It's been bothering me for a while, but graffiti art in New York has always been a crazy form of art. I was driving down Queens blvd today and saw many different forms of graffiti art all along buildings and walls. People draw out names, people and other different images. I really have no idea what some of the images represent, but i'm sure there is deep meaning behind each and every one. Have you ever wondered how people can do graffiti all the way on top of buildings? Til this day, I am still left with that question unanswered.

I watched a movie tonight that posed some questions about art and it's true definition. The movie, titled Vicky Cristina Barcelona, held a ensemble of artists as it's main characters: a poet, a painter, a photographer, and an all-in-one writer, director, and actress. The poet refuses sharing his work with the world for he hates it and wishes to deprive them of his art. The painter is a Casanova that uses his skill and worldliness to seduce women.

     In Camera Lucida, Barthes discusses the importance of duality in photography. Specifically, he describes this duality with the phrases the studium and the punctum. The studium is what we see and the punctum is our emotional reaction. To Barthes, a photograph is not significant if there is no punctum for the studium. Since Barthes words are very complicated I found I only understood this concept in terms of acting terminology, which is something I am familiar with.

When I arrived home Thursday after class my mother asked me to upload some pictures from a recent family birthday party. Since my computer did not have any of the pictures from my camera yet I decided I would upload everything. After I did, i discovered the "edit" option of iphoto. It pretty much had standard features, such as contrast, exposure, black and white, negative, etc; things that almost all computers come with these days. Nonetheless I thought it was pretty interesting and started manipulating different pictures. 

Helvetica, it's a font that is so commonplace in our landscape, we don't even notice it. From the MTA subway signs to that American Apparel store on 23rd between Park and Lexington (you've probably passed it at some point) Helvetica is the quitessential sans-serif typeface seen all over New York. In fact, it's so common, an entire documentary on the typeface was made, which I've seen, and taught me how universal this typeface is.