Wordy Essays

Essay One

           

Analyzing the Frisker Car Ad

By: Courtney Lord

For: Karen Ruet

Date: November 21, 2011 

 The image I choose to analyze was an advertisement about a hybrid car called Karma made by Fisker. The entire essence of the ad was to show how this car was designed and inspired by nature. They have taken elements of nature and incorporated it into a piece of metal. This ad will be broken down and examined using the Personal perspective, Historical perspective, Technology perspective, cultural perspective, Ethical perspective and critical perspective. I will use these perspectives to examine the ad and how it relates to today’s culture.

           

Personal perspective of the ad is that I see it as a contradiction because they were trying to make a car seem a part of nature, which a car is not a natural design. They were comparing the shape of the dash to the rolling desert mountains. From this personally thought I would probably by this car because of how the ad is appealing to my creative side and to the side of me that loves nature. The technique of using nature in the ad is useful when trying to sell the product to an environmentally friendly society, which will provoke the thought that if it designed based on nature then it must be environmentally friendly. This can also relate to changing the history of the car because historically the car is a machine.

By the advertiser taking the car and making it a part of nature it is changing the history of the car and making it less of an unnatural machine, this is also the historical perspective of the ad. This company has taken something that is supposes to represent power and strength of the man made world and has turned this ideal around. They have designed the cool and elegant car of the future. They have changed the status quo of the world of designing car. This ad is a significant sign of the change in the historical views of our world. People are changing we no longer want that nice mustang muscle car, we want something that is energy efficient that will compete with our fuel economy.

           

            The technology perspective of the ad once again uses nature to sell the product. From using bright natural colors such as: the brilliant green leaf to the contrasting blacks of the tiger’s eye.  Also in providing an image that the viewer can relate the car to the natural world shows the viewer what the main design idea is behind the car. For instance how the photo of the tiger’s eye was place beside the image of the headlights, this technique helps create a relations between the two and relate it to the human mind. Another good technical design of the ad is that it communicated the image form but also used the written form, for example if the imaginary did not tell you that the car was design based on nature there are small written samples that convey what the designers were trying to create. Like how there is a small sentence that says “ A Design Philosophy Inspired By Nature” which in those few words the viewer now can fully understand the creative idea behind the car. These aspects are very important when it comes to properly selling your product to the audience it was meant for.

  The cultural perspective of this ad is directed towards the ideal of being a green culture and also a culture that is trying to compete in a bad fuel economy. This car is advertised to be made mostly out of recycled material such as; using fallen wood instead of cutting down trees and also it uses water based paints that are more environmentally friendly. Also in other ads for the same car it advertised a solar panel roof, which is a energy efficient and good towards the environment. By using these products this company is playing into the ideals of the environmentally conscious culture and that it is a more fuel-efficient car that will be cheaper on gas. This car also plays to the conscious of the culture by naming the car Karma. Karma is generally associated with the idea that if you put positivity into the world you will create a positive reaction. By naming the car Karma Fisker is saying that by driving this car it could possibly give you good Karma because you are helping to save the environment just by driving this car.

           

 The ethical perspective of this ad is how the end justifies the mean. This is so because this ad is saying that by buying this expensive car you will be better off in the end. That this car is more energy efficient and better fuel economy and it will eventually pay itself off with the money you saved from buying less gas. Whether or not this perspective is true, the ad is presenting the idea of a car that will be better for the environment and will be easy on your pocket books.

 A critical perspective of this ad is that it is showing the effect of the environmentally aware. It also shows the advancement of technology with in the technical world. This car may be a true representation of what the future of the car design may become. How our culture has changed from wanting the biggest most expensive car to getting the most fuel-efficient car. Thought this ad advertise the efficacy of the car our cultures are going though a recession at the time and such a luxurious car is not quite easily attainable. The ad may have been design very well using bright appealing colors and using appropriate images, but there may not be a stable enough market to support such a design. The direction the company is heading in seems to be a better design idea for the state that our culture and world is in, but might not be practical for the masses. 

         

   In using these six perspectives to analyses the ad for the Karma Car by Frisker, the ad was broken done into different perspective. Each of which provide an in depth analyses of the car that showed what the company was trying to sell there product as and to who they where selling it to. From the ad the buyer gets a sense of a high quality hybrid car that has good fuel economy. This ad was successful in expressing it intention to the audience of what the product is. 

Essay Two

Courtney Lord

1200 word essay #2

Teacher: Karen Ruet

Dec.12th, 2011

Marie Helen Allian was born on a farm in Saint- Maire-de- Kent, who took her vows 50 years ago to become a teacher with the order of Notre-Dame-du-sacre-coeur. Marie Helen Allian is the mind behind the many stone sculptural works now being showed in the basement gallery of the Beaver Brook Art Galley as part of the Annual Tribute Gala. Marie Helen Allian was chosen for this show because of her years of dedication to being a teacher mentor and a sculptor who is a cultural leader in New Brunswick.

            Marie Helen Allian got her start in the visual arts when she was 10 years old. She took courses from an artist named Jeanne Leger and later as part of the convent she took summer courses at Queen’s University. She had not yet discovered her true creativity until she tried her first stone sculpture; it was like a part of her was put into the stone work. If it wasn’t for her love of stone sculpting she would have stayed as a teacher, but she had a feeling that art was a more vital part of which she is, that she would die without her art.          

            This show consists of many stone sculptors that differ in form and structure. When you enter into the show room you are greeted by smooth highly finished stone forms. These forms have a representation of being a natural form that has been played with to have an unnatural look. They are naturally unnatural. As you enter further into the gala there is a change in her formation of works. They go from a more smoothed and finished look to her using more natural and unfinished forms. These works also integrates different mediums such as metal bars to hold the forms together. There are even works that are strategically placed so they balance upon one another. The transformation of the style of work came with time, as Marie Helen Allian grew as an artist her style changed from the smoothed forms to the more natural forms. Like for instance the piece Offerings alter 2001/ autel d’offrandes 2001, which is a piece still showing the raw form of the stone because it has not been polished unlike her earlier work untitled 1977. This piece still has a organic form but has a smooth surface.

Her first works are generally just one piece of stone placed on its own. They don’t really share the space with the other forms around them. Each piece seems to have its own persona and is contain in its own space. When it comes to her newer pieces they are not exhibited on their own, some are infused by metals. As where others seem to be spread in a prayer circle around a central figure or just one form with a taller slightly more significant form with in the same piece. The piece with the central figure seems to run around her ideals with religion. The central figure is the figure of worship, which this ties into the fact that she is a nun and that her art is a gift to her from her God.  The pieces that display forms of worship are part of her later works which could be her homage to her God as well as expressing her ideals behind how worship works. In using the natural form of rocks she is also showing the relation between the natural world and that of her spiritual world.

When you first enter the room without knowledge of the artist background the rock formations have a representation of human form with the smooth surface that is made out of the most natural forms that can connect the form to nature. From a first impression they may not seem to be created in a religious ideology behind the forms, but instead she seems to be recreating the human form by using the most natural media possible. As you move on to her more resent work it looks like the rock forms are put together to show the relationship between the different mediums, if you were to look at the work purely from the aesthetic point of view. Though as you look into the story of the artist the opinion of the pieces change and the form start to take on a meaning. Each piece seems to have created their story to share with the on looking world.  

These pieces of works have been forge and created for many years. It is intriguing to see an artist progress from the more simple unnatural smoothed out forms to the more complex form of her later work. This show is successful in showing who the artist is and what the story is behind all the creation in that room. Especially with the how the gallery is laid out. The show takes you thought a time capsule of this artist works. The later stone works of Marie Helen Allian were far more successful than he earlier works when it comes to communicating a message to the audience. In knowing that she is a nun the association of the forms to worship are easily made, but it can also been seen as a way of showing a situation where there is a teacher. That maybe the artist sees her God as the ultimate teacher and she used the rock forms to express this idea to the world as a whole.

The Marie Helen Allian works are part of her everyday life. They show her true belief of what she is in life. They are representations of her dedication to her Lord of worship. Especially with the stone works that are put together in a group, where some represent a singular figure being worship by smaller figures. She is an innovative stone smith that has used her gift from god to share her view and knowledge of the world.