Beowulf Literary Analysis Essay Essays

Beowulf Literary Analysis Essay Essays Beowulf Literary Analysis Essay Essay Beowulf Literary Analysis Essay Essay Essay Topic: The Winters Tale Winters Bone Ronis Aba September 27th, 2012 Period 6th â€Å"No better king had ever lived, no prince so mild, no man so open to his people, so deserving of praise. † This is an ultimate description of the heroic events of Beowulf, an old Anglo-Saxon poem about a warrior who battles and destroys three horrifying monsters. Although written long ago, the emotions expressed within this work, emotions of bravery, valor, and ethics still speak to us centuries later. The anonymous author of the poem convinces us through the masterful use of various literary elements that emphasize its meaning and message. Conflict, imagery and setting are three literary elements that contribute to the effectiveness of the poem. The use of conflict aids us to visualize the struggles between Beowulf and his opposing forces. To begin with, we are first introduced to Beowulf’s strength as we read lines 390-392; â€Å"and the bleeding sinew deep in [Grendel’s] shoulder snapped, muscle and bone split and broke. † This first battle exemplifies the readers respect towards Beowulf; this clearly demonstrates that the readers are in fact in awe of Beowulf’s strength and capability to fight Grendel with his bare hands. Furthermore in the story, we learn that Grendel’s mother â€Å"rose at once† and â€Å"repaid [Beowulf] with her clutching claws† (lines 513-517). This passage shows the readers, not only the struggle but, the effort Beowulf put forward to defeating Grendel’s mother in the hopes of glorification to his people and maintaining his pride. Finally, in lines 768-775, we read, â€Å"I swear that nothing ever did deserve an end like this†¦. As he dove through the dragon’s deadly fumes. † This final battle grants the readers with the logic of suspense. This is an epic scene because it is shown to the readers that Beowulf is indeed aware that this is his final battle meaning, with or without help, he would have to go to ultimate ends in order to complete his mission of defeating the dragon. Finally, these are just some of the many conflicts that help us understand the fights between Beowulf and his differing opponents. Another literary element that offer meaning to the poem is imagery, by simply allowing the readers to envision the events of the story. In the first part of the story (129-134), Beowulf is described as coming over â€Å"seas beating at the sand† while â€Å"the ship foamed through the sea like a bird. † This scene truly guides the readers to admire the vivid description of how proud and tough the ship looks. This ship in this case, becomes a metonymy for Beowulf himself, who is certainly proud and strong, resulting in the readers’ admiration. Additional imagery is used describing the mere, or lake, discussed above, with â€Å"storms [an] waves splash[ing] towards the sky, as dark as the air as black as the rain that the heavens weep† (440-442). This clearly illustrates how dreadful Grendel and his mothers’ home is. It intensely aids us to picture how grotesquely unpleasant the lake actually is. Near the end of the tale (lines 651-653], Beowulf â€Å"[strides] with his shield at his side and a mail shirt of his breast†¦.. Toward the tower, under the rocky cliffs. † While Beowulf awaits the battle, the description of his armor and the details of each entry help us to respect how ready he is for his concluding battle. Even as an elderly man, Beowulf is a hero beyond compare. In closing, the use of imagery greatly enriches the readers’ experience of this heroic epic. Evidently, the setting of Beowulf helps the readers to better understand the cultures and events that occur in the story. In lines 60-63, the mead hall (Herot) is described as â€Å"[standing] empty, and stay[ing] deserted for years, twelve winters. † This makes the readers feel and understand the seriousness of Grendel’s attack. Before Grendel, Herot was described as a beautiful and happy place, and so the readers feel terrible regret when it is destroyed by the creature. Later in the story, we are shown the lair under which Grendel and his mother lives: â€Å"secret places, windy cliffs† and a lake which â€Å"at night†¦.. Burns like a torch† (424-433). This passage shows the readers the monstrous, awful conditions of where the monsters lived. It also causes us to feel disgust and revulsion at their horrible habitat. Finally, in the episode with the dragon, its cave is depicted as a â€Å"hidden entrance† with â€Å"a streaming current of fire and smoke block[ing] the passage† (lines 659-661). The cave is intimidating, helping the readers to believe that the upcoming battle will be a real challenge for Beowulf. And it turns out to be so as the powerful dragon ultimately causes the hero’s death. Evidently, these settings, along with others, make the stories come alive for the readers. The poet effectively combines the literary elements conflict, imagery and setting to show the reader the qualities of an Anglo-Saxon warrior and hero. To the old English people, no one was more praise worthy than Beowulf, Despite it being written over a thousand years ago, Beowulf shows one important detail of what it takes to truly be a hero, a standard to which we can still relate to today, perhaps more powerfully than ever.

Turning a failing business around Essays

Turning a failing business around Essays Turning a failing business around Essay Turning a failing business around Essay The first thing I will do as the new manager is to concentrate on the reality of the lost of market shares, because of outdated product lines. The next one, I will address is to solve the problem that we are having with adversarial communication and the third one, also needs addressing is the ongoing problem that the business is having with competition for corporate funding. These are very significant problems in having to combine all them in an organizational structure change. After addressing all the problems to be solved, I will describe the steps that re best to perform to changing. Also I will give details of effect the external environment will have on the turn around of the department. The three main problems: Outdated product line As the new manager of an organization the first thing I will do is to analyze the outdated products that failing. I also compare the competitors performance sales of products in the same market. Also review all the products that are enter in the market and decide whether using new technology to compare with our products. Search for the reason why the products are not selling and see what is the customers deed or taste to changing. The newer technology will be a great enhancement in product performance. It is indeed important to ask customers to feedback on the products. As the manager is appropriate to put together a plan and help identify the circumstances and prioritize improving the existing products, and think how the new materials with technology design changes could be better for the product. Reduce the outdated products to a lower cost or drop the outdated products that dont have potential customers. Also as the new manager, set up timeline to develop new rodents if the old products are not meeting the customers demands, and also to think about partnership with other suppliers to help reduce the time frame of development of new products owe. Com, 2010). Adversarial communication Being the new manager I will address the adversarial communication in the organization. I would consider to bring people together that are having conflict about productive, instead of keeping them separate wont fix the problem. Also listen to all sides and let each person tell their side of the story. Get each of the people that are involved to write an answer to solve the problem and this can help the persons that are involved to settle the dispute. Always ask the co-workers to come to the manager before addressing the other staff members. Consider other ways for the employees to communicate in choosing a system to that is comfortable. For example, give memos out everyday and a daily or weekly staff meeting to communicate with each other with adversary. Also give written rules about adversarial communication and let them know that they will be penalized for conflicts they caused. Congratulate the employees that solve their problems, this show that the employees know the manager seen the improvement of them working together (chronic. Com, 2013). Competition for internal resources Being the new manager over a division, I have to understand that our employees are useful internal resources to the organization. It is significant that as a manager to use each employees strength and weakness by placing in a location where they are efficient, and make sure they have the adequate resources to do so. This will save the organization a lot of money right off the back and making use of our capabilities, and hat are right in front of our eyes. As the new manager I will take the proper steps to help improve change the structure, employees, and the technology. I think that the best answer to our financial problems will slowly dissolve themselves. From the start, this will help our division to save money, and as soon as we developed a new product line the top management will be eager about the finances that will follow (McGraw- hill. Mom, 2004). Steps to manage from the old to new organizational structure: As the manager of a division, I will be taking the steps to change the old organization structure to the new organizational structure. First thing to do is preparing the employees at all levels of the organization that it is critical to succeed in the transition in embracing the change of the organizational structure. Also look for input from the employees through solemn feedback syst ems and casual conversation before beginning the planning process. As the manager it is important to accept ideas from employees and taking them seriously, and also ask the employees for innovation ideas for employees to participate in the planning meeting. Also clarify the need for the change in the structure to the employees and clarify each employee individual roles in the project, and how this will benefit the organization as whole. Clarify the positive affect of each employee to heighten their position in the organization. As the manager it is important to send updates about the planning process to the employees through emails and meetings. The second thing to do as the manager is planning and implements the transition which will take time to form the old organizational structure to the new organizational structure. Form a plan to transition the managerial information and duties of the employees, and to assure that all departments has the information maintain and reorganized according to the new structure. Also implement transition one step at time and it is a good idea to put employees through a training session which them information and ample skills for their roles. The third thing to do as the manager is monitoring feedbacks after the implementing the transition, and use the feedback from employees to modify specific aspect of the new structure. Permit employees to voice heir opinion after the transition that can add quality to the structure, and also bring it closer to a structure that is appropriate to efficiently and effectiveness of the operation with keeping the employees satisfied (central. Com, 2013). External environment turn-around plan As the manger of a division, I will identify and evaluate the trends that are beyond control of the organization. There several external factors that could have an impact on the decision of a structure change. First the economic factor is a situation that affects the organization, such as the high inflation, unemployment rate, exchange ate, increase tax, and disposable income. Second the political/legal factors are the government policies could have an impact on the organization and legal aspect is the structure of the organization. Third the technology factor in changing the technology brings opportunities and threats to the organization, for example, the increasingly use of the internet have change the way a lot organizations do their business, and it could also make important information easily to be copy. Fourth the coloratura factor is the trend relating to the population shift, growth rate, and income in the sessions where an organization operates. This trend could be opportunities or threat to the organization. This will help in assessing the external environment and combine the turn around plan when conducting research on these trends to decide on any altering (strategically. Com, 2012). Conclusion: These has to be taken into consider in achieving the turn around of a failing organization. The adversarial communication, outdated product line, and competition for internal resources are the three primary problems; implement a change structure with employees, and technology. Make sure to manage transition and closely observe any change and make to take immediate action.

Accsys Technologies Plc - Wood Production and Sale Assignment

Accsys Technologies Plc - Wood Production and Sale - Assignment Example The revenue cycle of an entity is an inherent risk, and auditors are required to assess this by performing the necessary tests to determine whether it is free of error of fraud. This inherent audit risk is related to the cutoff for some sales. It also stems from the management pressure to misstate revenues. It is, therefore, critical that auditors use the necessary tests of control and substantive procedures to give an assurance that revenues have been correctly recorded. The issues in revenue recognition start from the consignment sales refund and return rights, round-trip sales, gross sales as well as bill and hold transactions. The management overstates revenues so as to indicate that the company is performing well, thus encouraging investors and impressing the top level management. There are also cases where, human error causes the risk of revenue audit during the revenue recording where wrong amounts are recorded, or the recording is done at the wrong time. According to Colby (2012), financial statement fraud through revenues takes different forms among the timing differences and fictitious revenues. Through fictitious revenues, the concerned parties record sales that never occurred. They achieve this by manipulating or creating transactions that enhance an entity’s reported earnings. Revenues are typically fabricated through the creation of fake customers and sales. There are instances where the artificial sales involve legitimate customers through the creation of phoney invoices or price or quantity increases. The audit procedures that an auditor develops in relation to revenue auditing and the a ssessment of their outcome calls for an understanding of how the organisation operates as well as its environment. Through the timing differences, financial statement fraud arises because revenues and/or expenses are recorded in the improper period. The revenues are recognised early before it is earned leading to an immediate increase in the entity's income using legitimate sales as opposed to cases of phoney sales.  

Hot house song Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 250 words

Hot house song - Essay Example There is trading depicted where the four; Dizzy Gillespie, Parker, George and Stan Levy change turns from trumpet to piano then to trumpet as the drums are being played at the background. The role of the guitar is to give a fast tempo to the melody as the drums gives the transition sound change from trumpet to piano. The piano and trumpet are the main instruments giving the harmonic structure of the melody. The sequence of events in the melody begins with Dizzy Gillespie and Charlie Parker introducing the melody at the same time as Stan Levy plays drums in the background. Charlie Parker and Dizzy Gillespie play alto sax and trumpet in turns respectively. Later George Shearing play the piano alone after the trumpet and finally the melody is concluded by Dizzy and Parker. Dizzy appear to be the main soloist. His participation is impressive since he shows facial expressions implying he is filling the melody within himself. The solo is successful in the melody since his facial expression attracts the audience attention and interest.

Mergers Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 500 words - 1

Mergers - Essay Example Specifically, an analysis of the market would be conducted. This entails understanding if the market is growing, or if the competitors are cannibalizing each others’ members. Additionally, reviewing ease of entry into the market is done. This is achieved through reviewing the growth of new competitors in the market. Assessment would be conducted to understand if the new competitors have taken significant market share or if the market is locked in among the current players. Reputation in the market: Conduct an assessment of the image, brand, and the member service reputation of the merging credit union. Reputation can be effectively assessed by using the Better Business Bureau, industry associations, and social media sites. Viability of membership groups: Viability of membership groups would be investigated. This is through review of the major SEG and garnering the stability of the industry. Review is also conducted on the membership opportunity and geography of the membership. Major contracts: Review all employment agreements, major supplier, equipment leases, and legal agreements. Determine what line of business or products have been outsourced. Due to the size of the merging credit union they may have third parties perform multiple activities including engaging directly with members. Review the contracts to determine termination timelines and that the contracts clearly define expectations and responsibilities of the third party to help ensure the contacts enforceability, limit the credit unions liability, and mitigate disputes about performance. Leased: If the branch is leased, then review the lease and any amendments. If the lease term is under 18 months, analyze the cost of a move. If the term is over 18 months; financial analysis would be done based on location, accessibility, easements, adequate space, and the cost of renovations. Assets: Cash, securities, and loans. Assess asset classes in real

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism

Conceptual Art: Responses to Capitalism When Situationism evolved from the Letterist movement, in the middle of the last century, it set itself up in opposition to two other two other politically motivated groups: Dadism and Surreallism. Situationism, however, was only incidentally political, and rather than subverting the art world, aimed only to redesign its context, including the attitudes of the public, so that art could become something anyone could do or enjoy- something integrated into everyday life. Historically, arts efforts to bring down capitalist structures from within have been very ill-fated, with artists finding themselves ignored, scorned, crushed or – perhaps worse- accessories to political agendas. Artists and writers must work harder than ever to devise means of opposing or exposing capitalisms deceptions, but many commentators appear to have reached the conclusion that the battle is barely worth fighting. As we shall see, Jean Baudrillard argues that criticism of the status quo is no longer possi ble through art or literature and that the only efficient way of dissenting from capitalist society is to commit suicide, Modern art wishes to be negative, critical, innovative and a perpetual surpassing, as well as immediately (or almost) assimilated, accepted, integrated, consumed. One must surrender to the evidence: art no longer contests anything. If it ever did. Revolt is isolated, the malediction consumed. Thus the avant-garde movements in Europe put the artist under pressure to exhibit a certain individuality, while also – rather contradictorily- being a producer, and as prolific, political and reactionary a producer as possible, There is a lot of talk, not about reform or forcing the Enlightenment project to live up to its own ideals, but about wholesale negation, revolution, another new sensibility, now self- affirming or self-creating, rather than a universalist or rational self-legitimation. This in turn suggests a tremendously heightened role for the artist, the figure whose imagination supposedly creates or shapes the sensibilities of civilization. In a sense, the avant-garde has been socially commissioned to forecast the future, to scouting out new intellectual terrain, Aesthetic modernity is characterized by attitudes which find a common focus in a changed consciousness of time The avant-garde understands itself as invading unknown territory, exposing itself to the dangers of sudden, shocking encounters, conquering an as yet unoccupied future. The avant-garde must find a direction in a landscape into which no one seems to have yet ventured Early Attempts to Overthrow Capitalism In many ways, Dada and Surrealism represent the most successful artistic rebellions against capitalist norms, as they have attacked the conventional assumption of meaning itself, and in doing so drew attention to the ridiculous fact that such an assumption existed at all, Dada has often been called nihilistic and its declared purpose was indeed to make clear to the public at large that all established values, moral or aesthetic, had been rendered meaningless by the catastrophe of the Great War Dada preached nonsense and anti-art with a vengeance It is as though the Artist jumped before she was pushed. With its effort to close the gap between producer and produced by making everything equally alien, Surrealism also sought to negate its creator, using, pure psychic automatism intended to express the true process of thought free from the exercise of reason and from any aesthetic or moral purpose . Habermas, too, asserts that Surrealism poses a threat to arts existential rights, but still fails in two ways, First, when the containers of an autonomously developed cultural sphere are shattered, the contents get dispersed. Nothing remains from a desublimated meaning or a destructured form; an emancipatory effect does not follow. Habermas draws attention to the levelling affect of contemporary communication networks: networks which challenge the hierarchical assumptions of classical Marxism, and which have, in scale, surpassed what any postmodern commentator – even in the 1980s- could have imagined. More so than ever, our media are democratic and interrelated, A rationalized everyday life, therefore, could hardly be saved from cultural impoverishment through breaking open a single cultural sphere art and so providing access to just one of the specialized knowledge complexes. Any active dissent can be transformed into a commodity, a product to assist the perpetuation of capitalism. Catchy slogans devised by revolutionaries are used to sell mortgages, paintings that challenge conventional assumptions about beauty and form are written about in books to be sold, and bought by galleries where their beauty and form can be admired and valued- bought and sold. As the â€Å"Anti-Naturals† recently wrote, on the subject, â€Å"It is the nature of the Spectacle to transform all experience into a consumer commodity. It is no surprise, then, that so much of modern capitalist production should be focused on the authenticity swindle. It is not merely that we are told that our authentic self is only a credit card order away. We must be told what and how to purchase. Since, in the midst of the Spectacle, all experience is real only when it can be consumed, it is natural to follow the guidance offered by the array of products engineered to address each particular need. In reality, it is quite easy to mass market to hundreds of millions of individuals,‚ since each quest is identical in its basic features.† Any words spoken against can be turned into rallying support. Art, like any powerful weapon, can always be turned against those who use it. Whatever doesnt kill power is killed by it. In this way the Dadaists watched their anti-art works being systematically categorised as works of art, and were forced to focus their whole project completely on the evasion of this recuperation. Five years of agitation against capital, war and morality, brought them to an impasse of suicide or silence. Everything the Dadaists made, said, wrote or performed seemed to be turned against its critical purpose and used against them- and they abandoned the project. Effectively, they went on strike. The Dadaists left a legacy in the form of recuperated, commodified art works, and in multiple imitations of their style and attitude. Their advocation of collage and photomontage is now everywhere in advertisements, their paradoxically anti-art art surely at the very heart of current post-modernist critical theory. They were correct in their belief that this capitalist appropriation was inevitable while they were merely producing, and not controlling the means of production, but in some ways, they did in fact constitute a challenge to bourgeois morality. Dadaism questioned the philosophical assumptions which justified smug bourgeois attitudes, and uncovered the hypocracy of World War 1s brutality legitimising propaganda. In the end they felt that their subversions of established values were merely contributing too much to the culture they had been trying to undermine. The Situationist Asger Jorn was emphatic about the failure of Marxist theory, to liberate of art from commodification , â€Å"Instead of abolishing the private character of property, socialism does nothing but augment them as much as possible, rending humans themselves useless and socially non-existent. The goal of the development of artistic liberation is the liberation of human values by the transformation of human qualities into real values. Here begins the artistic revolution against socialist development, the artistic revolution that is tied to the communist project . . .† Debord and the Situationist Reaction to Capitalism Debords 1967 book The Society of the Spectacle, represented an attempt to articulate as fully as possible the Situationist philosophy. The term spectacle refers to the colonization of everyday life by commodity in late capitalism, an extension of alienation experienced between production and consumption. The spectacles subjective, one-directional effect requires a kind of non-participation, eventually resulting in a breakdown of communication between people. Situationism distinguishes between classical and modern forms of capitalism. Where classical capitalism demanded that wasted time describes any time not spent at work, modern capitalism actually reverses that, using advertising and other spectacular means to declare that it is the time spent at work that is wasted, and work is justifiable only because it provides the monetary ability to consume. Marx wrote that, the worker feels at home when he is not working, and when he is working he does not feel at home The Situationists describe the spectacular society as a place where, the spectator feels at home nowhere, for the spectacle is everywhere . As Debord himself explains, So long as the realm of necessity remains a social dream, dreaming will remain a social necessity. The spectacle is the bad dream of modern society in chains, expressing nothing more than its wish for sleep. The spectacle is guardian of that sleep . However, the spectacle was not unique to capitalist society; the Situationists worked on a theory of the concentrated spectacle that would incorporate individual influences on capitalist regimes. This was principally contrived as a rhetorical framework to include the cult of personality in the dictatorships of places such as Cuba, the Soviet Union and China. The Situationists argued that the same tricks that society used to sell fast cars and kitchen appliances were used to promote and deify figures such as Chairman Mao. In anarchic efforts to subvert the spiritual and fiscal poverty of urban life under the tyranny of the spectacle, the Situationists developed a revolutionary art, departed from artistic convention. In their article Preliminaries Toward Defining a Unitary Revolutionary Program, Debord and the Marxist theorist Pierre Canjuers, assert, â€Å"At one pole, art is purely and simply recuperated by capitalism as a means of conditioning the population. At the other pole, capitalism grants art a perpetual privileged concession: that of pure creative activity, an alibi for the alienation of all other activities (which makes it the most expensive and prestigious status symbol). But at the same time, this sphere reserved for free creative activity is the only one in which the question of what we do with life and the question of communication are posed practically and in all their fullness. Here, in art, lies the basis of the antagonisms between partisans and adversaries of the officially dictated reasons for living. The established meaninglessness and separations give rise to the general crisis of traditional artistic means a crisis linked to the experience of alternative ways of living or the demand for such experience. Revolutionary artists are those who call for intervention; and who have themselves intervened in the sp ectacle in order to disrupt or destroy it.† Initially, the work the Situationist International produced was aimed at ridiculing formalist conceptions of the art object: Asger Jorn bought amateur paintings at flea markets and painted over them, subverting notions of authority and value. Giuseppe Pinot-Gallizio invented a style of â€Å"industrial† painting where the canvas was over a hundred metres long, then cut strips off for potential buyers, thereby subverting traditional preconceptions of arts autonomy. In reality these processes were eventually absorbed by a capitalist art market bought, sold, exhibited, written about, and for the most part, politically neutered. In his 1974 book Theory of the Avant-Garde, Peter Burger points out that the avant-garde artists main goal is to shock the viewer, typically accustomed to organic or formalist works of art, in the hope that such withdrawal of meaning will direct the readers attention to the fact that the conduct of ones life is questionable and that it is necessary to cha nge it He goes on to state that, Paradoxically, the avant-gardist intention to destroy art as an institution is thus realized in the work of art itself. The intention to revolutionize life by returning art to its praxis turns into a revolutionizing of art. This is the kind of logic that prompted the Situationists to agree to stop producing art in 1961, when they decided to cease considering themselves artists. Any remaining members unwilling to abandon traditional forms of art, including Jorn, Pinot-Gallizio, and Constant found themselves either being forced into ideological resignation or expulsion. â€Å"It is a question not of elaborating the spectacle of refusal, but rather of refusing the spectacle. In order for their elaboration to be artistic and authentic in the new and authentic sense defined by the SI, the elements of the destruction of the spectacle must precisely cease to be works of art. Once and for all. . . . Our position is that of combatants between two worlds one that we dont acknowledge, the other that does not yet exist.† In The Situationist City, Simon Sadler write that, in abandoning early Situationism, the Situationist International abandoned its imagining of utopia a devastating decision, surely unprecedented in the history of the avant-garde, and yet at the same time surely the situationists greatest contribution to that history: the recognition that in changing the world, avant-garde art cannot be a substitute for popular redistribution of power It seemed that the SI recognized that for any avant-garde to succeed, it would do best striving to produce artists, and not art. The Dadaists, too, were aware that both art and artist are part of the capitalist system, and consequently as guilty in their participation as any other commodity or worker. Marcuse and Adorno, in contrast, argued that the Dadaist project was misguided for its attacks on conventional art. They saw art as an autonomous entity, separate from capitalist interests, and something intrinsically apolitical that must be preserved rather than aggressively undermined. For Adorno, art bears an essential negativity derived from its peculiar Form; its rearrangements of reality are conducted according to a system quite alien to those of capitalism. This â€Å"Form† grants art a: refuge and a vantage point from which to denounce the reality established through domination. While Adorno and Marcuse criticised the anti-artists for attacking artistic Form, they agreed with the avant-gardists in their slightly utopic aspiration of abolishing the distinction that existed between art and the rest of reality. In fact, Marcuse wished to see a society organised around the aesthetic principles he believed resided only within art. Both argued that this integration could not be achieved if artists were allowed to participate. Art should be kept apolitical and protected, in a realm conducive to calm reflection that might remind us of the truth an authentic life can afford us after the revolution. So, although they expressed their rejection of this view in different ways, the Dadaists, Surrealists and Situationists all aspired to a collapse of the distinction between art and the rest of life in present: â€Å"everyday life†. Instead of waiting for the revolution, all three argued that the integration of art and life was in fact necessary for the achievement of revolution, a revolution made possible only by a combined cultural, ideological and economic assault on capitalism. Asger Jorn, again, on the failure of the socialist revolution, â€Å"The capitalist revolution was essentially a socialization of consumption. Capitalist industrialization brought humanity a socialization as profound as the socialization proposed by the socialists that of the means of production. The socialist revolution is the fulfillment of the capitalist revolution. The one element removed from the capitalist system is saving, because consumptions richness has already been eliminated by the capitalists themselves†¦ Real communism will be the leap into the domain of freedom and of value, of communication. Contrary to utilitarian value (normally known as material value), artistic value is the progressive value because, by a process of provocation, it is the valorization of humanity itself. Since Marx, economic politics has shown its impotence and its cowardice. A hyperpolitics will need to strive for the direct realization of humanity.† Walter Benjamins Authentic Opposition: Crisis of Reproduction Walter Benjamin is probably Adornos most established opponent, particularly since The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, a work that concentrated upon defining the aura of traditional art preceding 1900, and assessed the decay of this aura under the impact of new media and cultural technologies. Benjamin argues that art has lost its authenticity because of mechanical mass reproduction in our capitalist-orientated culture industry. He is concerned about shifting attitudes to art, which came about as a consequence of the introduction of mechanical means of reproduction. Formerly unique objects, located in a particular space, lost their singularity as they became accessible to many people in diverse places. Lost too was the aura that was attached to a work of Art which was now open to many different readings and interpretations Unlike his Frankfurt School colleagues, however, and especially unlike Adorno, Benjamin argues, this loss of authenticity is actually a positive thing, because it democratizes and politicizes art. Benjamins claim that arts loss of authenticity might actually help free people, not enslave them in a capitalist culture industry starkly opposes Adornos ideas. In addition, each stage of reproduction of an original work of art also contributes to its loss of aura. According to Benjamin, then: culture has been transformed into an industry; thus art has become commodified; contemporary culture is the machinery by which oppressive ideologies are reproduced and disseminated; new media technologies such as phonographs, film and photography, serve to destroy arts aura and effectively demystify the process of creating art, making available radical new access and roles for art in mass culture; the spectator has become a collaborator and participant, who joins the author in determining the meaning of the production of the work of art. Art is successful only when it enables the critical contemplation of a viewer. Benjamin happily equates authenticity with authority- the authority of oppressive institutions such as the church or the state- and history. As Benjamin explains, the work of arts authenticity is the essence of all that is transmissible from its beginning, ranging from its substantive duration to its testimony to the history which it has experienced Until the 20th century, artworks retained their aura, their â€Å"authenticity† precisely because of their inability to be mass-reproduced, whether religious artifacts or one-off paintings commissioned by individual wealthy patrons. This conception clearly presents aura and authenticity as profoundly undemocratic, as the means of artistic production remain in the control of the rich and powerful, then able use such art to maintain control over the masses. The introduction of mechanical means of reproduction of art, particularly photography and film, caused the very foundations of this setup to be radically altered. For the first time it was possible for anyone to acquire the means to take photographs of a work of art, or at purchase an image of the work. However hard cultural elites in the late 19th century had tried to protect the aura of art works, the social advance of the masses and the invention of media such as film, which depends upon distribution to the masses, had led to the inevitable decay of the aura in the 20th century. Benjamin marks the distinction between manual and machine reproduction of art, The whole sphere of authenticity is outside technical, and, of course, not only technical reproducibility, he states, Confronted with its manual reproduction, which was usually branded as a forgery, the original preserved all its authority; not so vis a vis technical reproduction Benjamin states two reasons this occurs. Firstly, machine reproduction is more independent of the original than manual reproduction; secondly, technical reproduction can put the copy of the original into situations which would be out of reach for the original itself. So mass-produced copies are able to engage with the wider world in a manner not possible for the original or one-off copies. Benjamin summarises his ideas concerning reproduction by asserting the technique detaches the reproduced object from the domain of tradition. Many reproductions it substitutes a plurality of copies for a unique existence.† So to allow the reproduction to meet the beholder or listener in his own particular situation, is to reactivate the object reproduced, â€Å"It is these processes that lead to the tremendous shattering of tradition which is the obverse of the contemporary crisis and renewal of mankind In Benjamins conception, then, state and religious authorities have steadily lost the ability to control general access to such works of art, particularly since the 20th century began. This is most apparent in relation to the cinema, which destroyed the traces of aura with which art had been traditionally imbued; Benjamin cites arts historical value as a fundamental part of magical and religious rituals. In the process, capitalism strips art of its the idealistic, theological halo- to some extent a happy consequence and restorative, as it returns the art object to its non-utilitarian presence, its everyday reality. For Benjamin, an artworks â€Å"aura† refers to its uniqueness and the phenomena of distance, however close [an object] may be. He uses gives the example of distant mountains and a trees bough over head, both contain aura because they are images have not been effectively reproduced mechanically . Beyond the concepts of aura and authenticity, Benjamins concepts of reproduction and reversibility represent the core of his concerns about way in which arts role in society has been fundamentally altered in the 20th century. Benjamin proposes that the artworks aura of authenticity has withered away because of its reproduceability, and the process of reproduction brings art into closer proximity with a mass audience. However, paradoxically, as the authenticity erodes, the works essence becomes forefronted in the process, as it starts to become designed for reproducibility. As Benjamin describes it, â€Å"for the first time in world history, mechanical reproduction emancipates the work of art from its parasitical dependence on ritual. . . . From a photographic negative, for example, one can make any number of prints; to ask for an authentic print makes no sense. But the instant the criterion of authenticity ceases to be applicable to artistic production, the total function of art is reversed. Instead of being based on ritual, it begins to be based on another practice – politics†. Benjamins commentaries on the effects of reproduction inspired other writers, such as Lechte, â€Å"it is the process of reproduction as such which is revolutionary: the fact, for instance, that the photographic negative enables a veritable multiplication of originals. With the photograph, therefore, the spectre of the simulacrum emerges, although Benjamin never names it as such. The photograph as simulacrum by-passes the simple difference between original and copy† Barbara Krugers Situationism and the Irresistible Collage of Society Barbara Kruger addresses the negative aspects of capitalist society as an artist, writer, curator, lecturer and graphic designer. Her art is displayed both inside and outside museums and in a range of different forms. Occasionally her prints are framed and hung on the walls of museums and galleries in the traditional fashion, but Kruger is endlessly inventive, and often writes text to be printed or projected directly on the walls or floors of a museum. In Picturing Greatness, a photography exhibition curated by Kruger in 1987 for The Museum of Modern Art in New York, text was printed in large black type across a central partition. Kruger selected photographs for this exhibit from the museums collection, and according to the words on the partition, the photographs were mostly of mostly famous artists† who happened to be predominantly white and male. The text on the partition claimed the works can show us how vocation is ambushed by clichà © and snapped into stereotype by the camera, and how photography freezes moments, creates prominence and makes history. Krugers work continually questions the definition of art, artists and the ways in which â€Å"great art† should be exhibited. In this work, Kruger challenges the overwhelming dominance of male artists and draws attention to the females apparent invisibility in western art history. Just like the Situationists under Guy Debord, she has altered the meaning of art by rec ontextualising it. Crucially, the visitor to Krugers exhibition does not need to be familiar with the original photographs before seeing the show- even the uneducated viewer could read Krugers text, look at the original images and come to their own conclusions about the meaning. Thus the work achieves a kind of unique political democracy. Kruger has a background as a graphic designer, and as such creates effective bold images which are in many ways visually indistinguishable from advertisements, but rather than trying to sell a product, appeal directly to our social conscience. The subject of her text is always I, me, we, or you, as though Kruger engages in conversation with the viewer. Her messages probe the assumptions of the capitalist status quo: You are seduced by the sex appeal of the inorganic, When I hear the word culture, I take out my checkbook and We have received orders not to move. Similarly, Constant, of the COBRA group, proposed a city as a kind of physical expression of his utopia of â€Å"free play† which, in parts, bears striking resemblance to representations of the Internet, in books such as Mapping Cyberspace (with wild lines pouring out of the metropolis perhaps representing bandwidth and site traffic). Made with perspex and bike parts, Constants models and his diagrams for New Babylon demonstrate his yearning for future as something mobile, organic, animated, and self-celebratory. For Constant the city was a sort of perpetual festival of leisure. With its intricately connected wires suspending clear circular layers, ramps and walkways, Constants New Babylon recalls some kind of tensile organism. As Constant describes it, â€Å"The unfunctional character of this playground-like construction makes any logical division of the inner spaces senseless. We should rather think of a quite chaotic arrangement of small and bigger spaces that are constantly assembled and dissembles by means of standardized mobile construction elements like walls, floors and staircases. Thus the social space can be adapted to the ever-changing needs of an every changing population as it passes through the sector system.† Analogues with the Internet are irresistable. Equally, he could have been referring in a general way to those unique social structures which have grown from the anti-globalisation movement – structures which, although provisional, pragmatic and short term, are nevertheless ideologically committed to social change and serve as emblems of the ongoing struggle against capitalism, a battle fuelled entirely from reserves of creativity. Constants is city as collage, similar to that celebrated by the less politically motivated group, Archigram, in the UK (many of whose members now design massive architectural features for megaband stadium concerts). In this time of desperate connectivity and complicated layering of urban cultures, with invisible webs of communication engulfing us, the need to understand the city as a place beyond work and production seems more pressing than ever. The Situationist reaction to capitalism is also excellently expressed through anti capitalist collage: for example that of the General Lighting and Power group, whose slick mock-advertising images of soft focus female forms in leotards and computer graphics of office interiors and car accidents, wryly annotated with entertaining aphorisms such as: Aerobics is necessary: progress implies it (I see you baby, shaking that ass) and God is in the retailing Comparisons to Jenny Holzer and Barbara Kruger are obvious. Charles Rice, too, has observed the oversized billboard signs now proliferating in major cities, arguing convincingly that they serve to perpetuate the distance between the real and the impossible,these spatial fantasies effectively deliver identification with the distant and the unattainable† Many writers have noted the similarities between the Situationists idea of the derive (that is, the navigating of a city via means and routes other than those originally intended) and the experience of â€Å"surfing† the internet. Colin Fournier, architect and educator makes some potent observations on this area. It would seem that many of the characteristics of the internet reflect the S.I.s utopic city. The things considered prerequisite for their utopia: an ephemeral, negotiable type of city, where uses were determined by the population, surfing the web is like the idea of drifting or â€Å"deriving†, flaneur-like, through a city. The Situationist city and the web are uniquely flexible, anarchically dynamic: spacial relations secondary on any given route. The internet always seems to somehow recall the old Surrealist idea of using a map of one city to find ones way around another. Art as Capitalism: the Medias Re-appropriation of Images Increasingly, the media is becoming governed by imagery, and the average consumer is overwhelmed by visual information on a daily basis. Through sheer competition, the commercial sphere has been forced to use stranger, scarier, more extreme imagery to earn the attention of bewildered customers. Magazines such as Vogue have lured artists to their pages, where they are seen as innovative, visionary powers for re-inventing a complacent visual vocabulary. Thus, the traditional hierarchy of photography, in which the commercial and conceptual worlds were segregated, has been broken down into a fluid, integrated world- mutual respect has ensured that crossing the boundary either way no longer carries the taint or disrespect it once did. A new generation of artists have grown up with the rather cynical and postmodern idea that all things are commercially viable. Contemporary art school graduates are less likely to see their ventures into the commercial realm as contamination, and more as a necessary aspect of their endeavor. Commerce is incorporated into art at every level, from the means to the ends to the theme. That the common thread of art and fashion- the human body- has become such a commodity, seems like an obvious extension of this. Fashion spreads frequently borrow art photographers for their pages and mimic, in the case of Diesel and others, with considerable irony- the current art world trend towards narrative ambiguity and deliberately theatrical tableaux that recall â€Å"theoretical† artists like Jeff Wall and Cindy Sherman. Russel Wong is one such new generation artist, his work strongly informed by todays cultural fascination with celebrity. Wong has become famous through striking portraits of personalities from sports to music and movies, famous for capturing moments of vulnerability, warmth and humor. A number of Wongs photos have been used on the covers of international magazines. My photos are never confrontati

School Should Begin Later in the Day :: Argument Argumentative

School Should Begin Later in the Day   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Many teenage high school students are tired during the school day, distracting them from their studies. That is just one of the many good reasons that the starting time of school should be later in the day.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Some people may say that the brain not being fully functional until 9:30 is just a matter of opinion. Studies have suggested that the average adolescent brain doesn’t even start to fully function until around 9:30 am. Many schools already use the suggested later arrival time, so there students can be ready to learn when they arrive at school.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Another thing that everyone knows or remembers about high, school is all of the homework that needs to be done for tomorrow. Plus projects that are due, persuasive essays that need written, and the time you need to be a teenager. Most students even have so much work that they’ll stay up all night just to get it done. When needing a minimum of 9 hours of sleep as a teenager, getting up at 6:30 to be ready for school is just not enough time. It’s easy to think that students will just procrastinate even more, but the average teenager is smarter than you may think.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  It sounds absurd to think that students sleep during the school day. The fact is that many students fall asleep during class. Remember that sleep isn’t something you can make yourself not want. Throwing water on your face, listening to loud music, or taking a shower cannot make your bodies craving for sleep disappear. The fact is puberty demands more sleep.   Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  Ã‚  There are also risks involved with not getting enough sleep. Most people will be very sleepy and drowsy during the day, mood and behavioral problems, and even increased vulnerability to drugs and alcohol. These things could also develop more into serious sleeping disorders. Experts advise to not read or