Mon. Readings

I have to say that the museum reading made more sense to me than the building one. I agree with Cameron, that I never thought of museums necessarily as things that could alter perception. I did not see them solely as places of leisure and felt that a person could learn much by going to a museum, but I never thought of them as places that could change the way we viewed the world. I liked what Goodman said about learning to see. "The museum has to function as an institution for the prevention and cure of blindness in order to make works work" (56). I think that much of how a particular work of art (or anything) may alter a person's perception depends on how that person interacts with the work of art, or even to what degree a person "lets" the work of art change them. Yes, I think it is true that some things change us without our knowing or permission, but as Goodman says, we need to know how to see. 

Goodman also discussed two ways of seeing and debates which is better. I at first thought I would agree more with the first, that seeing should involve only looking at the piece of are (or object, or idea) in question. Then I began to think that I cannot look at something and focus only on that thing. Interaction with a piece of art cannot exist without thoughts, ideas or feelings not directly related to the artwork. Still, I think this differs from the next method of seeing that Goodman discusses, that of using outside resources to understand a piece of art. This reminds me of our semester long project, of looking at a topic through several disciplines. I think that there can be a balance. We can look at a piece of art through our own eyes first and then turn to the ideas of others to either reinforce or change our ideas.

In the buildings reading, I think I generally followed the argument that buildings can represent something beyond themselves. Still, the article raised several questions for me. After finishing the article, I still felt like I did not have a very good idea of what make certain buildings mean and others not. I was also confused with the section, "The building is designed to refer explicitly to certain properties of its structure. In other buildings make of columns, beams, frames, and walls, the structure is not thus exemplified at all, serving only practical and perhaps also other symbolic functions" (646). I just never caught the distinction of what made some buildings refer to their properties and others not. I also wondered how much perception plays into all of this, that is, can a building mean for one person and not for another?