Tuesday, January 24, 2017

My Thoughts On Visibility by Italo Calvino

I found Visibility to be very interesting, although I did not agree with the authors points on what feeds the imagination. Italo Calvino near the end of the reading seems to suggest that it is a tragedy that so many people are caught up films and digital media as opposed to the print media he grew up on, he fears that it may have a negative effect on the development of human imagination, the furthering of our mental growth. If anything, I believe that the accessibility of the internet will help human imagination soar to new heights. If, as Calvino says, people's imaginations in the past were limited by what visual images they could conjure based on their own personal experience and things they have seen in their lives, how much more should people today be able to fantasize? If the activity of our imaginations is determined by how much we have seen and experienced, should not the incredible diversity of media at our fingertips today increase our potential stock of things to imagine? I believe that if anything, the opportunities to experience things which would otherwise be outside of your sphere of knowledge through the internet is possibly the best thing that ever happened to creativity and imagination.