Santi Animation

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The Hubble telescope, arguably the greatest success we have had in space since the first landing on the moon, is one of the most important instruments we have been able to scientifically come up with since Galileo’s original creation of the telescope. Here in Denver’s Museum of Nature and Science, the IMAX showing of Hubble, takes the audience through a magnificent journey that opens their minds to the possibilities in space. By opening the minds of the audience, the people are able to see the possibilities offered by the artifact, in this particular case the artifact being the Hubble Space Telescope. Since the Hubble is in fact a human creation, and it is also intended to communicate, it can be seen as a cultural artifact. It is intended to communicate, not only through its many findings, but also by influencing humanity to achieve greatness by going above and beyond.

Apart from being a crucial tool of communication, the Hubble, is also a Rhetorical Artifact because of its cultural significance. Not only in the United States, does the Hubble telescope look to induce change in the minds and behaviors of humanity, but it does so all around the world. This vital tool, through the work of many has been able to offer us something Galileo never even dreamed was possible. Upon building on his creation, we have come across several intriguing findings. We are able to better understand the mysteries of the black holes in space and we are also able to see stars forming in the “pillars of creation” which is one of the most acclaimed images taken in the Eagle Nebula. However, as successful as the Hubble may seem to appear right now, it is important to include that it wasn’t always this way and only through the hard work of many American Heroes was it able to become this engineering marvel of culture and communication.

Upon first launching the Hubble, over twenty years ago problems seemed to appear almost instantaneously. Some of the technical problems involving lens issues and computer glitches were not letting the Hubble to operate to its full capacity. Since then, there have been multiple missions to space visiting the telescope, trying to correct what is wrong with it. While every mission has been able to bring back positive results, there is always something that can be fixed or enhanced, which provoke these new missions. The astronauts who embark on these missions are perceived as American Heroes. Astronauts are professionally trained individuals whom are trained carefully and satisfactorily in human spaceflight. They are extremely smart and very diligent in their work. We perceive them as American Heroes because they are putting their lives on the line and plunging into the unknown willingly. They are going on these missions for humanity, to find new theories, explore new territories, or fix existing problems, thus we acknowledge this and are grateful for it.

The IMAX showing of the Hubble telescope is perhaps the most interesting view and analysis of the object there has been thus far, allowing viewers much like myself who are not really interested in science a chance to look deeper and find out how marvelous this creation really is. It is through this showing that I gained interest in the Hubble Telescope, and now behold it not only as a revolutionary science instrument, but also as a masterpiece of art. Much like any other cultural artifact, such as a famous painting by Leonardo Da Vinci, or a sculpture by Pablo Picasso, Galileo’s telescope has been able to influence mankind and change perceptions of the world. In the IMAX film we see how much there is about our vast universe that we don’t know, and realize how much we could learn. Leonardo Di Caprio, a famous actor most of us have seen in big Hollywood pictures, narrates the IMAX viewing on Hubble. By getting someone with the status of Leo to narrate, this film is sending the message that popular culture should be more involved in this matter, as opposed to leaving NASA and all the science nerds to take care of this aspect in society. Through, IMAX’s viewing of Hubble, our eyes are opened to the endless possibilities in space, as well as the importance of the Hubble Space telescope, and we are extended an invitation to engage in this movement.

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An Exhibition of Objects that Inspire, Incite, and Inform

Exigence

The exigence for this exhibition is that it explains the need for an explanation for why these faculty members are the way they are. It clarifies how these objects of their collections tell a piece of their life story. Not only do these items tell a story about the person’s life, but also they tell how these items throughout their life have inspired the person.

Purpose

This collection is trying to convince people to collect items that mean something to them so that later in life they are can tell their story through their collections. When you first look through the objects you just see random items that have no meaning. Then when you look closer you learn that they all have a story to tell.

Audience

The rhetorical audience for this collection of objects is the students and other faculty members at the University of Denver. This is the main audience for this collection because they are capable of being influenced by the collections and being the foundation for change. This collection is trying to get the audience to change by starting to collect things that will later on tell their story.

Argument

The thing that is being argued by these collections is that people have different ways of coping with their problems and telling their life story. This collection argues that some people keep objects that have a special meaning to them. All of these collections can tell a chapter in someone’s life and how they have inspired them to live on to their next chapter in life.

Creating a Community through Theater, by David Rawas

The Rhetoric of Peace and Justice

On March 31st, I travelled to a bookstore in Boulder, Colorado to observe a discussion about peace and justice. When I got there, all I found was an empty table. Did I miss the meeting? Why is no one here? Surely peace and justice themselves cannot be as empty as this table. I then realized the message being sent is how peace and justice cannot coexist equally at any moment in time. The meeting failed because one cannot have equal representation of peace and justice at the same time because they are opposites. This failure by opposites conveys the most powerful message that can ever be sent. This message is silence. Through the failure of the meeting along with the message of silence sent by absence, peace and justice are shown in a new true light within society.

Peace and justice can rarely coexist. In any situation of discourse there is the choice between peace or justice. This shows how peace and justice are opposites. Even though in modern society they are often placed together. This is represented in the clips showing marriage. However, it is actually impossible to be fighting for both peace and justice. Most people assert that peace and justice is a marriage because if someone (Jack) does something bad. Jack then goes to court and get sentenced and is removed from society. This creates the peace that people most commonly think about. The problem however is much more cloudy if a group of people do something considered bad. Consider terrorists for example. Peace between terrorists and non-terrorists would be for each one to get what they want. Justice between terrorists and non-terrorists is for one to succeed over the other and then the justice is defined by the winning side. By these definitions, peace and justice seem similar but are also substantially different. Peace implies co-existing compromise, justice implies power over the other. By this discourse peace and justice cannot exist equally within any society.

Another difference between peace and justice is that justice is an opinion. One individual may think one action is the appropriate response. Another individual would have a different and perhaps opposite response. This is also represented by the terrorist vs. non-terrorist example. The terrorist’s justice would be killing all the non-believers. The non-terrorist’s justice would be to rid the world of extremists who believe it is their power to rid the world of opposing views. Therefore it is the people themselves on each side who have the power to influence a change toward more justice or more peace. The discourse is within society itself. Although opposites, justice can possibly lead to short span of peace. This is represented by the Jack example. Jack goes away then peace follows. However, peace does not prevail forever because sooner or later another problem will arise where justice would be needed. This suggests that there is an illusion of equilibrium between peace and justice when actually it is each situation rapidly fluctuating between the two. Peace and justice is actually a cycle where one leads to the other. The meeting did not happen because the core purpose of the meeting itself is contradictory. The meeting failed because peace and justice cannot coexist equally in society, therefore the meeting about peace and justice cannot exist in society.

Though the meeting itself did not happen because of its core contradiction, it still sent a message. That message is the very powerful message of silence. At first this silence means nothing, as in nothing happened because nothing existed. But is this what silence really means? Well silence means there is nothing to be said. This could prove how the meeting can not exist, or it could prove a more powerful message that any words could ever convey. The latter is true because historically silence has been used as a tool to influence change and thought. This is shown in my clips though the pictures of dead bodies and such. An example showing the power of silence is the infamous picture on the “tank man” or also known as “the unknown rebel.” This is the man who stood in front of a column of tanks in Tiananman Square in 1989. He simply stood there blocking the tanks. His existence at that position was enough to stop the tanks, not words. Another example of this are silent marches. The most moving marches can be silent marches because it makes you actually think about what they want instead of listening to them shout it at you. Both of these examples show the power of silence in provoking thought and illustrating the true message being sent. The influence of the silence makes one think harder about why the meeting would not happen. The truth of the message sent by silence at the bookstore meeting about peace and justice is how such meeting cannot be held in a bookstore. Peace and justice is held within the world on the streets and in the buildings of power. That is where one should look to find peace and justice. This is because peace and justice are all around us. They cannot be syphoned out of society and placed into a bookstore meeting. It is in every person, in every action. The silence shown at the failed meeting shows this.

Peace and justice cannot coexist in society at equal levels at the same time. There will always be either more peace or more justice for each situation. The rhetorical artifact of this theme succeeds and fails. The theme fails by showing how peace and justice cannot coexist equally. But though that failure it inspires activism to try and make it so. The message is that what you search for cannot be found here. One must go find it. In this aspect the artifact succeeds.