Lecture 1: This is not an Apple 8/10/14

Today we had our first context of practice lecture, and in all honesty, i was really looking forward to it. In college at the beginning of the year we had a class every friday in which my old tutor would show us some different art concepts and ideas and i grew to enjoy them very much, sometimes i would end up rabbiting on to my family about these interesting art movements and philosophies behind pieces so i don't think i will have any problems following these lectures.
  The first lecture, given by Fred, was all about the idea of communicating ideas, a concept i am familiar with but hadn't gone into as much detail with as i had today.
The key points of the lecture for me were;
- We, as artists in the general term, are using our media to communicate ideas and concepts
- In order to be effective artists and effectively convey a message we need to be mindful of social, historical and cultural contexts
- To make meaning from an image all that is needed is a large group of people to agree that one thing can stand for another
  I think the basic message which we were introduced to at the very beginning where an image of an apple was shown and we were told; "This is not an apple." It is very similar to the piece by René Magritte entitled The Treachery Of Images shown below.

The message René wanted to convey, the same as the message at the beginning of the lecture, was that this is not a pipe in the same way that at the start of the presentation the apple was not an apple, they are and image of a pipe and an image of an apple, and therefor they are not definite object and are open for interpretation.

At least thats what i got from it.