A Response to Holly's Post:

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Holly, I think that it's really cool that you made a connection between the Incan coca bags from last semester and the murals we have been looking at this semester. I also really like that you expanded your consideration of art beyond just visual art, and considered art to also be literature. You could even probably expand it further to music, dance, singing, and acting as well. It really is interesting how art of all forms is able to communicate so many different things to so many different people. No matter a person's background, skin color, upbringing, culture; everybody can find some sort of meaning in art. That's something that I also find beautiful about art, that it is really open up interpretation. Authors, artists, poets, etc. usually have an intended message that they are trying to portray, but in reality people are allowed to take from it what they want. It is also interesting that even art, particularly visual art, goes along with the whole concept of the signifier and the signified. Art is just a method of giving off a message, and our society greatly influences the way that the art is viewed. It is another thing that we see through the lenses of our discourses. The Incan society dictated how the people viewed the artwork of the coca bag and dictated what each element meant. This is still true in our society today, as we associate different figures and colors with meanings that are ever-changing. I love the endless options of techniques and methods that artist have to express themselves and their ideas, and I love that anybody can take meaning from art.

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