Art and Media

      What is art?  To me, art is anything that expresses human emotion of any kind.  That can be found in things like: painting, dancing, music, film, photography, ceramics, sculpting, or architecture.  These are some of the more traditional forms of art, but I know people who create things like wine or bicycles and they consider themselves artists because they put all they have into what they are making.  A little piece of them goes into every thing that they create.  That too is art.

    Different types of art mean different things to me.  Music, for example, is usually an extension of whatever mood I’m currently in.  For example when I’m with other people, listening to “fun” music just makes being with other people more exciting.  But then there are types of art that all I do is admire the artists creativity/talent.  Some photographs don’t necessarily evoke any emotion from me, especially when it’s abstract, but I can usually sit back and appreciate what went into it.  Some types of art bring about meaning through the emotions that are brought out through them, but other types of art bring about meaning through the appreciation of the human mind/body and what it’s capable of doing. 

    Art is meaningful, also, in the sense that it’s a reflection of an individual who is part of society.  So therefore art is an extension of society.  This is meaningful because art comes about in media as well.  So if art reflects society then we can analyze art to see what is important to society’s beliefs, tastes, priorities, feelings, etc. 

    So when we look at one particular style of art, film, and look at a film that did particularly well in theaters (or let alone, made it to theaters):  Saw.  This is art because it is expressing human emotions, mainly fear.  So if this is a reflection of society because one could say that our society, for one reason or another, likes to be scared.  In this particular piece of work, this emotion is primarily evoked through the use of violence.  The story itself isn’t scary, it’s the gory actions that the characters have to commit that brings about the fear. 

    I think the context for creating this type of art is tapping into this primal need for certain emotions that need to be evoked every now and again to remind us that we’re mortal.  It’s easy to get lost in a sea of monotony when everything is electronic and there’s no sense of survival in day to day life.  We become numb to certain, powerful emotions in our modern society.  But when we go to see this movie that’s so far from ordinary life, we get these feelings that we never get to feel.  And while we might not necessarily enjoy being terrified, we do enjoy feeling an emotion that’s so extreme. 

    This participates in media because while it is art, it is also media.  And media also participates in the art.  Media talks about the art, it’s an outlet for people to come together and share the same emotions for the piece of art.  It all reflects societal views of how we perceive the art.  So society hears about the film from the media, then thinks that it’s the cool thing to go see this film (or that somehow it’s expected of them), then once they see the film, they go back to media to see what other people have to say about it or even share their own point of view.  Media and art go hand in hand.  They feed into each other.