The implications and strategies of cross-disciplinary aesthetic education inherent in contemporary art and design
Assistant Professor Yu Jiyin, Department of Art and Design, National Tsinghua University
1. Preface
Although the cross-disciplinary nature of contemporary art is no longer news, when art truly enters other fields, it still inevitably faces challenges and doubts about the local thinking of each field. In 2001, a portrait at the London National Portrait Gallery sparked heated discussions in the scientific community. "A Genomic Portrait: Sir John Sulston" created by contemporary artist Marc Quinn is a collaboration between the artist and Sir John Sulston, an expert in human genome sequencing and Nobel Prize winner. cooperation. They copied the DNA structure of the Sulston fragment in a petri dish by following the method of replicating DNA in genetic engineering, and then framed it like a portrait, as the closest representation of their identity as a DNA scientist (O'Connell, 2001 ).
This is not the first time Quinn has created works based on human body material. For the art world, since Marcel Duchamp moved out the "fountain" in 1917, it has changed the definition of art (Zhang Xinlong, 1990). Today, no matter how avant-garde the creative techniques are, it is difficult to cause too much surprise. Therefore, this work has not been much discussed in the art world, but has caused heated discussions in the field of biology. Many biologists, including the journal Nature, question the representativeness of his DNA from a scientific point of view. They use various scientific knowledge and methodologies to question the authenticity of this creation that can be called Sulston ( Fulková & Tipton, 2013). For the art world, these discussions seem to "miss the point", but Fulková and Tipton (2013) believe that the disturbance caused by this work in the scientific world shows that science, like other representational systems such as art or literature, is a a method of interpreting knowledge. Under the pressure of mainstream disciplines, art might as well make good use of its non-mainstream characteristics to demonstrate the diverse possibilities of encoding, decoding and decoding knowledge, individuals and culture.
As a leader in cross-disciplinary aesthetic practice, contemporary art and design have long accumulated abundant energy and achievements, whether in the choice of subject matter, the experimentation of techniques, or the conversion of vocabulary from different fields, and should be able to provide insights into teaching practice. This article will first discuss the transition from art education to cross-field aesthetic education and the different positioning of art in the curriculum, thereby focusing on the cross-field aesthetic education implications inherent in contemporary art and design and examining its inherent teaching tension. Finally, feasible creative generation models will be drawn from contemporary art and contemporary design respectively, as a creative engine for teachers when designing cross-field aesthetic courses.
2. The multiple positioning of “art” in cross-field aesthetic education
In recent years, the development of art education has shifted from discipline-based art education to postmodern, visual culture, multicultural, social justice and other teaching concepts and contents (Liu Fengrong, 2001). Overall, this trend reflects the decentralization trend of art education moving out of the realm of refined art. Therefore, the role of art in education also has different possibilities. Aesthetic education should not only be the core of art education teaching, but also a common experience in the teaching sites of all disciplines (Yu Huirong, Zhao Huiling, Lin Xiaoyu, and Li Qichang, 2015). The subject standard of "art for art's sake" is no longer suitable for today's goal of holistic education, nor is it in line with the trends of contemporary art and design.
Lindström (2012) tried to distinguish different types of art learning based on the role of art in the curriculum. First of all, based on the concept of cognitive psychology, learning goals are divided into convergent and divergent. The former presupposes clear learning goals, such as the acquisition of appreciation knowledge; the latter is based on connections. The goal is to give new meaning to known skills and knowledge. The means of aesthetic learning are divided into two types: medium-specific and medium-neutral. The former focuses on the choice and knowledge of artistic expression, for example, under what circumstances, what should be used? art form and how to use it? In contrast, the latter does not take artistic expression as the connotation of learning, but focuses on the learning theme or the overall development of students. The above two learning goals and methods form four dimensions of aesthetic learning, which are: "Learning ABOUT art" with convergent goals and using specific media as methods, and "Learning ABOUT art" with divergent goals but still focusing on specific media. The method is "Learning IN art" (Learning IN art), the convergent goal but media neutral "Learning WITH art" (Learning WITH art), and the divergent goal and media neutral "Learning THROUGH art" (Learning THROUGH art).
"Learning Art" and "Learning in the Arts" favor the traditional art education model, conferring knowledge and techniques within the boundaries of the subject. In contrast, "Learning with Art" or "Learning from Art" expands the educational connotation of art and demonstrates the spirit of cross-disciplinary aesthetic education. "Learning with art" means integrating art into other subjects, interpreting certain information or knowledge through art, and stimulating the effectiveness of learning (Lindström, 2012). The STEAM education method (Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics) that integrates science, technology, engineering, arts, and mathematics is a way to introduce art into cross-field learning and promote the development of education through the resonance between disciplines. Student questioning, dialogue and critical thinking (Maeda, 2012, 2013). From this point of view, Rolling (2016) believes that the artistic achievements of Leonardo da Vinci (Leonardo da Vinci), who was well versed in astronomy and geography and received various engineering and craft training, are not the result of art education, but should be regarded as the crystallization of STEAM education.
"Learning from art" values the unique form of thinking of art, and enables learning individuals to develop the ability to innovate, reflect, express and connect through the immersion of art (Lindström, 2012). Compared with "Learning through Art" which focuses on familiarity with artistic expression, "Learning through Art" aims to internalize the deep thinking of art and drive diverse abilities. The view on creation is also similar to today's contemporary art techniques that break away from traditional art. The Sloyd course in Sweden in the 19th century is a model. The Swedish word Slöjd means arts and crafts. Sloyd is a compulsory course at the primary and secondary school levels, training students in various handmade media and techniques. However, its positioning is not vocational training, but through The development of manual skills and the training of design thinking trigger students' growth in all aspects (Lindström, 2012). In fact, the stimulation and infiltration of aesthetic experience does help personality mature and become an individual with better self-integration development (Yu & Wang, 2018). Today, the Sloyd curriculum is still a compulsory course in primary and secondary schools in Sweden and Norway. The two countries have overcome relatively difficult natural environments and ranked among advanced countries in terms of technological development and social welfare systems. Their proud life aesthetics have become exported to the world. The typical taste and industry are inseparable from the in-depth study of Sloyd's courses. The "learning from art" model does not take art as its purpose, but aims at diverse educational goals. However, its deepening of aesthetic literacy ultimately feeds back into the aesthetic economy.
Participate in the educational implications and teaching potential of contemporary art and design
The aforementioned two interdisciplinary aesthetic education models of "learning with art" and "learning from art" either incorporate the connotation of other disciplines or wander between several disciplines. All have expanded the possibilities of art in education, transcended the boundaries of subject areas, and stepped out of the halo of exquisite art. Such cross-disciplinary characteristics are a common model of creativity in the contemporary art and design world. Therefore, "learning with art" or "learning from art" can focus on the scope of contemporary art and design, drawing on its own cross-disciplinary experience and creativity.
Leake (2014) believes that contemporary art is a bridge between art theory and practice. Because it is "contemporary", it can particularly reflect the issues of the times and can easily connect with students intellectually and emotionally. Sullivan (2009) regards contemporary art as a form of research and a reflection on culture through artistic methods. Therefore, contemporary art works can not only serve as objects of appreciation that are in line with contemporary life, but their practical techniques can even serve as teaching examples. In the UK, research sponsored by Arts Council England and Tate Modern confirmed the value of contemporary art in school art courses, with interviews with more than fifty teachers revealing that contemporary art The deinstitutionalization and cross-disciplinary nature of art can inspire teachers to break through the framework of the existing curriculum and develop experimental courses that are suitable for the younger generation (Downing & Watson, 2004). Research projects funded by the National Endowment for Science, Technology and the Arts and carried out by the Tate Gallery, Goldsmiths and their partner schools can significantly have seen teachers develop groundbreaking experimental courses through contemporary art thinking (Adams et al., 2008).
In the aforementioned teaching and research projects, a common and effective model is the blurring of the identities of teachers and students, and the recognition of the identity of the creator by both parties. In many contemporary community art practices, the creation of works depends on public participation (Grant, 2004/2006). Following this trend, art curriculum planning should allow for more bottom-up, grassroots movements within the classroom. The British Room 13 student art group has carried out this attempt to its fullest potential. Room 13 was originally an artist-in-residence program for Coal Primary School in Scotland with government funding support. With the support of the school and the assistance of teachers, as long as students can prove that they have not fallen behind in subject learning, they are allowed to interact with the resident during regular class time. Works created by school artists, teachers or peers. The creative themes and methods are in line with the cultural criticism orientation of contemporary art and reflect students’ participation in global issues. As the organization's operations gradually matured, Room 13 left the original campus in an almost entirely student-controlled manner and developed into an independently funded and managed art studio. In 2009, it transformed into Room 13 International, an international charity organization and became an An international art community with creativity as its core and dedicated to solving educational, social and global issues (Adams, 2005).
The amazing development of Room 13 depends on the appropriate letting go of schools and teachers, and the development of students is guided by the pioneering and critical thinking of the creative activity itself. Adams (2005) believes that the operation of Room 13 is rich in teaching significance. In particular, we can see the synergy between the two identities of "artist-teachers" and "artist-learners". On the one hand, teachers can regain their thinking and enthusiasm for artistic creation in such a space. , empowering teaching design within the system; on the one hand, the learner can also be an artist full of potential, determining the connotation and techniques of creation, and even the direction of organizational development. The subsequent global development of Room 13 shows that what students learn in this group is not only artistic techniques, but also comprehensive abilities in management, planning, communication and marketing.
In fact, the case of Room 13 shares the characteristics of cross-field, independent learning and creation-oriented with the maker education that has become popular in recent years. The DIY movement, which emphasizes self-invention, manufacturing and management, is a trend that cannot be underestimated in the field of contemporary design. Based on this, self-maker education combines design thinking and the cross-field education trend from STEM to STEAM, aiming to cultivate individuals with independent thinking, problem solving, manual work and digital execution capabilities (Clapp, Jimenez, & Raquel, 2016). In maker education, the permanent makerspace on campus is like the creative center of the school, equipped with various craft, art, and even engineering tools and digital software and hardware, allowing students to create freely. The use of space is not limited to subjects or grades, and teaching and learning flow between teachers and students, as well as between students (Graves, 2015).
4. Cross-field aesthetic teaching strategies prompted by contemporary art
In terms of practical application, how does contemporary art provide planning directions for cross-field aesthetic courses? Marshall (2010) refined five creative strategies from the practice of contemporary art as a guide for teachers to think about cross-field teaching. These five strategies are: Depiction, Extension/Projection, Reformatting, Mimicry, and Metaphor. In order to be in line with teaching applications, the following are integrated into three strategies for the development of lesson plans for the reference of teachers who are interested in developing cross-field courses.
1. Prospects for cross-domain quantitative painting
The ability to describe is the basic skill of creation and is often the starting point for scientific inventions and cultural thinking. Marshall (2010) believes that scientific illustrations are often not just representations of objective reality, but also contain aesthetic elements. In the classroom, teachers may wish to guide students to translate the knowledge of nature, society and humanities in visual form, so that aesthetic considerations and subject knowledge are naturally integrated. For example: artist Hesse-Honegger's work "Scorpion Fly" (1988) depicts the limb changes of insects after being exposed to a small amount of radiation. On the one hand, it is a realistic scientific example, and on the other hand, it conveys a very contagious message on environmental issues. Humanistic care. When students have a certain degree of mastery of knowledge, aesthetic ability can help them further foresee the future evolution of the natural environment or human society, that is, the role of expansion and divergence. The allegorical painting "Rat Evolution" (1999) created by artist Alexis Rockman based on evolution and environmental science is an example.
2. Demonstration of cross-domain methods
Methods of borrowing knowledge from other fields to explore are common in contemporary art, which, like performance art, focuses on the process rather than the finished product (Marshall, 2010). The creation process of the work "Gene Sequence Portrait: Sir John Sulston" mentioned in the preface is to imitate various scientific procedures in the DNA replication project, and finally replace the generally recognized portraits with framed DNA sequences, thus giving birth to natural science An interesting conversation with art. Similarly, the ethnographic tendency of contemporary art also demonstrates the close connection between art and social sciences. For example, Jackie Brooker's installation art exhibition "Of Earth and Cotton" (1996) showed how the artist interviewed cotton farmers, collected historical photos, and molded the interviewees' feet with clay to construct historical and personal experience (Desai, 2002). With reference to the above creations, teachers may wish to guide students to experience the knowledge production process such as data collection, hypothesis, experiment, inference, and interpretation by imitating the research methods of botanists, chemists, archaeologists, sociologists, and anthropologists. , gradually laying the foundation for aesthetic creation (Marshall, 2010).
3. Cross-domain situation transformation
"Remaking" means to redefine and understand a theme through non-artistic visual forms. For example, students are invited to present an individual's life history in the form of a geological cross-section. "Metaphor" is a way of describing each other to generate new meaning through two things that are similar in nature, but the connection is not easy to detect on the surface. For example, Mona Hatoum's work "Divan Bed" (1996) is a single sofa bed cast from steel, with the patterns on it leaving imprints on the body. The selection and processing of this medium subverts the soft and relaxing feeling of a bed in daily life, and serves as a metaphor for how various political persecutions deprive people of their basic comfort (Tate Modern, n.d.). Marshall (2010: 17) believes that “taking images or ideas from one discipline to describe concepts in another can create highly derivative metaphors.” In short, "reproduction" and "metaphor" techniques both generate new meanings and ideas by re-contextualizing. However, because it involves more complex and advanced thinking skills, it is more suitable for middle and high school students.
5. Contemporary design tips and cross-field aesthetic teaching strategies
In the contemporary creative field, there is frequent interaction between art and design. Marschalek (2005) mentioned that when we say "art" surrounds our lives, what we actually mean is "design" filling our lives. Therefore, the importance of design literacy in primary and secondary school curricula should be no less important than the study of art or visual culture, because design shoulders the responsibility of responding to real-life problems and is a concrete practice that combines aesthetics with other fields.
On the one hand, the implementation of design education needs to be based on creation, and the process of creative thinking, problem solving and object production must be actually experienced in the classroom; on the other hand, teachers need to lead students to conduct object analysis and analyze the structure and function of designed products in order to learn What is good design? After sorting out credible design discussions and analyzing works that won design awards, he listed 12 concepts and issues that teachers should guide students to think about, including an overview of design trends (for example: Is it a green design?) and a discussion of design principles. (For example: Is it ergonomic and accessible?), discussion of design technology (For example: Is it using the latest technology?), etc. The following discussion related to the application of cross-disciplinary aesthetics in Marschalek's (2005) prompt provides teachers with a reference when designing courses:
1. Cross-domain system integration
The purpose of cross-domain research is to combine established discoveries or inventions in different fields to achieve the effect of one plus one being greater than two. "Systems design" reflects this spirit. System design means connecting two or more mature systems to achieve higher performance with less material, thus achieving the goal of green design at the same time (Marschalek, 2005). According to this thinking logic, the focus of design is not to produce new inventions, but to create connections. Here, aesthetic ability or aesthetic imagination can play a key connecting function. Lupton (2011/2012) proposed a design thinking method of forced connections, which forcibly combines seemingly unrelated elements or functions to stimulate the creativity and conflicting effects of design thinking. For example, author Jane Austen's forced connection with the theme of zombies has resulted in unique best-selling novels and movies such as Pride and Prejudice and Zombies (2009). In the classroom, teachers may wish to follow this design thinking exercise: first, decide what A and B they want to forcibly connect; then list the concepts, functions, and stylistic images related to A and B, and explore issues that can be solved or created; finally, Choose one of the possible creative connections to play with or actually create (Lupton, 2011/2012).
2. Cross-domain renovation of classics
Here, the cross-domain domain is the time interval between before and after, new and old on the time axis. Design is about creation, so we pay special attention to innovation. However, classics can be said to be successful design cases. After a long period of elution and quenching, they have always been deeply rooted in people's hearts. Their value is self-evident. Marschalek (2005) pointed out that combining aesthetic classics with modern technology is a successful formula in the design world, because classics have entered people's aesthetic consciousness and become a built-in standard for evaluating new products. Therefore, most brands will "revamp" based on past successful products rather than designing from scratch. For example: The VESPA Elettrica electric motorcycle and the gas-electric motorcycle Elettrica X launched this year by Vespa Motorcycles. Although they adopt new power technology and conform to the ideal of green design, they have not changed their light and elegant Vespa aesthetics. Officially, Car fans were looking forward to it before its launch (Su Minghan, 2017). Therefore, becoming familiar with the vocabulary of classic design is an important task in strengthening design literacy.
Lu, conclusion
In this era of high-speed operation, the evolution and competition of old and new industries, and the knowledge system moving from a dedicated and in-depth exploration to an era of dense connections, we need the thinking of cross-field education (Zhao Huiling, 2016). When visual art is not just about vision, when museums and boutiques merge into one, when design moves toward "social" planning, when everyone is the media, and when beauty standards are what they were and are now different, we need cross-disciplinary beauty education. As practitioners of cross-field aesthetic experience, contemporary art and contemporary designers have taken the lead in examining problems in life and society with their familiarity and sensitivity in aesthetic forms, and proposed solutions through the language of creation and support from other fields. road. Its strategies, concepts, techniques and experiences are all important nutrients for educators when planning courses, and should also be an indispensable new model for aesthetic education in the new generation.
In the creative field and appreciation experience of contemporary art and design, the hidden curriculum provided by cross-disciplinary aesthetics has been vaguely formed. From the discussion in this article, we can also know that when conceiving a cross-domain aesthetics course, in addition to the crossing and interdependence of subject areas, the cross-domain meaning can also be methodological, contextual, operational, temporal or regional. link. Among them, the creative process is more important than the result, and the so-called creation is actually the creation of neutral media, that is, it is not limited to the presentation of traditional artistic materials or techniques. Therefore, the gene replication project can also be a creative practice.
From art education to cross-field aesthetic education, we can observe that the key power of art education depends on intermediary rather than centrality. Rolling (2016) bluntly stated that the main goal of art and design teachers is not to cultivate professional artists, but to use the creative power of art and design to connect different fields, between media and concepts, to cultivate a lifelong creative attitude and Ability to play a key role in the process of innovation and invention. Therefore, although success may not be in the field of art, success is achieved because of the field of art. This is where the precious value of cross-field aesthetic education lies!
This article is included in "What Class Is This - Imagination and Practice of Cross-Field Aesthetics Courses", Taipei: National Taiwan Normal University, 2018
