Class Reflection

Reflecting upon the class so far, I would have to say the experience is quite good. I don’t take very many English classes because I’m a science major, but I always liked English. It’s a lot less emphasis on studying and memorizing material and a lot more emphasis on interesting discussions about the world, human nature, etc. It’s quite a nice break from most of my normal coursework.

Unlike most classes, I actually like attending this class and going to the screening periods. It’s really laid back and often we just talk about things. The coursework hasn’t been too demanding at all, and the writing assignments tend to be engaging at least. I would have to say that my favorite thing about this class are the movies or shorts or documentaries that we tend to watch, such as Blackfish. I usually don’t watch these things by myself in my free time, so coming here to watch them is nice. I learn a lot of interesting things that I didn’t know about, like the extremist performance artist Marina Abramović.

Looking into what’s coming in this class, it seems that we are about to start doing some group projects. I think this will be fun to an extent, getting to work with a group on a campaign assignment seems interesting. Although I have no idea what it’s going to be about, I don’t really have any negative thoughts. I guess if there’s one thing that I dislike about this class it would have to be the timing of the screening period and the discussion section. The 4.5 hour break between them is a bit awkward in terms of scheduling. 

UF Landmarks

There are many landmarks across UF that serve as powerful tools of visual rhetoric to convey a message not only to the outside world but also to the students who attend the school. I chose Turlington because it is right in the center of campus and everybody, including visitors, knows about this building. I also found it a very interesting building – the fact that it had a more positive effect on visitors due its visual feeling of power and pride and a more negative effect on students due to its inefficient architecture, bad classrooms, and a general sense of overcrowding was a very unique quality. However, there are other structures that are phenomenal.

Century tower is another key landmark. The ominous bells that ring every so often give off a nice, almost homely atmosphere to the area. The tower is also huge and can be seen from miles away, and can also be used to navigate when you’re lost. One of the biggest things I’ve wondered about it is how it would be like to climb that tower and actually play the bells, or the view one would get from up there, seeing all of campus.

The French Fries outside Marston Library are also very interesting. I think the biggest visual impact they give off is rather funny, and it is the question of “Why?” When I first saw the French fries I was a bit confused – why would UF just arbitrarily decide to put giant yellow French fries right outside a library? It felt so out of place, but at the same time was a bit comical in that sense. Other people who saw the French fries were just as confused as I was, and although I still don’t know why they are there, I think the fact that the French fries cause confusion and questioning amongst those that first see it is pretty funny. 

Medical Marijuana

My visual rhetoric assignment was done on legalizing medical marijuana, a substance that, when used for its chemical extracts, can be very beneficial in helping many medical problems. It’s not legal largely because of its potential risks and potential abuse by patients, but that same argument can be made for every other drug prescribed – there are side effects, and drug abuse and OD’s are always an issue.

My original idea for the assignment actually dealt with education and increasing the efficiency of it to match other countries by removing unnecessary courses and only requiring those applicable to one’s future career. I then scratched that idea as it was actually pretty complicated seeing as foreign countries have all sorts of different systems.

Then I changed it to pro-choice for abortion. I was pretty sure about sticking with this idea until it came down to formulating an actual piece of visual rhetoric. Turns out, there’s not really an easy way to use visual rhetoric to support pro-choice ideology. Finding the right picture or image or video would be hard, especially since I wanted to focus on cases of rape and unwanted pregnancies. I didn’t want the picture to be unappealing or come off as harsh, so many options actually got ruled out because of that.

I then finally changed it to something dealing with marijuana legalization. At first I wanted to do something funny like make a reference to Pineapple Express, but then I realized that not only would people probably not get the reference, but it also wouldn’t be rhetorically powerful enough to convey a message, and people probably wouldn’t take it seriously anyway after seeing a picture of Seth Rogan and James Franco. But then I focused on specifically medical marijuana, which was much easier to do because creating a visual instance of sympathy through say, a cancer patient, is always rhetorically powerful. 

Performance Art

There was a day in class where we discussed a weird type of performance art performed by Marina Abramović. She would do odd things like scream for long periods of time, run naked into another person, stare at people across a table, and probably most famously, walk the Great Wall of China towards another person. For some reason, this was considered “art.”

If you ask me, most of the activities performed by Abramović were a bit senseless. What is one trying to accomplish with endless screaming? Or forcing people to walk between her and her partner naked? I suppose in one way, it may cause the viewer to ponder such things like personal freedom/space, the limitations of the human body, or persistence in actions. However, this was not the feeling that I got. Her performance art is done in such an extreme way that it arouses surprise and wonder in her choice to perform such odd tasks. The uncomfortable feeling her art gives you, along with this surprised feeling, causes the viewer not to ponder her arts meaning or goal, but rather to ponder why she is so weird and crazy. The extremity of her art actually lends itself to less interpretation and more criticism.

There probably are some people that find meaning in her art, otherwise I guess she wouldn’t be so famous. Her walk around the Great Wall of China towards her working partner seemed pretty interesting and actually a bit romantic. However I personally don’t see any meaning to her work, or at least any need for such extremity. 

Blackfish

The movie Blackfish was quite impactful. It portrayed Sea World in a way that completely conflicted with its message and image to the outside world – a happy place with happy animals.

Probably one of the movies strongest rhetorical techniques was the alternation between a happy Sea World commercial and then the harsh reality of its working conditions. It made Sea World seem extremely fake, and really hit the point about how much it seemed to hide to the outside world. The juxtaposition of these two ideas served to emphasize Sea World as a giant corporate scumbag that, in reality, had no care for its animals despite the commercials claiming otherwise.

Another thing that was so impactful was the extreme dramatization of the bad events done by Sea World. The people who spoke for the documentary were very emotional, and the music, tied in with the way the information was represented, really exaggerated the whole situation to make the viewer hate Sea World. The information could’ve simply been presented in an unbiased way, with a speaker unemotionally talking about the information, or with the information written in text.  However, the speakers that were so dramatic about the issue allowed the documentary to achieve its rhetorical effect.

After having watched Blackfish I feel a bit of the rhetoric myself. Although I was never really a fan of Sea World, I do see it in a much different light, a much more negative light. However, I do wonder – what if the information were presented in a much more positive way, like from the viewpoint of Sea World itself? Would people’s viewpoints change? Or would they still see Sea World as the scumbag they are as portrayed by Blackfish?