C
Photos that you might have found down the back of your sofa are now big business!
In 2005, the American artist Richard Prince’s photograph of a photograph, Untitled (Cowboy), was sold for $ 1,248,000.
Prince is certainly not the only contemporary artist to have worked with so-called “found photographs” — a loose term given to everything from thrown away prints discovered in a junk shop to old advertisements or amateur photographs from a stranger’s family album. The German artist Joachim Schmid, who believes “basically everything is worth looking at”, has gathered discarded photographs, postcards and newspaper images since 1982. In his on-going project, Archiv, he groups photographs of family life according to themes: people with dogs; teams; new cars; dinner with the family; and so on.
Like Schmid, the editors of several self-published art magazines also defend found photographs. One of them, called simply Found, was born one snowy night in Chicago, when Davy Rothbard returned to his car to find under his wiper (雨刷) an angry note intended for someone else: “Why’s your car HERE at HER place?” The note became the starting point for Rothbard’s addictive publication, which features found photographs sent in by readers, such as poster discovered in our drawer.
The whole found-photograph phenomenon has raised some questions. Perhaps one of the most difficult is: can these images really be considered as art? And if so, whose art? Yet found photographs produced by artists, such as Richard Prince, may raise endless possibilities. What was the cowboy in Prince’s Untitled doing? Was he riding his horse hurriedly to meet someone? Or how did Prince create this photograph? It’s anyone’s guess. In addition, as we imagine the back-story to the people in the found photographs artists, like Schmid, have collated (整理), we also turn toward our own photographic albums. Why is memory so important to us? Why do we all seek to freeze in time the faces of our children, our parents, our lovers, and ourselves? Will they mean anything to anyone after we’ve gone?
In the absence of established facts, the vast collections of found photographs give our minds an opportunity to wander freely. That, above all, is why they are so fascinating.
28. The first paragraph of the passage is used to .
A. remind readers of found photographs B. advise reader to start a new kind of business
C. ask readers to find photographs behind sofa D. show readers the value of found photographs
29. The underlined word “them” in Para 4 refers to .
A. the readers B. the editors
C. the found photographs D. the self-published magazines
30. By asking a series of questions in Para 5, the author mainly intends to indicate that .
A. memory of the past is very important to people B. found photographs allow people to think freely
C. the back-story of found photographs is puzzling D. the real value of found photographs is questionable
31. The author’s attitude towards found photographs can be described as .
A. critical B. doubtful C. optimistic D. indifferent
D
It turns out that the famous saying “All roads lead to Rome” can help us in many different ways. It seems it can also describe medical treatment.
A total of 21 scientists from different countries, including Switzerland, Germany and China, successfully helped two monkeys — both with one leg unable to move — to walk again. And their idea is that there is more than one way to get to a destination; there is always a detour.
To understand what they have done, you first need to know that the reason we are able to move our legs is because our brains send out signals — or orders — to our legs, through the spinal cord (脊髓). But the two monkeys in the experiment had injuries to their spines, which meant that even though their legs were fine, they were useless because their communication with the brain had been cut off.
Instead of trying to repair the monkeys’ spinal cords like doctors normally do, scientists thought differently — they built a new pathway for the communication to go through.
For the study, which was published in the journal Nature on Nov. 9, scientists put electrodes (电极) in the part of the monkey’s brain that controls leg movement. The electrodes can send the signals from the monkey’s brain to a computer, which “translates” the signals to orders that legs can “understand”. The orders are then sent to another set of electrodes in the spine, below the injured part. It’s like scientists have built an invisible “bridge” to allow the monkey’s brain and legs to “talk” to each other again.
The technology was tested on rats for ten years before it moved on to experimenting on monkeys for another seven years. And that gives scientists more confidence that they might also work on humans.
32. The two monkeys in the experiment couldn’t walk because ________.
A. their legs had been injured B. broken bones made their legs useless
C. their brains were no longer sending signals D. their brains’ signals couldn’t be sent to their legs
33. What does the underlined word “detour” in Paragraph 2 refer to?
A. Experimenting on monkeys after working on rats.
B. Avoiding the spinal cords when solving the problem.
C. Sending signals using a computer instead of the brain.
D. Using electrodes to fix the spinal cords in the experiment.
34. How long have the scientists been researching the technology?
A. For 7 years. B. For 10 years. C. For 17 years. D. For 21 years.
35. What do the scientists mainly want to achieve through the experiment?
A. To get the brain to control an injured body.
B. To find different ways to cure the two monkeys.
C. To successfully apply the technology to humans.
D. To promote the development of new medical treatments.
