Response to Kips Lecture, lecture #3

Kip's lecture today focused on the body, advertising, and beauty & gaze. He first began talking about the black male body and how it has been portrayed in films as remakes or sequels and listed a ton of examples such as: Clarence Williams, Morgan Freeman, Bill Cosby, the matrix guy, and more. He then tied this in to the work of Robert Mapplethorpe who's "Black Book Series" shocked the public beyond belief. In this series of photographs he focused on juxtaposition of male and female, black vs. white, shadow vs. light, etc. These details allowed some photos to be barely visible while the notion of them was still present. Kip then moved on to advertising and how people want to be like the person in the advertisement. Once their brain realizes they cannot be a different person, they subconsciously decide that what really stands out is the object in the advertisement. I don't like to admit this, but I feel as though this technique has definitely worked on me in the past, provided that the object being advertised isn't some ridiculously expensive item! Moving on to beauty and gaze,I really liked the former UCSB artist William Feeney. I think his work is so imaginative and so powerful that I want to pee my pants! I really wish I were at UCSB to see his "Some Thoughts On Leaving" from 1995, I would have stopped dead if I saw it from near the lagoon and just watched him until he finally left! So clever! I felt the same way about his "Tower of Discontent," so well thought of and effective.