Heyo.

Just a heads up for the few that are following me. I will no longer be using this blog strictly for classwork. Subsequently, it will receive a renovation within the few coming weeks.  Newer posts will be jam packed of all kinds of work, ranging from sketches to classwork to commissions. Basically anything I deem interesting enough to show the world. I hope that you'll follow me through the transition. Thanks for looking. c:

Identifying Metaphors

From Wikipedia.org: "In cognitive linguistics, conceptual metaphor, or cognitive metaphor, refers to the understanding of one idea, or conceptual domain, in terms of another, for example, understanding quantity in terms of directionality (e.g. "prices are rising"). A conceptual domain can be any coherent organization of human experience. The regularity with which different languages employ the same metaphors, which often appear to be perceptually based, has led to the hypothesis that the mapping between conceptual domains corresponds to neural mappings in the brain."

I thought the above quote was fascinating. The idea that conceptual metaphors are inherently understood by all cultures is interesting to me.

 For my verbal metaphors, I found that companies used a lot of metaphors in their advertising.They're often referred to as slogans.

"Dodge. Grab life by the horns."

In this case, life is the conceptual domain we from which we draw metaphorical expressions, or the source. The horns is the conceptual domain that we try to understand, or the target. The company wants you to believe that if you buy their product you will feel more powerful, as if taking "the bull by the horns".

"Open happiness."

In the case of this 2009 Coca-Cola slogan, happiness would be the source whereas opening would be the target. The company wants you to believe that you can experience happiness in a bottle of their product.

 "Love is a battlefield."

In the case of Pat Benetar's 1983 single, "Love is a Battlefield", the battlefield is the source and love is the target. This is a fairly basic metaphor expressing the idea that love is a brutal and emotionally taxing experience.

"Saturn. Like always. Like never before."

This one is interesting because it's more than one metaphor. Perhaps Saturn is the target while "like always" and "like never before" are the sources. I think the intention is to give the customer the sense of reliability and safety while also providing the excitement of a new experience.

 "Took My Love"

"Took My Love" is from Pitbull's album Planet Pit. I choose this because it is another metaphor that deals with the materialization of love. Love is the source while the action of taking is the target. The metaphor attempts to create the idea that love is a physical object that can be held, thrown, and stolen.

Now we'll move onto visual metaphors.

"Lying About Your Health"

I suppose this is a metaphor...with health being the source and the act of lying about is being the target. I also think this image is both of fusion and juxtaposition. Pinocchio in the doctor's office as juxtaposition while the combining of the story of Pinocchio and the thermometer being fusion.
 

"Castle of Lies"

Here is another series about lying. I'll talk about the last image specifically. We'll go with the idea of "castle of lies", with lies being the source and the castle being the target. The image uses fusion, combining the speech bubbles to make a kind of card castle.

"Distraction through Devices"

I'm not entirely sure what to say about this one. It's possible that it's not using a metaphor. I mean, it is pretty straightforward but I chose this image because of its use of allusion. It's referencing Apple's popular iPod commercials.

"Preservation of Technology"

This illustration uses technology as its source and preservation and the target. It uses juxtaposition and replacement to relate its target and source.

"Imprisoned by Liberty" 

This illustration uses liberty as its source and imprisonment as its target. It uses fusion to relate its source and target.

"Capturing Nature"

I chose this piece because I thought it used a particularly cliche metaphor with nature being the source and the act of capture being the target. It uses juxtaposition and fusion equally, I believe.

"Mess of Humanity"

This painting uses humanity as its source and mess as its target. It uses fusion to relate its source and target.

Silhouettes Finished

Generating Topics: Steroids

A steroid is an organic compound; examples include cholesterol and testosterone. Some people abuse anabolic steroids to help them "beef up" when working out. Anabolic steroids are drugs which mimic the effects of the male sex hormones, testosterone and dihydrotestosterone. They are responsible for the healthy growth of muscle and bone in both sexes.

I don't really care whether people abuse steroids or not. There are downsides and many of them know it; they simply think the risks are worth the gain. Though I do think it would be interesting to see sports teams of steroid users only. There will be blood.

Links on the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anabolic_steroid
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steroid
http://www.steroid.com/

It's important to understand the difference between anabolic steroids and natural steroids. Also, I'm only going to put one picture of an overly muscular man as that's all that seems to be in the search results for steroids. Lol.

Generating Topics: Global Warming

Global warming is the continuing rise of the average temperature of the Earth's atmosphere and oceans. Global warming is caused by the increased concentrations of greenhouse gases, resulting from human activities and the burning of fossil fuels.

"This finding is recognized by the national science academies of all the major industrialized countries and is not disputed by any scientific body of national or international standing." -wikipedia.org

 The rise in temperature is not noticeable physically to humans; only about a degree in Fahrenheit in the last century.

Links on the subject:
http://epa.gov/climatechange/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_warming
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/gw-overview/

Generating Topics: Stem Cells

Stem cells are biological cells that are found in all multicellular organisms. In adults, stem cells act as an internal repair system replenishing adults tissues. In a developing embryo, stem cells have the extraordinary ability to develop into a more complex cell or remain a stem cell that will be used later for repairs.

Scientists and medical researchers believe that stem cell therapy could radically improve the medical treatment of human diseases. Possible diseases or ailments that could be treated with stem cells include blindness, deafness, dental anomalies, Alzheimer's, Parkinson's, muscular distrophy, diabetes, Chrone's disease and more. However, stem cell research is controversial because often times stem cells are harvested from embryos that were produced only to be destroyed.

Personally, I think stem cells are incredible. There is no reason to not research stem cells and use them in effective ways, and if we can harvest stem cells from undisputed sources then that's even better.

Links on the subject:
http://archives.cnn.com/2001/HEALTH/07/17/cohen.otsc/
http://www.stemcellresearch.org/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stem_cell

Generating Topics: Network Netreulity

Network neutrality, or net neutrality or internet neutrality, advocates the principle that no restrictions be placed by internet service providers or governments on consumers' access to websites.

"Neutrality proponents claim that telecom companies seek to impose a tiered service model in order to control the pipeline and thereby remove competition, create artificial scarcity, and oblige subscribers to buy their otherwise uncompetitive services." -from Wikipedia.org.

Basically, internet service providers want to pick and choose which websites you can visit with their service, hopefully prompting you to buy their service for content rather than quality. 

I think it's important for Americans to think about net neutrality because all that information at their fingertips could fly out the window. People take a lot of things for granted when they get on the internet.

Links about the subject:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_neutrality
http://www.savetheinternet.com/net-neutrality-101
http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html