Imagination

1. Pick one of your IB higher level subjects and one non-academic activity that you do.  In what ways do you use imagination to gain, evaluate, understand, apply or enjoy knowledge in each of these two cases?  Without imagination, would your knowledge be diminished?  

I'm picking Higher Level Music for my HL subject and composition for my non-academic activity. 

In HL Music, we often gain knowledge imaginatively. For example: If I am trying to determine the region from which a piece originates, (a common activity in IB Music), I will often close my eyes and imagine the instrument, player, or setting that is happening. If it's an instrument that looks like a marimba in my mind, I will think that perhaps it is South American. 

We also use our imagination to evaluate knowledge and to understand music. We'll think about the cultures, customs and context of a place prior to analyzing the musical elements of a composition.

We also use out imagination to enjoy knowledge, and enjoy music! I'll imagine what the composer must have been feeling or thinking while s(he) was writing the piece I'm listening to, and I'll imagine the mood, texture, or timbre of the piece in my mind both while listening and doing academic composing.

Meanwhile, in my own personal compositions, imagination plays a very different role. Oftentimes, I will compose a piece and then color over it in bright colors, depicting the mood I want the section to be played. For example, this is a snippet of a piece that I wrote just now:

I would color flames all over the first measure, indicating that I want it to be played intensely, followed by water on the next three measures, indicating that I'd want it to be played softly. Only I really understand my visual shorthand, and this piece is actually terrible and wouldn't sound good with a loud beginning and a soft ending, (or ever), but that's an example of how I use my imagination in composition!

Art Reflection

Blog post due by Friday, 28 March by 3pm
Respond to the four questions at the end of the class handout
TOK blog reflection questions:

1. Write a definition of “art” (no dictionary, Google searching or asking your art teacher) in 1-2 complete sentences.

I believe that art is the following:

A creative work, musical, visual, theatrical, edible, or written, that evokes one's senses and makes one think differently about the world in which they live, even if only for a moment.

1. How does the photographer, Chris Jordan, “tap” the power of imagination for a purpose other than creating a work of art?

He uses his imagination to create things which make humans realize what is wrong and how easy it is to fix it. He doesn't just make art, he also enlightens, informs, and stuns his audience.

1. Without Chris Jordan’s imaginative use of art to portray the examples discussed in talk, would your knowledge of the social phenomena discussed be diminished? 

I think my knowledge really would be diminished. I think that the visual really gave me the shock that I needed. I never really thought about how BIG all of those paper cups stacked up actually were. The expression on my face was that of pure awe.

1. Name one other “social phenomenon” that would fit in well with the sorts of examples depicted by Chris Jordan, and describe a possible “work of art” of your own that you believe would use imagination as a means toward further understanding. If you fall short of another example, you may choose one of Jordan’s examples, and propose your own “work of art” idea.

I immediately thought of these two things: the racial inequality of the American prison system, and the amount of girls sold into sex slavery in the US. 

Stats about incarcerated African Americans and Hispanics:

• Together, African American and Hispanics comprised 58% of all prisoners in 2008, even though African Americans and Hispanics make up approximately one quarter of the US population
• According to Unlocking America, if African American and Hispanics were incarcerated at the same rates of whites, today's prison and jail populations would decline by approximately 50%
• One in six black men had been incarcerated as of 2001. If current trends continue, one in three black males born today can expect to spend time in prison during his lifetime. 

All of these statistics could be made into art. For example, if I drew a picture of America and colored in the percent of the population that is African American or Hispanic brown, and the percent of the population that is white in blue, and then did the same except with prison populations, that would be an interesting piece. 

Moving on to sex slavery. I could stack up 158,600,000  dolls (representing the amount of women there are in the States) and take a picture. Then I would paint 200,000 of them red. That's a visual of how many women and children are sold in the states.

This video really inspired me to create more activist art!