Constelation Year 1 – Chiodi's Textiles Blog

29th Jan 2019

Learning to look at the body -week 1

What did I Learn from this mornings session?

In the morning session we learnt about how different time periods viewed the body very differently and also different cultures have very different approaches to the body.

Some examples of this are that the Egyptians were very body conscious and we know this from there hieroglyphic’s as there were only ever painted from side on and in one shape as they didn’t want to show any imperfections.

Another example would be that in Japan a very long time ago they would paint there teeth black to show wealth. However we have always viewed having white teeth meant good hygiene and cleanliness which could also link back to health. This is interesting as I hadn’t realised that we give colour certain meanings.

We also discussed the idea of religion and medicine. Religion was very empowering many many years ago and due to religion it meant that people had no idea about the body as nobody had ever looked inside one as it was closed to God. The theories about the body where very strange and the logic and reasoning to do things was bases on the zodiac man. It is interesting to see that even on theses ancient times that they thought that means bodies were ‘normal’ and women’s were just odd or unperfected men’s bodies. this suggests that sexism began many years before what I though it would have began.

As time went on people got more inquisitive about the body and wanted to learn more so they began to use dead prisoners to examine. I found interesting that as went up the centuries the men were the ones who did the examining of the bodies and they were the ones that were the doctors.

My person favourite part of the lecture was when we began to discuss whether people living longer was a triumph of medicine or a downfall.

This is something that I find really interesting as I think it is a downfall, I believe that due to people living longer and technology being so advance that the world is going to hit a crisis very soon. I believe that people have known about this for a while that is why they created cancer, almost like a plague as if people are living to long then the world will just die. I also believe this is why they are so desperate to expand and find another planet we can live on so that planet earth wont be s crowed.

20th Oct 2018

Reflection of the first few weeks of constellation

Through out constellation so far i have found thinking and questioning things that i wouldn’t usually second guess interesting. I have really enjoyed viewing things in a new light and knowing other peoples opinions to gather a broader understanding of ideas and concepts. However there has been times where i have found myself getting lost in group discussions and not being able to link the group discussion back to the theory we are learning about. I am trying to work on this as i want to keep up to date and interested in whats going on each week.

When i first started the course i was a bit unsure about it as i find myself more of a hands on person rather than academic. So being told i will have to be completing writing piece on a subject that i previously didn’t enjoy at A level put me off constellation. I study communications and culture (comms) at A level and what i have gathered from the first couple of sessions of constellation they are very much the same. I want to keep myself interested and updated in constellation as i lost track of comms and then began to lose interest in the topic.

I was pleasantly surprised by how interesting i find it thus time around and how much more i am understanding the topic of Myth Making. I feel as if i have points to make and questions to be answered.

Due to the fact of me having some basic back round knowledge i feel that i can use this a strength allowing me to maybe go more in depth with different things i may know. Although there are some things that i defiantly need to work on such as putting my ideas forward more often and speaking in class to create discussions. I also want to extend my vocabulary so that when we read complex texts i can understand them better. another thing i want to develop is my knowledge of time periods. We read a lot of text that are dated in way back in the past, if i knew more about what happened in that time period it may help me develop my points and understanding of things better.

When it comes to looking at the challenges that i want to overcome in reading and writing i believe that i want to not let myself be so easily distracted. My eyes tend to wonder and then i completely lose my train of thought, i am currently working on this in other lectures that i have. I really do want to try hard and achieve the best.

I have never linked theory to my own personal work before. This is a new task for me, my work always has meaning behind it so i feel that there should always be some sort of theorist that i can link it back to. Although maybe i should start looking at the theory before i start a project this way i can base and create a project around a certain theory.

There are so many questions and queries that i have to be answered and i feel that in the next couple of weeks things will become clearer and make much more sense. I am looking forward to continuing constellation and looking deep and changing my perception on things that i never would have thought twice about.

8th Oct 2018

Post Structuralism

From what I understood in the first session of constellation was that post structuralism is how you view things and the connotations that you give things. We don’t all view everything in the same light, 10 people could look at the same piece of art work and each one could see different meaning, representations and theories.

Barthes conclusion of post structuralism was ‘a theory or group of theories, concerning the relationship between human beings, the world and the practice of making and producing meaning’. I believe that he is saying that we create our own meaning behind everything that we come across and depending on who you are how you view things and were you are in the world changes how you create your meanings.

In the session we watched a clip about how we perceive news. Us being the consumer we are fed information from the media, the media is not necessarily always telling the truth. The way that they word the titles and the pictures they show us leave us to only think in one way. This is they handing us one meaning and not leaving the meaning of things open for us to interoperate in our own way. By doing this it allows them to cover up what is really going on in the world so that there isn’t mass panic between the people.

After realising this is what is happening in our society it makes me question what I am reading and seeing in the media. It also intrigues me to search deeper and find real answers and meaning for myself rather than just agreeing with what I am being ‘forced’ to read.

George Orwell sums up my ideas of this very neatly in a quote ‘we are consumers are feed snippets of info that are twisted and not necessarily true’.