Evolving Perspectives
Interdisciplinary Arts Community : Black Mountain College and its Implications for 21st Learning View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Siu Challons-Lipton
Interdisciplinary learning is critical to the future of education and our society. The example of Black Mountain College of North Carolina (1933-1956) is once again relevant. What distinguished the teaching methodology advocated there was the level to which the arts were elevated and the idea of using creative experiences to enhance all areas of academic interest to create active learners. Every student experienced the arts, whether they were an aspiring artist or scientist. John Andrew Rice, one of the founders of the college, identified with artists whom he felt sought to expand understanding with creativity and experience, rather than to ascertain knowledge through control and experimentation. Art was a discipline that helped one to see, to learn, to listen, to fail, and to make choices. Rice’s strong methodological bias for experience in and out of the college classroom was summarized in a later statement: “To read a play is good, to see a play is better, but to act in a play...is to realize a subtle relationship between sound and movement.” The college’s faculty, students and speakers included some of the greatest artists and thinkers of its time: Anni and Josef Albers, Merce Cunningham, John Cage, John Dewy, Buckminster Fuller, Walter Gropius, Langston Hughes, Elaine and Willem de Kooning, Robert Rauschenberg, Charles Olson, and Albert Einstein. Black Mountain College positioned all life as art. The 1933 college catalogue described how the individual was fostered: “The student...by being sensitized to movement, form, sound...gets a firmer control of himself and his environment.”
Developing Virtual Tools to Preserve and Access the San Bartolo Murals
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Franco Rossi
The ancient Maya built their temples as nested dolls –new architecture encapsulating old within its foundations. Many of the best-preserved artworks, including mural paintings and stucco sculptures on architectural facades, lie beneath tons of stone masonry, rock and fill, and are physically accessible only through narrow excavation tunnels. This controlled access, designed, in part, to protect fragile artworks, has resulted in piecemeal documentation. One can never “see” the entirety of these ancient architectural spaces and artwork, which in turn limits outputs for site interpretation and education. This paper presents our ongoing efforts to bring two outstanding ancient Maya artworks from a remote region of the Maya Biosphere Reserve, Guatemala to a broader public. From data capture to the creation of targeted physical replicas alongside interactive 3D virtual models, our project considers varying interests in image products of these sacred Maya spaces. While replicas might address the need for a “place” connected to landscape of cultural heritage, virtual models will feature 3D “walking” tours generating the perspective of a site visitor and software compression enabling ease of use on any device. The tours will be self-guided with information about artworks, culture, history and discovery; text and audio will be in English and Spanish, with future expansion to Mayan languages as well. A key aspect of our approach is that these models become feasible for small to medium-sized projects like our own—with the goal of enabling virtual access to heritage sites regardless of users’ economic background, geographic location or web access level.
The Revisualization of Collaboration Through Type and Sound
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Shannon Mc Carthy
A music playlist, seems simple enough, doesn’t it? But within each, is a multitude of micro self-expressions. Is the list for a long road trip? What about a run? Maybe you need background music for a dinner party– whatever it is, your likes, your tastes, your inner desires, or joys–it’s a part of you that is expressed through lyrics and sound. Now imagine handing the playlist over to be dissected and visualized by another. This paper examines the collaboration of oneself through the visualization of music interpreted by a designer. The multimodality of the process focuses on the interpretation and importance of type, image, music, and the progression of two-dimensional design into a three-dimensional outlet in the forms of virtual reality and motion graphics. Revisualizing the “poster as king” into the 21st-century experimentations of progression.
