Associate Professor Deng Zongsheng, Department of Science Communication, National Pingtung University
I. Introduction
There is a close relationship between contemporary art and non-art disciplines. When a painter signs that "the studio is a laboratory" (Paint Lab), materials and concepts are the operating variables, and the relationship between self and environment is the dependent variable (Forman, 2013). You can see The concept of experimentation is borrowed from art to emphasize exploration. Coincidentally, some creators will quote the concept of the golden ratio proposed by mathematician Fibonacci in paintings, and then extend it to media art; some creators will quote Swedish Svenska Vaxter's posters observing plant forms to extend ecological paintings; the biographical film "The Theory of Everything" In The Theory of Everything, the protagonist plays theoretical physicist Stephen Hawkings. In addition to studying the script, he also needs to be able to understand the causes of motor neuron disease in neuroscience and figure out the disease process, and how to use his body to express himself in the performance. . The aforementioned achievements, whether in the fields of mathematics or natural sciences, have been transformed into cultural codes of the living world and become a source of inspiration for creators. The creative ability of visual and performing artists is built on the process of understanding, rather than on the work, stage or media works. on the results.
However, the curriculum is an objectified entity that is divided into different disciplines and teachers within the school. There is sometimes a competitive relationship between art and non-art subjects. How can non-art subjects conduct cross-field aesthetic courses? Is its purpose "teaching students to learn subject theory?" or "to create art through subjects?" The presupposition here is neither to learn subject theory nor to use subjects to create art, but to emphasize the cross-field of art. Characteristics, "Let artistic creation become a role in exploring subject concepts." How is this intended purpose possible? Let’s start with the field of natural sciences.
2. Let’s start with the interdisciplinary concept of the natural field
Contemporary education reflects on the issues of scientific learning. In Taiwan, the formulation of the natural curriculum syllabus was influenced by the Next Generation Science Standards (NGSS) in the United States. For domestic science teachers, the biggest difference between the new curriculum and the natural curriculum in national education in the past is The key point lies in the implementation of the new "interdisciplinary concept" in its content and spirit, and the establishment of scientific literacy in models and systematic thinking. Therefore, teachers in the natural field should refer to the NGSS and clearly point out three evaluation criteria for "core ideas," "implementation," and "interdisciplinary concepts" (Qiu Meihong, 2016). In fact, artistic creation also includes the first two aspects. Whether it is performance, vision or music, they all have their core characteristics and practical aspects.
Wheatley (2007) once cited the example of John Constable, a British rural landscape painter during the Romantic period, whose core concept was "to paint the true appearance of the landscape" and his implementation in visual art was to "question the atmospheric perspective studied by Leonardo da Vinci for landscape painting" "Techniques", and at the same time formed his own new perspective on perspective through constant sketching and studying the changes in clouds and sky; photography was invented in 1850. At first, the artist thought that technological media would affect everyone's creation, but later the artist discovered that there was no need to worry about painting. Like or not, they were also encouraged to paint imaginary scenes, such as the Symbolist painter Odilon Redon. The core concept is to use visual exploration to "express emotions and ideas" and create mysterious scenes from one's own imagination. These creations are Things that have special meaning to oneself, whether the things in the symbol are people, objects or colors, all represent special feelings and ideas; or the core concept of the impressionist painters is "recording color and light", whether it is Seurat (Georges -Pierre Seurat) or Vincent van Gogh (Vincent van Gogh), their creations use "thick brushstrokes to experiment with contrasting colors and color shapes of color theory" to express their emotions and ideas; in 1900, Cubism moved towards abstraction, regardless of It is Henri Matisse or Kazimir Malevich. The core concept is that "color and pattern can touch people's feelings and ideas just like music." The application of the two elements of "color and pattern" in creative expression .
From the perspective of art history mentioned above, the birth of every artistic creation almost involves the exploration of core concepts and practical expressions. The story of a single painter and the form of his work or the expression of emotional concepts is a story. When comparing the discussion in the NGSS carefully about the dialogue and exploration of the relationship between the environment and the self, the aforementioned creative groups in art history and natural scientists are doing similar research and practice, but they develop in different cultural communities. , so the language itself when using disciplinary concepts between art and nature points to different fields. Therefore, there is no need to worry about the core concepts and implementation of art and nature. Instead, we need to ask: How to induce the "connection" that already exists between the core concepts and implementation in learners? Only in this way can we understand the role and positioning of non-art subjects in cross-disciplinary courses and aesthetics.
The main reason why NGSS advocates the interdisciplinary concept also comes from the language problem of communication between natural sciences. It is believed that whether it is physical chemistry, life sciences, earth and space sciences, engineering, technology, applied sciences, etc., each subject has its own language model. With terminology, the reason why they can communicate with each other comes from the commonality between cross-disciplinary concepts. Domestic scholars Huang Maozai and Wu Miner (2016) interpreted the birth of the interdisciplinary concept as an assertion of utilizing natural science knowledge rather than memorizing factual knowledge. In the past, Taiwan’s natural science curriculum goals concealed the expectations of the contemporary science community for natural science education. and interpretation of the connotation of value and literacy. Therefore, the original goal of Taiwan's natural science curriculum is to imitate a scientist's research process (scientific knowledge, research methods, and attitude towards solving problems), and pay attention to the diversity of personal learning styles (scientific concepts are actively developed by learners). construction), echoing the interdisciplinary concept of international curriculum development in the new curriculum. From this point of view, the art field and the natural field should be able to communicate and understand each other from the standpoint of learning diversity where "concepts are actively constructed by learners". The interdisciplinary concept should be a value proposition for "learners" to develop self-exploration.
3. Dilemmas and challenges of non-art subjects
In the past, education often misunderstood the meaning of "cross-field" and regarded "integration" as a "big unit". Teachers used various subjects to break it down, so that they designed thematic cross-fields, such as birthdays. Under the theme, the Chinese subject arranges writing greeting cards and invitation cards, the mathematics subject arranges arithmetic activities such as calculating age and purchasing gifts, and natural science arranges birthday party balloons and air experiments. However, the above is "patchwork rather than combination, because the learning between fields does not interact and complement each other" (Huang Maozai and Wu Min'er, 2016). Since schools, textbooks, etc. are not set up for curriculum integration, it is time-consuming and labor-intensive for teachers to collaborate with students. In addition, due to the status relationship between major and minor subjects, colleagues may not necessarily share power (Shan Wenjing, 2001) . In addition, in the past, teaching only taught concepts or used recipe-style experiments. Teachers regarded the content knowledge tested in the exam as their own responsibility. Otherwise, it would affect students' scientific abilities, but they had no sense of procedural knowledge exploration. Moreover, teachers mostly used textbooks to provide There is a considerable amount of knowledge but it is difficult to have time for exploration and practice (Zhang Yanlang 2020). Although the general outline stipulates that one-third of the time should be conducted, the teacher believes that the exploration method is similar to the exploration consensus obtained by quickly teaching scientific concepts, which may be time-consuming. It's long and feels inefficient. In other words, exploratory actions are not only performed by students themselves, but also interact with peers in the classroom, discuss and process data, analyze and summarize conclusions, and share consensus. From this point of view, non-artistic disciplines need to face not only the misuse of superficial cooperation, but also the challenge of how to generate exploration within practice.
In order to avoid such manipulation and misuse of interdisciplinary as thematic, what exactly does an interdisciplinary aesthetic course in non-art subjects look like? Wiggins and McTighe (2008) cited empirical research in brain science and advocated that the curriculum is "design that values understanding." Perhaps the definition of understanding itself is not rigorous, and its meaning is multi-faceted. However, the intuition of its existence emphasizes that it is different from "precision". "Mature content". Based on this, we should treat the mutual understanding between disciplines in cross-fields as a dependent variable. The meaning of learning in non-art disciplines’ practice of cross-field aesthetics is not “how much you know”, but the process of “how to understand” .
The obstacles that non-art subjects have to overcome are, in addition to the academic tradition of disciplinary division of labor, such as the compilation of domestic textbooks or related lesson plans themselves, which do not use the language of other fields. The natural field will not use the language structure of the art field in its own texts. In other words, the realm of art and the realm of nature should be conceptually interchangeable as long as they transcend the language conventions of the fields. For artistic creation, the original "principle experiment" in the form of a recipe is a text that can be reflected on through "creation", and its concepts can be used for transformation and design. In this way, the natural core material package experiment will not become a recipe operation, but When it is transformed into exploration content during creation, the interdisciplinary concept mentioned above in NGSS is a language that can be understood by each other among disciplines.
4. Use artistic creation to explore concepts in non-art subjects
Wiggins and McTighe (2008) believe that "understanding" itself is a concept. It comes from analyzing and reflecting on our learning, and generating meaningful general principles, insights or useful understandings from past fragments or difficult-to-understand learning. Understanding is not factual knowledge. , but a concept that is the result of inference, developed and verified by students, but acquired with the help of teachers when necessary. According to this, art should be understood here as "the form of storing concepts" first and foremost. In other words, art form is both the content of learning and the performance of learning. For example, when art talks about composition, what good compositions are not only the form of thinking and expression of the creator, but also how to think about composition is also the content of the creator's learning and expression. They do not need to be said. Only when art is integrated into concepts such as the natural realm, social realm, and life realm, and through "exploration" becomes a story about "how do I use it" as a learner, is it worth telling.
Domestic scholar Ou Yongsheng (2003) emphasized that the use of the term "learning field" is to liberate from the rigorous and solid value discipline culture in traditional disciplines, because the subject culture shapes the teacher's subject and not only represents courses, textbooks and tests The content also represents the identity, status and authority of the teacher, thus limiting the teacher's allegiance to his own community and giving him less opportunities to communicate in the process. Therefore, he emphasized the importance of visual texts. Compared with textbooks in a narrow sense, oral or written narratives in various forms of media allow students to dialogue with some kind of objective knowledge that is implicitly related to the text. From this point of view, Expanding the meaning of the course, cultural products and artifacts are all Socrates in a sense.
For the aforementioned "art as a form of storing concepts", here we take Zhangxing Elementary School in Nantou City as an example from the cross-disciplinary aesthetic curriculum database. The school uses performing arts as a form of storing concepts and uses the picture book "Home is Beyond the Mountain" as an example. "As a triggering medium, the main content is the concept of the causes and effects of landslide disasters, connected to plants and mountains in natural sciences. An interesting question arises here. In the classroom, how do elementary school students understand things that they cannot directly witness (landslides)? The story of "Home Over the Mountain" serves as an alternative simulation experience. Through the "monologue" of driftwood, the story tells the impact of landslide disasters, and thus provides "factual knowledge" such as from seeds to soil, rainwater circulation, and plant conservation of the land. To put it into context, in addition to reading the picture book, I also simulated the production and observation of the "Giant's Big Comb" mentioned in the plot (mitigating landslide disasters), and then performed these through performing arts. own observations.
If teachers in non-art subjects can regard cross-disciplinary teaching as a creative work and teaching as art, they themselves will be artists. And artists themselves are not creators of skilled media in the traditional sense, but rather in teaching as art. In this sense, artists from non-art disciplines act as connectors for exploration, and they are those who observe, think, cultivate and reflect on the connectors (Wu Lijun, 2010). Lin Fengqi (2010) pointed out that teaching itself is a game structure with a relaxing quality. It is a full mental state of perceptual perception and rational thinking before class, but it does not take sufficient preparation before class as the main body of teaching content. It is the constant requirement to timely invite students' feelings and thinking to enrich the perceptual and intellectual materials in the classroom recently, and is willing to modify the pre-class teaching format and rules based on the students' contributions. Only in this way can teaching have the meaning of adventure, and jointly open up the field of time. Explore the process.
Cross-disciplinary courses in non-art subjects are about "directly engaging in a creation" rather than sticking to the content of each subject. Teaching should not be regarded as the transfer of knowledge, but a transformation of two-way communication. Creating works is a kind of communication media, encouraging students to develop their potential and create like contemporary artists. It is suggested here that teachers of non-art subjects can directly formulate a creative activity, and students can participate in the proposal and design of the creative activity. As long as they can feel the problem and reflect on the desired changes, they can open up a space for dialogue between different disciplines (Yang Zhongbin , Lin Suqing, 2010). Therefore it is of particular concern here that teachers in non-art subjects can imagine that after finishing the course they want to say: Let me tell a story about how I created using X concept. This may be the starting point for non-art subjects to engage in cross-disciplinary aesthetics. Teachers allow students to have the desire to use these concepts and overcome difficulties, instead of being seemingly inseparable in large thematic units as mentioned above, but unexpectedly discovering that their own creations are closely connected. Embedded in concepts and languages from different disciplines.
5. Creative course design for non-art subjects
Erickson, Lanning & French (2017) concept-based unit design adopts three dimensions to think about the structure of the creative process and transform artistic creation into interdisciplinary concepts, including what (unit title or focus), why (in order to understand... General rules for the unit that will be assessed) and how (a description of the student assessment task). Take the work of Darbyshire (2016) as an example. She regards the inside of the human body as a "wonder". Many people talk about beauty in appearance rather than inwardness, so she tried to use a microscope to magnify cells and see beauty from symmetry. When this artistic practice is transformed into a creative course of interdisciplinary inquiry, it can be deconstructed into forms in the natural field and visual composition in the art field, and transformed in three dimensions:
Similarly, the textbook texts used by teachers can also be adapted. Taking the first semester of the third grade of primary school in the natural field "The Body of Plants" as an example, the three groups of activities in the textbook include understanding "roots, stems and leaves", "flowers, fruits and seeds", "Function of Plants" can be combined with observation behaviors such as sighting, smelling, touching, etc. to record not only the appearance but also the feeling of contact. These units that could have been taught in the classroom by looking at textbook pictures were transformed into a set of exploratory activities on campus. But how do we integrate texts from the natural realm with texts from the artistic realm? Comparing Mikami's textbooks from the same period, the art field takes "home" as the starting point and adds creativity and dream imagination. Then the original three nature classes and two art classes in one unit are transformed into art as a result of evaluation and practice. The basic form is the "creative process".
Then the art teacher and the nature teacher can discuss how to cooperate and use the works to evaluate them, turning the process of students exploring plants into a creative work. Nature and technology are not about writing cognitive facts. In the field of art, there are some new elements in creating a dream house because of the structure of plants. For example, "If I live in a flower as my home, how will I decorate and design it?" kind. Of course, the exercise of exploratory behavior can be a kind of imaginative run, trying to enlarge the spatial location, such as putting observations on "On the way home" as an adventure map, allowing students to slow down their movements and observe more keenly. On the way home, I discovered the natural materials around me, whether they were flowers, plants or trees, and gave them a model-like role. I performed my own actions and dialogues on the leaves, using the outer contours and inner qualities of the leaves. The vein pattern of the leaves serves as an "emoticon in the adventure map of returning home", so this visual art also has a performance form. As mentioned before, when artistic creation is transformed into learning behavior of exploring scientific concepts, materials in textbooks can also be used and transformed, and transformed in three dimensions:
Is it okay to change the visual form to a musical form? Can we still communicate? Humphreys regards phenomena as the reproduction of sound and sound quality, and experiences unique and changeable experiences in artistic activities. There is critical thinking in this expression (translated by Wang Ruijing, 2007). Under this concept, the above "On the way home" case can also be transformed into a musical performance, using simple body movements, including clapping, stomping feet, and snapping fingers to create some simple phrases:
6. The two images of art and non-art subjects
We can study "beauty" as an object, accurately measure the relevant physical information about it, and digitize the setting of beauty. But are physical information and numerical copies really beauty? There are many interesting issues to discuss here, and at the end of the article, we will focus on the observer to break down the boundaries between art and non-art subjects.
There is a well-known experiment in quantum mechanics called "wave-particle duality". The object of observation is "light", but is light a particle or a wave? It's all about the observer. When the observer assumes that light is a particle, he will focus on the phenomenon of particles; when he assumes that light is a wave, he will see the flow of waves, but in fact both exist, which also shows that no matter how objective observation is, , the observer's assumptions already determine the priority objects to observe. It is extended here to think of art subjects as particles that can be observed, and non-art subjects as waves. Therefore, how to understand one's own assumptions about the world, the views and values held in cross-field courses are important in creative behavior. subject. From this point of view, Picasso's artistic creations such as "Guernica", "Cat Eating Bird" and "Ossuary" are particles, and the social subjects of war, massacre and human rights are waves; Chernobyl children's poems and The painting published as "Want to Live - The Scream of the Chernobyl Children" is a particle, and the humanities facing disaster and reconstruction of life are waves.
Lupton and Bost (2008) Who do you want to talk to from a design perspective? say something? These will determine whether the plan produces effective communication. Any event will have an impact on the human soul, and in the spiritual world of different people, the event will be cultivated under the guidance of different disciplines to form a knowledge landscape, and artistic creation also generates exploratory actions under the boundaries of knowledge disciplines to express the understanding of the event. The emotion of concern. It is believed here that the differences in the intellectual world triggered by life events are related in the spiritual connection. Various non-art disciplines provide an endless supply of creative materials through the process of art: science fiction and suspense movies intersect technology and psychological analysis, natural ecology becomes a catalyst for humanistic souls, and design combines cost, sustainability, and publicity. Green spaces, recycling and waste reduction, energy crisis, etc. are transformed into creative tasks.
Each discipline will invent or fabricate the conditions for becoming a discipline, creating the boundaries between art and non-art disciplines. However, from a narrative point of view, non-art disciplines provide multiple versions of the world, and each disciplinary perspective determines the meaning of the world. Multiple existences.
Although the knowledge of many non-art subjects overrides artistic expression, and subject experts often appear as the voice of God, it is not difficult to understand that the knowledge of physics, photosensitivity and photography technology supports the birth of photographic artists. This can also be said in "Animal Beauty" We can see that the artist’s meticulous observation is no less than that of a zoologist, highlighting the role of science as a partner in assisting art restoration in the documentary “Hidden Lives of Works of Art”. The display of food from soil to intelligent production records the close relationship between humans and environmental science. For example, "Science and Wine" provides a scientific explanation of civilization in food production methods. In the documentary "I post There for I Exist", the human behavior of liking and posting photos and cultural phenomena are connected with the discussion of social psychology. Stephen Hawkings will also use imaginative plots from science fiction movies to talk about scientific concepts and the execution of current scientific and technological research.
The connection between non-art subjects and art subjects is like our feeling of movement and stillness of things. Sometimes when our mind is not distracted, even if we are in a human environment, there will be tranquility without the noise of cars and horses. The small and slow changes of some things may not necessarily Be aware. In physics, the concept of air is an entity. It is invisible but flowing. Its existence can only be felt when you pay attention to your breathing. Generally speaking, non-art subjects can use various "known" concepts as reprocessed materials, such as using yawning expressions as a subject of biological observation, and counting how much time is spent yawning in an hour? Does it change the concentration of oxygen or carbon dioxide in the air? Does yawning have status or demonstration in different species? Using medicine to explain it, does it relate to metabolism, clearance and combustion, and energy? Using biology to explain it, does it relate to the brain or genetic evolution? These references to scientific terms, coupled with quantitative representations and meanings, then seem to be creations that refer to a certain hypothesis (exploring concepts) or explanation method (laboratory or biological observation).
Therefore, if non-art subjects can interpret and improve various designs in the media environment, they can also break away from the limitations of textbook outlines and progress and incorporate contemporary issues. The National Geographic Channel once showed an image of a hamburger as an example. The image of a hamburger is split into two. The left side shows information about cattle and carbon emissions with a cracked surface (representing drought), and the right side is filled with The pattern of vegetables is paired with a homogeneous green space (representing nature), and the headline reads "skip that burger", implying that consumers' food choices are related to carbon footprints, and the cause-and-effect relationship between consumer choices and sustainable ecology. Imagine someone is ordering food. The scenes and text details in the poster creation may make people feel uneasy and hesitant. Unless they are deliberately ignored, the poster design is more related to the ethics of food selection and environmental protection.
If we dismantle this poster design on the climate change issue and treat it as an exploration path in non-art disciplines, then the hamburger image can be superimposed on the nine-square grid of mandala thinking, and the left and right three grids can be used to present opposing messages symmetrically. Then use the upper and lower boxes in the middle to select similar information, translate it into images and then turn it into a set of poster principles with issue concept design. Put scientific knowledge into thinking in artistic creation, and add creative discussion to have a more accurate understanding. In this case, Hamburg uses the concept of carbon emissions as the basis for re-imagery, and real photos are attached with disciplinary concepts as a stage for cross-disciplinary dialogue. Of course, we can also use previous scientific principles and disaster data to imagine scenarios of simulated death based on the causes and effects of climate change, such as massive floods, Venusization due to excessive carbon dioxide, freezing back to the Ice Age, and ecological catastrophe after the destruction of the ozone layer. The threat of meteorites and dust from the outer reaches of the universe colliding with the earth. When citing various possible inferences from climate science, artistic images from non-artistic disciplines can stimulate participation in environmental improvement under the script arrangement of death imagination.
As mentioned above, climate is viewed as a cross-domain field. In fact, since the conditions that form climate are water and temperature, we can use our imagination to treat the place where water and temperature meet as a climate state, but it does not occur in Earth, but we can use assumptions to create the so-called microclimate. At this time, isn't this coffee cup a material for art? When drinking a cup of coffee, you can observe and talk about the clouds and mist on the coffee cup, the storm caused by the force of stirring, the white smoke brought by the hot air, the black and white colors and areas under the alternation of hot and cold, etc. Although observation and feeling cannot express the power of science, they also form a portrayal of the beauty of feeling.
7. Summary
Physicist Hawkings (2020) once said that his ability to do things himself cannot keep up with his ability to think about theories. Theory is the principle of how the universe works. He emphasized that most people need "conceptual" science, rather than quantitative and complex equations. The qualitative explanation of concepts provides a good understanding. For example, the issues raised in science are related to human life, including global warming, rescuing endangered species, developing new energy, preventing pollution and resource abuse, preventing infectious diseases, etc., relying on science Technology and technology have also become one of the list of problems to be solved in daily life. Various inventions and innovations are also changing our daily life, work, communication and other daily patterns.
When concepts from many non-art disciplines are applied in cross-field aesthetic education, we have to ask: among so many interpretive versions, what factors determine a particular version, and which versions can be used in classrooms of non-art disciplines? Win and become a learning experience experienced? Just like any artistic creation, it does need motivation or power source, which is related to finding the meaning of existence. I think any course can be compared to a "time capsule" or a "message in a bottle" of teachers and students' memories, but it exists in the form of creation rather than examination. When this writing or related work in the name of creation is completed, putting it into the storage of our memory and experience is like throwing it into the vast universe or sea, waiting for a long-arranged but unknown situation. . The proposition of this spiritual gift energizes the senses, as if some mission and ineffable force are calling us to do so.
Non-artistic subjects are an abstract proposition, but if you focus too much on the explanation of the meaning of the word, it will become cumbersome and lose the fun of writing and reading. I suggest that it can be understood as a kind of "performance". When any creator shows his work, there will be "what he can say" and "what he wants to say": what he can say is a kind of text that we can all understand, but what he wants to say may not necessarily be It can be said that you have to use other than words or language, that is, the work itself to explain, and part of what I want to say is the dance between the appreciator and the creator. When I explain, I am the appreciator. In my understanding and Capture this conversational feeling in interpretation.
The field of art is about code signals. Code signals can be more than just language. What they communicate is the individual soul. If you use the language of physics to create an image, it can be a frequency or vibration. Now Physiological signal detection such as electroencephalograph or eye tracker can detect such signals. When we use a certain signal, send or receive a certain signal, we have a way of existence on the numerical dashboard, and I Physical methods can indeed create such mental images to explain the state of the mind when we feel good or bad, happy or dull, relaxed or tense. Therefore, when using physics as an explanation for such images, a certain A waveform or a color set to reflect a certain value becomes a visual signal. For the creator, it can also be used to organize a series of works as a theme to discuss a certain issue.
The process of formal metamorphosis of symbolic signals is precisely a kind of gray area in "named something" but "actually not something". A work may be based on science but used for artistic creation, or it may be something Works based on art but for science, I could go on and on endlessly, extending our discussion of the possibilities for the intersection of ideas that meet in our daily lives and become a way for us to reflect on life and existence a way. It seems that it is not easy to understand this. Just like what I just wanted to talk about was the state of mind, but I used the language of physics to express it artistically. Likewise, the observation strategy I adopted is characteristic of this kind of quotation, and will also be used throughout the writing of this interdisciplinary aesthetic course in non-art subjects.