Radical and Righteous Allen Ginsberg

On this Day, in 1965: Beat poet Allen Ginsberg paid a legendary impromptu visit to Prague

Allen Ginsberg, Prague, 1965

Link to my presentation:

https://lawrenceu-my.sharepoint.com/:p:/g/personal/swansone_lawrence_edu/EQwAhjOV1ApNjBTjQqdwswwB6TD6mPHKhnJNeTEp-hBMgw?e=aeKxzr

I had a really great time researching Ginsberg. I was initially interested in him because he was a part of the Beat Generation, who were always interesting because they seemed like photo-hippies. But upon learning more about him, I realized what an incredible artist and person he was. Howl was especially meaningful to me, because of its righteous rage against parts of American society that still exist today. As a queer person, it was also wonderful to hear about a man who was able to be fairly openly gay in American society at that time. I'm sure he faced a lot of persecution, and it's amazing he was able to have the cultural impact he had. His poetry is also some of the best I've ever read, and is so incredibly emotional, which is why I chose to share so much of it in my presentation.

I related him to McLuhan because his style of poetry seemed really conducive to McLuhan's ideas of progress, how it can be good for us but also takes us away from our natural state (being initially in a "acoustic space"). Ginsberg's poetry brings us back to this acoustic space, a place of raw emotion. I have been thinking a lot about Professor Shimon's comment that Ginsberg was probably too radical for McLuhan, which makes me sad because they seem to be on the same page in regards to art. It is odd to think that someone as forward thinking as McLuhan would still be put off by other radicals.

Comments

My Flickr Findings

My Flickr Blume No. 2 "Something is happening here and you don't know what it is, do you, Mister Jones?" (Bob Dylan, 1965) I just took this quote on a very literal level instead of its total meaning. I like the idea of something that is happening that is under everyones radar, so that's what I tried to do with the abstraction in the photos. I like making people see things in a way that they can't with their naked eye. I took all these photos on a walk in the evening this past weekend. I focused mostly on making more abstract pictures because that is what I generally like to do in my art. To support that I manipulated them quite a bit in photoshop. I had a lot of fun in messing in the 'Curves' menu, I found that was a really good way to mess with them (especially in black and white). Overall I think that most of my photos are successful, about 16 of them I'm happy with. There were some I included to just reach the 20 photos. I am intere

Representative Activism

Justice MMIWG, Valaria Tatera, 2019-2021 I found Valaria Tatera's talk incredibly moving and informative. I had absolutely no idea Enbridge pipeline 5 existed or that Wisconsin even had residential schools. I think growing up in Wisconsin gave me the impression that most of the injustices meted out against native peoples were in other places, it was worrying to find out the same happened here. Although sadly it's not that surprising. My complete ignorance on the topic shows just how deficient the school system is in the US, where the majority population can just choose to leave out the more unpleasant parts of history that make them look bad. This is why Tatera's art is so necessary, not only is it a healing process for herself, which would be important enough by itself, it makes people focus on what they'd rather ignore. "Whence did the wond'rous mystic art arise, of painting SPEECH and speaking to the eyes? That we by tracing magic lines are taugh

Picnic Projections

I really loved making our installation piece. The freedom we had to do whatever was so liberating. I was so impressed with how we had a bunch of different themes emerge from all the random stuff we brought, and how the piece felt pretty cohesive overall. The piece to me has a feeling of a picnic gone wrong. The front half especially is full of such vibrant colors and flowers, feeling inviting at first glance. Then as you look at it longer and read the writing on the walls, it feels a little more ominous. The back on the other hand takes this aggression further, with the book on the wall yelling at you along with all the 'Not for Sale" signs. It felt very current to make something that also seemed to be commenting on the environment. All the greens in the room and the flowers coming out of the trash definitely added to that, along with the fact that the possible consumerism of our 'store' was aborted by the 'Not For Sale' signs. I think it would be interes

Ethan's Experiments

Search This Blog