scholarly journals The arts and their functions

2021 ◽  
pp. 3-44
Author(s):  
Steven Brown
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Physical Space ◽  
Interpersonal Coordination ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Symbolic Function ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Unified View ◽  
Tonal Pitch ◽  
Insight Into

In asking the question ‘What is art?’, four major conceptions of a work of art can be considered: an object; an indicator of beauty; an indicator of craftsmanship or creativity; and a process of performance. This chapter contends that the two principal functions of the arts are re-creation and interpersonal coordination. Re-creation reflects the inherently narrative and symbolic function of the arts, as conveyed through storytelling, acting, narrative dance, and figurative forms of visual art. Interpersonal coordination—as seen in artforms such as dance and music—occurs in the three domains of time, physical space (dance), and tonal pitch space (music). A unified view of the arts reveals not only the cognitive similarities among artforms, but the widespread ability of artforms to combine with one another to form syntheses, as seen in songs with words and dances choreographed to music. A comparative analysis of the arts provides greater insight into each artform than is possible by looking at artforms in isolation.

What if we think of the classroom as a work of art? Performance, collaboration, and social engagement considered as pedagogic practices

2020 ◽  
pp. 147402222096694
Author(s):  
Theron Schmidt
Keyword(s):  
Performance Studies ◽  
Social Engagement ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Art Practice ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
Performance Practices ◽  
Arts And Humanities ◽  
Socially Engaged Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Pedagogic Practices

This article brings into relation critical perspectives and practical tactics from a range of different fields—performance studies, visual art practice, pedagogy and educational theory, and activism and community organising—in order to create some space for re-imagining what might be possible within the dynamics of the Higher Education classroom. It proceeds through a series of speculative modes: ‘what if we think of the classroom as a market?’, which for many is the currently dominant metaphor under neoliberalist economies; ‘what if we think of the work of art as a classroom?’, which traces the recent ‘pedagogical’ or ‘educational’ turn in visual art practice; and finally, ‘what if we think of the classroom as a work of art?’, in which the creative impulses and tactics drawn from performance practices, activism and community organising, and socially engaged art are speculatively applied to the arts and humanities classroom.

scholarly journals Altering a Fixed Identity: Thinking through Improvisation

2013 ◽  
Vol 8 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anne Douglas
Keyword(s):  
Visual Arts ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Artistic Practice ◽  
Creative Imagination ◽  
Mobile State ◽  
Experimental Art ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Art Practices ◽  
Identity Thinking ◽  
Insight Into

"Replacing artist with player as if adopting an alias is a way of altering a fixed identity. And a changed identity is a principle of mobility, of going from one place to another…" (Kaprow, Essays on the Blurring of Art and Life 125-6) This paper explores an experiment in improvisation in which the practices of music, the visual arts, philosophy, and anthropology come together. Calendar Variations (2010-11) draws different kinds of artists into creative experiences through the use of verbal scores. The score invites participation in a process in which the outcome is indeterminate. The experiment raises a question within the group of artists and participants about the nature of artistic practice itself and whether any single aesthetic approach is more appropriate than another. The experiment frames the following questions: Why do we have/institute improvisation in life? Can art particularly inform those situations in life in which the unscripted and contingent challenge us to rethink in situations in which we may be encountering failure either in what is around us or failure in ourselves to cope? Drawing in particular on Allan Kaprow’s articulation of Experimental Art (Essays), informed by Ingold and Hallam’s construct of improvisation as a metaphor for existence (Creativity and Cultural Improvisation), I propose that the radical questioning of certainty in experimental art practices offers a different insight into improvisation, one that deals with experiences of failure. The paper concludes that sustaining uncertainty about what the arts might be has given rise to two possible understandings of visual art, one based on contemplation, and the other on time and duration. Our creative imagination is challenged by the collisions and complementarities of these different understandings to sustain a perpetually mobile state of creativity, akin to "adopting an alias as a way of altering a fixed identity" (Kaprow, Essays).

Conditions of Visibility

2019 ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Art History ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Fundamental Question ◽  
Ancient World ◽  
Work Of Art ◽  
History Of Art ◽  
Shared Objects ◽  
History Of ◽  
Modern Prejudice ◽  
Historical Past

We often assume that works of visual art are meant to be seen. Yet that assumption may be a modern prejudice. The ancient world - from China to Greece, Rome to Mexico - provides many examples of statues, paintings, and other images that were not intended to be visible. Instead of being displayed, they were hidden, buried, or otherwise obscured. In this third volume in the Visual Conversations in Art & Archaeology series, leading scholars working at the intersection of archaeology and the history of art address the fundamental question of art's visibility. What conditions must be met, what has to be in place, for a work of art to be seen at all? The answer is both historical and methodological; it concerns ancient societies and modern disciplines, and encompasses material circumstances, perceptual capacities, technologies of visualization, protocols of classification, and a great deal more. The emerging field of archaeological art history is uniquely suited to address such questions. Intrinsically comparative, this approach cuts across traditional ethnic, religious, and chronological categories to confront the academic present with the historical past. The goal is to produce a new art history that is at once cosmopolitan in method and global in scope, and in doing so establish new ways of seeing - new conditions of visibility - for shared objects of study.

Motivation Configuration of Bluxury Tourism Behavior: An FsQCA Application

2021 ◽  
pp. 193896552110144
Author(s):  
Da Shi ◽  
Bowen Yi ◽  
Fangfang Shi ◽  
Simone Satta
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Complexity Theory ◽  
Fuzzy Set ◽  
Qualitative Comparative Analysis ◽  
Complex Configuration ◽  
Physical Factors ◽  
Motivation Theory ◽  
Main Motivation ◽  
Push And Pull ◽  
Insight Into

This study investigates the motivation configuration of bluxury tourism behavior. According to complexity theory and push and pull motivation theory, we establish a framework of complex configuration conditions, including push forces, pull forces, and constraints that lead to bluxury tourism. Based on fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis, we identified seven main motivation configurations of bluxury tourism behavior covering three core factors: physical factors, seeking/exploration in push forces, and intangible factors in pull forces. In addition, combinations of constraints in the configuration demonstrate various paths leading to bluxury tourism behavior. These findings provide unique insight into bluxury tourism participation.

scholarly journals RESEARCH INTO THE METHODS OF ANALYSING THE PRODUCTIVITY INDICATORS OF TRANSPORT TERMINALS

Transport ◽  
2009 ◽  
Vol 24 (3) ◽  
pp. 192-199 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ilona Jaržemskienė
Keyword(s):  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Functional Dependence ◽  
Data Envelopment ◽  
Analysis Method ◽  
Accurate Evaluation ◽  
Feasible Alternative ◽  
Productivity Indicators ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Regressive Analysis

The measurement of terminal productivity is the issue of extreme importance to both terminal owners and management and customers. As the sector of transport is highly intensive in terms of investments into the infrastructure, the productivity of a terminal may play a crucial role in competing with other terminals. Productivity is defined in terms of inputs and output. The majority of the available studies, wherein this issue is addressed, are generally focused on the determination of functional dependence between inputs and output using the method of regressive analysis. The present article provides an insight into the Data Envelopment Analysis method as a tool for measuring productivity. This technique enables a rather accurate evaluation of terminal productivity by means of comparative analysis, which, in fact, appears to be the only feasible alternative in cases where statistic data required for performing regressive analysis is lacking.

The Unification of the Arts

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steven Brown
Keyword(s):  
Cultural Evolution ◽  
Visual Art ◽  
Comparative Approach ◽  
New Approach ◽  
Aesthetic Responses ◽  
Music And Language ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Dance Movements ◽  
Evolution Of Music

The Unification of the Arts presents the first integrated cognitive account of the arts that attempts to unite all of the arts into a single framework, covering visual art, theatre, literature, dance, and music, with supporting discussions about creativity and aesthetics that span all of the arts. The book’s comparative approach identifies both what is unique to each artform and what artforms share with one another. An understanding of shared mechanisms sheds light on how the arts are able to combine with one another to form syntheses, such as choreographing dance movements to music, or setting lyrics to music to create a song. While most psychological analyses of the arts focus on perceptual mechanisms alone—most commonly aesthetic responses—the book offers a holistic sensorimotor account of the arts that examines the full gamut of processes from creation to perception for each artform. This allows for a broad discussion of the evolution of the arts, including the origins of rhythm, the co-evolution of music and language, the evolution of drawing, and cultural evolution of the arts. Finally, the book aims to unify a number of topics that have not been adequately related to one another in previous discussions, including theatre and literature, music and language, creativity and aesthetics, dancing and acting, and visual art and music. The Unification of the Arts provides a bold new approach to the integration of the arts, one that covers cognition, evolution, and neuroscience.

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