Experiential learning in practice as research: context, method, knowledge

<i>G. Gabrielle Starr</i>Feeling Beauty: The Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience<i>Feeling Beauty: The Neuroscience of Aesthetic Experience</i>. G. Gabrielle Starr. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2013. Pp. viii+259.

The article examines the scientific problem of designing the aesthetic experience formation in 4th-grade students during art lessons. The concepts of experience, aesthetic experience, and aesthetic experience of a fourth grader are clarified. The main focus is on students’ mini-project activities. The article highlights the design-based formation of aesthetic experience as the foundation for artistic and creative activity, the basis of which is artistic creativity. It is determined that aesthetic experience is the result of previous artistic and creative activity during art lessons in grades 1 to 3. Adapted and original creative mini-projects are outlined. The appropriate tools are identified, as well as their use in teachers’ practical work. Practical recommendations and cases are provided. Future research prospects are defined in enriching the line of mini-projects that can be integrated into art projects according to the content of the integrated course “Art” and the thematic planning for grade 4. Aesthetic experience is not only knowledge about art but primarily an internal process of spiritual perception of beauty that shapes the student's personal stance. In turn, the aesthetic experience of fourth graders is a combination of artistic knowledge (in line with the content of the "Art" course) and skills that ensure emotional perception and intellectual understanding of artistic images and phenomena. These are formed within the motivational-creative, emotional-sensory, and axiological-orientational spheres of student activity. It is important to consider that by the 4th grade, the emotional sphere of students becomes more stable. However, the need for play, vivid impressions, and artistic experimentation remains a leading one. It is essential to support students' cognitive interest in art through interactivity, the opportunity to choose, self-evaluate creative results, and experiment. Therefore, the project-based formation of aesthetic experience must take into account both the age-specific characteristics of fourth graders and the components of aesthetic experience (drive, need, incentive, interest, feelings, emotions, experiences, evaluations, tastes, ideals, views) as well as the factors influencing its formation (availability of an emotionally safe environment; interactive interaction; motivational significance; individualization). As an example, we developed a series of mini-projects (Impression Art Diary, Music in Motion, The Color of Music – Painting the Sound, What Emotion Lives in Music?, Two Sides of the Artistic Palette: Good and Evil in Colors and Sounds, My Art – My Choice) to help shape the aesthetic experience of fourth-grade students. The prospects for further research lie in designing the aesthetic experience formation of primary school students through the use of short- and long-term art projects.

Regional identity is a constant construction, in which landscape, human activity and cultural imaginary build a narrative of place. For the Tasmanian Midlands, the interactions between history, ecology and agriculture both define place and present problems in how to recognise, communicate and balance these interactions. In this sense, regionality is defined not so much as a relation of margin to centre, but as a specific accretion of environmental and cultural histories. According weight to more-than-human perspectives, a region can be seen as a constellation of plant, animal and human interactions and demands, where creative art and design can make space and give voice to the dynamics of exchange between the landscape and its inhabitants. Consideration of three recent art and design projects based in the Midlands reveal the potential for cross-disciplinary research, embedded in both environment and community, to create distinctive and specific forms of connectivity that articulate a regional identify.

This article begins by tracing the evolution of data visualization from the fields of aesthetics to areas of creative practice, arguing that the emergence of big data presents creative potential for digital artists. Whereas conventional information visualization emphasizes the effective understanding of data, aesthetics considers the possibility that visualization can enhance the experience of data and support the acquisition of knowledge. In expressing an artistic intent or form, data-based creative practices synthesize and build upon techniques in communications and aesthetics. The article provides a review of recent digital art projects involving big data and suggests further directions for creative practice in an era of data proliferation.

Students should have aesthetic experiences to be fully engaged in science learning at any level. A general education science instructor can foster opportunities for aesthetic educative learning experiences enabling student growth. Drawing on the work of John Dewey and expanding on others in the field, Uhrmacher identifies the characteristics of the aesthetic experience, which include, but are not limited to, connections, active engagement, sensory experience, perceptivity, risk taking, and imagination. I argue that if instructors are not attending to these aesthetic characteristics, then students are not doing (learning) science and will therefore fail to meet any valuable outcomes identified for general education science.

The aim of this paper was to discuss on how active participation of primary school pupils in creative art can bring sustainable development in the society. Generally, people do not see the subject “art” as an important course. They place more emphasis on other courses such as engineering, medicine, law and what have you. Art is of no value to most people in the society. Meanwhile everywhere man is, there is artistic presence. Right from the clothes we wear, the food we eat, chairs in our sitting room, the pots, plates and spoons in our kitchen, the desk, chairs and table in our schools. Our hair dos and decoration and even music from our radios and televisions are all artistic. So in order to recognize its importance and for the fact that we need these artistic values everyday of our lives we must lay more emphasis on the training of our children right from their tender age on the idea of Art Creativity. To discuss effectively on this topic, the following were looked into: Definition of creative art, Arts Creativity and the primary school child, problems of teaching and learning of arts, Arts creativity and sustainable development, Summary and conclusion were finally drawn

The sustained marginalisation of creative arts in higher education in Australia risks the delivery of superficial learning experiences that are disconnected from the relationality of place, people, and histories. The metrics used to assess a university’s capacity to produce “job-ready graduates” does not adequately capture the success of students in the creative arts, leading to under resourcing in these disciplines and, ironically, limiting the capacity of these disciplines to train students adequately for their industry. In this paper, we examine the place of community-engaged creative practice and cultural policy learning in universities to ask how tertiary educators can support students to develop industry skills while also embodying a critically engaged pedagogy in order to work and create in the industry in ways that prioritise relationality, context and an ethic of care. Community-engaged arts practice can be understood as that which privileges collaborative processes, values people over institutions, is contextually grounded, and understands creative excellence as intricately entangled in social and relational outcomes. We argue that community-engaged arts practice is a form of critical pedagogy and, potentially, vice versa. We share two case studies of creative arts learning experiences in our university as examples of the powerful crossover between community-engaged arts practice and critical pedagogies in our endeavour to train effective, and impactful creative arts workers in sustainable and ethical practice via a critically engaged creative practice pedagogy.

The creation of visual art has often been considered to be the privilege of the artist, where art is confined to the purpose and intention of its creation, and the assessment of art becomes a series of explanations that restrain the meaning of an artistic expression. From the perspective of Deleuze-Guattari, art is a monument of sensation that transcends the boundaries of subject and object, and it stands as a statement about itself. The relationship between the artist-subject and material-object used in the process of creating visual art is therefore in the domain of visual practice as a kind of thinking and acting strategy. Joko Avianto’s three-dimensional works exhibited in Frankfurt, Germany, and Yokohama, Japan, are examples of Deleuze-Guattari’s explanation of monuments of sensations in their embodiment. Joko Avianto creates a distinctive and subjective method of artistic action in his creative process, transforming perception into percept and affection into affect, and affirming the state of becoming. Art, visual art, and art practice are mechanisms that allow them to express an ethico-aesthetic paradigm. This paradigm reconnects each existence and becoming of the subject, through aesthetic experience, to the re-emerging new world. Thus, what makes art special is its capability to both transcend and surpass the limits to rediscover or restore the boundless.

This interdisciplinary volume introduces new theories and ideas on creativity from the perspectives of science and art. Featuring contributions from leading researchers, theorists and artists working in artificial intelligence, generative art, creative computing, music composition, and cybernetics, the book examines the relationship between computation and creativity from both analytic and practical perspectives. Each contributor describes innovative new ways creativity can be understood through, and inspired by, computers. The book tackles critical philosophical questions and discusses the major issues raised by computational creativity, including: whether a computer can exhibit creativity independently of its creator; what kinds of creativity are possible in light of our knowledge from computational simulation, artificial intelligence, evolutionary theory and information theory; and whether we can begin to automate the evaluation of aesthetics and creativity in silico. These important, often controversial questions are contextualised by current thinking in computational creative arts practice. Leading artistic practitioners discuss their approaches to working creatively with computational systems in a diverse array of media, including music, sound art, visual art, and interactivity. The volume also includes a comprehensive review of computational aesthetic evaluation and judgement research, alongside discussion and insights from pioneering artists working with computation as a creative medium over the last fifty years. A distinguishing feature of this volume is that it explains and grounds new theoretical ideas on creativity through practical applications and creative practice. Computers and Creativity will appeal to theorists, researchers in artificial intelligence, generative and evolutionary computing, practicing artists and musicians, students and any reader generally interested in understanding how computers can impact upon creativity. It bridges concepts from computer science, psychology, neuroscience, visual art, music and philosophy in an accessible way, illustrating how computers are fundamentally changing what we can imagine and create, and how we might shape the creativity of the future. Computers and Creativity will appeal to theorists, researchers in artificial intelligence, generative and evolutionary computing, practicing artists and musicians, students and any reader generally interested in understanding how computers can impact upon creativity. It bridges concepts from computer science, psychology, neuroscience, visual art, music and philosophy in an accessible way, illustrating how computers are fundamentally changing what we can imagine and create, and how we might shape the creativity of the future.

The purpose of this paper is to pursue art educational meaning and direction of future by understanding aesthetic experience in the aesthetic practice of human beings who encounter art. I regard art as a prac-tice or act rather than a specific object, incident or thing. I hope to further clarify its aesthetic significance and its perspective on the educational aspect. Today, art is a culture that has unique characteristics that distinguish it from other academic disciplines such as society, politics, and economics, and it serves to broaden the horizon of understanding of the nature of the human spirit. Examine human aesthetic practice based on experience with art, and examine the meaning and character of 'aesthetic' as an educational ac-tivity of human beings surrounding art, treating art as a kind of human practical form as visual art. Aesthetic experience is the practice in which the object and the subject communicate with each other vigorously, and the practice is not a passive process of accepting the aesthetic attributes of the object, but a concrete practice. Aesthetic experience is differentiated from everyday human practice and has the power to re-flectively reflect on history and society, the world and myself. Through such aesthetic experiences, practical forms of aesthetic situations can be discovered and educational outcomes that are meaningful to human beings can be derived.

The proportion of students studying in higher education institutions who are experiencing mental health needs is increasing and becoming a serious concern. Using participatory arts projects may be key to enabling students to maintain well‐being despite the pressures inherent in their student role. Therefore, this study aimed to ascertain whether such a course could be feasibly developed within a university setting, and to examine how esthetic experience influences university students' well‐being. To understand the differences in students' esthetic experience and well‐being before and after engaging in participatory art, this study implemented an intervention and collected quantitative and qualitative data. A total of 39 students volunteered to participate in the study. The results revealed that esthetic experience predicted student well‐being, as the more students had an esthetic experience by concentrating on a particular artwork, the more effective it was in terms of enhancing their well‐being. In addition, there was a significant difference between the pre‐ and postintervention, where students' esthetic experience and well‐being improved after completing the art activities. These findings have implications for our understanding of university students' well‐being, as well as the importance of considering participatory art, on its own, as a target for intervention.

The object of this study is the aesthetic and artistic experience of contemporaries in the processes of symbolic production and exchange. In addition, we were interested in the experience of urban residents formed by the influence of the public space of everyday life. We are hypothesized to relate the degree of aesthetic experience, artistic tastes of a person, as well as the significant public interest in a quasi-aesthetic (or "aesthezi") phenomenon with the "sensory hunger" phenomenon. Methodologically important for the study was the principle of "incomplete comprehension of the object", since we analyze human sensuality by considering a specific product of human social activity. They serve as the macro level of analysis, the results of contemporary artistic practices, including visual art, street art, etc. We also take into account the social request of contemporaries to search for artistic innovations, not only through exhibitions, opening hours, museum exhibitions, etc. We take into account that many contemporaries find satisfaction/dissatisfaction with the results of current artistic practices due to the mass media, individually paying attention to color, silhouette, outline, composition, subject matter of the image (micro level of analysis). The semiotic analysis of the visual object and the hermeneutic method were relevant for this study. We have analyzed a specific quasi-aesthetic phenomenon, namely simulacra. The role of simulacra in the informational interaction of human beings in post-industrial society is explored in this article and the typical and specific features of this socio-cultural phenomenon are explored. They are considered as a kind of simulacra with a visual presentation. We argue that in the spiritual life of modern man and society, the aesthetic and artistic components no longer have ancestral subordination. The reason for this is that harmony, the improvement of human tastes in the "sphere of sensual phenomena" is no longer a mandatory requirement on the part of society for artistic practices, in particular contemporary art.

The aim of this study was to investigate the colleges of education graduates academic achievements in visual arts and their subject matter competency for quality delivering of primary schools creative arts curriculum in Ghana. The study employed cross-sectional survey design. The study targeted visual arts lecturers and graduates of colleges of education. The sample size for the study was 241 (5 lecturers & 236 graduates). The instruments used for data collection were questionnaire and interview guide. The findings of H01 indicated that colleges of education graduates academic achievements in visual arts have no relationship with their subject matter competency for quality delivering of primary schools creative arts curriculum. The results of H02 revealed that teaching and learning resources have positive relationship with the quality delivering of primary schools creative arts curriculum. The study revealed that colleges of education graduates academic achievements in visual arts do not reflect their subject matter competency for quality delivering of the primary school creative arts curriculum. The study also found out that teaching and learning resources were not available for quality delivering of primary schools creative arts curriculum. The study recommended that Ghana Education Service should liaise with visual arts units in colleges of education to periodically organise workshops and seminars for primary school teachers to enhance their subject matter competency. The study also recommended that government should supply creative arts textbooks, modern visual arts teaching and learning resources and tools and materials lacking in primary schools to promote effective teaching and learning of creative arts.

Summary Embodied simulation, a basic functional mechanism of our brain, and its neural underpinnings are discussed and connected to intersubjectivity and the reception of human cultural artefacts, like visual arts and film. Embodied simulation provides a unified account of both non-verbal and verbal aspects of interpersonal relations that likely play an important role in shaping not only the self and his/her relation to others, but also shared cultural practices. Embodied simulation sheds new light on aesthetic experience and is proposed as a key element for the dialogue between neuroscience and the humanities within the biocultural paradigm.

Based on concepts of cognitive mastering and the rewarding effect of making sense of challenging visual art (taken from a psychological model of aesthetic appreciation and aesthetic judgments of Leder et al., 2004), we hypothesised that viewers who have knowledge about an artist’s disability will appreciate their ambiguous works more than viewers who do not have such knowledge. Additionally, we aimed to explore how information about the artist’s disability changes the viewer’s aesthetic emotions. We investigated the effect of information on the creator’s visual disability on aesthetic experience in relation to three categories of visual art: photos, sculptures, and drawings. We showed digital reproductions of artworks (N = 32) produced by amateur artists with severe visual impairment to nonexperts in art (N = 145). Viewers assessed their aesthetic appreciation (understood as liking and value) and aesthetic emotions on the Self-Assessment Manikin scales for valence, arousal, dominance, origin, and significance. In accordance with our hypothesis, knowledge of the artists' disability had a positive influence on appreciation, but the effect of information was moderated by artwork category and was significant only in the case of sculptures and drawings (works created using these techniques were assessed in the preliminary study as more difficult to interpret than photos). A similar pattern of results was found for the dependent variables of arousal and significance. Therefore, the positive influence of information about the artists' disabilities on aesthetic experience is mainly revealed when the artworks are characterised by low detectability (defined as the difficulty in interpreting an artwork due to difficulty in recognizing what it depicts).