King Kriggle , Jencks for 2/2

Since we didnt have any new readings for tuesday I decided to go back and examine some of the older ones and see if i could draw any new conclusions or have any new experiences when reading it. I came back to Jencks and the different principles of postmodernism. Specifically i continued to come back to #4 again and again, this was the postmodern trope of anthropomorphism. It is in the sense of architecture and art, as defined here, as the usage of human characteristics on buildings and sculptures and other things of the like. For example making an arch very closely resemble the curve of a woman’s hip or something that “echoed the body’s muscles and transcribed its favorable states” (Jencks 285). This can be seen all around town if you know where to look, one such example would be the sculpture outside of the building on marks and orange, at least i think it is marks and orange, it might be highland and orange haha, but anyway I think it is the Wachovia building, but there is a sculpture out there that very closely represents the legs of a human being. In the sociological sense anthropomorphism is one of the greatest mistakes that a field researcher can make. it is the act of attributing human characteristics such as emotions, thoughts, or actions to an animal. When researchers do this it completely negates any facts they have found and their research is usually dismissed as anecdotal. A good example would be to say that “the dog was feeling useless because the relationship with its master was less jovial and this caused the dog to want to learn another way to communicate with the owner.” It is interesting how it is not well received in the scientific sense, but is very well respected in the architecture and art sense as far as the postmodern aspect was considered. overall i find the idea of anthropomorphism to be quite interesting because so much of the technology, ideas, fashion, and everything else comes from our interpretations of nature. After all it you can’t beat it, might as well join.