|
Art as Knowledge?
This option series will look at some of the ways that art has been and can be understood in terms of knowledge. As artist and art students, we can be seen as “producers and consumers” of forms of knowledge, participants in a “knowledge producing enterprise”. But what is this knowledge? As a term knowledge has no single agreed definition. The object for the seminar is not to agree on a definition – but to outline and discuss what the different understandings of knowledge mean for, and in relation to, the problems and concepts of contemporary art production, and consumption. We will begin by framing this problem in a historical – philosophical perspective, including some key aesthetic theories, not as a concise history of epistemology (theory of knowledge) but to provide us with a background to understanding knowledge in current terms. In order to examine how contemporary artists (like for instance Copenhagen Free University) explore these notions in their work. Also we will look at how some ideas of knowledge production inform contemporary art institutions, particularly the art school, but also museum/gallery spaces. We will discuss art research, which is gaining currency as form of practice based research. And we will explore how a key contemporary theorist like Ranciere has revitalized aesthetics, proposing an esthetics of knowledge, in order to re-examine the relationship between art and politics.
We will be looking at selected artworks and artist and there will be suggestions of text to read including a set text for the last seminar.
|
Seminar One
Introducing the seminar.
Introduction to the option
Outline sessions
Discuss and broadly agree on key questions
Form of option - who speaks and who is silent
Construct a reading reference list
Notes and Questions from 1st Seminar:
Questions? Can knowledge be art? Can we make knowledge into art? What is Knowledge? What is Art? Good art/bad art, qualitative judgments - is this relevant to knowledge? Does knowledge detract or enhance art/the art experience? Do we know how we know? Question of awareness/intent. Information versus knowledge/experience.
|
Seminar Two
This mind map (horrible word) attempts to illustrate some of the complex relationships between the issues this option is trying to discuss. It is made with mind node freeware - http://www.mindnode.com which is clumsy (and I am using it badly too) and not particularly suitable, so please make your own versions in any way you like and upload here too.
...
Aesthetics
The second seminar focused on the Aesthetics of the Enlightenment. Starting with an etymological investigation of the word and the term which developed into a branch of philosophy.
Main dictionary definition:
The branch of philosophy
that deals with the nature and expression of beauty,
as in the fine arts.
From Greek Aisthesis meaning sensory perception
Aesthetic knowledge can thus be understood as knowledge based on forms of
sensory experience
Second seminar we spent a lot of time trying to unpack Kant's aesthetic as it has had such an impact on how we understand knowledge
|
Seminar Four
In preparation: Please read the Politics of Aesthetics, Ch 1, ‘The Distribution of the Sensible’, pp.12-19. It is only 7 pages - as this is not an easy read. However if you can and you want to - please read the whole of 'The Distribution of the Sensible'
If you do not have the book - these pages can be found here:
http://books.google.ie/books?id=hzdyW_an6gUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=politics+of+aesthetics&ei=shB7SZSlLIroyAT6xZy9Bw#PPA15,M1
It can also be found here at a.aaarg.org: [1]
|
Research Material
http://www.moneynations.ch/topics/euroland/text/lazzarato.htm - European Cultural Tradition and the New Forms
of Production and Circulation of Knowledge by Maurizio Lazzarato
Kant, Immanuel
Critique of Judgement (2008) Oxford University Press
http://www.rowan.edu/open/philosop/clowney/Aesthetics/philos_artists_onart/kant.htm
Excerpt http://denisdutton.com/Kant_third_critique_excerpts.htm
Copenhage Free University http://www.copenhagenfreeuniversity.dk/
Bologna Process http://www.ond.vlaanderen.be/hogeronderwijs/bologna/
Tom Holert Art in the Knowledge-based Polis
http://www.e-flux.com/journal/view/40
The Art Object does Not Embody a Form of Knowledge - Professor Stephen Scrivener Director of Research studies - CCW Grad School
http://sitem.herts.ac.uk/artdes_research/papers/wpades/vol2/scrivener.html
Rancière, Jacques The politics of Aesthetics (2004) Continuum http://www.continuumbooks.com/Books/detail.aspx?ReturnURL=/Search/default.aspx&CountryID=1&ImprintID=2&BookID=124890
http://books.google.ie/books?id=hzdyW_an6gUC&printsec=frontcover&dq=politics+of+aesthetics&ei=shB7SZSlLIroyAT6xZy9Bw#PPA15,M1
To help contextualise Ranciere in relation to contemporary art - Artforum March 07 issue will be of help - to use Artforums site you have to register here: http://www.artforum.com/inprint/issue=200703
Other iconic text are 'The Emancipated Spectator' - this can be found here: http://aaaarg.org/the-emancipated-spectator
Rancière, Jacques - A Free Version of The Ignorant Schoolmaster - http://www.mediafire.com/?mn3fjsyuond
|
