Art Consciousness - Coursework Example

Introduction Technology is transforming the whole world, especially the arts. The past two decades has brought change in science and medicine, education and media, communication and social structures, politics and engineering by the technological leaps of the new millennium, and never more so than in the arts. Not only has technology brought the arts to anyone with a cell phone, but it has empowered creative people of vision. It is not certain where this is leading, but it is certain to be exciting. In the past art has been something that only very talented people who worked years at a craft could share with the rest of us. With the new participatory art supported by technology, we can all share in its creation. The Consciousness and Department of Arts at the John F. Kennedy University, in Berkeley, California, has been developing new ways to address issues in arts education for a new cultural reality for thirty years. It aims to re-establish spirituality as an integral property of art, without linking to the religious dogma. It promotes the transformation among the audience, artists, cultures and communities. The contemporary art world believes that art is all-inclusive (Rosenberg, 1972), and in the process has marginalized the transformative and spiritual dimensions that once made it the center of cultural meaning and authority. This paper, we will examine and assess the program’s evolution and consider its significance and importance in the development of a holistic new approach to art education. The art, academics and curricula is unique, and so are the holistic approaches that are creating the complete fusion of mind, body, spirit, and culture. We also consider the realities of postmodernist thinking, the evolution of modernism, and diversified cultural influences that are reshaping global culture, the very global quality of which is both the instrument and the product. The attack on the new multicultural realities, Marxism and the revolutionary effects of feminism, along with, the current era of global capitalism run amok have significantly contributed to a cultural paradigm shift. Modern art is Avant Garde (Donald Kuspit 1996), and the cause of its own demise. Once everyone understands avant guard, it becomes mere cliché. The approaches of postmodernism does not address the loss of spiritual meaning or cultural identity in today’s art. Instead, postmodernism denies very existence of a collective or individual identity (Kuspit, 2004). Only capitalist materialism survives. However, all that is about to change. The denial of spiritual elements in contemporary is nowhere close to a fait accompli. Spiritualism is embedded within life. Suzi Gabiik (1991) states that we are living in a narrowed world that has blocked both our spiritual and psychological development. However, technology has created new access to media for artistic creation, and anyone with a dream is invited to create it. Global technology has finally connected us all and with the advent of wonderful media and hypermedia we can share creation of the new forms of art of the new millennium and create a true world art, with a shared spirituality, perhaps even worthy of the audience of which it is both product and dream. Lessons from History Artists today are involved in different businesses, unlike their ancestors. Our teachers have embraced the divergent transformed notions of good art , and who and what makes it. The cultural ideals that used to define art are part of an endless hypermedia world created by engineers, mathematicians all the ordinary people playing with Wordpress, Paint and Garage Band. All of the stakeholders are staking out their territory and adding their own creations to this motley collection of non-definition (Rosenberg 1972) Postmodernism redefined modernism and left the confusion of conceptualism, neo-capitalism and global culture behind. Technological advancements, globalization and a stream of cultural structures have ignored beauty and religious faith for fancy effects and difference for its own sake (Kuspit, 1996. The most significant aspect of 20th century art was the addition of Asia’s artistic principles: India, East Asia and the Middle East (Sullivan, 1973). However, 19th century Orientalism in Europe, along with such as Ukiyo-e wood block prints of Japan and Impressionism inspired by Asian elements of the Theosophists and Zen profoundly influenced modernism Still, students from different global art colleges have mostly been taught a Eurocentric perception of art in spite of the inspiration from Asia. There is a bridge among ideologies of the early European modernists, Chinese paintings’ classical traditions and artists like Kandinsky. Lipsey (1988) made a vital link with Kandisky on ‘inner sound’ and ‘spirit resonance’ with a Chinese concept resulting in a new spiritualism, but the modern West and Classical East’s spiritual aspirations were only united in 20th century art. 19th century theorist posited that the naturally sublime are present in the work of Turner, Friedrich, and various other Romantic painters from that era but are also connected to Tao. Chinese eccentricity and spontaneity were symbolic of the dynasties of Tang and Sung from the 7th and 13th centuries (Sullivan, M., 1973). They were vital continuations of American Abstract and European Expressionist movements, with little or no knowledge of each other. This stresses the importance of experience in various cultures directly via physical participation in ritual and art, for new artists if they are to integrate different cultural traditions. The Origins of Arts and Consciousness A&C, or the Department of Arts and Consciousness, has been creating new methods for educating artists in a world where cultural meaning and identity are constantly questioned. Art is a naturally healing activity related to spiritual aims and sources, which inspired this program. The foundations are deeply rooted in diverse spiritual practices and philosophies and answerable to none. This is the result of inspiration by the Bauhaus’ pioneers and later on that of Surrealism’s Psychic Automatist branch of Gordon Onslow Ford, the late English artist. He resided in the San Francisco Bay Area during his last days and closely worked with numerous members of the A&C faculty. Onslow Ford also gave the department a living link that to the late 30s’ Psychic Automatist in Paris as he was amongst the surrealists that developed the first approach (Henderson, 1986). Onslow Ford functioned as a mentor for many key faculty members for more than two decades. He approached art as a journey into the inner worlds. Ford also insisted that it was “vital to approach life and art as an automatist and accept whatever comes with great delight”. The elimination of formal studio art caused students to convert their life experiences into authentic statements of spiritual essence and truth. ‘Documenta XI’ in 2002, curated by Okwui Enwezor, focused on the effects of increasingly ‘global’ culture. Artists such as Lan Tuazon, Nikki S. Lee, Bill Viola, Francesco Clemente, Jimmy Durham and Susan Hiller discussed the ‘politics of representation’(Schneider & Wright 2006: 19). In 2003, the conference ‘Fieldworks’, at the Tate Modern, explore the convergences of art and anthropology, and in 2012, two “exhibitions in Paris focused on ethnographic perspectives”(Rutten, van. Dienderen et al. 2013). In 2013, the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco hosted ‘Migrating Identities’ featuring artists currently based in the US, but connected to many countries. Immigration seems to change perspectives, and art is leaning more toward science, especially anthropology, as predicted by Marcus and Meyers (1995:1). This convergence does not surprise either artists or Scientist in the human or sociological sciences, since these connections have been known all along. Art mirrors culture and culture is at the heart of all the human sciences. However, this brings a great deal of criticism from art critics, who seem to always want to categorize art and tell artists what is new and what is cliché. These connections among different parts of society have always been there, but the experts only feel safe in their ivory towers. We are living in a world where change is accelerating at such a rate that only individuality can hope to keep up. Everything else is cliché at its birth. Art critics expect artists to be involved in community rather than hermits in their caves, while anthropology researchers bemoan the acculturation of anthropology, which should be more scientific and represented in libraries, not in real life (Nelund 2013). The debate over the artist as ethnographer and the anthropologist as part of the community he or she studies. Both artists and anthropologists are expected to stay somehow separated from their communities in order to remain true to their calling, making them worse than “other”, because they become “other” in both communities. Ivory towers may be safe, but they are also divisive. Artists seek social interaction, but scholars seem to stay outside this circle and hope to be able to understand. Empirical approaches look at static factors in the art and the environment, instead of considering the social processes and aesthetic impacts in the reality of the real art world. Artistic theory can explain what happens and some of why, but it cannot be constructed without all the parts, and that must include the artistic environment and the culture. It must also include the processes and what follows and how they affect everyone involved, the artist and her audience. Interpretation of the social interactions is necessary in any art environment involving social exchange (Siegenthaler 2013). Art theory, criticism and scholarship, as mentioned earlier isolates itself from “ordinary” people, but while the major sponsorships come from galleries, art patrons and education, these do not constitute the artists audience. What all this criticism of art critics and scholars shows is that they cannot even understand the work, much less judge it, without considering the audience. The value of art lies not just in the refined quality gained by years of study and practice, but also, or even more-so, by what it communicates. While astute critics and scholars may guess what it communicates to the audience, they are only a small part of that audience, and artists do not produce for them, but rather for the people at large (Rob OFlanagan, ). Few artists want their word shut up in a rich man’s closet instead of on public display. Therefore, the environment has become very important, especially as concerns the new media. The new media is spreading art further and faster than ever before and artists and their audiences are the benefactors. Art was always all around us in our environment, in parks, on buildings, in windows, on clothing and pretty much everywhere. People not on the lowest rung of Maslow’s Heirarchy will pay a bit more for enjoyable art, good design and pleasing packaging.(, Maslows Hierarchy of Needs - Motivation Theory) So art has taken off into every area of society, especially on the Internet, in books and magazines and in computer games (Hall 2008). Computer games drive the development of technology, and they have become a mega-billion dollar industry, employing many artists (Journeys art director starts his own studio, 2013). More importantly, the new design and development tools and the ability to market on the Internet has created a whole new world for artists. Independent artists can get their work distributed and get paid for it via game development and the Internet. Comic books, videos and animated films round out this market, but the main players are games. These kinds of games have been around a while, but the computing power for thrilling virtual reality was not. Early examples of game art include Myst and Riven, but they were primitive by comparison, sketches compared to the full oil paintings like “Journey”, Flow, Flower and Cloud ("Journey" review: Video game or work of art?, 2014; (thatgamecompany | TGC » Games, 2014). Other games are mentioned in connection with art on popular forums on line. Virtual reality is changing the environment for artists. Video games may be part of the galleries for the future (Video Games: the New Art Form of the 21st Century. 2014). Conclusions Art and the education of artists and their realities in sheer contemporary society are rather unique historically and this is a unique historical time. Cultural paradigms have shifted due to technology and mass communication. They continue to evolve with the new kind of art world. The end-of-art-world that Kuspit (2004) proclaims has lost its basic moral foundations and been created for the street crowd artists hailing from JFK, who are encouraged to get involved in the new post-postmodern world. In fact the post-postmodern world is fast becoming the hypermodern world of digital landscapes and digital art of digital canvases. Most people cannot afford to own a Kandinsky or a Klimpt, but millions are buys the art of game artists. This has even resulted in a new genre of game that is really game for arts sake, or is it a new genre of immersion art. Participatory art can reach millions via the Internet. Critics may scream that this is not art, but being accessible to all does not change what it is, and the exclusivity of the masters is not what makes them art. The factor that makes art what it is the communication and connection with the audience, and it is there in spades in digital art, movies, animations and comic books. It is not everyone’s art, just as Bella Bartok is not everyone’s music, but it is, without a doubt, art. The emergence of new cultural paradigms and their recognition by the sheer changes made in those, enable us to admire our heroes. There was a time, when the modern art world claimed Pablo Picasso, Edouard Manet, Jackson Pollack, Marcel Duchamp, and even Andy Warhol as the heroes. However, the world has changed. Ana Medie ta, Andy Goldsworthy, Josef Beuys, Ann Hamilton, Zheng Dai Jian, Bill Viola or Gu Wenda, today perhaps, represent the shift from the artist-genius’ egotistic vision to the artist’s transpersonal vision as healer, harmonizer, teacher and trickster. If there a prediction of the return of art in the spiritual sense, it will definitely not be that of the old monastic religious vision of humorless piety or self-sacrifice. However, it may be embodies within the transcendent virtual experience of Journey or Flow. In fact, it’ll be more like an unencumbered and new identification with the community and environment that represents an identity based on a new culture. The Arts and Consciousness, with this vision, prepares its different students to become part of the community and collaborate with the audience to create a new kind of participatory art. The audience always was a participant, just as the reader of any narrative, because the meaning is not in the art, but it is in the communication between the art and the audience (Rosenblatt 1978). It is carried on the response of the audience to the art, and is always collaborative, but is even more-so using the interactivity of computer technology. We continue to learn, as educators and artists, to trust and listen to our intuition concerning meaning in the world and the nature of knowledge. Old methods are not capable of adequately reflecting the new artistic imperatives and cultural realities of the next century, nor of communicating its messages. The projects of The Department of Arts and Consciousness is a beginning point. It’s a way through which we view art as healing and not a therapy. We can value art through new ways and without being reliant on museums, art galleries, critics or scholars to tell us what to think and feel. We always could, but the majority could not commune with art up close and personally. The new ways help us to understand art as a direct mystical experience in the absence of that confusing connection to the formal doctrines or religions. We learn, as artists, firsthand, the tremendous power of the beauty of this Universe and of what and who are in it. References , Maslows Hierarchy of Needs - Motivation Theory. Available: http://www.abraham-maslow.com/m_motivation/Hierarchy_of_Needs.asp [3/25/2012, 2012]. 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