The work of Art on the world of mechanical revolution

Even the most perfect reproduction of a work of art is lacking in one element: its presence in time and space, its unique existence at the place where it happens to be. This unique existence of the work of art determined the history to which it was subject throughout the time of its existence. This includes the changes which it may have suffered in physical condition over the years as well as the various changes in its ownership. The traces of the first can be revealed only by chemical or physical analyses which it is impossible to perform on a reproduction; changes of ownership are subject to a tradition which must be traced from the situation of the original.

This to me means that art lacks the element of time and space you never know where it has been. This is interesting because just like history there's elements lost in time and space and just becomes a memory. Even memories become vague nothing is immortal not even awesome paintings. 

Ernst Jung said "On pain" "A clash of naval ships is distinguished by its unprecedented clarity. We can recall in our minds the course of naval battles right down to the minute and individual shells fired. Moreover, one sees neither the sailor. as he is invisible in a way more significant that purely physical, nor a mass of soldiers, instead one sees the naval ship or fleet. We have before us one of those cases where men accepts his downfall or fate. His ultimate concern is to no longer to try to avoid his fate, but to ensure it takes place with a flag held high. In survivors accounts, one repeatedly comes across a remarkable attitude that leads one to believe that in the decisive moments death is simply not seen. This is specially true wherever in the zone of annihilation man's focus remains squarely on utilizing weaponry. Only he who feels secure in immediate proximity to death finds himself in the highest state of security. "

I chose this passage because it describes many aspects of nihilism and the class is about that, I also like the last line in which it is said that the moment we feel more secure is when we are close to death itself and I think this is true the only things we have for sure since we are born is that we are going to die and that s it.

 Politics as vocation  by Max Weber

What do we understand by politics? The concept is extremely broad and comprises any kind of

independent

leadership in action. One speaks of the currency policy of the banks, of the discounting policy of the

Reichsbank, of the strike policy of a trade union; one may speak of the educational policy of a municipality

or a township, of the policy of the president of a voluntary association, and, finally, even of the policy of a

prudent wife who seeks to guide her husband. Tonight, our reflections are, of course, not based upon such a

broad concept. We wish to understand by politics only the leadership, or the influencing of the leadership,

of a

political

association, hence today, of a

state.

 

I chose this text which was in the introduction of his essay because it says how politics can be represented in any sphere of society, either family, schools, work, government and how the focus needs to be made more specifically on government since there is no kind of leadership being made and everything is so communal. This is interesting because this is one of the reasons Hitler was elected because he represented an unified kind of leadership. 

Article 7
The Reich is responsible for legislation in the areas
1. civil law
2. penal law
3. jurisdiction including the execution of sentences as well as judicial
assistance between government offices
4. passport affairs and the registration of aliens
5. welfare for the poor and the migrants
6. press, clubs, assemblies
7. population policy, motherhood, baby, children and youth welfare
8. health care, veterinary affairs, protection of plants against diseases and parasites
9. labour legislation, insurance and protection of workers and employees as well
as certification of employment
10. the establishment of institutions representing occupations within the Reich territory
11. welfare for combattants and their surviving dependants
12. the law of expropriation
13. the nationalization of natural resources, of economic enterprises, of the production, distribution and pricing of merchandise for the social economy
14. trade, measurements, the distribution of paper money, construction and stock markets
15. the sale of food as well as other goods of daily consumption
16. industry and mining
17. insurances
18. merchant shipping. ocean and coastal fishing
19. railways, inland navigation, motor vehicle traffic on land, water and in the air, the construction of overland roads, as far as these serve general traffic and national defense
20. theatres and cinemas

I chose this article because it shows how strict everything was and how controlling everything was supposed to be it feels more like a communist ideal rather than a capitalist one. It had legislation even in theaters and cinemas meaning even in the leisure places this constitution could write laws.  I feel like Germany is one of those countries that just made many mistakes throughout history and learned from them and a country that went all the way through and did things that even today some countries are afraid to do and that s why Germany is so advanced.

Article 109
All Germans are equal in front of the law.
In principle, men and women have the same rights and obligations.
Legal privileges or disadvantages based on birth or social standing are to be abolished.
Noble titles form part of the name only; noble titles may not be granted any more.
Titles may only be granted, if they indicate an office or occupation; academic degrees are not affected by this regulation.
The state may no more bestow orders and medals.
No German may accept titles or orders from a foreign government.

I chose this passage because it goes against what happened in WWII which means that before all the mayhem happened Germany had a pretty equal system or at least was trying to be a more equal society.  Even men and women had the same rights and duties. Anything that could make you disabled or less positive was supposed to be taken down which opens to a lot of communist ideas, nobility was no longer something important.  I think is very interesting that before Hitler everything was heading towards an equal direction in Germany.

Rosa Luxemburg's "What does the Spartacus League Want"

"And because that is what it wants, because it is the voice of warning, of urgency, because it is the socialist conscience of the Revolution, it is hated, persecuted, and defamed by all the open and secret enemies of the Revolution and the proletariat.

Crucify it! shout the capitalists, trembling for their cashboxes.
Crucify it! shout the petty bourgeois, the officers, the anti-Semites, the press lackeys of the bourgeoisie, trembling for their fieshpots under the class rule of the bourgeoisie.
Crucify it! shout the Scheidemanns, who, like Judas Iscariot, have sold the workers to the bourgeoisie and tremble for their pieces of silver.
Crucify it! repeat like an echo the deceived, betrayed, abused strata of the working class and the soldiers who do not know that, by raging against the Spartacus League, they rage against their own flesh and blood."

Since Germany was basically controlled by the bourgeois class, the upper and middle class causing a lot of unfair things for the working class on top of what they had to go through during the crisis and wars The Spartacus League was sort of invented, this league was the popular league, the league of the people, it spoke for everyone who did not have a voice, I like how in this passage the author uses religion to make a statement. Just like Jesus who was good was crucify by the bad they too were shouting to be crucify by the capitalist system, by the rich, by everyone. Even though it is fair and just what the Spartacus league asks for it still gets the shorter end of the stick.  

I chose the first scene in which the girl is singing about the murderer and how he kills and then Bam! she is the next victim, and the lady tells her to stop singing. This scene is interesting to me because the role of the adults is to protect their children and the lady is trying to protect them all but she cant the girl still gets killed. This serial killer is very interesting because he seduces before he kills, he is with the kid, buys them stuff that kids like and then he kills them is very cold, he is obviously someone with issues since that s how the police finds him. What I didn't like about the film is the portrayal of people with mental conditions not all mentally ill people are evil or do things by desire some of them work very hard to overcome their challenges and be productive people that don't cause harm to no one not even themselves.

The movie looks a lot like German Expressionism because of its irregular shapes, and the fact that they are portraying an inside situation on the outside, projecting what s in out.  I like the scene where the guy wakes up after 25 years and he reads someone s future and says he will die at dawn most likely he is the one doing the killings while he sleeps or is a somnambulist and that s how he knows he will die at dawn. I like how everything is so triangular and how everything is so weird and irregular.

The fact that he does get killed by the somnambulist makes this very creepy I also liked how the houses, windows and everything is shaped in an irregular way.

Lavender Nights

Translated Lyrics:
What makes them think they have the right to say what God considers vice
What makes them think they have the right to keep us out of Paradise
They make our lives hell here on Earth
poisoning us with guilt and shame
If we resist, prison awaits so our love dares not speak its name
The crime is when love must hide
From now on we'll love with pride

CHORUS:
We're not afraid to be queer and different
if that means hell -- well, hell we'll take the chance
they're all so straight, uptight, upright and rigid
they march in locksep we prefer to dance
We see a world of romance and of pleasure
All they can see is sheer banality
Lavender nights are our greatest treasure
where we can be just who we want to be

Lyrics:
Was will man nur? Ist das Kultur,
da jeder Mensch verpönt ist,
der klug und gut, jedoch mit Blut
von eigner Art durchströmt ist,
da grade die Kategorie
vor dem Gesetz verbannt ist,
die im Gefühl bei Lust und Spiel
und in der Art verwandt ist?
Und dennoch sind die meisten stolz,
da sie von anderm Holz!
Wir sind nun einmal anders, als die andern,
die nur im Gleichschritt der Moral geliebt,
neugerig erst durch tausend Wunder wandern,
und für die ’s doch nur das Banale gibt.
Wir aber wissen nicht, wie das Gefühl ist,
denn wir sind alle andrer Welten Kind;
wir lieben nur die lila Nacht, die schwül ist,
weil wir ja anders als die andern sind.

Wozu die Qual, uns die
Moral der andern aufzudrängen?
Wir, hört geshwind, sind wie wir sind,
selbst wollte man uns hängt,
den müte man beweinen,
doch bald gebt acht, es wird über Nacht
auch unsre Sonne scheinen.
Dann haben wir das gleiche Recht erstritten,
wir leiden nicht meht, sondern sind gelitten.
Wir sind nun einmal anders, usw.

This song is about repression and liberation of the younger generations or the generations that want to feel liberated. I find interesting the first part that says who are you to tell us what God considers wrong or immoral who are you to keep us away from paradise. This is interesting because maybe their paradise is in the physical world, is like paradise is what they do the sex, the drugs, the alcohol the cabaret but paradise is also the one in heaven where the people that don’t do this things go and in order to get there you must be out of this kind of environment. Regardless paradise has a double meaning in this song.

Then they say if what we do is hell let it be we will take our chance the only thing they want is to be liberated and to have lavender nights or freedom nights just like the professor in the movie he chooses to follow the femme fattale and become freer by being in her environment. Then he can enjoy also the lavender nights.

This song also talks about homosexuality and how it is ok this is very controversial even today I can only imagine in this time were everything was so uptight and rigid.

Chuck Out the Man

The battle for emancipation's been raging since history began
Yes, feminists of every nation want to chuck off the chains made by man
Hula girls and housemaids and wives in Maribou
hear all our voices thunder in protest
Anything that men do women can do too
and more that that we women do it best

CHORUS:  Chuck all the men out of the Reichstag
and chuck all the men out of the courthouse
Men are the problem with humanity
they're blinded by their vanity
Women have passively embraced them
when we could have easily outpaced them
Yes we should have long ago replaced them
or better yet erased them
If we haven't made our feelings clear
we women have had it up to here

Raus mit den Männern!
(für Claire Waldoff)
Es geht durch die ganze Historie
ein Ruf nach Emanzipation
vom Menschen bis zur Infusorie
überall will das Weib auf den Thron.
Vin Hawai-Neger bis zur Berliner Range
braust ein Ruf wie Donnerhall daher:
Was die Männer können, können wir schon lange
und vielleicht ’ne ganze Ecke mehr.

Raus mit den Männern aus dem Reichstag,
und raus mit den Männern aus dem Landtag,
und raus mit den Männern aus dem Herrenhaus,
wir machen draus ein Frauenhaus!
Raus mit den Männern aud dem Dasein,
und raus mit den Männern aus dem Hiersein,
und raus mit den Männern aus dem Dortsein,
sie müten schon längst fort sein.
Ja: raus mit den Männern aus dem Bau,
und rein in die Dinger mit der Frau!

This song is about the liberation of women is saying that women can have the same rights as men because whatever men can do women can do it too and better. This is a nice song because in that tine it was very difficult for anybody to have nay right therefore having a liberating song like this must have been very popular at the time in the Weimar culture.

It relates to the movie because I think the protagonist is a very liberated women she might not have many moral values but she works and is a sexually liberated women yes she made him into a clown but he sort of look for it himself so is mostly his fault.

Paragraph 175

Said that males having sex with males was illegal and he could be punish, imprisoned and lose its civil rights.

Paragraph 175 a

Working in jail and jail time of no less than 3 months should happen to any men seduced or seducing another male to have sex wether they are over the age of 21 or not.

Paragraph 175 b

Sex with animals could result in imprisonment and loss of civil rights.

Henri Matisse
He was born on December 31st, 1869 in France. He was the oldest son of a prosperous grain merchant. In 1887 he went to Paris to study Law, working as a court administrator after earning his qualification or degree. He began painting in 1889 after his mom bought him art supplies and then he discovered "a kind of paradise", deeply disappointing his father he decided to become an artist. Matisse, Picasso and Duchamp are known for revolutionary developments in the plastic arts specially in painting and sculpture.  His mastery of colors and drawing made him gain respect in the modern art world.

Green Stripe
Is a portrait of Madame Matisse and it was created in 1905.

This painting is revolutionary because of the way it is portrayed and the bold use of colors. One side is darker than the other and affects the drawing too making it lighter on one side and darker on the other side. The part that s darker has a lighter background and the part that s lighter has a darker background. I like the way colors were being used in the background contrasting with the colors in the painting of the woman itself. The way the woman is drawn is also important because it shows that things don't have to look how we see them with our eyes but that everyone has a different view of the world and that s very admirable too. Nihilism dictate what we had to do and the only way out was destroying it and starting from zero all over again new. Therefore all the paintings from that time show that a way of breaking rules, of seeing the world in  a different way. We no longer have to follow the masses and what the media, government says. We can be unique and that s okay. This relates to now because like I said in the Dada manifesto part we are in times where our goal to be so unique and individual is very control by what others think. The mass media is the  internet and everyone is on it we are trying too hard, we should just be honest with ourselves and let things be.

"Each thing has its word, but the word has become a thing by itself. Why shouldn't I find it? Why can't a tree be called Pluplusch, and Pluplubasch when it has been raining? The word, the word, the word outside your domain, your stuffiness, this laughable impotence, your stupendous smugness, outside all the parrotry of your self-evident limitedness. The word, gentlement, is a public concern of the first importance."

Hugo Ball

This quote stood out for me because it makes me think that it is true we are being dictated and to an extent sort of controlled in our societies, by the media, by technology by many things, authenticity seems lost, hypocrisy is high. Everyone is pretending, everyone is trying to be an attention whore, famous for one day, getting a youtube video with many views, having most amounts of like on pictures on instagram, getting the most amount of comments on your status on facebook. Is so annoying why cant we just be whatever we want to be without worrying so much about what others might think about us.