El Final

So, 22 posts later, and here I am. My days of blogging will be coming to a close for a while because I need a break from the familiarity of this routine. I am going to be applying defamiliarization to my life and stepping away from the mundane consistency found in trying to make a post all the time. Hopefully, then, when I return, the joy of blogging will be joyous again. Like everything that we do, over time, things become routine, and this is why art is so vital to our sanity in life. It is able to defamiliarize us to the normality of everyday life. According to Shklovsky, this was the whole reason art existed. In some cases, it makes things that we see new again by making us freshly aware of their presence. Or, as in the case of the film 300, art can defamiliarize our ideas and perceptions of certain things like warfare or being a soldier. All in all, art is necessary for our lives if we desire to remember that we are alive (according to Vik). Honestly, if art fails at doing this, it ultimately fails at fulfilling its purpose. Art exists to remind us that things are beautiful and wonderful, that there are things that we have been given that can bring a vibrant joy to life once again. Or maybe not even joy, maybe, in our cases; we just need something to remind us that we are still actually alive. You know, it is kind of like a cut or physical pain. Without the sensation that we feel when we bleed or experience pain, would we forget that we are actually living? I don't know, but I do know that pain reminds us that we are, in fact, still alive. It shocks us back into reality in one sense. Art ultimately exists to do the same thing. This effect of art is the reason that it is so important that art defamiliarize us and our senses again and again. It is important that art remind us that we are alive and that things can be seen again and again as though for the first and each time with a different perception. Peace. Enjoyed it and enjoy life.

Jeff Bolger

Wrapping it Up

Throughout this blog, I have tried to present you with various examples from our culture that should be considered art because of the defamiliarizing effect that they have on us. Trying to be faithful to the founder of this theory, I have attempted to expound on ways in which these objects are able to defamiliarize us. At the outset of my blog, I was not sure what direction I wanted to head in, but as time progessed and the blog evolved, I finally landed on film. In doing this, I was looking to do something new. Therefore, the evidence and research that I have obtained for the posts ultimately is rooted in Viktor Shklovsky's work, "Art as Technique." However, once I moved into focusing specifically on film, I used the footage from the various films as the evidence to back up the claims and the arguments that I was making in my posts. As the blog has developed, I have learned a lot about Shklovsky's theory and have been persuaded that the ultimate purpose of art is to defamiliarize us to life so that things are constantly made new, keeping us from becoming habitualized to anything. The final component of my argument was ultimately discussed through the film 300 where I set out to show how that film should be considered a piece of art due its defamiliarizing effects on us as viewers. It is my hope that this blog will serve as a catalyst for you to do more research concerning Shklovsky's ideas and learn how to enjoy art for what it is. For me, Shklovsky's theory impacted me because I need to be shocked out of my routine everyday and art, according to Shklovsky, is able to do this. Therefore, I have been led to appreciate art once again. Thanks Vik! Hope you have enjoyed!