Professor Rosen
September 7, 2014
Rat King – Art Hop
Experiencing a communal gathering full of extravagant art and intricate local pieces is quite overwhelming with a lot of interesting artworks to look at. My favorite part of the whole experience was watching all the people look at the art in pure amazement. As a Graphic Designer I often find myself looking at art in a completely different way as most people would. I look at a piece of art and think about the aesthetics and how it affects the people viewing it emotionally. On the other hand, simply looking at the reactions of the people around me I was able to look deeper into a piece of art than I would simply by looking at it on my computer screen. Although there were many great artists displaying their favorite works, I found myself enjoying a concert that night more than anything during the day. Even though I have seen many concerts they were always held at giant concert halls made for housing an immense amount of people. This accommodation for the sheer number of people showing up somewhat detracts from the overall experience of seeing some of my favorite bands play live. I have always had seats very far away and although I enjoy the music and can hear it with plenty of clarity it doesn’t have the same feeling of only being an arms length away from a singer or performer putting their heart into every lyric. The rap group I watched is called Rat King and is a group my friend knows personally. This also strengthened my connection to the music I was listening to because I knew the background of all the lyrics and their full meanings. As I was saying before about the feeling you get when you look at a piece of art, this concert gave me a deeper feeling than anything I looked at prior to this performance. My experience earlier in the day of watching all the reactions of the people around me could not compare the experience I had inside the small venue where this performance was held. I watched as many people lost themselves in the music and the energy around them. This wasn’t simply a group of people looking at artwork with amazement; this was a room full of people acting crazy letting the music and energy envelope them into another dimension of enjoyment. Since Rat King isn’t your typical music and is immensely energetic, this energy turned out to cause some irrational behavior, which may have well been the sole purpose of the creation of the music in the first place. I am personally fascinated by the effect of art, including music, on the human aura. When I set out to create a piece of art it is usually to convey a sense of peacefulness. I do this because I have seen first hand how someone’s mood may change simply because the art they are looking at. Music is on a whole other level when it comes to the persuasion of moods and that is why I found this concert to be the most intriguing thing I saw throughout the