My Rhetorical Summary of Art in island Article

I want to share my final draft of our Rhetorical summary project. please if you find any mistakes or if you have any suggestions it would be highly appreciated.

Inside “An Art Museum Designed for Taking Selfies” was written by Laura C. Mallonee on March 16, 2015, and was found on the “HYPERALLERGIC” website. “HYPERALLERGIC is a forum for serious, playful, and radical thinking about art in the world today,” is written in the (About section). Laura C. Mallonee is a writer from Brooklyn, and she holds a master’s degree in criticism and cultural reporting from the New York University. She also has a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Missouri State University.

In the beginning, Mallonee starts with a title related to taking selfies, and she includes pictures of the museum visitors, and there was no one taking a selfie in them. Her use of photos and links is her way of appealing to ethos to convince the audience and to establish her credibility. Mallonee introduces her subject by mentioning the “open-minded” people from the Philippines who started the Art in Island museum. Mallonee uses the adjective “open-minded” to show that most museums are less open-minded because they didn’t allow using selfie sticks. Mallonee uses a hyperlink to support her claim to a post on the HYPERALLERGIC website, which has a post about museums banning selfie sticks. She uses this hyperlink to show Art in Island is a museum for taking selfies and using selfie sticks. Mallonee’s way of saying they’re less open-minded might lead the audience to think about how she is advocating for open-mindedness. This way of introducing the opening of the museum can show the courage of Mallonee, which can be effective to the audience.

Mallonee presents the Art in Island museum with the appeal of pathos when she says, “the world’s first selfie museum, Art in Island, where the point isn’t to look at art — how boring is that? — But to pose for photos with it” (Mallonee). Her use of this statement is to get into the mindset of people who hate going to museums, so she tries to imply she is a person who dislikes going to boring museums. She tries to bring a fact in the mindset of people. Doing this can be favorable to the audience because it might draw their attention to the dislike of museums. Also, Mallonee didn’t give evidence to her claim that museums are boring. Mallonee includes images of people interacting happily with the paintings, which can appeal to ethos, pathos, and logos! Mallonee appeals to pathos and logos when she uses the photos of other people having fun, interacting with the pictures, to make the audience feel this place is fun and makes you happy. Mallonee also appeals to ethos as she uses pictures to establish her credibility.

Mallonee explains how the museum is interactive. “Their interactive venue helps jaded museum-goers regain a healthy perspective on art by allowing them to touch, sit on, and climb 3D approximations of paintings” (Mallonee). Mallonee says this to start explaining the museum and what makes it unique. She uses a picture of people interacting with a painting that is supposed to be three women on a farm doing their job, but the museum changed the painting, and they let the three women come out of the painting and make them paint on the floor. The idea behind this change in the painting is to allow visitors to sit down with the three women and interact with them by painting with them and take pictures of the interaction. Mallonee uses another picture of a couple having fun interacting with a painting of horses. The museum changes the picture of the horses and lets the visitors ride the horses.

Mallonee uses another picture of a man interacting with Leonardo da Vinci’s “Mona Lisa.” The museum let the visitors interact with the Mona Lisa by holding a brush and taking a picture as if they’re painting the picture. Also, another picture Mallonee uses is a painting of an elegant woman on a swing, and she throws her shoes while swinging on the swing, and the picture showed a visitor interacting with the painting by catching the woman's shoe. Mallonee’s use of pictures of people having fun with the painting persuades people to visit the museum, although she failed to use a good title to grab the audience’s attention.

Mallonee’s rhetoric can make people who respect art to be annoyed because she slightly fails to recognize people who appreciate art and support her ideas. Mallonee explained visiting the museum is a “refreshingly short trip compared to the literal days you can spend lost inside the Met without a selfie stick” (Mallonee). That kind of rhetoric might bother people who like art. Mallonee implies people spend a lot of time going to museums, which is what Mallonee was referring to at the beginning of the text. Mallonee implies art museums are boring, and this museum is fun and doesn’t take much time to finish. What’s interesting and confusing is that, in the eight pictures she used in the advertisement, not one person was taking a selfie or using a selfie stick! The audience could be confused because of that matter. Using this quote to conclude an ad is not a right choice. On the other hand, some audience might find that funny, or people who dislike museums might find that interesting. On the other hand, her use of pathos, logos, and ethos makes her post effective to the audience. Mallonee’s purpose of her post is to inform people that there is a different museum, and she wants people to know it is fun.

Mallonee didn’t do a good job advertising for this museum. Her rhetoric is not the type that might grab most people who like art museums. However, her use of ethos using pictures of people having fun interacting with the portraits might make the audience want to go there. The audience can be lost by her use of words, including the title, which isn’t related to the pictures. However, the use of photos made her piece lightly effective. Mallonee didn’t say much in her ad about the museum, but she provided a lot of visual aid. Mallonee used only five short paragraphs in her text. Although Mallonee made a lot of mistakes in her writing, like using a title not related to the pictures she provided and her use of words to describe museums as boring, she did a good job making the audience interested in her piece by using ethos, logos, and pathos to make her piece credible and emotional to the audience.

Even though Mallonee holds a master’s degree in criticism and cultural reporting, Mallonee didn’t do an excellent job in the text. A person with a master’s degree would not write like that. Mallonee’s performance was not good enough to grab audiences’ attention because what they are expecting from the text is not what is written in the title, and Mallonee failed to use a correct title.

Works Cited

Mallonee, Laura C. “An Art Museum Designed for Taking Selfies.” Hyperallergic, 16 Mar. 2015, hyperallergic.com/191194/an-art-museum-designed-for-taking-selfies/.