Why Are We Evil?

 

Why Are We Evil?

Nov. 16 2014
Zoe Millbern

I think that every "evil" action sprouts from either a genuine wish to do good or please someone, as a result of a great deal of external twisting and degrading circumstances, or from the psyche of the person in question.

The quote "the road to hell is paved with good intentions" seems to frequently be true when someone tries to do something for another and their intent becomes twisted or they feel as though that have to do said evil things FOR that person. Perhaps in order to protect the person they love they have to commit certain rash actions. Perhaps they do something they believe is harmless when in reality it is or is made to look wrong. Taking risks frequently seems to cause this problem. For instance, MacBeth wants to make his wife happy, and allows her to talk him into killing King Duncan. In Batman, the Joker was desperate to help his pregnant wife and that's why he decided to help a couple men break into the chemical supply company he worked for. After jumping into the vat of chemicals and getting his current appearance, it was this event compounding on the news that his wife and child had died that led to his mania and evil mindset.

The larger of the two causes is, I believe, is the external circumstances. This can even tie into the previous cause, as the influence that one person has on another is drastic. A series of even disconnected events can chip away at a persons mind and make them feel as though the only way that they can get back at the world or a person is through violence or an act of evil. We see this in comic book villains all the time, were the actions of one or many caused the mania of another. The Trashcan Man from Stephen King's The Stand  was haunted all of his life by the taunting voices of the children that made fun of him as a child, and the taunting and ridicule that he experience throughout his life led to his rather mad outburst of pyromania. In MacBeth this can be seen in the seemingly true premonitions of the witches but most overwhelmingly in the pressure and manipulation exhibited by his wife.

The last potential cause I will explain is the psyche of the person in question. Most of this comes from the basic human  nature that seems to come out in everyone occasionally. In the case of MacBeth it can be seen in his intense greed concerning the power that he would have in becoming King. In the case of his wife its simply the raw desire for power that she feels she cannot have unless she is a man.

In conclusion, any number of factors can lead to someone committing an act of evil, though I don't think that a person's mind set alone is sufficient. How we treat people and whether or not we choose to help them in crucial to the development of potentially damaging mindsets.

HOTEL MONTURIOL 

Zoe Millbern, Nov. 2, 2014

This piece of art from the Contemporary Art Museum that I chose to analyse was the Hotel Monturial. It was created in 1974 by Jorge Mendez Blake in Mexico. This was a moderately sized wall piece that consisted of a variety of pieces, all but one framed on the wall. According to the wall label, the piece consists of two piezographies with colored pencil, six piezographies, one collage on paper, three colored pencil on paper, and a bronze sculpture. Piezoelectricity is electric polarization in a substance that results from the application of mechanical stress. Piezoelectric substances are able to convert mechanical signals (for example, sound waves) into electric signals and visa verse, and they're used in microphones and phonograph pickups.

Beginning in the late 1950's and 60's, many Mexican artists began to move away from the traditional social realism and nationalism  and more towards the surrealistic, visual paradoxes, and old style artistic technique in the Rupture Movement. After this movement, a majority of the future Mexican artists were not influenced so much by murals and Mexican folk art. Neo-expressionist art became a lot more prominent during the 60's to 80's, consisting of a great deal of color and contrast as well as non-figurative and abstract design.

The piece appears to be the plan for a hotel that did not end up being built. It contains abstract art, landscape, and patterns that probably served as inspiration for or elements of the intended design for the hotel. There are also a couple of floor plans and one sketch of a room. Some elements of this piece use the piezoelectricity, which has been used for a number of older technological objects. It uses this technology in a new way to help portray this artists image. The subject of all the abstract and isolated objects is the hotel that was never built.

A variety of different colors and textures are represented in this piece, different light sources and the general color scheme dark silver and black makes many of the inspirational images seen relatively cold and empty. The piece is arranged in all separate pieces, arranged in separate, simple black frames with each side touching at least on of the others. The sculpture is down the left of the piece as a whole on a  small mounted wall shelf. The separated pieces appear to be just snapshots of this idea, and that it ended up being little more than an idea is supported by this fragmented presentation and generally duller set of colors. I believe that this piece is possibly representative of all of the lost  ideas and broken dreams as well as a darker representation of the creative process. I think the most likely purpose would be to symbolize all of the unfinished possibilities and lost opportunities. The interesting abstract pieces, some with color and some without, are not only aesthetically pleasing, but also symbolic of the creative process and the complex and interesting aspects of human ingenuity.

This piece was probably chosen by the curator to include in the exhibit because the theme of the exhibit was that something was missing. In this case, the piece of art has all of the pieces, but nothing holding it together, so the main picture is missing. I don't think that this piece's meaning has changed since it was created, but I think that today it could also be representative of the difficulty of bring a idea, no matter how good, to life nowadays. The content of some of the pictures, the abstract and the interestingly colored pieces, has given me a new manner of thinking about physical representations of ideas and thoughts. This begins to work into the idea I tried to think about in Theory of Knowledge, about whether or not thoughts and emotions can properly, entirely, or universally be communicated through art and how limiting language can be.