6/6 Blog, Freedman 5, Eisner 5, & A new Culture of Learning.

Chaper 5 of Freedman had a lot of information in it but the part that I noticed was very heavily highlighted for me was the section on pages 88-92. First, when Freedman talked about how meanings in visual culture tend to conflict with one another it struck a chord. Just thinking about how artists, like myself, like to contrast our meanings in art. For example, in my curriculum project I will be focusing on control and loss of control. My problem, generally, is being a control freak, my next works are all about losing control over my art by having other people bring in objects that I MUST use in my work. This, I believe, is a duality that Freedman is talking about. Freedman then goes on to talk about how advertisements like to use fine art as ways to depict wealth and good taste to cause people to desire the product. I think that is very interesting, considering that we talk about how many people do not know how to interpret art, how do they know that they desire that fine art/product? Advertisers are very sneaky! On the next page, Freedman goes into explaining suggestiveness. I really like this term because it seems very straight forward. And the fact that Freedman goes on to say that viewers use this power of suggestion to turn the context into meaning for them. The great thing about suggestiveness, is that it is different to everyone, thus creating multiple meanings to artwork, and alos advertisements and all aspects of our visual culture. Then we read about Feldman's model and that takes us back to our VTS, how we must first look analyze the piece before making judgements, and that what we get from the piece must have evidence from the borders of the piece. However this doesn't work, we all bring personal backgrounds with us when we look at art. We all create stories as to why this or that is in a piece. Although we may not know the artists intent, we create intent because of the knowledge and experiences we bring to the table. Then on page 100 I really like the concept of hyperreality, and how advertisers want us to create this hyperreality to put ourselves into the commercials they create, so in turn they sell the experience of that hyperreality instead of maybe the product itself.

In Eisner, I have concernes. I agree completely that students need more than one project to fully grasp a medium as well as how this medium relates to content. However, I am concerned with time. Until people realize that more time needs to be devoted to the arts, we will never be able to teach these concepts to students, fully, AND give them opportunities to experience everything the curriculum says we need to teach them. As I say this, Hyatt's "pods" come to mind. They get to experience a large number of media and techniques and get to choose a few to put into their work. Then later, they get to see what others are doing with the other techniques, then they get to experience it more. Which brings me what the chapter is really about. The social life of art. When students are put together in education and allowed to discuss and work together to solve problems given, they are put into real world experiences. We all realize that they wont all be trying to make a landscape look realistic as well as portray a deeper meaning, but the fact that they discuss their trials with the work is how they will be creative problem solvers in the future. They will not be working alone. They will be around people, and most likely will be put into groups to solve problems, no matter the path of work they pursue. We, as teacher have to facilitate this experience. I the art room, I think that will be easy. My art room with be a freeing place. A place where they can discuss their work, to have impromptu critiques, and to discuss complex ideas, sometimes not always directly related to the task at hand, but that is ok. They are still having that experience, of socializing with their peers, to work through solving problems.

A New Culture if Learning is great so far. Very easy to read and it is realting very well to what was read by Eisner. It delves into how our society is not only learning through technology but how social interaction is in the forefront of learning. Just like Eisner was pointing out, socializing in education is real world problem solving, and the stories being told by Thomas and Brown solidifies that.