Discussing art

Have a look at these portraits and paintings and describe them using some of the expressions we went over in class. MoMA offers a glossary of art terms we can use to elaborate on them too.

Some fashionable artists to be found here and here. You could write something along these lines: 'The painter has used soft colours and, although it is hard to make out the texture, it looks as though it has been painted with long brush strokes. The portrait conveys a certain feeling of unease which could partly be due to the presence of the animal as well as the intensity of the woman's gaze'.

Also, how about having a go at guessing which picture is a fake?

Common mistakes

Here are a couple of presentations which include common mistakes in writing and speaking to look out for.

Rodney Brooks: Why we will rely on robots

Scaremongers play on the idea that robots will simply replace people on the job. In fact, they can become our essential collaborators, freeing us up to spend time on less mundane and mechanical challenges. Rodney Brooks points out how valuable this could be as the number of working-age adults drops and the number of retirees swells. He introduces us to Baxter, the robot with eyes that move and arms that react to touch, which could work alongside an aging population -- and learn to help them at home, too.

Rodney Brooks builds robots based on biological principles of movement and reasoning. The goal: a robot who can figure things out.

Watch this TED Talk here.

Which two factors does Brooks quote as critical in the way the world is changing?

Do you think Brooks' prediction for the increasingly widespread use of robotsover the next 40 years is plausible?

We Steal Secrets

Here's an NPR review of 'We Steal Secrets' (interview to be found here). According to the interviewee Alex Gibney

What were the effects of the US military leaks on the invasion of Iraq?

What is revealed about Private Bradley Manning in the course of the interview?

Julian Assange is said to undergo a transformation throughout the film and an interpretation is put forward as to why he took the decisions he did, do you have any views on this?

Diane Ravitch on the 'Reign of Error' of Privatization and Schools

Diane Ravitch ‘Reign of Error’

KQED Forum NPR

Michael Krasny asks his guest why she calls the privatization of schools a hoax between minutes 5:53-11:12. Look through the following extracts from the conversation and explain what each of the expressions and phrasal verbs mean within the context.

DR - I find myself stumbling over the word ‘reform’ when I see it attached to people like Bill, Arne Duncan, Joel Klein, Michelle Rhee, I go through the whole litany. These guys are the status quo.

DR - … and to call himself a reformer when he owns the levers of power, it doesn’t make any sense.

DR - … and the whole nation is now dancing to his tune.

DR - In fact, these whole crowd of people who now call themselves reformers, are in fact privatisers.

DR - The reason that I am so critical about the charter movement is that it has strayed so far from its original purpose.

DR - The original purpose was that they would find the drop-outs, they would bring the drop-outs back.

DR - They would find innovative ways to engage kids who were totally turned off of school. They would not be judged by test scores because they were taking the most challenging students, the most difficult students.

MK - Too often they turn them away though, don’t they?

DR - Well what’s happened and this is why it’s a great hoax is that charter school now seek out the highest performing students in the poorest communities and they have been critized even by federal agencies for having disproportionately low numbers of students with disabilities. They usually accept very low proportions of students who are English language learners and then they kick out the children with the low test scores.

DR - In the state of Michigan more than 80% of the charter schools are run for profit and there are districts there which went into deficit or which had very little test scores where the governor, who is a far right reactionary governor, gave the entire school district to a for profit charter chain.

MK - Education shouldn’t be a consumer product, it should be a social and political responsibility.

DR - Where there is low performance, where there are schools that are really in trouble is where there is a concentration of high poverty and high racial segregation. It’s as though we’ve decided not to talk about the root causes.

Host and guest go on to talk about different issues related to education, if you are interested you can listen to the rest of the programme and see what they have to say about the Finnish education system (minutes 14:00-17:30), choice as a code word to for education as a consumer good rather than a civic obligation (as from 17:45) and the use of technology and the emergence of the education industry (as from 19:19), among many others.

Only God Forgives - the Guardian Film Show review

Only God Forgives is reviewed by Peter Bradshaw. You might also want to watch the review on The Guardian Film Show review. Have you watched 'Only God Forgives'? If so, you might want to check your impression with that of the reviewers. Here's some of the expressions they use to discuss it:

In a way one has to applaud the extraordinarily audacious sense in which this is a progression

What it is is an unexpurgated release of everything that’s in Refn’s soul

I think it’s brilliantly brave

I wish I could say I wholeheartedly say I enjoyed watching it

I think what he’s saying is that God metes out this stuff, the God character is very well defined in this, and he doesn’t let anyone off the hook

You try to dig around in the sort of plot of this and you’re going to get something biblical

What impression have you gotten of the film from this review? If you haven't watched it, do you think you'd like to?

2012 in Review: 10 Outstanding Bay Area Art Experiences

The strength of the Bay Area arts community lies in its willingness to embrace experimental ideas. No other community in the world has as many alternative spaces and experimental platforms for contemporary art, combined with a healthy number of museums and institutions. Though the list often changes -- sometimes sadly and sometimes for the better -- what doesn't change is the spirit of risk-taking and an incredible ability to realize projects that would be logistically impossible elsewhere. This year had no shortage of great art experiences and next year promises more. Here is a summation, in no particular order, of projects and exhibitions that were compelling and still resonate strongly in memory.Want to go on reading about the exhibitions? Click on this link.

The Name Game

We listened to the first 7 minutes of this programme on names last week, if you want to go on listening to the rest, click on this link to the KQED Radio site Cool Cassidy or Classic Caroline?

Note how the host and guests hold an informal conversation where they use a number of expressions such as:

There's is a lot of fast cycling in and out of fashion

There's more of a tendency to choose a name that stands out

I don't remember the percentage off the top of my head

We're sailing out to sea

Names are social cues

Parents wring their hands over that decision