Producers Statement Angas Smith LSG 15 Kay

To Be Human Producers Statement

For my To Be human assignment the central theme of my drawing is what does
it mean to be human. I chose to do a comic/drawing that visually/creatively
represents four distinct things that I believe sets us humans apart from other
animals. These are four different aspects of the human condition that people, as
well as myself personally, see as the things that make us human.
The intended audience for my task is possibly more educated people who
understand the significance of these things as well as other people wanting to
learn about the roles things play on our social perception of humanity. I aim for
my audience to react with agreement and to make the connection with how they
see these things in their everyday lives.
First of all I have shown an image of a woman crying. Crying is believed to be
almost exclusive to humans with few exceptions. People use crying to
release/convey the emotion of sadness which is crucial to our construction of
society. An animal may be sad or confused in reaction to an event but human
sadness is a much more complicated concept that has not yet been wholly
understood by science. By not not been understood I mean that Neurologists
may be able to show you the areas activated in the brain by sadness and a
psychologist may be able to discuss what things make as sad and why it does
specific to certain kinds of people but none of these of these people can explain
why it is that we cry. Some evolutionary scientists and social psychologist may
try to dumb it down to something as simple as expressing emotion socially but I
believe that it is a much more complicated and mysterious thing.

777 Words 16/03/15

Producers Statement Angas Smith LSG 15 Kay

Under that, there is a couple sitting together listening, sharing and enjoying
music together. Music also induces emotions in people. People use music as an
escape and as a way to convey their feelings and personal experiences through
something different from words. It is shown that a large amount of people use
music to calm themselves down and it is also shown that it is a very effective
tool. As Music Psychology has shown, music can have a large influence on
peoples lives and behaviours, even in the fact that it forms such a large part in
their day because people choose to listen to it daily and let it form a part of
peoples daily rituals.
In the top right corner it shows two people working together to build something,
which demonstrates how humans have the ability to be social, work together and
benefit other people. The ability to work together to construct has had an
astronomical role in society, literally. Without this ability we never would have
been able to reach milestones like reaching the moon or building the ISS
(International Space Station) or the Egyptians would not have been able to
construct the pyramids and we would probably not live together in largely
populated cities. Birds may build nests for themselves and spiders may build
webs but with our unique ability to work together we can share and combine our
knowledge to build even larger and more complex structures that we then
continue to improve and adapt on such as the LHC (Large Hadron Collider) or
even mobile smart phones and transportation systems.
Lastly, in the bottom right hand corner there is someone giving to a homeless
man, which shows selflessness and benevolence. Helping someone else out even
when knowing that it may not benefit yourself doesnt make much sense
evolutionarily seeing as most observed behaviours in nature expect some sort of
benefit. People give to charity, help out friends in need and sometimes just do
positive things to make someone else happy, sometimes all for no particular
reason other than to make other people happy. In the wild it is a much more
survival of the fittest situation. Less sophisticated animals are hardwired to
ensure their personal survival before the survival of others and to give away your
food or to help someone else build their shelter just would not make sense.

Conclusively, my piece holds significance and I believe that it is an effective

visual summary of the many complex ideas and behaviours that make humans
such a beautiful and intricate species that have evolved beyond simple
behaviours. The drawing is an effective representation of my interpretation of
what does it mean to be human? In my opinion, it is not just one thing that
makes us human bun a range of various little things that draw us apart from the
animals of the wild.

777 Words 16/03/15