Visual Culture Art Education: Critical Pedagogy, Identity Formation and Generative Studio Practices in Art

Barker, Kim, "Visual Culture Art Education: Critical Pedagogy, Identity Formation and Generative Studio Practices in Art" (2010). Art Graduate Theses and Projects. Paper 1.
http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/art_gradproj/1/

Abstract

This paper explores visual culture and its emergence as a (inter-) disciplinary field of study and practice within art education. Visual Culture Art Education (VCAE), while still in the process of defining itself, inserts itself among myriad academic disciplines as well as our everyday living experiences outside the classroom. Due to its discursive nature, VCAE draws extensively on contemporary pedagogical praxis.

I advocate for the integration of visual culture, with an emphasis on popular culture, into art curricula as a means to increase the relevancy of art instruction for students. The inclusion of (popular) visual culture in the art classroom also serves as a means to facilitate the development of higher order thinking skills that can assist students in their ability to navigate the seemingly infinite clusters of signs aimed at shaping them (inside and) outside the art classroom.

I advocate for inquiry-based educational methods within the framework of constructivist theory with an emphasis on critical pedagogy and psychoanalytic pedagogy. These contemporary pedagogical models position the learner as a key agent in meaning making. By modeling questioning strategies and facilitating critical connections to course materials and student interests, art educators share the responsibility of learning with the students thereby creating a democratic community within the classroom. Connections to democratic principles are made throughout this paper as a means to communicate the several opportunities art educators have in the classroom to foster student questioning, student-initiated research, and student constructed meanings that are independent of authority and distinct from dominant ideologies.

My research focuses first on the scope of visual culture, then on contemporary constructivist pedagogies that reveal multiple access points for art educators to begin to integrate VCAE. This research becomes the foundation for several instructional resource guides written for art educators in K–16 classrooms. These guides present research on several contemporary fine artists whose work collectively makes use of (popular) visual culture and (popular) media to communicate meaning and affect social change. A focus on contemporary fine art demonstrates the applicability of a visual culture art education while at once elucidating the importance of empowering students to critically engage their visual worlds whatever they might be. Questioning strategies are provided to encourage student construction of meaning in a manner that informs student-initiated research and art making.

full text on: http://scholarworks.boisestate.edu/art_gradproj/1/

Harta conceptuala realizata cu programul FreeMind

Ce este o harta conceptuala?

”Hartile conceptuale (conceptual maps) sau harti cognitive (cognitive maps) pot fi definite drept oglinzi ale modului de gandire, simtire si intelegere ale celui/celor care le elaboreaza. Reprezinta un mod diagramatic de expresie, constituindu-se ca un important instrument pentru predare, invatare, cercetare si evaluare la toate nivele si la toate disciplinele”. Crenguta-Lacrimioara Oprea ”Strategii didactice interactive ”

Hartile conceptuale sunt un mod de a reprezenta vizual structuri informationale si relatiile dintre conceptele, notiunile, ideile, informatiile din sistem. Rezultatul este un sistem de retele interconectate, ierahizate, conform modului de gandire a persoanei care realizeaza schema.

Un exemplu de harta conceptuala cu tema ”Elementele limbajului plastic” foarte util in Educatia Vizuala, este realizat sub forma de desen :

img. ”Elements of art mind-map” Michael Petiford

FreeMind - un software special facut pentru a creea harti conceptuale
FreeMind este un program sub licenta GNU General Public License, adica liber, dezvoltat in Java. Functioneaza pe sistemele de operare Microsoft Windows, Linux si Mac OS X.
Programul permite utilizatorilor sa organizeze un set de idei ierarhic in jurul unui concept central.
Mai multe informatii se gasesc AICI

Asa arata programul :



Un tutorial video pentru incepatori:

Tim Brown on creativity and play

Death, Terror and Addiction in Motivation Theory by David M. Boje & Grace Ann Rosile

http://cbae.nmsu.edu/~dboje/papers/deathANDmotivationTHEORY.htm

quotes:
Addiction is a slow death. Schaef and Fassel (1988: 5) observe that the study of organizations is in denial when it comes to addiction, not just to drug use, but to processes of work that are addictive. "An addiction is any substance or process that has taken over our lives and over which we are powerless" (p. 57). I think motivation theory leads us into addiction, making work our increasingly a compulsion, manipulating the situation to make us powerless to resist work addiction. Within organizations, addiction to work or workaholism is an untold ramification of motivation theory. Since the addiction to consumption is the norm of a capitalist society, we all participate addictively at some level.

The more stuff we have, the more we become slaves to our stuff. We need bigger house to store stuff, more energy to preserve stuff, more security to guard stuff, and more help to dust stuff. Stuff rules our lives. Our hierarchy of needs begins and ends with a need for more. Motivation theory feeds an addicted society. Motivation theory, be it need theory (McClelland, Maslow, Alderfer, or Herzberg) or process theory (Skinner's reinforcement theory, Vroom's expectancy theory and House's path-goal theory) is blindly embedded in a world addicted by spectacle to work and consumption. Debord's (1967) spectacle convinces us work is our identity and consumption our happiness, and so we eagerly ignore how work life is erected as a performativity experience (work till you drop dead), a flat,dull homogeneous existence that we embrace until we die. Spectacle, portrayed in the media in 6,000 ad-bites a day, presents work and accumulation as our ultimate desires, more powerful than death or sex as a motivator. Stuff rules our lives. This stuff is part of the games of death, terror and addiction. If there is a hierarchy of needs, then Maslow can be de-coded, new words substituted, greed, jealousy, envy, gluttony, hoarding, and addiction. This is the deconstructed hierarchy of Maslow needs.

What is self-actualization? It is an illusion, a fantasy that we are more than animals, that our culture makes us different. We are part of the war machine that Deleuze and Guattari write about in A Thousand Plateaus. It is a war machine fed by desire and will to power, not by need.

We do not need more of what we consume. We don't need most of what we eat, wear, and store. Did Emelda Marcos need 400 pairs of shoes? Did Michael Eisner need a 210 million dollar bonus. Does Tiger Woods need another endorsement contract? Addicts need more and more...

The desire for work is overwhelming, a compulsion to write more, publish more, present more, to go berserk with words. It is a need to work boje to death. I work at home. I work at work. I work on the plane. I work in the hotel room. I am addicted to work. I am a good citizen. I am a good work. I am self-actualized in my work. I have converted my private world into a world of work. I dream of work, I wake up working. I go to bed working.

Beneath this theatrical mask, is a speculation that my needs are addictions, my needs are desires gone haywire, and my accumulation is out of control. I need to motivation theorist to convince me I am empowered, I am growing, I am a high need achiever. I pretend to be motivated, but my need is a desire for death, a working to death.