What is beauty? Denis Dutton

Denis Dutton is a Philosophy professor and Letter daily. He suggest that humans are hard-wired to seek beauty and how we can understood the beauty, but this point is very difficult and maybe such as art student, this term is material of discussion.

According to Dutton, the most powerful theory of beauty we yet have, we get it not of philosophy of art, postmodern art theorist or art critic. This theory comes from Charles Darwin... oh yes, the most famoumos evolution biologist. However, some people believe, including the academic preferences, beauty is in the cultural conditioned eyed of the beholder,  because people agree that music, movies or paintings are beautiful for their determinate culture. But understood this point is not so easy because, somethings are beautiful to everybody, for example when we travel around some place and we have seen a very scenic view of the landscape, this image can be beautiful to many people and can be image of the postal for their beauty, and this is not material of discussion. 


So in this fact, Dutton say the question; how we can explain this universality? And the best answer lies in tying to reconstruct  the Darwinian evolutionary history, because across the history, the human have been tried show signals or expressions of their emotion and senses with different  ways  of adaptation across the history. Other principle, is the sexual selection. In the nature the beauty is a phenomenon to produce sexual reproduction and we found something beauty, exits a sexual attraction.

However, in my personal opinion the beauty is a personal taste and can be very different between the different people... So if you feel that something is fancy to you, enjoy it!

Green Life

These last days the climate has been very strange… today, for example, the day was cloudy, even seemed dark. But sometimes the sun illuminated everything and it is very hot. In Santiago the heat is dry and stupid, I hate it. I think this horrible climate is caused by global warming, and the global warming was caused by humans… and this is definitely terrible. I feel sad when I think in all the damage we have caused to the nature with factories, cars, aerosols… and manly by the life in cities.

In my commune there are not trees or flowers, because we are poor people and municipality haven’t money to do an “accion plan” to educate people who drop the wrappers on the ground. If it were up for me, I would put many garbage dumps on each corners of this country, to promote love and care for the environment. I have incorporated some recycling habits in my life, since my grandmother began to teach me how separate the waste in organic garbage and inorganic garbage. In my home there are a big box where you can throw only potato skins, or watermelon peels, etc. and with this garbage we could be helping to grow a tree and life in general, because the circle is complete.

Anyway… I think if this country don’t do something, we going to lost a lot of beautiful places that we love so much. We need more trees and less asphalt!!!!!!

An OpeninG

Hi classmates! Today we must to try to remember the last exhibitions that we have attended… Really, I have not gone  to exhibitions for a long time, because I have been busy with the University :P . However, two weeks ago I went to an Opening in “La Cueva del Conejo” (a place where artists always do workshops and things like that) for an exhibition by “Acción Sudaca”, an Art collective founded in the Faculty of Arts of the Universidad de Chile. In the opening, La Cueva del Conejo offered many things to eat and drink, and many artistic activities very interesting, because the Openings must to do attractive for the people who come. I remember some guys did a very strange performance, where one of them was hurt his arms to paint with his own blood on canvas. Many people were impressed and dismayed, because, apart from blood, the guy was naked and exhibiting his genitals! Even so, I kept a solemn attitude all the time, because this kind of activities are professional and form part of a circuit that understands this artistic expression.

So, on the other hand, the event of La Casa del Conejo also included punk live music. At the end of all the presentations (of the visual artists, and dancing girls, and the guys who did the performance) we enjoyed of live music, and all the context of the Opening was distorted… a little. The music band was called “Horregias”. They are three rude girls who play punk rock, however not just any kind of punk, but a feminist punk… almost an “artistic punk” (they have a very post-modern style).

Anyway… this exhibition was a very funny and interesting. Was not so serious like the museum’s exhibition, because was focused in a younger audience, I guess. I hope go to other openings in the future, at the same place… It is strongly recommended!

"How I made myself into a Van Gogh painting" - Tim Dowling's article

Today I’m going to talk about a news that I found in the site http://www.guardian.co.uk . I chose an article  (* it was published last January 17th), written by Tim Dowling, an American famous columnist. To write it, he was inspired by an interest web site where people upload remakes of famous paintings, like “The Two Fridas” by Frida Kahlo, or “Le Désespéré” by Gustave Courbet. 

In this website remake-submissions there are a lot of amazing works by people who try to do an image as close as possible to the original painting. However, the interesting of the article by Tim Dowling is the performance that he makes to have a similar look to Van Vogh. Tim Dowling dress up just like Van Gogh in his ‘self portrait with bandaged ear’ and he use similar colors and facial expressions; but the funny thing is that he shares his experience with us, and he tells us about how he did the submission, and which objects he used. In this article Tim IS the news, by himself: he is the starting point to explain the painting formally and aesthetically. He explain us the different problems to recreate a painting in a photograph: composition, colour, depth and perspective… three fundamentals things that you must to manage if you’re interest in Painting.

Beautiful Countries

Hi classmates, today I must to talk you about one country that I want to visit… even though I would like to visit the 191 countries around the world! This vacation, safely, I’m going to travel to Bolivia and Perú (I already had told them) with my boyfriend and other friends… but, if you ask me which country would I like to go, I answer you SPAIN! I love all the touristic places there, and the fashion, and the gastronomy, and the music... Spain has a rich culture in every way. I would like to visit Barcelona and enter at all cathedrals and churches that I would see. Also, I would like to walk in many parks, for example the Park Guell by Antoni Gaudí. This place is very famous for its artistic design and all the sculptures that surround it.

Always I wanted to study or live in there, because is a beautiful and modern country, and futher seems to be the perfect place to learn about arts. Spain IT’S the “vanguard”.  I hope to travel for at least once! J

Tattoos

Hi everyone! This is my first post after New Year, so… excuse me, I have delayed… :P

I think behind every tattoos is hidden a story. That's fascinating, because there are a lot of possibilities to interpret iconographically a tattoo, and at the time, linking the symbols with the life of the persons.  I mean, every time I see someone tattooed I ask myself, why he/she tattooed that? However, many people get tattoos for fun or just to decorate themselves. One day, I saw a mistress in my commune with a Camiroaga’s tattoo… and I found it so ugly! I think if you’ re going to tattoo, you must be concerned about the aesthetic and the meaning of the tattoo. Personally, I don’t have any tattoo, but I love them! When I was younger I dreamed of having a great tattoo on my back (in fact, even it is one of my dreams) but I have never joined the necessary money. On the other hand, I think if I going to tattoo, it must be for something important, like when I live in another country, or when I be mom, to remember the importance of those moments.

Anyway, I think I love tattoos because when I was 16 or 17 I watched a tv program called “Miami Ink”, and I always see Kat Von D, an American tattoo artist and model who appeared in this program. She was so pretty and rude that I greatly admired.  She was my idol and I always wanted to be like she, because it seems to be that she really enjoy her job and to make money doing fun things <3

BBC learning English

Hello everyone! Today we have to visit a site very interesting, where we can do a lot kind of activities to learn English.

In this site (http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/ ) you can found selections like General & Business English, Grammar, Vocabulary & Pronunciation, Quizzes, and others kind of selections like “teachers” which are more specific, that can be more appropriate for people who wants to keep their English in shape.

What I did in this site was select the option “quizzes”, and then I chose play a crossword. The topic of the crossword was “Archaeology”, so it was no so difficult for me, because I like this subject. The game involves clicking the numbers to see a clue to the words, and right here you could see news published in the BBC website (visiting “Words in the News”). Also, you could get more clues by clicking “give me a hint”, that allowed see five letters in different spaces of the crossword.  

It seemed to me a very interesting activity, and, in general, I think that this site is a very good choice to practice English, because there are a lot of funny things to do.