Tuesday, February 4, 2014 I TechNews Horror: the lowest form of entertainment, art Austin Gonzalez OPINION EDITOR When it comes to art there is no consensus on its lowest form. Some people are perturbed by the randomness of modern art, disgusted by the commission of advertisements, dismayed by the lack of technical skill of photography, and so on. I’ve found that the lowest art form is not necessarily something like film or literature, but the entire genre of horror. Absolutes are difficult to pin down and there are exceptional pieces, but horror remains the tag of the greatest collective garbage to pass off as art. What is art? To define the lowest form of art would require such a starting point. Art is simply an attempt to create emotion in the viewer. The definition is perhaps too wide ranging in some respects, but is easy enough to defend. Plays, paintings, even food and advertisements elicit an emotional response to get a message across. Each has its own way of allowing us to cross that threshold from our world to theirs, to feel that something matters. Of all the emotions artists take aim at, six are universal regardless of creed, race, sex, or religion: happiness, sadness, anger, disgust, surprise, and fear. Although horror typically uses anger, disgust, sadness and surprise in conjunction with fear to scare you, fear is the uninspired foundation for poor works. With surprise, at least the artist has to understand when the target audience reaches that level of comfortable complacency so that a shock can be truly effective. Fear can be induced by simply shutting off the lights. Here is a picture; a young girl awakes alone in a dark windowless room. She fumbles to find the light switch, but there’s. no power. There is a hallway that extends seemingly forever with many doors on either side. As she walks, she hears what she cannot name: low grumbles, screeches, and a constant drip. This most basic picture is repeated again and again with uninventive tweaks. It thrives on universal fears that include fear of abandonment, fear of the unknown, fear of failure, and fear of weakness. For example, in the famous Slenderman video game, you’re walking through the woods, it is dark, and your flashlight slowly dies. Paranormal Activity’s scare tactics work because of the creepy unknown attacks in the dark. Exceptions that can create an uncanny feeling beyond the basics are fantastic when you find them, but good luck finding them. Horror as a genre is based on striking at basic fears. It’s equivalent to ‘psychics’ who use cold readings with a large audience. If you can get just one person to scream, the rest of the audience is easy money. Delving deeper into the human psyche to hit better emotional pay dirt is difficult, and horror is the cheap and easy route to get there. An international student's perspective on State of the Union 2014 Utsav Gandhi 'CAMPUS EDITOR I think the State of the Union should be made essential viewing—the actions of the world’s most relevant economy have implications that are simply too wide—ranging. Coming from countries where heads of state making annual reports or forecasts for public viewing may or may not be a practice, it is always an experience seeing all the media buildup to the speech, all the analytics used to predict the key topics and issues at hand, or even who the special guests of the First Lady are. Unfortunately, on our campus we don’t see as many politically active discussions when compared to other campuses, even though the current SGA President, over her time, has made a sincere effort to spark more civic engagement at IIT. It is worth noting though, that there definitely are students with strong public opinions, and it is always healthy to initiate conversation and hear different viewpoints. For the average international student, the State of the Union was more remarkable this year because of the imminent buzz surrounding foreign policy and immigration reform, as well as Obama’s reinforcement of the traditional realization of the American dream—working hard and taking responsibility to get ahead. He also announced the insourcing of jobs from abroad in the high-tech manufacturing/advanced technology industry and six additional research hubs across the country. His emphasis on the removal of costly, needless litigation should be a welcome move for entrepreneurs to set up more businesses, especially if they are immigrants and creating more jobs for Americans. With the Michigan governor recently announcing that he is seeking visas to lure skilled immigrants to Detroit, international students who wish to stay in America after their graduation should hope for a more positive scenario than was indicated by the recent outflux of students going back home for more lucrative jobs. One wishes President Obama would have spent more time elaborating on the energy plans of the country, considering the stringent efforts made by some European countries and Japan, although a $100 billion investment by businesses in new factories that use natural gas definitely has ramifications on both political and economic relations with countries around the world. He also emphasized high quality early education and redesigning technology in education, and one of the most welcome comments he made was in regards to the national loan debt. With IIT’s Up to Us team making its mark on the national level early in President Clinton’s competition, it could not have been a more timely mention of the reforms Obama is trying to push for. The raise of the federal minimum wage to $10.10 and health insurance coverage reform were two of the more debate- inducing topics he gave considerable speech time to. Iran’s nuclear program, intervention in Syria and the Arab Spring, pulling out of Afghanistan and a nod to nuclear disarmament were some of the foreign policy issues he mentioned. He may have focused on getting things done at home in his address, but he actually dedicated more time to foreign policy issues—at least 15 minutes of a speech that lasted a bit more than an hour—than to other hot topics like immigration, education, and health care. So, putting aside the all-too-frequent standing ovations and Joe Biden’s consistently animated face in the background, the State of the Union was as eloquent and captivating as it could be. “And next week,” the President said, “the world will see one expression of that commitment when Team U.S.A. marches the red, white and blue into the Olympic stadium and brings home the gold!”