BigManWeek+6

On Monday when we started talking about modern art and how it ridiculous it seems, this video was the first thing that came to my mind: @http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JqjJwyl16RQ&feature=player_embedded My friend recorded this at a museum his friend from SUNY New Paltz works at, and the premise was that this woman was visited by the spirit of nature in her dreams and it taught her to speak the languages of various types of big cats and each mask was supposed to be a different spirit communicating with the audience through her, only it was supposed to be artistic. I don't really have a question about this, I just thought I'd share it since we were discussing what makes something art in class last time. It's definitely a form of expression, though how successfully the ideas are communicated is definitely fuzzy. My friend talked to other people in the audience after the performance and it seemed that for the most part people weren't sure what to make of it even though supposedly they were the intended audience ("artsy people"??) I guess the definition of art really depends on the person observing

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">Anyway, onto my actual question:

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">When I was in the Game Design major, one of the first textbooks we bought <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">was titled "Rules of Play", even though play doesn't really have any <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">"rules". The book was mostly about how to make games fun but I was trying <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">to think of how video games fit into play in terms of the reading. They're <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">not really sport, because they're not physical (some are though now I <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">guess), but a lot of the team games that you can play online (Halo or Call <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">of Duty) have sport-like qualities with a different online social aspect. <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">But there are probably more single player games than multiplayer, so where <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">do those fit in? There's no room for choosing /how/ to play the game, <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">because even with customization options you're stuck with the gameplay <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">you're given. Depending on who you talk to, games are an art form. So do <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">video games have the same cognitive developmental benefits as "regular" <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">play, and do co-operative games emphasize a similar type of teamwork as <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">sports? From what I've seen of people playing with random strangers <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">online, they hardly try to incorporate any kind of teamwork, but among <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">friends they co-operate. Our society is becoming so technological, and a <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">lot of the kids I've babysat would prefer to stay inside and play video <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">games than get together and play a game of baseball. Is our focus on <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">technology going to cause any kind of societal drawbacks for future <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">generations if they don't have the same kind of socialization that play or <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">sports allows? <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">===

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #1f497d; font-family: Calibri,sans-serif; font-size: 14.545454025268555px;">After watching videos Muhammad Ali, Trobriand cricket, and videogames it was evident that games have contributed to the shaping of culture and society. It seems that games/sports have been embedded in many parts of globe that it has become almost a global language. Taking this notion further, try to imagine a world without sports or games and how we would be living today. Without an olympic games, a world cup, or even videogames, in what ways would society be different? Did sports bring countries and people of different ethnic backgrounds together? Did it help countries maintain their own culture and harmony amongst other countries? How do videogames impact the morphology of today’s society?

http://psychcentral.com/news/2010/07/05/tv-video-games-may-increase-attention-problems/15331.html

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">In Schultz and Lavenda,under the "Baseball and Masculinity in Cuba" section <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">under Chapter 7, it is stated that within Cuba, baseball is seen as dominated <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">by men. It is not only dominated, but based on the text, no women are seen or <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">told or even interested in the sport of baseball. I find that interesting <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">because of the contrast within America. Many women here enjoy baseball, but <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">in Cuba, it seems as if the men do not want any women to be interested in the <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">sport, Why would the men refuse to inform women on baseball or even encourage <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">them to watch or play the sport? Is it simply the same as how America was in <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">the early 1900s before women played or were involved in the sport? Would time <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">be simply the only factor in making equality between men and women in Cuba <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">feasible?

http://www.utm.utoronto.ca/~w3his454/A-Carter-Cuba.Baseball.pdf

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">The topic of ritual cannot be thoroughly discussed without mention of the emphasis placed on transition. Whether the transition is dictated by major life change, societal events, or solely the passage of time, we take every opportunity to acknowledge the ever-changing nature of mankind. In a society as fast paced and obsessed with progression as the United States, do consciously adhered to forms of ritual get in the way of moving forward? Is there a correlation between under-productive societies and the amount of time devoted to time-consuming cultural ritual? Of course, the concept of ritual encompasses more than just those extraneous, time-consuming forms of ritual, but how often does the ritual we find so much forward-moving value in actually hold us back, both in terms of time and cultural progression?

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">We often turn once everyday things or activities from our own culture or another, into art. It seems that nostalgia plays a big role in this, what does this tendency to attach ourselves or our past selves to these artistic expressions say about us? Do we all share this collective tendency? If done consciously would these artistic expressions be part of an "artificial" culture?

http://www.nostalgic-art.net/en/ http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1525/can.1988.3.3.02a00010/abstract

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">As I was reading Chapter 7, I came across an interesting concept about society and the use of myths, "all societies depend on the willingness of their <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">members not to question certain assumptions about the way the world work. Because the regulatory and predictability of social life might collapse <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">altogether...", and it goes on to say that "societies find ways to persuade their members that the local version of reality is the only reality" one of the ways being <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">through the use of myths. The Declaration of Independence is mention to be a possible example of a myth, from that I was wondering if the idea of "the land of the free <span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">and the home of the brave" is just a shared illusion of reality put forth to keep a sense of stability and keep the entire nation away from a state of chaos and anarchy. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imagined_Communities

<span style="background-color: #ffffff; color: #222222; font-family: Cambria,serif; font-size: 12.727272033691406px;">While reading the section about Witchcraft Accusation in Chapter 8 I began to wonder what changes a society to make it more accepting of an idea or belief. For example in the late 1600’s the Witch trials were running rampant in America and over in Europe; with people burning accused women and men at the stake for witchcraft charges. However, in more recent years, people were lining up outside of bookstores hours before the newest Harry Potter book was released; a book solely about witchcraft and wizardry. What has adjusted the cultural perception of the dangers of witchcraft over these past 400 years? Or even not as specifically- what makes it so an entire culture can of such a paradigm shift? Does it take a major event or is it more of slight changes over a number of years?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbus_Day