Blog Post #1

“Bodies in Space” is an unusual topic; yet it is quite creative and offers many opportunities for self expression.  At the beginning of the free writing exercise, I was about to panic.  I wondered what I am going to write about.  Then, after a few minutes, I got so many interesting ideas and now I am having a hard time choosing one.     

My first idea was the concept of beauty in different cultures.  The model of beauty changes dramatically over time and varies from culture to culture.  For instance, the norm of beauty in some cultures is for women to be thin, but in other cultures a plump woman is considered more attractive.  Another idea concerns how people accentuate their beauty.  From ancient times humans have adorned themselves with make-up, clothes and accessories.  What is sexier: a tight and skimpy outfit that leaves nothing to the imagination or attire that covers all the body and leaves a sense of mystery about what is hiding under those layers of clothing? It could be very interesting to research cultural concepts of beauty and how women from various countries and time enhance their beauty differently.

Another possible topic to research might be connected with the works of the famous American artist George Tooker.   I was impressed by his works when I went to the Columbus Museum of Art.  His best-known works are The Subway, Government Bureau, and The Waiting Room.  Tooker has the unique ability to show the atmosphere of his time and he impresses viewers with his ability to expose social problems by picturing people during every day situations.

“follow the white rabbit”

Considering the topic, do you think I’m going to saying something about the New Alice in Wonderland? Oh, nonono,  you got tricked. This white rabbit isn’t that one leads Alice to wonderland, but the one leads Neo to the “truth”. Yes, that’s what I’m going to talk about, the Matrix. I’ve been a fun of this episode for a long time, not only because its attractive content but also because “the Matrix” is also one of my dreams, a dream of a couputer engineer in the future.

In the story, there are two spaces: the “real” world which is  in the year of 21xx, and in which  the mechines are overwhelming the human kind; the other one is the “Matrx”, which is a system designed by the mechines to slave human’s mind and turn their bodies to batteries. So a lot of different kinds of bodies: humans, like Neo in the real world, mechines, viruses like Neo in the Matrix, anti-viruses like Smith, application like every slaved mind in the Matrix, software like the little Indian girl, and a administrator like the oracle, and a “God” who is the designer of the Matrix.

The two different spaces make the whole story incredible excellent, especially for these who have a  franze about computers. You have to watch it very carefully and think hard to figure  out what those characters stand for in a real computer system, like applications, hardwares, softwares, viruses, anti-viruses, USB pulgs, hackers, defenders and so on. For example, the hero, Neo, could be a super viruses to the system (even though he is aiming at “free” the human kind from the Matrix) because he could not only hack into the system and change the initial setups, which makes him a virus, but also break the rules of the system like grativity, acceleration  and even beat the anti-virus, Smith, which makes him a SUPER virus.

Besides this “role matching” game, there are a lot of other ideas for us to consider about. As I know almost everyone who has watched it will have a weird feeling for a while, that is: what if I am right now living in a Matrix? Is that possible? And don’t argue with me about this: everyone of us “ordinary” people won’t be able to tell the answer untill we get freed. XD So I think this may be an excellent object for me to analyse in the paper.

P.S. Don’t worry about the last question, if we are really living in a Matrix, it won’t let this episode get published.