International Congress of Aesthetics 2007 “Aesthetics Bridging Cultures” doc

International Congress of Aesthetics 2007 “Aesthetics Bridging Cultures” Aesthetic Understanding through Visual Culture Alpaslan UÇAR, RA,Turkey Recent developments in art education,

International Congress of Aesthetics 2007

“Aesthetics Bridging Cultures”

Aesthetic Understanding through Visual Culture

Alpaslan UÇAR, RA,Turkey

Recent developments in art education, starting from John Dewey`s conception of art experience in a theoretical framework, have tried to clarifiy interpretation and understanding

of art and visual culture created by today`s mass media Visual culture is in reality simply what is seen Therefore, what we see mainly depends on what there is to see: how objects or concepts are being received and/or manipulated in an aesthetic understanding as well as in the imagination Aesthetics is a branch of philosophy that mainly explains the nature and value of art experiences It aims to identify the clues within works that can be used to understand, judge, and defend judgments about these works

Aesthetic understanding is concerned with issues in education, philosophical aesthetics and art criticism at all institutional levels In addition, it clarifies an understanding of the aesthetic importance of the new communications, media and environmental aesthetics we face Aesthetic understanding is in a sense a vehicle not only to educators, but also to philosophers, art critics and art historians

Thus, visual images are all around and our understanding of these images is deepened by using visual culture Therefore, students could easily pick up the aesthetic images they need and perceive their environment wisely for use in their art work Now that visual culture is expanding so quickly and changing so rapidly, students should be informed and directed by the instructor to realize the differences good or bad and use these selected images correctly while making art or expressing themselves

Introduction

We face a shift from text-based communication to image saturation today This shift is also dramatically reflected in the field of art education today We need to investigate these changes from a contemporary and postmodern perspective to understand the changing forms of art brought about by new technologies It is important to become open to the new conceptions about the nature of art If we say that art education is responsible and open to new notions and events around us, then we should reconsider the bases of our teaching understanding It is essential to emphasize the perspectives of visual culture in art education, purposes, methods

of art education and the prospect of a new orthodoxy Art education differs from established approaches to understand the arts

In order to be aware of the visual culture and its powerful impact, creative individuals need to develop personal enquiries on the basic practises In a sense, creative solutions and

approaches are, therefore, expected to be sought A primary concern for visual response is dependent on subjective preference arising out of different visual images As De Sausmarez explains:

Every visual experience is at one and the same time a receiving of fragmentary information, a giving

of form to these visual sensations and the arousing of felt response In what follows we must be careful to remember that, for the artist, what ultimately matters is his quality of feeling which results.1

In art education another important issue is the reconstruction of the balance between understanding and production Moreover, reviewing the educational function of art education

in order to determine its value and importance for social reconstruction, noted pragmatist Richard Rorty simply articulates it as `a self-creation` Therefore, in this perspective the creative individual could learn to discover a new way of seeing and a different approach to developing visual richness inside himself and around his environment Experiencing his personal invention and free enquiry should be more important than technical method and/or cultivated solutions of problems De Sausmarez describes the strong connection between personal interaction and experience to artistic expression in this way:

Five factors in particular seem to dominate the changes that have occured in ideas about creative activity, which must inevitably affect ideas of training First, a rejection of conventions and an acceptance of the idea that only information which is derived from our own experience can be considered valid for us and for our expressive resources Second, that information which we gain from an appreciation of the physical nature of our materials and their formal and spatial functioning is as important, if not more important than information restricted to the visible facts of nature Third, that a visual art is dependent upon the expressive and constructive use of the specific phenomena of vision and that literary or other associations are essentially ancillary Fourth, that the total personality is involved in making aesthetic decisions and that personal preferences form the inescapable basis of truly individual expression Fifth, that art is not based on

a number of static concepts but changes and extends its boundaries in response to the shifts of emphasis in the intellectual and emotional situation of each period in history 2

In this way, individuals can define visual culture and art criticism According to Arnheim`s perception, people should develop questions to understand the necessity of concept and practice of art education In this aspect, when the individual encounters a symbolic event and/or an image around him, he interprets or sees it as intentionally communicative That clarification turns out a code which would be observed later on as a sign event The observer, therefore, makes a connection with a sign event and a conversation with the images ensues Images occuring in life are valued by their degree of realism and truthfulness as communicative approaches Their appearances, fragments, faces, gestures, and sounds play an important role in describing what is going to be perceived

1 De Sausmarez, Maurice Basic Design : The Dynamics of Visual Form , London: A& C Publishers, 2002.17

2

De Sausmarez, Maurice Basic Design : The Dynamics of Visual Form , London: A& C Publishers, 2002.13

The Aim of Art Education

Changes in art are inevitable and our conceptions of art are constantly expanding Our understanding about art is in flux and it has become necessary to develop a new comprehension within the realm of visual culture Visualizing our environment by using creativity and imagination is to be an important open way for changing and manipulating the images richly This approach would help to understand and appreciate the culture In this way, individuals can define visual culture and art criticism Visual investigation as a contemporary academic field is concerned with the production, form and reception of past and present images Investigating how race, identity, sexuality and gender influences the human visual experience is a focus of the discipline of visual culture today

Global culture, notions and statements on aesthetics and visual culture in art education are developing There is no doubt that values, practices and understanding of art institutions are being transformed Through increased knowledge, our theoretical and philosophical shifts emerge Therefore, we need to work on and challenge critical theories and conceptual dichotomies Because of these changes we can follow the global explosion of pervasive visual images and visual culture concepts which are vital in our social life and in art education Graeme Sullivan asserts that art education is based on overlooking the substantial insights gained from decades of attention Visual culture studies emerging from a broader perspecitve states that the study of Western culture, with the culture of the ‘other’, should be defined In other words, understanding ourselves helps to appreciate other cultures To illustrate we can easily define the ‘ other’ Asian or African the viewpoint of another gender, race or status

The images around us should be considered aesthetically or socially historic phenomena Hence, we constantly make judgments and try to understand aesthetic evaluation To achieve this we should decide what should be seen or bought and recommend what should be confronted and understood As David Hume aptly claims, by doing so we share experiences, have dialogue and mutual education Thus, we easily identify cross-cultural values which explain the general agreement about art and its value by promising avenue for aesthetic debate That aspect not only provides freshness of visual culture but also gives benefits to students In teaching the philosophy of art in class, we can use examples from daily life such

as puzzles about art: For example there is a useful source book called, ‘An Aesthetic Casebook’ By using this practical source we realize how students become aware of and use their critical thinking skills, experience the range of aesthetic issues and discover objects in their lives From classical art in all genres to recent controversial work from popular culture, students learn to develop an understanding of art through visual culture

Art educators should avoid preaching that formalism or expressionism or other ‘-isms’ are right or wrong because through synergy we can find out what is valuable, important and should be observed Learning critical thinking is not an easy job; therefore, students should acquire the ability to distinguish images and most of the art movements they will encounter

As Deborah L, Smith - Shank points out, visual culture in reality does not offer something completely new but rather a new means of interpreting and analyzing classical and contemporary symbols

Students should be taught how to discern formative influences on art because they need to know what they are searching and visualizing In the classroom, art educators should follow the relationships in visual culture which enable students to develop in depth questions on art

criticism through devising worksheets, art games, role-plays, cooperative learning activities and by explaining the pros and cons of major theories

In the end, it is not expected that all students would become artists, yet by questioning emotional expression, representational content, formal properties and aesthetic value, they could enrich their dialogue and aesthetic understanding through visual culture and art education in class Applications of everyday aesthetics and visual culture contain technological, social and economical factors Education should concentrate on investigating the factors that further the implementation of inclusive education in schools As a result, during class, art instructors should incorporate the following items for their students:

1 Discussion of various meanings of culture

2 Discrimination of formative influences on aesthetic and visual culture

3 Explanation of the pros and cons of major art theories

4 Questioning significant art works that are important aesthetically and because of their

artistic nature such as: Christo’s Running fence and Duchamp’ s Ready-mades

5 Making inferences about the art work in terms of listening, restating and summarizing

it

6 Criticizing aesthetic sites such as computer art work, the internet, and digital art

7 Development of students’ relationships with visual culture and perception in other words, developing the process by which they should know what to look for

8 Identification of the ranges from art criticism in the class :such as role playing or an art game

9 Exploration of multicultural aesthetics and various functions of art such as religious, ceremonial (Navajo), ethnic and tourist arts

10 Discussion on art concerns and aesthetics statements

11 Determination of social and political values in everyday aesthetics

12 Interpretation of a visually attractive metaphor

13 Verbal explanation about the art images

During art class, an art instructor can put forth these questions to students in order to direct their focus on the images:

Which image is an example of visual culture for you?

Do you think that image is the real work of art?

Could you describe that image as material culture?

Answers

Answers to the questions posed above include the following:

All of them are visual culture because they are result of our visions

All of them are art work

All of them are examples of material culture because they involve materials

Specialized students can easily organize their visual experiences by utilizing their social, scientific, crictical aspects as well as historical contexts What kinds of images are related to a particular culture and what are the reasons? How do students use and transform their culture and visual inputs? How do they clarify the functions of these visual inputs?

Additionally, we can go further to suggest that our students are impacted by different forms of visual media and visual surroundings like those found on television and computers We can provide some sense for the scope to illustrate: to find meaning in aesthetics, search our social life of art, perceive our students’ artistic production and assesment in class Consequently, this

is not a how-to-do-it approach, yet we offer powerful and insightful concepts need to be pursued

Conclusion

The major task to accomplish is to identify the various senses in which interdisciplinary study

is understood The visual culture aspect stresses the questions about art itself, its definition, genres, form, history and criticism by redefining and implying interdisciplinary studies In recent decades, our appreciation of the arts has grown amazingly by supporting minorities, female artists and the art of other civilizations Visual culture undoubtedly provides a dialogue by using philosophy, criticism and history It also offers a set of vocabularies and concepts to frame and reframe current useful issues in art This approach enables us to characterize and evaluate the subject from a broader perspective

Understanding aesthetic appreciation determines new ways for students to criticize gender, and racial values Finally multicultural unit, social and political values are revealed by everyday aesthetics, technological, social and economic factors During class art educators can highlight some of the multicultural functions of art such as its religious or ethnic proposal

By realizing and using aesthetic sites like internet sites, computer games, and advertisements, students become aware of what is the purpose of art and what is visual culture is

Aesthetic understanding through visual culture, therefore, has played an important role in art education since the late twentieth century in order to emphasize interdisciplinary dialogue which ranges from art history to anthropology

WORKS CITED

Clarkin, Maura A (1994) ‘ National Gallery of Art Activity Book, 25 Adventures with

Art’ , Harry N Abrams, Inc New York

Abaci, Oya (2000) ‘ Visual art education for children during the pre-elementary

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De Sausmarez, Maurice (2002) ‘ Basic Design : The Dynamics of Visual Form’ , A&

C Publishers Ltd , London

Freeland, Cynthia (2001) ‘ But is it art?’ Oxford University Pres, 166-169

Genders, Carolyn (2002) ‘ Sources of Inspiration’ , A & C Black Publishers

Limited, London

Hurwitz, Al and Day, Michael (1995) ‘ Children and their art, Methods for the

elementary school ’, Harcourt Brace College Publishers,Texas

Katz, Elizabeth L Lankford, E.Louis Plank, D Janice (1995) ‘ Themes and

foundations of art’, National Textbook Company

Kilic, Levend (2000) ‘ Visual Aesthetic’ , Inkilap Kitabevi Yayin Sanayi ve Tic A

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Mark Dobbs, Stephen (1998) ‘ Learning in and through Art’ , The Getty Education

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Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (1999b) The National Teachers in England Key Stages1 and 2 London: DfEE and QCA

Alpaslan UÇAR

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