Armory Square Playground Project

1. To Do List· Create PowerPoint
1) What the project is: the need for it---Claire
2) History of Armory Square and description of playground--Caryn
3) Analysis of artist that inspired the work and the benefit to families--Mike·
Before Wednesday: go to Armory Square to look at actual site---Claire, Caryn, Mike·
Before Wednesday: map out the area where the playground will go--Claire, Caryn, Mike·
Before Wednesday: take pictures of the area—Claire, Caryn, Mike· Before Wednesday:
Conduct quick interview with people walking around Armory Square to get their opinion on if
a playground were to be put in place--Mike·
Write 2-3 page project narrative: Claire, Caryn, Mike

Mike Lefko’s portion of the presentation: [PowerPoint slides showing Armory Square while I am talking]Our idea to create a playground in Armory Square stems from the work of Maya Lin. [show slide of Lin’s ice skating rink]. Her work, “Eclipstic,” an ice skating rink in Grand Rapids, Michigan is a paradigm of what we want to accomplish with the Armory Square playground. The ice skating rink is in the center of the city, exactly like our park will be. The ice skating rink is a tribute to the history of the city of Grand Rapids, meant to evoke memories of when the rapids flowed near the city. Similarly, our playground will provide a tribute to the history of Armory Square in an enjoyable way by using elements past elements of Armory Square in the building of the playground. [Back to the slide of the playground] As Claire mentioned, the playground will be made so that it resembles Armory Square when the railroad ran right through the area, making the square a profitable business district.Of course, since it is a playground, hopefully children will play on it. Because, children cannot take themselves to the playground, our goal is that families will bring their children to the park and spend more time with them. [Slide showing families] Armory Square today is an area targeted towards people around the age of 18 and up. [Slide of trendy Armory Square places] This neglects the children, therefore adults with kids are likely to leave their children at home, or be forced to drag them along and have nothing for the children to do. [Play interviews of people that I talked to at Armory Square] Therefore, our playground will bring families together and like a work of dialogical art, will enable conversations between parent and child. Similarly, since the playground is outside, children are getting out playing rather than sitting at home on the couch. [Slide of snow covering a playground] Like all playgrounds, nature dictates that for some of the year, the playground will be inaccessible. Nevertheless, when it is cold and snowing, people are less likely to spend a large amount of time at an outdoor venue like Armory Square. It cannot be used all year long but the benefits of children playing outside and being able to share quality time with their parents outweighs the fact that it can only be used for half of the year.

Claire Healey’s part
Amory Square is a very popular place full of shops, restaurants and people. But what was there before the shops and restaurants? Most of the people who go and shop around the Armory Square area probably do not know the history of the place. Also the people who do use the area are couples going to dinner, woman shopping, or business people passing through on their way to or from work, but no families. Our project would take care of these two problems, no families and no one knowing the history of the Armory Square. We feel that if people had a place to bring their kids to have fun while the family can go shopping together. Families together while having fun shopping and eating outside is a very good way to bond and become closer in a world full of video games and internet and all of the other technological advancements that have forced families apart. Also if people knew the history behind Armory Square they would have more of a connection with the place and may want to get there more often. Even if they do not feel the urge to go there more, they now know more about their hometown and where they spend a lot of their time.

Caryn Rothbort’s part Playground:-designed to look like a train station-houses surrounding with company names-pull knobs with historical informationVisuals-plot in Armory that will be used for the project-stereotypical people in the area
This history of Armory Square is an extensive and central part to the significance of the area and the members of the entire Syracuse community. Armory square began to thrive in the early 1820’s with the construction of the Erie Canal because of the close proximity but it really flourished starting in the 1830’s with the introduction of the railroads. Most of the major railroad companies passed through this area causing major corporations and industries to sprout up. This This allowed for a great deal of commercials business and a profitable enterprise for the Syracuse area. Hotels and various other attractions were built and being prosperous. But once railroads were removed Armory went on a steep incline of profit. But in the 1970’s businessmen and artists revived the downtown area. The area is still on the National Register of Historic Places. (Armory Square).Since the history of Armory Square is so important to the understanding and complete enjoyment of the area, it is our idea to incorporate this history into the creation of the playground. The playground itself will be modeled after a train station. It will have mock railroad tracks, a platform, and ticket booth. Also within the play area we will make plastic houses with the names of major corporations industries that influenced the area. In different parts of the playground there will be knobs that when they are pulled up, will reveal brief facts about the area of Armory Square. The playground will not only have the components of conventional playground but will also integrate the vital historical background of Armory Sqaure. The goal by doing this is to educate the children of Syracuse about their neighborhood while at the same time providing them with a more enjoyable experience in Armory Square.

Project Brief

Our project to make the popular Syracuse area of Armory Square more family oriented and a more enjoyable experience for children rather than a chore to go around with parents. The project will take the form of a playground. We picked to work in Armory Square because it is an essential part in the life of a Syracuse community member. Armory is geared towards an older crowed and since the site is so important to the city its only proper to make it enjoyable to all. Armory square began to thrive in the early 1820’s with the construction of the Erie Canal and then in the 1830’s with the introduction of the railroads. This allowed for a great deal of commercials business and a profitable enterprise for the Syracuse area. But once railroads were removed Armory went on a steep incline of profit. But in the 1970’s businessmen and artists revived the downtown area. The area is still on the National Register of Historic Places. This site is appropriate for the project because of the rich history that the area has which we will incorporate into the playground. This way kids have an interactive way of learning the history of their community while at the same time having an enjoyable experience in an important historical place. This project will be an integration because it will utilize the space in Armory Square. It will also encompass the area’s rich history and the members of the surrounding communities. Permission for this site will have to come from the owners of which ever area of land we decide would be the most appropriate for the playground. Our project would interrupt the general aesthetics of the area. The playground would be a very unconventional item for the area of upscale boutiques and shops in uniform architecture. Our project is related to that of Daniel Tucker’s projects. He utilized available areas of land to get his and other artists he worked with, their points across. The goal of the project is to educate people on the important history of this landmark area and to also make the area more enjoyable for a wider audience. The success of the project will be able to be seen if there is a new face of people enjoying all that Armory Square has to offer. Our target audience are the families of the Syracuse area. The playground should provide for an overall more enjoyable experience for the families and attract new people to the area. We want families to come and enjoy the playground. Kids to play on it and at the same time learning the Armory history and parents to enjoy having their kids having a positive experience in Armory.

Valery's Ankle Essay

Caryn Rothbort
Valery’s Ankle
11/5/07

Hockey to many is a sport of passion and pride, while others who do not understand the entertainment and gratification see it as a form of legal violence unfit for recreational watching. Brett Kashmere uses the popular art form of documentary to express his audacious feelings towards the disintegration of the meaningful sport of hockey to an extreme violent one due to its tendencies. In his film Valery’s Ankle, he focuses on the idea that hockey has transformed to such a degree that is an endangerment to its players and a defamation of the game and the countries, such as Canada, which it represents. Documentaries are not the most desirable medium for understanding an aspect of a problem because of their bias view points. Kashmere is no stranger to this.

Valery’s Ankle focuses on the detriment of violence to the sport and the barbaric tendencies promoted by players, fan, and coaches. He bases his thesis around the 1972 hockey series between Canada and the Soviet Union. Canada, picked as the underdogs, as a desperate attempt to be victorious had one of their star players Bobby Clarke attack the Soviet’s Valery Kharlamov. From behind, Clarke slashed the ankle of Kharlamov injuring him so severely that it takes him out of the series and contributes an immeasurable amount to the accomplishment of Canada. He continues by showing some of professional hockey’s most brutal hits and explaining that violence has fixed itself as a central part to the game.

Hockey is an increasingly violent sport where each year more and more players receive life altering strikes. The sport is known for its violence and excitement of inducing fights as a fixed part of the game. Players are at times not idolized for their skill or role model features, but rather for their ability to initiate, react, and withstand a fight on the ice. In the book, Men at Play: A Working Understanding of Professional Hockey the author Michael Robidoux says “In the case of professional hockey, it is apparent that the heroic values placed upon players are largely superficial, and that the hockey player’s ability to physically dominate an opponent has little currency outside the sporting arena.” (Robidoux). Kashmere is angered by concepts like this. Hockey’s violence is accepted and isolated to the arena but Kashmere sees it as a form of brutality that needs to be viewed and handled just as social violence is. He says “…violence only begets more violence. I think that sports violence should be considered in the same terms, and prosecuted the same way, as social violence.”(Kashmere). By holding hockey players on pedestals for the sole purpose of their ability to fight and contribute a violent excitement to the game is like holding street fighters and gangs on the same type of level. Sport violence should be no more acceptable than social violence.

The art form that Brett Kashmere used as his medium is documentary. Documentaries are not always the most effective way to communicate one’s message because of the stigma of portraying bias that they inevitably depict. A documentary shows one side to an issue. It gives off the film maker’s point of view and forces people to look at an issue in a new light. This allows people to shed their ignorance and open them to a new point of view is they have a pervious notion on a topic, but if a person is undecided or unexposed to the issue will be persuaded to the film maker’s point of view. Documentaries take a subjective role in social aspects of life. “If the fundamental principle of conservative politics is to maintain order for the sake of economy, to complement the needs and desires of the economic elite, and to discourage social heterogeneity, then the documentary, as it now stands, is complicit in participating in that order...” (Critical Art Ensemble)

Although simply giving his point of view on the topic, Kashmere’s documentary acts as a blue guide to people’s views on hockey. In his essay the Blue Guide, Roland Barthes says “Generally speaking, the Blue Guide testifies to the futility of all analytical description, those which reject both explanations and phenomenology: it answers in fact none of the questions which a modern traveler can ask himself while crossing a countryside which is real and which exists in real time.” By this he means that people are unreasonably directed towards certain, more popular sites than the more valuable ones. He uses the example of the Roman churches and the Muslim mosques in Italy. The mosques are just as, if not more beautiful than the churches but because of the emphasis put on these attractions to tourists whether they are more beautiful or not. Kashmere’s essay acts in this way as well. Valery’s ankle acts as a Blue Guide for people’s views on hockey’s violence. By subjecting the audience strictly to major and severe hits, Kashmere leaves out all other aspects of hockey including the actual game. Rather, he guides people toward his opinions on the negatives of the sport and does not focus on other, more prominent figures. He makes it seem as though violence is the foremost aspect of the game just as the Blue Guide makes the Catholic Churches seem as the foremost aspect of Italy. Neither gives a fair representation of the idea it is trying to convey to its viewers or visitors.

No matter the violence it envelops, hockey is Canada’s national sport and their identifiable pride. Just as the all-American sport is baseball and countries around the worl recognize it with the United States, hockey is as unifying a feature of Canadian society if not more important. Canada even employed its professional hockey players as pawns to represent and promote the image of Canada around the world. In 1987, Joe Clark, Canada’s external affairs commissioner and Otto Jelinek, amateur sports minister sent players abroad to promote the nation’s image and it was “the first time that the Department of External Affairs had committed itself to the notion that sport could play a positive role in meeting the country’s diplomatic goals.” (Macintosh and Hames). As Kashmere says in Valery’s ankle, children grow up playing hockey, it becomes imbedded in a child since birth. The boys play hockey and the girls support it, there’s no way around growing up and involving hockey into one’s life in Canada. Violence is able to enter the game by toughening players and giving them the ability to play hard and get into fights while playing.

Violence, even though not an aspect of the game, it is a huge fan focal point and does encompass a great deal of the atmosphere of hockey. The game was not based around nor intended for violence to be an attraction for fans, it has developed into such a key factor into the game. Players are conditions to be tough to withstand the beating they receive. The joke is that a hockey player has no teeth because they are too often knocked out in games. They have experienced injuries from broken bones, to missing teeth, to gashes on the face and head, to concussions, to being paralyzed. But violence is not a necessary aspect of the sport. A great example of this is the National Hockey League and Canada’s own Wayne Gretzky. Known to hockey fans and people around the world as “the Great One”, Gretzky never fought in his career of twenty years of NHL hockey. (Turkington). Still, he was exciting to watch and because of his remarkable skill drew a great number of fans and viewer ship. He did not have to stoop to the level of violence is prevalent in the obtaining of fans and using cheap tricks to be entertaining. Rather, Gretzky followed what the game entailed and was established on the grounds of to raise his status, pure skill.

Violence in hockey is not the only aspect that is necessary for the game, although it is important to the overall experience of the game. Brett Kashmere’s documentary does not show violence integrated into the sport, rather he shows it as a solely negative aspect. It is clear from examples of players like Wayne Gretzky that violence is not needed for the sport to prevail or be exciting, but fighting has become a predominant feature nonetheless. Kashmere is able to show his views on this aggression in hockey and its reflection on Canadian culture and reputation through his documentary, but the form of art he chose is not the most respected. Documentaries are notorious for exerting a bias viewpoint on a subject and sometimes even distorting facts or using them out of context to fit the artist’s needs.

Valery's Ankle Essay Outline

1. Introduction
Thesis: Brett Kashmere uses the popular art form of documentary to express his audacious feelings towards the disintegration of the meaningful sport of hockey to an extreme violent one due to its tendencies.

1. Breif synopsis of documentary
Brett Kashmere’s documentary Valery’s Ankle focuses on the detriment of violence to the sport and the barbaric tendencies promoted by players, fan, and coaches.

2. Defending Brett’s Thesis
Hockey is an increasingly violent sport where each year more and more players receive life altering strikes.
“In the case of professional hockey, it is apparent that the heroic values placed upon players are largely superficial, and that the hockey player’s ability to physically dominate an opponent has little currency outside the sporting arena.” (Robidoux)

3. Documentaries as bias form
Doumentaries are not always the most affective way to communicate one’s message because of the stigma of portraying bias that they inevitably depict.
“The narrative structure must envelop the viewer like a net and
close off all other possible interpretations.” (Critical Art Ensemble)

4. Telling you what to think
Although simply giving his point of view on the topic, Kashmere’s documentary acts as a blue guide to people’s views on hockey.
“Generally speaking, the Blue Guide testifies to the futility of all analytical description, those which reject both explanations and phenomenology: it answers in fact none of the questions which a modern traveler can ask himself while crossing a countryside which is real and which exists in real time.”

5. Hockey’s importance in Canada
No matter the violence it envelops, hockey is Canada’s national sport and their identifiable pride.
(quotation from Macintosh and Hames)

6. The role of violence
Violence, even though not an aspect of the game, it is a huge fan focal point and does encompass a great deal of the atmosphere of hockey.

7. Conclusion
Violence in hockey is not the only aspect that is necessary for the game, although it is important to the overall experience of the game. Brett Kashmere’s documentary does not show violence integrated into the sport, rather he shows it as a solely negative aspect.

In her book One Place After Another, Miwon Kwon discusses an number of public art pieces that fall under the category of a project “Culture in Action”. These projects focus around the involvement of the community and that the projects success relies just as much on the people of the neighborhood as it does the creator of the piece itself. In her lecture, Mary Jane Jacobs explains how she is “interested in making art experiences”. It is about the involvement of people viewing the pieces and creating an interaction. She also comments that museums are inadequate because of their lack of space. Museums limit the work that can be viewed and a person’s interactions.

1- The project I will be writting my essay about it the documentary "Valery's Ankle" by Brett Kashmere.

2- a) Is the documentary too bias?
b) How successful is it as a work of dialogical art?

3- Journals:
a)Hockey Coaches' and Players' Perceptions of Aggression and the Aggressive Behavior of Players
- Journal of Sport Behavior
- By Todd M. Loughead and Larry M. Leith
b) Interview: Brett Kashmere
-Stylus
- By Nancy Keefe Rhodes
Books:
c) Sports and Canadian Diplomacy
-By Donald Macintosh and Michael Hames
d) Men at Play: A Working understanding of Professional Hockey
-By Michael A. Robidoux

Nanook of the North: Robert Flaherty

"Video and Resistance: Against Documentary"

The article “Video and Resistance: Against Documentary” calls out the fact that written representations are no longer efficient for people’s understanding. Visuals have become necessary to understand history, but documentaries fail at providing such accounts. They present bias and fictional stories and events in a project that is taken as factual. The article mentions a few works in particular that exhibit the awfulness behind documentaries by saying these works have no factual integrity.
This article relates to “The Image World” by Susan Sontag. In her writing, Sontag opens with the line “Reality has always been interpreted through the reports given by images.” Both show understanding of the importance of visuals but neither support the way in which they are carried out. “Video and Resistance: Against Documentary” states that documentaries misrepresent the truth and Sontag says that photographs do not give the whole story of a situation rather a picture is only an extension of a subject.

Caryn Rothbort
10/8/07
Environmental Justice in Onondaga County

Pollution and the contamination of bodies of water throughout the United States has been a prevalent and ongoing problem since early in American history. Hazardous to animals and plants that live in these lakes, the people who need and drink the water, and the surrounding neighborhoods, there has not been enough attention called to fixing these problems nor has there been enough effort made to fix them either. The Superfund is an ongoing project which is funded by the companies being held responsible for the site defamation and supplemented by the government to help clean these sites. But the Superfund is not being enforced strictly enough and there is little attempt being made to correct this problem. The Superfund, if working to its full capacity, is a great tool in helping clean these areas and has worked well for a number of areas but more often than not it has fallen short as being a realistic answer to a vast problem. Although attempts are being made, not enough is getting accomplished. The Superfund needs to more strictly impose its laws and make them more efficient for an improved functioning system. Its focus also needs to be narrowed to those with the largest problems as opposed to dabbling in the scene of all polluted areas.
According to the Christian Science Monitor article Superfund program: a smaller cleanup rag by Brad Knickerbocker, hazardous waste has been injected in to the soil, bodies of water, and air all across the United States since the Industrial Revolution. This led to the establishment of a national Superfund in 1980, which is a government funded program that had attempted to clean up these polluted sites. The fund is practically bankrupt after cleaning up only 886 sites since its beginning, leaving 1,203 in need of restoration (Knickerbocker 1-3). The number of sites itself causes a huge detriment to the capability of the Superfund program. The program was originally imagined to provide relief to twenty to thirty sites, but now this number has increased to an exuberant amount (Meyers). This is detrimental to the effort of the Superfund in that with so many sites to clean up and so many different problems to worry about, money is being stretched too thinly and resources are falling short. For a site to be restored and hazardous waste to be cleaned, each individual site needs more attention which is why the original goal of a few sights would have been more efficient.
Onondaga Lake is one of those sights which needs greater attention. Considered one of the, if not the worst polluted lakes in the nation, it has been contaminated since 1884 with the establishment of the Allied Chemical Corporation, which later became Honeywell International (Landers 64). Consistently, their multiple plants have discharged waste into the lake infecting it with a great deal of harmful substances. There are a number of various pollutants effecting the lake’s quality of health and a great deal of work needs to be done to restore it. The efforts being made seem to be more of a cover up so it appears that something is being done rather than having anything really accomplished. Broken down into nine sub-sites, or individual areas for its own plan of action for restoration, Honeywell is responsible for the clean up of six of these individual sites (Onondaga Nation). The Environmental Protection Agency and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) outlined plans for the clean up that held Honeywell responsible (Landers 66). But the plan does not force the industry, which is liable for the vast majority of the pollution, to take enough action to efficiently clean the site. The plan will not effectively remove all the contaminants in Onondaga Lake (Onondaga Nation). The plan put forth by the EPA and DEC need to lay a stronger hand to remove the entirety of the waste in the lake. There is really no point in cleaning up Onondaga Lake only a slight bit because if there are still even a few contaminants in the lake, its still hazardous and harmful.
Attempts at progress are being made. From the 1970s until present day, there have
been a number of lawsuits, studies, and clean ups conducted. The Metropoliton Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant, or simply Metro, is located directly on the lake’s shore and has been a contributor to the contamination since the 1920s especially by filtering phosphorous and nitrogen into Onondaga Lake (Landers 70). The 1998 Onondaga Lake Amended Consent Judgment mandates that Metro reduce the concentration of phosphorous waste runoff into the lake (Landers 70). Since then, progress has been made, but it is no where near the authorized reduction. The Metro also introduced the biological aerated filter which has served as a significant factor in the reduction in the levels of ammonia (Landers 71).
Although progress is being made in the restoration of Onondaga Lake, it is not efficient or sudden enough. The negligence of large industries has had a detrimental effect on the lake, inevitably damaging the county of Onondaga. Being notorious for having such a polluted lake does not help the reputation of the county or make it enjoyable or safe for the members of the nearby community. Honeywell and Metro both need to own up to their mistakes and those of their predecessors to completely eliminate the mistakes that have been made. It is vital for these two major industries to not just create good public relations and have agreements on paper to look as though they are striving towards the crackdown of cleaning the lake, rather they need to follow what they agree to and do it in a speedy and efficient manner.
Onondaga Lake continues to be in need of repair. It has been contaminated since the 1880s and it has not let up very much since. Though there are efforts being made to alleviate the most polluted lake in the nation, they are in no way significant enough to
make promising immediate results. The major contributors to this contamination, Honeywell and The Metropolitan Syracuse Wastewater Treatment Plant, need to take a bigger role and make more of an effort to clean up the problems that they caused. The lake and Onondaga community does not deserve the treatment it has been receiving and deserves to be compensated by the correction of the horrid mistakes that were made.






Works Cited

Knickerbocker, Brad. “Superfund Program: A Smaller Cleanup Rag.” The Christian
Science Monitor. (14 Nov 2003). 1 Oct 2007.


Landers, Jay. “New Life for Onondaga Lake.” Civil Engineering (American Society of
Civil Engineers) 76.5 (2006): 64-71,86. Applied Science & Technology. H.W.
Wilson. Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, NY. 1 Oct. 2007.
requestid=184552>

Meyers, Sheldon. “Real Replaces Ideal as Superfund Matures.” Journal of Applied
Research and Pubic Policy. 11 (1996): 113-117. Social Science. H.W. Wilson.
Syracuse University Library, Syracuse, NY. 1. Oct. 2007.

Onondaga Nation. 2005. Onondaga Nation. 1 Oct 2007.

http://www.onondaganation.org/news.cleanup1.html

Hazardous waste has been injected in to the soil, bodies of water, and air all across the United States since the Industrial Revolution. This led to the establishment of a national Superfund in 1980, which is a government funded program that had attempted to clean up these polluted sites. Now the fund which has spent nearly $1 billion a year on clean up is practically bankrupt after cleaning up only 886 sites since its beginning, leaving 1,203 in need of restoration. The fund was originally created with placing blame on the polluter often resulting in forcing that party to pay for the clean up. This still left “orphan sites”, or sites in which the owner abandoned it or went bankrupt and excise taxes on oil and chemical industries and some income tax were left to support their clean up. But the fees expired in 1995 and Congress has not renewed them causing the tax on individuals to be increased significantly. Many Senators are lobbying for the taxes on oil and chemical industries to be reinstated although this ignores the original meaning of the fund, to charge those responsible.

Phobias and fear have been integrated into the American culture for almost the entirety of its establishment. According to Sean Quimby, Syracuse University librarian and facilitator of the lecture “American Phobia: Collecting the History of Fear”, there are many manifestations of fear but two primary trends in the American way of life. The first is a dogged invasion of fantasy and the second is the gradual emergence of therapeutic culture.
The first trend that Quimby talks about is Americans’ obsession with the posed threat of invasion. One example that he gives of this is Madison Grant’s The Passing of the Great Race in which he speaks about Henry Osbourne and his belief is the greatest danger is that people with the traits of religious grounding, or the Aryan race, dying out. The non-Aryan race threatened their existence. The next example that Quimby gives was the 1938 radio broadcast of War of the Worlds. This radio show gave a fictional story of Aliens invading the world and it resulted in about six million people actually believing the story was a reality and instilling fear among all of them. Hadley Cantrill, a Princeton Professor, commented on this naiveté of the American public by saying that it was due to Americans’ inability to distinguish reality from fiction. The second trend that Quimby talks about, and spends a significantly less amount of time discussing, is the therapeutic culture of fear. The example that Quimby gives is God. He says that God is now being absorbed into this path of fear in a way that people’s belief in a higher being helps alleviate the uncertainty and horror of phobias.
The lecture as a whole did not present a clear thesis and nor was it very informative. Rather Quimby jumped around speaking of different figures and books that dealt with fear and the concepts of fear that Americans face, but had no unifying thought for all of these examples. The lecture was also not very in depth. It was a brief and only scratched the surface of the patterns and commonality of Americans’ fears and phobias. The lecture would have been better and more informative if Quimby gave historical examples and spoke more of the typical phobias that present themselves in American culture.

Bin Dahn, is an extremely talented artist whose exhibit “Life: One Week’s Dead” pays homage to the soldiers and more specifically the victims of the Vietnam War. His art work gives a definitive testimony to the Vietnam War and it’s soldiers. Dahn, to create his work, takes leaves and covers them with negatives so that the leaves loose their chlorophyll and then duplicates images onto them. The images he creates incorporate portraits of soldiers from the war in which he obtained from the Life Magazine issue, One Week’s Dead, which was the inspiration for his projects. In Dahn’s lecture he explained that after visiting Vietnam, he realized that remnants of the war linger in the landscape and thus the reasoning for using leaves to portray his ideas. His art works depict what it would be like if the leaves and landscape of Vietnam could talk, the leaves are what contain the war. By placing the portraits of these soldiers on leaves, Dahn is in a sense giving testimony to the Vietnam War and allowing the stories hidden in the landscape surface. Dahn also said in his lecture that photos are the DNA of our memory. So by surfacing these photographs, Dahn is giving validation to the war and allowing his audience to take in pictures of the soldiers and at the same time the feeling of the scenery.
Bin Dahn’s art can be a reflection of current times as well. Many compare the Vietnam War to the current Iraqi War for ambiguous reasons of entry and unnecessary deaths. The vagueness of the faces of the soldiers in the grass art works can represent any and all of the soldiers of the Vietnam War and can even represent the soldiers of the Iraqi War. The faces represent the men who fight in all the wars of the United States to defend our nation.
In Susan Sontag’s “The Image-World”, she examines the concept of photography and its importance in society. Sontag states “a photograph is not only an image…an interpretation of the real; it is also a trace, something directly stenciled off the real, like a foot print or a death mask.”(p.350). This applies completely to Bin Dahn’s exhibit. His art work portrays the real but it also is “a trace…stenciled off something real”. His pictures are of the real men who died in Vietnam and their stories are coming from the remains left at the site. The grass that begs to tell its story and the fallen men who are trying to break through. Whatever it was that the pictures were not able to capture, the landscape made up for. Sontag also states that “Photograph collections can be used to make a substitute world, keyed to exalting or consoling or tantalizing images.” I thought this concept applied to Dahn’s pictures because they do create a new world. When examining the grass art work, standing close gave a distorted view of what was actually imprinted on to the grass, it looked as if it were simply shards of grass placed next to one another. Upon a second examination from a farther distance, the portraits became more apparent. Despite the clear distinction of a figure, the faces were undistinguishable making the pictures capable of being anyone and everyone, a representation of all soldiers of the war indication of all their presences. Allowing the pictures to be any and all soldiers creates a new world of more general war scene than the specifics of the soldier actually portrayed in the picture.

1. Art is a concept that is left up to the interpretation of an individual based on their preference to aesthetically pleasing pieces of work.
Over the summer, I went to Manhattan to see the “Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era” at the Whitney Museum of American Art. There were a lot of interesting paintings and sculptures throughout the exhibit but the one painting that really struck me was a painting called “Grain of Sand”. The painting is a circle and is extremely colorful and bold. Its comprised of many different faces and miscellaneous shapes and designs. The colors of the picture and the intricate designs captivate you into examining the piece of work and spending a great deal of time with it. I got lost into the sea of colors and shapes and refused to move as my friends wanted to move on. The reason I was so taken aback by this art work was because it was so different than conventional pieces I was used to. It was not a landscape or portrait and didn’t have a specific color scheme, rather it incorporated anything and everything the artist wanted to have. The artist, I believe, wanted to try and grab hold of the audience of his painting and try to scream out to them and I believe he was very successful in this manner.

2. In Thierry de Duve’s essay “Art was a proper name”, Duve explores the definition of art as a word and as an entity. He takes you through a journey as a person unfamiliar to the Earthly concept would discover it. His thoughts and theories are extremely similar to the definition I always attributed to the concept that is art. Art is a vast … that encompasses an infinite number of meanings and a great deal of different interpretations. As Duve states in his essay “Either the ontological status of the work of art is an empty set, or it is an infinite one; either nothing is art, or everything can be.” (p.11). I completely agree with this statement. Since the definition of art is left up to the individual, it can encompass as much or as little as a person believes it to be. Art can be defined as anything from a painting, to a song, to a piece of literature, to, as we saw in class, a ready-made urinal. There is no limitations put on what someone can consider art because every person walks away from the same object with a different feeling evoked, experience undertaken, and idea developed. Whose to say that what you enjoy and believe is art, is not truly the definition of what art is. Duve also says “that humans give art an autonomous place, with magic and religion on one side, and science on the other.” (p.5). This shows that humans give great value to art by placing it by itself in a different theory from the other established notions. I, as well as Duve, believe that everyone can decide for themselves what exactly art is, if it’s anything at all.