Response Sentences

1) The body is the primary mode of perceiving scale.

Back in third grade I was taught specific measurements to use based on the lengths and widths of certain body proportions. One inch is roughly equal to the midsection of your finger. The arm from wrist to elbow is approximately one full foot.  When looking through an animal book or a dinosaur book images would surface often comparing the size of the particular dinosaur in relation to a human. When sculpting a 3d figure of some sort the elementary art teacher would critique the structure by saying it is "in or out of proportion." In proportion based on what standard? The body, of course.  

2) Capacity of objects to serve as traces of authentic experiences.

Only encountering a live scene first hand can attribute to the authentic experience. Simply by holding or touching certain objects and artifact will not bring back the full experience. Real experiences can only come from those who have encountered the experience for themselves.  My aunt would often tell me about the time she broke her high school track record for the 400 meter in front of her entire school. She pulled out a piece of the old track which was plowed over the following year to show me. I could touch the piece of old high school track but with the object solely, I was not able to feel the breeze, see the complete red track, or hear the crowds cheering as my aunt ran across the finish line.  The object itself could never account for the real experience of accomplishment my aunt felt that day.

3) The souvenir reduces the public, the monument, and the 3 demential into the miniature, that which can be enveloped by the body.

Historically and archeologically, artifacts have brought a piece of the past to the present literally in the hands of people.  When architects find pieces from the past they serve as material witnesses to the time, place and culture at a particular point in history. Geocatching is an activity that I participated in back in middle school. It involved locating and digging up objects in a box that someone placed 2, 5, 10 years ago.  The items in the box tell a story.  A story not of full experience but one of a window to a different world based on a physical product.      

4) Nostalgia can not be sustained without loss.

Nostalgia refers to the longing of past experiences. Experiences that can no longer be reached and are gone. Longing for an event or a person who once was living are the most common forms of nostalgia. Memories are events which are no longer present, therefore refer to a loss. As a teenager I would often long for the times when my grandmother was living. Memories of seeing her smiling and laughing are still in my mind until this day. However I will never be able to re-experience those times. Only the pain remains. This is the definition of nostalgia: pain from past loss.  

5) To have a souvenir of the exotic is to process a specimen and a trophy.  

Upon returning from Arizona I purchased a scorpion skeleton in a glass globe. This souvenir has been  a slice from the Arizona desert. A place that is foreign yet exotic in its own way. This scorpion skeleton also serves as a trophy in a way as it as it is something unique and something that can be displayed. It is a unique item of which people can awe after.