User:Akacherski

Andrew Kacherski

Overview

For my projects, I hope to better learn the history of London through the history of photography (iconic images) and transportation systems. I also hope to learn more about the famous writers that came out of London. I have taken two writing classes thus far and am currently enrolled in one. I hope to appreciate London more deeply when I am finished. Any tourist can appreciate beautiful scenery and iconic landmarks, but it takes a special type of person to appreciate the city's history.

Milestone 1

Advertising Revelations
Objective: Create a wiki page about the effects of advertising and how it shows the current problems affecting London society.

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
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Milestone 2

Getting around London
Objective: create a wiki page or movie about the history of the double decker bus and tube, what makes them so successful and prevalent.

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
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Milestone 3

The People of London
Objective: Find demographics about the average Londoner, find people that fit that description, and do a creative writing piece about their backstory.

Below the objective statement, Insert a one or two paragraph summary of your findings from having reached this milestone. If this milestone, for you, represents a humanities and arts capstone, please indicate so. Edit the link below to link to your milestone page.
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Activity Journal

The activity journal represents an ongoing log of reflections gained through each and every project activity on the calendar.

Activity #1: Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, and The British Library

Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, and The British Library, did not directly relate to my milestones. I feel that the background history may relate to my milestones as I dive deeper into them. I do not this affected my milestone aims. I may change them to incorporate royal or war history but the topics will likely remain the same. The tombs of Westminster Abbey stood out to me because some did not have bodies under them. I felt this was odd because I do not see the point of putting a tomb if there is no body. The Tower of London was cool with the torture devices and rooms where they used to defend the castle. The ravens were also cool but kind-of freaked me out a bit. The walk around the wall was nice. It gave a different perspective of the castle. The British Library was interesting. The huge cube of rare books in the center gives the library the feeling that this place houses all the information one could ever need. It adds an enigma of exactly how many books are in it. I was surprised to hear they do not keep any books in the library to check out. If you need material, you must order it 48 hours ion advance. I contributed to the Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, and The British Library pages.

Think of this process as building a platform or a case that will help you make particular claims and conclusions through your project milestones.

Activity #2 Natural History Museum

Today my group and I went to the Natural History Museum. This museum was so much better than I thought it was going to be. All of the exhibits were hands on which I liked very much. I am a very hands-on learner so the interactive exhibits made the material come to life. I was especially interested in the space exhibit. They went into the workings of our planet and solar system in great detail and had a huge statue of earth! I also enjoyed the human evolution, bird, dinosaur, and sea exhibits. While none of the things I saw today not relate to my milestone at all, I still enjoyed my time and am glad I went. The gardens behind the museum were an amazing place to sit and do work. It was so peaceful and full of beautiful statues. We also went to a mass at Westminster Abbey and heard evensong. Overall today was an amazing day. I contributed to the Natural History Museum page

Activity #3: National Gallery

Today we went to the The National Gallery. The art was very visually pleasing. I am a big fan of Rembrandt's work so I spent a lot of my time looking at his pieces. I contributed to the Rembrandt section on the national gallery page. His work tells story with so much emotion and detail, it is remarkable. I also saw pieces from Ruben and a few others. This related to my milestone because the paintings depicted everyday life dating back a few hundred years. This gave me insight into their technology and transportation. We also went to the London Transport Museum. This Museum was amazing. While it was aimed for children, it had many features and history for adults. It covered trains, boats, trams, and busses. It gave the history of all and how they changed through history. This directly related to my milestone because I am working on the history of transportation. It allowed me to focus my broad milestone into certain features and answer specific questions that I found while I was visiting the museum, like what challenges they had while building these systems and how they affected its outcome. This was an amazing museum and I'd highly recommend that everyone go and see it. I created the London Transport Museum, and contributed twice to the national gallery page.

Activity #4: British Museum

I found the British Museum very interesting. What interested me the most were the vases and Mummy of Cleopatra. The amount of detail on each vase was immaculate. The statues from Greece and Rome told amazing stories. One that stood out to me was the fight with Centaur. It also blew me away that the heads from each statue were in different countries, such as Budapest, Netherlands, and Greece. The clock exhibit was also very interesting. They had clocks dating back to the 1700's. This was the very beginning of escapement devices and accurate clocks. Clocks also told things other than time such as Lunar/Solar cycle and easter calendar.

Relating to my milestones, there was only one section of the museum I found kind of relevant. This was the exhibit on Europe from 1900-Present. I expected this exhibit to go through the entire history of Europe during this time period; it did not. Instead it had artifacts such as plates designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. I was disappointed. It still gave me insight into how the cultural and societal values at the time and how they incorporated them into they creations. This relates to my milestone. I created the section on the mummy of cleopatra on the British museum page. I also edited the entire page's grammar.

Activity #5: St. Paul's Cathedral

When I entered St. Paul's Cathedral, my jaw immediately dropped. The spanning archways, incredibly high ceilings, intricate detail, and the dome all exceeded my expectations. What I also found surprising were the acoustics in the whisper gallery. I did not believe that whispering across a massive dome would work but it actually did! The crypt downstairs had some nice memorials to people such as the Duke of Wellington. To see them represented in such a nice way made me feel their importance.

For my milestones, I feel that they would relate to the church after it was burned in the greater fire of London and during World War 2. Winston Churchill explicitly said that St. Paul's cathedral must be saved during the blitz. My second milestone is about government advertising during world war 2 and how it relates to todays' government advertising. I feel I should go back and watch the video presentation about the history of the church for more background information about my milestone. I added information and a photo to the crypt section, and fixed grammar in the sculptures and mosaics sections.

Activity #6: Tate Modern

I will be honest, I am not a big fan of modern art. But when I walked into the Media Networks exhibit and Tate Modern that changed. This exhibit focused on the portrayal of social and political issues during the times they were painted. I found this to be extremely interesting. The section about the anti-nazi posters and the portrayal of Soviet lifestyle was interesting because it is not often you get to see things from their perspective. It gave me new insight into those situations in history and realized not everyone during that period in history agreed with the terrible things that were done.

This exhibit kinda-sorta relates to my milestone. I am doing my milestones on transportation and government advertising through the ages. The transportation milestone is shown in the painting by Pivovarov. It shows that the car was the stereotypical mode of transportation during that time. For the advertising aspect, the entire section relates. It shows people's emotions toward government or social problems. My milestone is government produced advertisements, not advertisements about the government. This exhibit gave me insight into how the people felt about their government and what the prominent social problems were. I will definitely come back here for more information for my milestone.

My Complete Contributions

Created: Tate Modern,Media Networks
Contributed:Natural History Museum, Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, The British Library, St. Paul's Cathedral,