Week One

I could not find Juan Carlos Delgado because apparently his name is very common.  However, I did read the article on art vs. design.  What I've walked away from this reading with, is that design carries intent, it's calculated whereas art does not inherently need that calculation.  For instance abstract art can consist of random brush strokes and colors meant to do nothing but portray emotion, or sometimes just to look good.  Design implies the thought of what should go where, what components are needed.  Design can be art, and art can be designed but they are two different things despite their easily overlapping.
Raul Cuero is a very interesting person and even though the overall message is supposed to be about creativity, I more so took a message of mindfulness from it.  I'm already applying creativity to everything in my life, I live creativity.  Being mindful is something everyone should do.  It involves not judging a book by its cover, consciously being aware of what you are doing and what you are thinking, etc.  When you're aware of yourself, your thoughts, and the people around you, everything becomes much easier for you.  Creativity and creative problem solving in particular which is what Raul talks about mostly, become much more natural when you are mindful.
I'm not going to lie, I'm incredibly confused by what I'm supposed to be learning from all of the seemingly random links in third section of the calendar.  I love music.  Literally (and I say this the way the word is meant to be used not for hyperbolic effect) the only mp3 player that can hold my music library is the original iPod Video/iPod Classic.  I have probably over 100 Gbs of music.  I can't say Opera is really my thing, the concept behind the aesthetics of the Sacrificium album are interesting to me, but I don't know how it ties in to everything yet.  And then in the middle of the links is a Katy Perry music video.  I'm not the biggest fan of Katy Perry, although after listening to that song I might give her a shot, but I did love the aesthetics of the video accompaniment.  The images are very evocative and do a great job of storytelling.  There are a lot of music videos that are done just to grab attention, and I didn't feel that one was one of them.  And then we go to Die Antwoord which I assume is a group/musician, from Russia or one of its surrounding countries.  At this point all I'm seeing is a commentary on femininity among all of these videos, but how this ties in to all the Opera specifically is beyond me.
I am so very confused by all this information and sensory input.

First Impression

My first impression of this class is that it's pretty odd. From reading the first article about the definition of episteme and techne, I have got to say I'm not sure what I'm supposed to be taking away from this class.  I'm hoping we stay away from stuff like that in the future, because otherwise this class seems like it'll be interesting.  I tried to read the article and although I looked at the words and read them I didn't interpret a danged thing in that article.  It was a bunch of random fluff to me.  I was tempted to read it again but then I looked at it and decided there was no way in hell I was gonna read it again.  Personally, I love art and technology and I'm a techy as well as an artist.  In stuff like my 3D Animation I use technology to accomplish art.  So I can see the purpose of this course.  Mostly, I'm just looking forward to the projects because I'm not really a lecture person.