendly awareness, green power, conservation, and sustainability, are often repeatedly discussed in modern society. Yet what exactly does it mean to be sustainable? Does being sustainable mean turning off taps/lights when they’re not used? Or is there a deeper meaning behind it?

Courtesy of http://www.wallcoo.net/nature/tree_budding/html/wallpaper8.html

Recently in our Individuals and Societies class we began project involving the entire class to work as one group. Our theme is: “In order to create a sustainable YIS community we must be innovators”. Before we started anything, we brainstormed questions we had about the project (eg. what is sustainability? What does it mean to be innovators) and then we formed a circle in the middle (which later became our usual way of discussing) and discussed possible ways to be sustainable while we jotted down our meeting minutes on this google doc. According to our teacher, our class will present some sort of end “project/product” in which we will pitch our idea to the school board. We learnt that the other I&S class (our nemesis) are planning to use solar power to power some parts of the school. In an attempt to mimic the ways of innovators, we brainstormed ideas such as using scrap food from the cafeteria for biofuel, hydrogen, pressure plates,

Courtesy of Pavegen
green curtain, rainwater harvesting, algae plants, bicycle generation (wheels), wind power, and many more.
Courtesy of Tokyo Tom Baker
Taking the experience I had from GINSING (global issues network, singapore), my friend and I suggested that we use “Trello” to organize our ideas. You can view our trello board here. After we chose our basic ideas we formed groups and then researched the details of each topic (advantages/disadvantages, how it works, etc). One of our members called UWC, a school in singapore, which used rainwater harvesting techniques and managed to get in contact with the school president. Then after looking at through a realistic perspective, we eliminated ideas until wind, solar power, green curtain, and ene farm. Ene farm is a Japanese residential hot water supply which can also generate electricity. Starstruck by this interesting concept, we decided to pursue ene farm as our final project and possibly use it for the school gym to generate hot showers and air conditioning.

We were fools, however. Once we organized ourselves into research groups (eg. fuel cell operation, architectural planning, finance, etc.), we soon discovered the problems behind the project. First of all, we discovered that ene farm uses fuel cells to generate electricity by extracting hydrogen from the hydrocarbon, “LP gas” (liquified petrol) from the city gas supply. It then uses electrolysis of water to react the hydrogen with oxygen to produce the byproduct of heat. This heat is then used to supply hot water and electricity. This means that although the electricity generated in the fuel cells is clean, its source is still from fossil fuels. Also we figured out how inefficient ene farm was once we calculated the amount it generates. You see, after we called the company, we found out that ene farm generates about 220 kW per month, yet it isn’t enough as our gym uses approximately 2000 kW per month. In addition if we calculate how long it would take to pay the money back, it would take about 186 years in total, almost two centuries! Yes, it was evident that we had made a terrible mistake. By the time we had realized this, the other class had already called solar companies and had even taken some officials on tour around the school to look into possible solar pannel locations. We all lost hope – all those weeks of research going down the drain. We were in the middle of accepting our loss when a classmate of ours stood up and gave an inspirational speech. We then decided go back to the drawing board and start over by pitching several of our initial small projects like bicycle generating, pressure plates, wind turbines, and along with new ideas like double/triple windows to save heat costs. We also creating an “ideas of ways to conserve energy” group which mainly focuses on awareness. This is where we are right now.

Although we’ve had our set backs, in the end we managed to make it this far. Right now we are currently making our TSC/criteria in which we will be assessed on. At first it seemed as though the other group were ahead of us, we realized that a) we have a gathering of the best speakers/presentators in our class and b) we’ve got creativity on our side. For instance, when presenting an idea to the board, it is essential to give a binder full of information of our research. However being the innovators we are, we decided to use “iBooks Author“, an professional book making app that can not only improve the aesthetic of our information, but can be imported into iPads like a professional book. Its also a wonderful idea as it shows how ‘sustainable’ and creative we are by using wed 2.0 technology to conserve paper. Overall though I thoroughly enjoy this project as it requires everyone to work together as a team, combining our talents to make YIS a sustainable community, and to possibly leave a legacy behind.

Response to Chris Jordan’s Turning powerful stats into art

I've recently had the pleasure to listent to Chris Jordan's talk about "Turning powerful statistics into art". Jordan works with large scale, long zoom artwork in which he utilizes data/stats to convey powerful messages. The main purpose of his work is to portray seemingly normal yet shocking facts like, the quantity of people imprisoned daily, the amount of people dying from cigarette and prescription pill abuse and misuse, and the sum of women who undergo plastic surgery for breast enlargement. What gives this TED talk authority and value is that the artist is well-known for his green movement, where most of his works depict mass consumption and garbage/waste. Jordan portrays these facts through powerful visual interpretations. For instance, in Fig. 1, the image looks like a factory spewing out pollutions from its funnels.

Fig. 1 image from far away
Fig. 1 of 2 closer look

However, if you look closely, you can see that the image is made entirely out of plastic cups.
In this piece, Jordans says that he used four million cups, which is equivalent to the amount of plastic cups that are used in airline flights daily. Sadly, these cups are never recycled and are just added to the pile of wasted products.
Fig.1 of 3, Up close look (plastic cups)

Another example of Jordan's powerful work, was showing the amount of people who die from cigarettes every year. In this piece, the artist displays more than four hundred thousand boxes of cigarettes, which is the same amount of people who die from cigarette use each year. As you zoom out, you can see that the piece shows Vincent van Gogh's famous painting, "Skull with burning cigarette". Personally, I agree that cigarette use and the increase of demand of cosmetic surgery is an important overlooked statistic. Not only do they harm your body, but people who chose to have cosmetic surgery and smoke cigarettes take away professional doctors, medications, and resources, from people who are actually sick and in need of immediate attention. In the end, Jordan expresses his fear that the people, we, aren't feeling enough, lacking emotion to sense rage and grief about whats going on in our culture. The artist feels that the reason behind our lack of sentiment is because we try to understand and try to "build a world view" by looking at our environmental footprints and social consequences. Even if we hear statistics about 110 people dying from cigarette use daily or four million plastic cups wasted, in reality, our brains aren't able to comprehend these gigantic numbers so we tend to overlook these issues. By translating these statistics from raw data to an universal visual interpretation, Jordan's works allow the viewers to feel the enormity of such issues: "Because my belief is, if we can feel these issues, if we can feel these things more deeply, then they'll matter to us even more than they do now". However, Jordan's real message revolves around the question: "how do we change?". In conclusion, the artists states that:"The degree of integrity that each of us can bring to the surface, ..., the depth of character that we can summon, ..., is already defining us as individuals and as a nation, ...", saying that although these statistics and facts are indeed horrible, it reflects who we are as individuals and as a society, and will stay like that throughout future generations who inherit our decisions unless we question how we can change. While I agree that my actions and lack of actions will influence future generations, I feel that the limitations to this TED talk is that although the artist talks about how we should change the way we are, it's easy to state the prolem, but harder to actually solve it.

Blurring the line between Sustainability and Scarcity

In our Individuals and Societies groups, we were asked to define sustainability and scarcity by looking at various issues. First of all, we defined that scarcity is to be short or have a limited amount of water and resources to feed/supply a population of an area. Scarcity was also defined as the overuse of resources from the ocean and electricity, as the overuse by rich people can lead to scarcity for the poorer people.
Sustainability was defined as the action of providing/importing enough food for every person in the specific area and sustaining freshwater for drinking and hygienic purposes. In addition, sustainability was also identified as the balance and maintenance of a certain rate of energy, and is the action of protecting the ocean while providing resources for people. Addressing both definitions, we tackled several issues including food, water, energy, oceans, and cities.

Courtesy of BBC News
Food: Although food has caused many problems such as the excess intake of food (obesity) and starvation, it is one of our most valuable factors needed inorder to survive. However it is becoming into a scarce object as natural disasters easily destroy thousands of crops and food sources. These natural disasters include hurricanes, floods, droughts, earthquakes, and etc. In the case of a natural disaster, food prices go up as the demand for food rises. Most farmers own small independent farms which are vulnerable to disasters and in LEDCs, these farms account to 80% of the food supply. One specific example of vulnerable food sources would be rice fields. Human consequences are also a major factor contributing to the scarcity of food. Overfishing, for instance, removes more than a thousand fish from the sea everyday. However, there are solutions to counterattack overfishing. Instead of fishing for fish in excess amounts, we can find alternative sources of protein like in soybeans and using sustainably fishing companies such as the Marine Stewardship Council . By providing a larger variety of crop seeds to farms, farmers can grow many nutritious crops without relying on trade/market and can enable them to sustainably provide food to their families.

Courtesy of Wikipedia
Water: It is an universally acknowledged fact that water is one of the most important factors of life. Without water, an average human being may only last a day or so. Right now, water faces a shortage as the amount of freshwater lessens in number, compared to the polluted, contaminated water which increases day by day. This is mainly due to toxic waste from the factories washing into rivers and streams. Other sources of pollution include domestic waste (feces), littering, and etc. It is said that at least 5,000 children die everyday from drinking contaminated water. The overuse of water is also a major contributing factor to the shortage of water. Overuse enables the land to become dry, and thus leads to desertification, which prevents farmers from getting a full stock of crops. The farmers then have no choice but to use more water to make the land wetter, ironically however, continuing the cycle of desertification until there isn’t any water left to use. Some solutions would include changing the irrigation system so that water can be distributed evenly, and to call awareness on water pollution.

Courtesy of BBC Bitesize
Energy: One of the main factors influencing the shortage of energy is global warming and the increase of population. As more people demand for energy (light, thermal, etc.), the amount of fossil fuels like oil, coal, and gas decreases, leading to the extinction of these sources. In order to tackle this issue, it is important to use alternative energy sources like wind (turbine) energy and hydraulic energy to not only prevent the fossil fuels from vanishing, but to also reduce the amount of carbon dioxide produced by factories.

Oceans: Not only are the oceans faced with the toxic pollution from factories, but they are also contaminated by plastic and garbage from people who visit the beach. These objects not only decrease the amount of resources we can take from the ocean, but also come as a threat to many marine animals, endangering the lives and cycles of oceanic creatures. Global warming also rises the temperature of the sea and kills off corals and precious animals. Solutions to this matter would be very vague, yet we could raise awareness on pollution and its effects on the ocean.

Courtesy of Tree Hugger
Cities: Although cities tend to have images of not being eco-friendly, they produce less carbon dioxide as most people transport by trains and bus, which decreases the fuel admissions. However, cities consume a lot of energy from things such as lights and visual (illumination) pollution, and as urbanization increases, cities will become overpopulated, thereby becoming more difficult to supply the population with limited supplies.

Social Media and Syria

Research Question: Evaluate how technology is affecting the Syrian crisis and the people of Syria
Original Essay
Imagine starting a Facebook group to organize a protest towards your school. Now, imagine starting a Facebook group with same intention, however, your protesting against the government. In places such as Syria and Tunisia, social media is the key source that leads to government corruption. Opposition groups and normal citizens use social media to fight against regime activity. In a world where technology is the new weapon, its hard to ignore the effect of social media and the power it’s brought to everyday citizens. Syria, especially, is an interesting case to look at. Amidst the current crisis, the Syrian oppositions and the regime are engaged in what we call a”cyber war“. Syria is not the most computer-smart country in the world. 23% (over 19 million) of the population are computer literate, only 155,000 citizens are subscribed to the internet, and in total, only 300,000 computers are operating in the nation, most are which are government property. Yet its quite amazing to see the impact of digitalization on countries such as these, as it drastically changes the way war is carried out. In Syria, the main characters in the civil war can be grouped into three perspectives: the civilians, cyber groups, and the regime.

Before the revolution, average citizens were no more than the pawns of the war. Now, with the aid of technology, citizens can now post pictures and videos documenting the battle and by uploading them on to sites such as Facebook. As a result, the civilians can now call attention on their crisis and help change the way war is occurring in their country. These people, mainly referred to as “citizen journalists“, risk their lives by capturing footage using mobile phones and small cameras. American technology is also used commonly among the commoners. For instance, technologies such as using Tor software to limit the governments control over the internet and provides anonymity to the users. According to Haifa Zaaiter, Abu Ghassan, a US trained cyber warrior states how “he learned to fight Bashar Assad with an AK-47, a video camera and the Internet.” Ghassan’s training in the US taught him valuable cyber tactics such as PC encryption mechanisms, government firewall workarounds, and the safe use of mobile phones, tactics that are extremely crucial to the Syrian opposition.

The SEA (Syrian Electronic Army) is a well known cyber organization that is in favor of the Assad regime. They spam public sites with pro-government comments in hopes of influencing the world with their propaganda. Another famous group would be Anonymous, an opposition group dedicated in defeating the SEA and the regime by what is calls #OpSyria. In one video, Anonymous says:
It is time for us to act. It is foolish to think that we can do this alone. We need to get others involved. Phrase One we take the facts and give them to the average people. We inform those around us. This
begins the fall of dominos that end in the fall of Assad.
Both groups are similar yet so different. Although Anonymous is supposedly on the opposition side, the group is no different than the other hacking associations, as they conduct similar methods in order to obtain their objective.

Although the internet made a breakthrough for the civilians, technology has been proved to be a double edged law. After learning from the mistakes made by other autocracies, the Syrian government uses the internet against the opposition teams. By back tracing and tracking down the activists through monitoring the internet, the government is able to counter attack the opposition’s technological forces. “The Syrian regime had long blocked access to social media sites”, writes Richard Zalusiki, president of the Centre for Strategic Cyberspace and Security Science. According to Zaluski, as blocking prevented the tracking down of dissidents, the regime responded by “unblocking sites such as Facebook, Youtube, and Twitter”. “This movement enables the regime’s security apparatus to conduct its internal cyber war against its own people and aided in tracking down the identities of activists”.

In Conclusion, social media and technology proved to be one of the most powerful and effective weapon on the battlefield. Whether it was the physical warfare on the street, or the intelligent battles in cyberspace, social media helped carry out the way in an alternative way, changing the perception of war. Although the regime managed to catch up with the civilians and fight at an equal level, without the training and high-tech equipment provided by foreign aids, the Syrian dissidents wouldn’t have had as much confidence as they do now facing the regime. Regardless the fact that only 23% are computer literate, had it not been for the individuals who risked their lives to use mobile phones and cameras to film the war zone, the Syrian revolution would have been subjugated at an earlier stage.

Individuals and Societies Tourism Planning Project

Recently in our Individuals and Societies, we have been class working on a project to create the perfect tourist plan for two different types of customer as part of our Tourism unit. To create the perfect trip, we investigated different kinds of hotels in the area,plane schedules/prices,and many activities that our imaginary customer would preferably enjoy.
Click here to check out the transcript of the plan

Reflecting on the anti-Kony movement

After reading everyone’s googledoc on the Kony video, I’ve learned many new things, and re-evaluated on the whole video itself. From the “Video Review Group“, I found it interesting how different lightings and the colours create an image for the video. I also learned that although the video may have some good intentions to unite people to stand for an unforgivable cause, the real reason behind it is probably just to make money off of it. This could be interpreted when the video asks for the viewers to purchase the “Action Kit” to support the cause, when really, this is just a scheme to get money out of it. According to one googledoc, Kony has NOT been active in a while, and even the LRA is no longer a threat to the Ugandan people. However, the video asks to send american troops into Uganda to capture Kony. Not only does there video mislead the viewer, but it may potentially hint the secret plan behind the KONY2012 project, which is to invade Uganda for there oil.

Other than learning more about Kony, I was really intrigued by the process of how the video when viral and became insanely popular. Did you know, that in two days the video got almost 11 million views and 1.8 million likes on facebook!? Celebrity stars like Rihanna, or Taylor swift, tweeted about kony and because of that, #KONY2012 became a popular trending tweet. On the other hand, it was extremely interesting to learn how the criticism for KONY2012 started was started by a 19 year old and her tumblr blog opposing the cause! In my opinion, its fascinating to see how a popular cause that was supported by millions of people, may easily be turned into criticism when one person points out the alternative perspective.

Response and OPVL to the movie, The Corporation

Origin: critics, anti-corporation activists, Joel bakan –> high education gives it authority,
Purpose: to show the viewers the truth behind corporations and their corporate social responsibility, to educate viewers about the damages done
Value: uses many professional perspectives (people from the corporation, critics, well-known/famous people), cases, footage from the past, photos, and dates
Limitations: only shows one side of the story (showing only the negative perspectives on corporations), some of the cases that the video showed that were caused because of corporations, (eg. animal extinction) may not be the direct cause of the problem

After watching Mark Achbar’s, The Corporation, I believe my view on corporations and corporate social responsibility (CSR) has drastically changed. Before the movie, I was convinced that corporations had good intentions and used fair sources of labour to sell their products to their customers. Their CSR promoted donations for causes such as poverty, disease, and other problems, through their campaigns that enabled them to send their profits to these causes. The film, however, showed me a different perspective to corporations. I learned that instead of having their consumers as a priority, corporations are always thinking about their self. They twisted the truth and conned others in a way that benefits their company. For instance, Walmart’s CSR states that the proceeds made from their campaign will go to organizations against child labour. Ironically however, those same products were made using child labour. Although child labour is not the most socially acceptable labour force, it is the cheapest one there is. This is because children have less value compared to a full grown man, which can probably do the job better (and has more rights). Therefore companies, although they never admit it, use child labour because it costs less to pay the workers, especially in Lesser Economically Developed Countries (LEDC), where the workers who produce the products have a smaller pay than the price of the actual product. Another thing I learned from watching this film, was that corporations will do anything to gain profit, even if it was something that can endanger man kind. In 1948, a swish chemist named Paul Hermann Müller discovered a new chemical called “dichlorodiphenyltrichloroethane”, or in other words, DDT. At first it was used as a poison in 1939 during WWII however, after the war Müller found potential in it as a synthetic insecticide, and thus corporation used this chemical to create products that would get rid of insects that pry in agricultural farms. However, as it became more popular and the demands grew higher, the company found out that the chemical caused cancer, birth defects, and other illnesses. Yet, because the corporation is always thinking of themselves first, they never told the consumers about it and instead encourage the people to buy more in order to benefit the company. The stories and cases shown in the film made me change the way I viewed corporations change overall. No longer will I be fooled by the fake advertisements and campaigns sponsoring non governmental organizations, instead I will keep what I learned from the film in mind and be more considerate in what I buy.

Picture with a thousand words

On our journey to ASB, we were on a mission to take as many pictures as we can, and then we have to select one picture that tells story.

here’s a picture I took of a women at the entrance of ASB. In this photo, the woman looks happy with her life and job. Since women tend to have an unfair treatment in poorer places in LEDCs (eg. education) it makes you think about how this women seems to oppose the typical image of women being treated unfairly, and instead she makes the viewer feel hope and brighter future for women.

Reflecting on yesterday’s (2/25/12) presentation

After we finished our pitches from the day before yesterday, we started creating a storyboard to help communicate our ideas to the rest of the groups. Unfortunately, we had a 2 hour time limit to finish all our slides, which REALLY stressed us out and pressured us into finishing everything. But overall, after presenting our promoion video (presentation), I felt relieved that the presentation was done and went back to my room to sleep.