November 2011
38 posts
“When the awakening occurs out of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep, in which most dreams occur, the hypnopompic state is sometimes accompanied by lingering vivid imagery. Some of the creative insights attributed to dreams actually happen in this moment of awakening from REM.”
—
October 2011
23 posts
Play
“Kabat-Zinn describes the benefit of meditation as “falling awake.” By being able to “fall awake,” we learn to be more aware in the present moment no matter what else is happening”
—
“To carry on the feelings of childhood into the powers of manhood; to combine the child’s sense of wonder and novelty with the appearances which every day for perhaps forty years had rendered familiar […] this is the character and privilege of genius.”
—Samuel Taylor Coleridge
“The purpose of art is to impart the sensation of things as they are perceived and not as they are known. The technique of art is to make objects ‘unfamiliar,’ to make forms difficult to increase the difficulty and length of perception because the process of perception is an aesthetic end in itself and must be prolonged.”
—Shklovsky
“Epic Theatre proposed that a play should not cause the spectator to identify emotionally with the characters or action before him or her, but should instead provoke rational self-reflection and a critical view of the action on the stage. Brecht thought that the experience of a climactic catharsis of emotion left an audience complacent. Instead, he wanted his audiences to adopt a critical perspective in order to recognise social injustice and exploitation and to be moved to go forth from the theatre and effect change in the world outside. For this purpose, Brecht employed the use of techniques that remind the spectator that the play is a representation of reality and not reality itself. By highlighting the constructed nature of the theatrical event, Brecht hoped to communicate that the audience’s reality was equally constructed and, as such, was changeable.
distancing effect = stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them
By disclosing and making obvious the manipulative contrivances and “fictive” qualities of the medium, the viewer is alienated from any passive acceptance and enjoyment of the play as mere “entertainment.” Instead, the viewer is forced into a critical, analytical frame of mind that serves to disabuse him of the notion that what he is watching is necessarily an inviolable, self-contained narrative. This effect of making the familiar strange serves a didactic function insofar as it teaches the viewer not to take the style and content for granted, since the medium itself is highly constructed and contingent upon many cultural and economic conditions.” —
distancing effect = stripping the event of its self-evident, familiar, obvious quality and creating a sense of astonishment and curiosity about them
By disclosing and making obvious the manipulative contrivances and “fictive” qualities of the medium, the viewer is alienated from any passive acceptance and enjoyment of the play as mere “entertainment.” Instead, the viewer is forced into a critical, analytical frame of mind that serves to disabuse him of the notion that what he is watching is necessarily an inviolable, self-contained narrative. This effect of making the familiar strange serves a didactic function insofar as it teaches the viewer not to take the style and content for granted, since the medium itself is highly constructed and contingent upon many cultural and economic conditions.” —
