Monday 28 May 2012

Week 25

Questions and observations;
- Bill Woodrow :- the two most important considerations in drawing [ and art making in general] are  constant , accurate and informed observation and constant [daily] practise . There is a necessity for constantly practising at developing accurate memory through accurate observation.
 Best Bet :
 -look at Project Zero work on how the developments in mind/ brain research and the emerging digital world will shape the nature of learning and the practise of teaching in the future, especially as it relates to the arts and also relates back to the health of the mind / brain.
 - Look at Visible Thinking and Studio Habits of the Mind [ co research of Project Zero and collaborators in Glasgow [ where?] Look at Arts Propel, Arts Survive, Goodwork, Goodplay, Artful Thinking

Week 24

Questions and observations;
 - review mind mapping, body mapping , architectural mappings, cartographical mappings , various forms of business mappings [ organizational charts, business derision trees, business flow charting, financial planning, forecasting and accounting] electrical mapping [wiring harnesses] physics and mathematical mapping, etc.
 - how can one overlay these different mapping systems to come up with new concepts, art forms and other insights?
 - how do they all relate back to pattern formation, pattern recognition and the connections made? It is all about Patters and Connections!
Best Bets:
 -review all the research papers that have been written through the Project Zero initiative at the Harvard Grad School of Education that was conceived by philosopher Nelson Goodman  [ believed that arts learning should be studied as a serious cognitive activity], was headed up by Howard Gardner [ a nero-researcher and co- developer and director of Interdisciplinary Studies Dept. who is primarily known for his theory of multiple intelligences] and is now headed by Steve Seidel. There has been a strong emphasis on how and why art should be a large part of any educational curriculum and the neurological benefits of learning the arts.Today, Project Zero is building on this research to help create communities of reflective, independent learners; to enhance deep understanding within and across disciplines; and to promote critical and creative thinking. Project Zero's mission is to understand and enhance learning, thinking, and creativity in the arts, as well as humanistic and scientific disciplines, at the individual and institutional levels.
Project Zero's research initiatives build on and contribute to detailed understandings of human cognitive development and the processes of learning in the arts and other disciplines.

Week 23




Questions and observations:
 - learning is a social process
 - the challenge in developing programs is to be able to structure learning opportunities without the need for formal learning outcomes
 - there is a great need to identify learning content and structure for delivery which will engage disaffected learners, especially potential Life Long Learners
  - the key to a learning system for L.L.L. must be self initiating [to the greatest extent possible], self regulating, self monitoring, self perpetuating with constant open loop feedback systems [ try and diagram/ draw this type of system]

Best bets:
 - everything is connected through energy patterns so the two most important concepts to remember are Patterns and Connections !!!!!
 - recognition of Patterns and their Connections i.e. learning, is the best way of exploring our humanness, who we are, what we are and where we are [ in relation to everything else]

Sunday 20 May 2012

Week 22



Questions and Observations :
- consider the dichotomies, problems and uniqueness of Seniors learning:
        - are not used to the concept of "no right way and no wrong way" of doing things
        - have great built up individual and group knowledge, expertise and competences [ i.e. pattern recognition]
        - feel that at their age they "must be able" to do certain tasks and must  have gained certain abilities
        - don't want to learn in traditional pedagogical ways
        - don't need accreditation and learning outcome metrics
        - main need in any system of learning is to have fun in a social context
Best bets :
 - for studio practise this week- build a number of various sizes compasses etc. to scribe in large format- other tools for repetitive marking
                - play more with inversion
                - life drawing freehand scratching [ William Anastasi]
                - diagrammatic drawing explanatory notations [ ref, to eyedrawing]
                - drawing names of body parts and muscle names and temporal, fictive degrees of incidence and other quasi scientific notations etc. into body of life drawing
                - writing the drawing
                - layering with various base shades of paint

Week 21




Questions and Observations :
- the primary point of all these studies is to develop a Reflective and Reflexive Praxis and Practice
       - reflect on ones own learning [and the process of learning] through discussion with others, with oneself and then incorporating insights and ideas back into ones own entire praxis and practice [ both studio and research directions]
       - use Drawing in concert with writing and speaking about ones work and ones thinking- use Drawing to enhance communication with others and with oneself [ figuring stuff out]

- try and flatten out Maslows hierarchy to make new connections in pedagogy, andragogy and heutogogy
- you are defined by how you live, sometimes by choice but often not [ i.e. retired, homeless, immigrant]

 Best bets;
- contact with Fred Garnett - Wikiquals
- read- the Blind Giant [last chapter only] by Nick Harkaway  [ignorance is blind, don't have to try and       keep up with all new technology but have to be aware of it , slow it down to "slow tech"]
- read Henry Jenkins
- research Norbert Kauthmann at U of Berlin who has done a lot of research surrounding issues of Gerontology and Psychiatry!!!!
- research artwork of Johrinde Voight [Lisson gallery], John Walker- painter
- What is Gapminder?

Week 20





Questions and Observations :
- do objects have an independent existence? - a point of view?
- Dumbfixity questions- who is watching who?
- what are objects about and how do we relate to them?

- museums kill objects as they are taken out of context, only the objects in their own setting give meaning.
  - objects in a museum become about scholarly observation and education but not about emotion.
  - Cornwall coast - centre for celtic paganism
                           - Boswell- Witchcraft Museum
                           - Bodmin Moor - biggest prehistoric landscape in Britain

- does drawing freeze a moment in time?- is a drawing a 2 dimensional image that is deliberative and/or intentional?
- language tends to push imagination out and yet language gets privileged
- thought is not knowledge
- art is a mediation between our own energies

Week 19



Questions and Observations :
- traditional economic and educational models are changing very rapidly due to the following dynamics [ in part ]-a rapidly ageing population and all the dynamics surrounding this new demographic
            -  changes in regards to social justice
            -  rapidly changing value systems

        Question; - how can learning be scaled to more human dimensions and how can  education systems become more self initiating, constantly changing with various feedback loops and self sustaining ?
                        - what are the differences between Pedagogy, Andragogy and Heutogogy and how do they impact on the research for the development of any new teaching systems for L.L.L. using Drawing as a basis? [need to learn a lot more here for the creation of new interdisciplinary knowledge ]

Week 18






Questions and Observations :
- the best possible communication occurs when Drawing, writing and speaking can be employed in combination.
- critical play is educational play!

Drawn Out Conference;
  - Communication/ Visual Thoughts.....Ian Thompson and Chris Koning ...Action Research Program for Farthing / Betts initiative
        - writing and speaking about Drawing is a very reflective exercise and a great educational tool[ writing/ speaking about drawing, about the experience, about a particular drawing, writing as Drawing.
         - question- what is the optimum length of time per session ?

Best bets;
- Erini Boukla - Drawing on the condition of not seeing
- Angela Brew/ Stephen Oliver - Eye Catching, Reading Drawings, Drawing drawings
- Mark Burry- Gaudi Temple Sagrada Familia church
   

Week 17






Questions and Observation :
- what are the roots of human predispositions? - complicated combinations of hereditary,environmental, conditioning, memetics, deep Jungian archetypal tendencies.


- Studio practice- where to push Life Drawing for greater relevance?
                         - overlaying process using transparencies - one life drawing, one interior background         drawing and one exterior drawing [landscape]

Week 16






Questions and Observations :
- can [do] the topologies of the physical, mental and spiritual space overlap? can mathematics tie all together? do they occupy the same space?
- do the topologies of the Mind and the Brain overlap and/or do they occupy the same space?
- What are the new developments as to how the brain/ mind ages and how could Drawing be used to create beneficial Brain/ mind exercises that could delay the onset on age related dementia and assist in the treatment of Alzheimer's and other brain disease?

Week15





Questions and Observation :
- what is Topology?????
              my take - any 3 points in space create an area that can be studied in terms of its qualities, properties and attributes; the objects, persons and elements in the space and the energies and processes inherent in the space; its topology!

- Bruno Latours position: - it is the lived space and not the theoretical space of mathematical dimensions
                                         - causality; in that everything affects everything else
                                         - continuous transformations are hallmarks of the space, creative destruction,
                                            unanticipated morphing and plasticity and plastic promise of the future
                                         - we move around in continuous time/space
                                         - there is no constant, no permanence, always continuous change
Best bets :- investigate Dr. Zeiki, UCL Professor of Psychology / Psychiatry - on ambiguity !!!
                - contact Ken Arnold - head of public programs at Wellcome Trust

Week 14




Questions and Observations :
- an investigation of multiple points of view and how it can lead to a suspension of disbelief????
       - how can the artist, through this process induce the spectator to be willingly absorbed and cause
          this "willing suspension of disbelief"
- potentials of new visual forms .......Imaginative Creation vs Scientific Reasoning.....Creative Solutions

- consider potential offered by Drawing as hovering in space; a state of becoming and not yet being, hovering inliminal space

-Drawing is a great way to compress a lot of information however it is best done in conjunction with speaking and writing

Best bets :
Studio practice- experiment with carbon paper drawing and text in drawing

Week 13




Questions and Observations :
- haptic is a visual experience, it is a leaving of a trace of a [visual or non visual?] experience
- Drawing as an exploration of the mind/ brain and the body/ spirit [ how do they all relate both internally and externally??]

- there is a cosmic asymmetry not symmetry
- critical play is educational play
- drawing is in the ascendency, rising on a tide of visual imagery in general
- mixed meaning of language is overcome with visual, diagrammatic drawing.
- Drawing without looking[ at the result], how to leave a "trace" of the act of looking.

Week 12



Questions and Observations :
 - if a Haptic act is one that converts a movement to a mark, can you communicate an act of thinking  through a mark?
      - or the act of seeing,hearing,smelling etc.through a mark?
- is Drawing the act of "hovering', in the space between the becoming and the being? the real and the unreal, the physical and the spiritual?
- Drawing is - cross disciplinary, cross cultural, cross age, cross country, across many cultural and historical divides
                     - an enabler to connect many different and disparate ideas and points in space [ physical, mental and spiritual]
                     - an enabler for learning and communicating, it enhances engagement , it is a tool that enables problem solving and understanding

- Picturing To Learn! [ to Understand]

- Best bets:  Reading suggestions: Memories of the Blind, Derrida; Blind Times, Robert Morris

     

Week 11


Questions and Observations :
- Not many, its Vacation time !!!!!
- look at Twombly Gallery at the Menil and the Rothko Chapel when in Houston

Week 10


Questions and Observations :
 - ensure a holistic approach to theory and studio practice and try and combine the two and have one complement the other.
- if a Drawing can be defined as a mark on a medium by a maker stimulated by some sensory energy input then how much can be eliminated and still qualify as a Drawing?
- look at drawings of L Kossoff, F Auerbach and D Bomberg

Week 9



Questions and Observations :
- simplify the Research proposal for easier understanding
- how to incorporate Wisdom Paradox as outlined in E Goldman book, what are implications for Life Long Learning
 - research pattern formulation and pattern recognition in the mind/brain
 - research imagination and creativity stimulation and development S Pinker, M Gladwell and K Robinson

Week 8






Questions and Observations :
- start looking at business flowcharts, decision trees, organization charts and planning diagrams and charts as potentially being Drawings
- look at Jeremy Radvan website- great animated and energetic drawings
-see P Noble at Gagosian, Jeff Wall at White Cube, Purby Hicks Gallery, Flowers Gallery

Week 7





Questions and Observations:
- memory and its formation and retrieval may be the most important attribute of Drawing
- investigate Ted Hughes and Silvia Plathe and Hebdon Bridge
- see Degas at Royal Academy, Jerwood Sculpture Prize, Drawing Room, G Richter at the Tate
- look for R Steiner and J Beuys Blackboard Drawings !!!!

Week 6





Questions and Observations :
 - how could a new set of Drawing protocols assist the Seniors special needs
 - how to consider the question of freewill and / or simply the existence of predispositions { see David Eagleman]
 - what impact does neroplasticity have on the ability of Seniors to learn? [ see M Merznick and D Doidge]
 - research more on the pedagogy of teaching art, also imagination and creativity development especially regarding Seniors

Saturday 19 May 2012

Week 5














Questions and Observations :
 - can new protocols and methods of teaching creativity that are being developed for western business be applied to the special needs group of Seniors? Can there be a new set of protocols for Seniors that are developed using Drawing as a" low barrier to entry" portal ?
 - there are artist that think about making and there are artists that make but there are very few artists who think about making and then make.

Friday 18 May 2012

Week 4








Questions and Observations :
- taxonomies of drawing- Stephen Farthings two taxonomies of drawing
                    - the first system starts with the finished product and trees down according to the intended use of the drawing as the categorizor and the second starts with the generation and works up through a number of filtering system to categorize
- taxonomies of drawers - most significant historically
                                       - most significant to me
         - draw a taxonomy of Drawing using Matisse "Study for a Nude" line drawing
         - need for a taxonomy of taxonomies

Week 3


Questions and Observations :
- Drawing can include graphing, diagramming, notating [ music and other], mind mapping, doodling, architectural drawing, sketching, cartooning, photography, life drawing, landscape drawing, still life drawing, land works, road marks, graffiti, tattooing and body scarification, and drawing as fine art.

 - What defines a "good drawing" is how well it meets its intended use

- What qualifies a drawing as a Drawing; what disqualifies?
  - covering an entire surface?
  - medium used
  - intention of the maker!!