Riassunto esame Lingua Inglese, prof. Reggiani, libro consigliato Food for Thought, Blanc, Murchison, Law

Why street photography is facing a moment of truth?

This text deals with street photography, which is a genre of photography as old

as photography itself.

The term “street photography” is used to define the genre of the New York

photographers of the 60s and 70s, such as Winogrand, Friedlander and

Meyerowitz, who were the most important street photographers at that time

and nowadays their photography influences our generation.

The street photographers’ aim is to capture life itself in all its raw (purezza): it

isn’t important to take a nice picture, but to capture people lost in their

thoughts and in their daydreams.

Today we are all street photographers and, at the same time, we are the most

photographed and filmed population ever: cameras are placed everywhere, in

car parks, supermarkets, football stadiums, hotels and in our places of work.

But, being a real street photographer isn’t so simple today.

First of all because this genre of photography is almost ignored by galleries or

curators and taking photographs is often confused with photojournalism.

On the other hand photographers have also a social responsibility because they

operate on the borderline between intrusion and observation, between

photographing everything and respecting privacy.

People have anxieties about terrorism, intrusion, paedophilia and so when a

person takes a picture of us without our permission and then this person also

publishes the picture, we immediately worry about our privacy.

When is a chair not a chair?

This text deals with the biggest event in the design calendar, the annual Salone

del Mobile, which takes place in Milan and which attracts hundreds of

thousands of visitors from every part of the world every year.

During spring 2010, this event collided with another event, the cloud of ash

originated by an Iceland’s volcano, which caused a lot of problems for foreign

visitors. In fact several flights were cancelled and people couldn’t go back

home.

In the future the 2010 Milan Furniture Fair will be reminded for this unexpected

situation and so this text’s aim is to show some of the most creative objects of

the fair, which otherwise will be forgotten.

In particular it focuses attention on chairs, an object which is able to explain

what design is today. For example the Chilean architect Aravena has proposed

the “Chairless”, which is a simple woven strap that slipping around our knees

creates a sort of a chair while we are sitting on the floor.

So we can understand that a chair, as the title says, isn’t only a chair.

Arnold Schwarzenegger to scrap school textbooks in favour of

e-books

This text deals with the new idea of Arnold Schwarzenegger, the famous actor

and governor of California, to replace textbooks with e-books in Californian

schools.

His aim is in fact to save money.

According to him it isn’t logical to spend so much money in buying textbooks,

when every kind of information is today available on the Internet.

However, some teachers are sceptical and they don’t agree with him.

They think that getting rid of textbooks and replacing them with e-books could

be even more expensive not less, because we have to take into consideration

the high cost of the training for teachers and students to use these new

technologies properly.

Moreover it’s also very important to pay attention to the fact that most

students don’t have a computer at home and so they could work only at school.

Mobile phones have transformed the way we communicate

This text deals with the mobile phone’s birth and development and how this

item has influenced our lives and the way in which we communicate.

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1 January 1985 Michael Harrison phoned his father to wish him a happy new

year and this was the first mobile phone call in the UK, but nobody could have

imagined that mobile phones would transform our society and our lives some

years later.

In fact, at the beginning the mobile communications weren’t thought for the

mass market, but in 1999 one mobile phone was sold in the UK every four

seconds, and by 2004 there were more mobile phones in the UK than people.

Consequently the competition among different companies started: every

company tried to increase its sales reducing the price of its mobile phones and

creating innovations in the way mobiles were sold.

A great invention in order to reach the mass was made by Nokia, the company

which transformed phones from technological items to fashion items with the

Nokia 3210. This was a great innovation, because people could change their

mobile phone’s cover in order to customize and personalize it.

So, having seen the great success of mobile phone’s worldwide, the mobile

phone industry started trying to persuade people to do more with their mobile

phones than just call and text: some results of this process are represented by

the iPhone and a great variety of touch screen mobile phones which are today

available. LAS VEGAS MAFIA MUSEUM

This text deals with a new museum that is opening in Las Vegas: it is called

“Las Vegas Museum of Organised Crime and Law Enforcement” and it explains

visitors the history of Mafia in Las Vegas, how it has influenced the life of this

city.

The museum has been projected by Antoinette McConnell, the daughter of a

criminal, a killer of the Las Vegas’ Mafia, Sam Giancana, who was himself

murdered, and it will be hosted by the Tropicana casino on the Strip: the

exhibition will display for example personal objects and artefacts of Mafia’s

members, some secret recordings and also the wall which was the scenery of

the 1929 St. Valentine massacre.

But in Las Vegas the museum of Antoinette McConnell has a rival: there is in

fact another Museum which deals with the same theme, which has been

backed by the city’s mayor, Goodman, who was also the lawyer of Spiloro, a

gangster suspected to be the murderer of Giancana.

This second museum has been opened, in order to show that lots of myths

about Mafia are just myths, but the mayor has promised that he won’t hide the

great role that Mafia has played in Las Vegas, for example in the flourishing of

casinos. BEING FOREIGN: THE OTHERS

This text deals with the fact of being foreign in other countries: some people

are foreign because they are forced to emigrate, some people instead

voluntary choose to leave their country, for example to escape from boredom

and the banality of their lives.

In the past, philosophers thought that a man could live, flourish and be happy

only among people of his own country, because they shared his language and

his culture.

Today the situation has changed, because there are people who voluntary

choose to establish in another countries.

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In 17 century Europe built up borders to divide the different nations and to be

a foreigner a person could simply travel from a nation to the other.

This is the “golden age” of foreignness, because it was the period in which lots

of people began to voluntary leave their country, in order to flee their

responsibilities towards their nation (they didn’t have to vote for the

government for example), or to give a new image of their selves, or also to

avoid any categorisation by their education, work, class or politics.

Writers also began to use the foreignness as a theme in their works, talking

about anxiety, melancholia and disorientation caused by the fact of living in a

new country.

On the contrary with the globalisation it has become more and more difficult to

be a real foreigner today: in fact on the one hand the national borders have

almost disappeared, but on the other hand there are ever fewer places left in

our globalised world, where a person can feel completely foreign.

In order to feel real foreigners today, we should go to places like Africa, Middle

East or some parts of Asia, but also to Japan, where there is a different

organisation of the country, a different language and culture.

A foreigner also becomes a sort of anthropologist, who studies the new society

in which he lives.

Sometimes foreigners are a little critical and they underline the bad aspects of

their new country: in fact they have left their homeland because they weren’t

satisfied by it and now they aspect that the new country will live up

(corrispondere a) their expectations.

Foreigners also compare their situation to the one of the exile, even if exile and

foreignness are actually two very different situations: while a person in exile

can’t go back home, a foreigner can return to the homeland at any time.

But a foreigner who leaves his country for many years and then, when he

comes back home, he realises that everything has changed, this person can be

considered in exile, because he is a foreigner also at home.

So we can say that foreignness is characterised by a good and a bad aspect: on

the one hand it is a great experience of freedom and liberation, while on the

other hand it often causes nostalgia and homesickness.

CNBC

This text deals with the American business channel CNBC, “Consumer News

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and Business Channel”, which was launched on April 17 1989 and it is

headquartered in New Jersey.

In 1989 FNN, another very famous business channel, had financial difficulties

and CNBC acquired it, a fact which increased the distribution of CNBC through

United States.

CNBC began to grow during the 90s when it was also launched in Asia and in

Europe and then, in 1997, it formed an alliance with Dow Jones.

This alliance included content sharing with Dow Jones and this allowed CNBC to

provide viewers real-time updates on the market indices.

Today, CNBC provides not only business news, but it also broadcasts talk

shows, reports, documentaries, game shows.

WE’RE LOOKING FOR TEAM PLAYERS

This text deals with what is required from young people at work, which

characteristics and abilities should they have.

Stuart Rose, the Mark & Spencer chief executive, thinks that there is a

mismatch (discrepanza) between what young people study at school and

university and what is really required by business. According to him students

aren’t in fact well prepared to work and to satisfy the necessities of business.

Stuart Rose claims in fact that the most important thing school and university

should teach students is how to solve problems as part of a team: it isn’t

necessary to be graduated, on the contrary is fundamental to be able to work

in a team, to take decisions at the mo