h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

HN, my university put all students in Halls on the electoral register themselves, so we all recieved polling cards, so you may actually be registered.

I have to sort things out before I go to London this afternoon to Meet Sol, Courtsey, Agapanthus, and maybe Bald Bloke!

I do wonder at times if h2g2 is taking over my social life.

Kat dear, your host is on of the nicest people I've met on h2g2, so of course I approve!

Art, Kelli put it so well.. we all intrepte art through a filiter of our times.

For instance when Whilster painted a portrait of his mother he wanted to challenge the conventions of portrait painting and treat it as a musical arrangemet, then for many people it became the ideal of motherhood. Then the ideal of motherhood changed, so we don't appreciate for that any more.

When Turner's Hulk of the Fighting Tegimarie being towed into it's final berth was painting, it was meant to be a patriotic painting that evoked feeling of sadness that a great ship was being scarpped. The ship portrayed was famous in it's time as a ship that had taken part in a great victory. Now when I look at it all I see is a nicely composed imagine, an sunset that reminds me of sunsets I've seen and a pleasing painting.

I know that it was a patriotic painting in it's time, but I don't feel patriotic when I look at it.

Art, quite a big subject really.
Amy, you said you had to get lucky for all the tings to be 'right' in a photo. I'd disagree, you can tune all the things you want, from visual distortions, colours, subject, abstract etc, at the taking stage to doing as much manipulation in the darkroom (or lightroom on a computer these days) as you want.
You do need the eye/conecpt of the photograph you want to get, just as the painter needs to work out what they want to get in their painting.

Here's one for you, should art be permanent or is it a temporary, more ephemeral thing?

[MTG]

I've just decided that I'm going to get back into drawing and painting (I haven't drawn for a looooong time and my painting skills need improvement)... I'm not going to draw/paint anything deep and meaningful, just stuff I think is cool.

If get my skills back up to scratch I shall endeavour to become the first ever well-known fantasy artist whose female subjects dress properly and carry weapons they'd actually have any real hope of weilding.

Fantasy with females who dress sensibly? Surely not... Why is it that female characters seem more inclined to be scantily dressed than males? One assumes the climate would affect them in the same way.

Of course, it's probably the raging hormones of a predominantly male audience that cause this phenomenon (at least the perception of this from the publishers' point of view), but I wonder if any fantasy enthusiasts have come up with a coherent reason for it?

David - mind wandering in strange directions today

Oh I dunno David, the sort of fantasy artists that put women in leather bikinis usually put oiled muscular men in loin cloths.

But surely if it's fantasy it can be anything you want? Isn't that the point of fantasy? Or am I missing something totally.



Kerr, could I ask you a quick train related question? Sorry I know it's work.

I've decided to take a risk and get the fast, but expensive and unreliable Virgin Trains to London today. Kerr, would you happen to know if Tuesday's problems with overhead lines north of Edinburgh was likely to be affecting the Birmingham to London Virgin trains (specifically the 15.30 from New Street). Or should I get the cheap and reliable but slow reliable Chiltern line?





Now Art:

I was thinking about this earlier. The most important response to a painting is the emotion it evokes in you, the response in your heart*. Learning about the painting, art appreciation courses, and tour guides can affect the response in your head, but nothing will really affect the response in your heart.

I find that if my heart likes a painting my head wants to join in as well, so I try and find out more about it, who painted it, etc.

*obviously not in your heart really, but the response that you feel somewhere just behind your sternum

ltp, I didn't mean to suggest that photography is not art. It's just not the same kind of art as painting. Likewise nonfiction writing is as much of an art as fiction, but different.

Some of these photos seem to attempt to emulate pantings:
http://www.photo.net/photodb/photo-of-the-week/

You should be fine Z. No promises, obviously, but the only stuff I've got affecting New Street services is that landslip at Melton and a signalling cock-up and Walsall, neither of which should bother that service.

>>While I will be near or in various polling places on the day I doubt I will get anywhere near my own until I return c. 9PM for a quick shower, shave, change of suit and head over to Bathgate for the count.>>

DD, you mean you aren't voting for yourself? I would certainly vote for myself - 'twould be the only vote I'd get.

Do you remember the great Norman Rockwell debate? Many art snobs refused to call him a painter since he did illustrations for magazine covers. Something about an illustrator not being a 'real' artist. I happen to like Norman Rockwell paintings. And I've heard discussions where photographers are discounted as 'real' artists.

Perhaps the definition for 'real' art - whether we're talking about a painting, novel, poem, symphony, fish stew, or whatever - isn't in the quality of the work, since judgments concerning that are so subjective, but in the response it engenders. I have seen paintings that were technically excellent but didn't speak to me. And I've seen some primitive art that I find moving even though the technique is something that most school children could reproduce.

I'm not saying that photography is not art either. I'm just dismayed that some Salonistas appear to be saying that they find it difficult to move beyond representations that are photographic or, at least, photorealistic.



Anyhoo, it appears I'm going to be a maffs teacher again for another week, possibly more and I was wondering if the Salonistas could help me out. My tutor group - that is, the group of young people for which I have pastoral responsibilities - is a group of hard-bitten, cynical 16 year-olds. Which is just as it should be . I see them for 15 minutes every morning to register their presence in the building and for a one hour 'Guidance' period on a Wednesday. In the room where I tutor and teach there is an interactive whiteboard and a projector connected to a computer and, hence, to the Internet. I would like to display something on the whiteboard each morning - possibly interactive, possibly not - that will wake my students up, perhaps provoke a bit of discussion and may be even cause some learning to happen when they're not expecting it and their defences are low. Has anyone any ideas?

Errr... h2g2?

Hyp in the UK the candidate does not have to be resident in the area in which they are standing. However, when I was selected I was resident in the constituency in which I am standing. I have since then moved, only a few miles, into the other constituency that makes up the council area.

Therefore from good morning leafleting the whole way through election day I will not actually be present in the constiuency where I live. Then I have to keep up to watch the results coverage to aoh what 10 in the morning to get all the key moments in. My result should be between 3 and 4 I reckon on past experience.

I'm sure you could do worse than introduce them to the likes of Bridget Riley and others Amy.

Well you could look at the various differences in teaching maths in different cultures ,via the internet, like several different culture have 1 -2 and many rather than all the way up to googelplex, then the example of the uses for maths in computor generated art ,the site we saw earlier being a good example as the way the picture was put together was
dependent on mathamatics i think.

Think the photographic dissmisal re the art debate is because painting and scultptured art has been around well over three thousand years ,and B raised the question about emphemeralbility, most art is cyclic ,and changeaball in the society that views it, botticceli large female forms
for instence would be at home in the mayan culture and neolithic, sevaral other styles likewise in later years medievil art was very surealistic , then you have religous art that seems to be fairly consistent through out the centuaries.(well what i've seen)also used to teach the tet of various religous books.

then not forgetting only in fairly recent times that the masses have been able to read the written word, but could obtain a fair amount of information from a picture , that is by seing a picture of a object could then make it, so should or is art a learning tool or a pleasure giver ? cromwell thought pleasure !

Back to photographic art many a photographer will wait around for hours just to get the right shade of light and shadow ,where as the acomplished painter can achieve it in one or two brush strokes, but both use the same skills ,eyesight

[GDZ]

Amy, if I understand you correctly, you duties to this group of students fall under what we would call here in the US a homeroom teacher. If that is so, your presentation doesn't have to necessarily be related to math, then.

How about presenting something somewhat significant or intereseting that happened in the world while they were asleep? It would be a way to demonstrate that the world is a much bigger place than their personal experiences. By the time kids are 16 years old, they should be starting to appreciate that the world does not resolve around them and lots of interesting things going on. Of course, I would try to find something that would be at least of some interest to a teenager.

Or a different topic each day. Something from science on Monday, politics on Tuesday, etc.

If I understand Z's point correctly, I agree that the reason a piece of art is created stands independently from its intrinsic merit as a composition. Consider this patriotic artwork from Iraq:
http://www.trekshare.com/index.cfm?p1=121&tripid=5416 - third picture down, you can enlarge it by clicking on it

That was erected with the same sentiments as went into Trafalgar Square or the Arc de Triomphe.


But I can't agree that all opinions are equal. If that is the case, then a print of a big-eyed child crying would hold exactly the same merit as Vermeer's milkmaid.

Oh, and I agree with your last thought, ltp: I carry my camera with me at all times, and I am hoping for exactly the right meterological circumstances one of these days when I go by a certain view of Capitan Gap.

[gd]