Week 10 Reading Response – Saeed Lootah

I found both articles very interesting and it was fun reading both, maybe that was partly because they were written by the same person. In any case, starting with the “shut up, and listen” article; I have always found the interpretation of art to be a tricky subject. Mainly because I don’t believe that many of the interpretations that people see in the artwork were thought up by the artist him or herself. Often I get annoyed by some of the interpretations that people come up with since I feel it is so far from the original art but recently that has been less the case. The reason is, and also this is what I kept thinking about while reading the article, is that I have recently begun to think of art being able to stand on its own. What do I mean by that? Well, I mean that an artist isn’t really the creator of the artwork, but rather he is more a spectator. I say this because of one main reason (there are others but I can’t describe or explain it in detail and with clarity), an artist does not really come up with the idea of the artwork out of nowhere, he can say what “inspired” him but I believe inspiration are only things that resemble the idea not that the inspiration was the source of the idea. In thinking about this I searched to see if there were any quotes or artists that were quoted as saying something that fits/resembles my opinion.

“I saw the angel in the marble and carved until I set him free.” – Michelangelo 

“I never know what I’m going to put on the canvas. The canvas paints itself. I’m just the middleman.” – Peter Max

Of course not every artist or person is of the same opinion, but had it not been for the article I just read I would have never thought deeply about this.

As for the other article; I didn’t have thoughts or ideas that were as philosophical. As I was reading I realized that this article would be a great help for when we make the musical instruments using the Arduino’s after the Eid break. I also thought of how facial recognition could be used nowadays. Since the article was made in 2012 facial recognition was not nearly as advanced or reliable so the closest thing to that was the video tracking and the other things that were mentioned. Just something to think about.

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