Hi Jinan and all,
Thank you for the discussion.
It is possible the different behaviours you describe of modern and traditional people can both be explained by extension of the idea of fixed action patterns.
Humans are animals. Thinking is shaped by that essentiality and doesn't even affect it much.
It’s a different pathway for understanding and researching drawing that bridges many of the contradictions and theoretical difficulties.
The modern starting point of course is Darwin and colleagues' work on emotion in animals. Earlier, Middle Ages analyses from the Middle East, Persia, Spain, Portugal and Northern Africa?Before that, India? More recently, I've begun to appreciate the philosophical analyses of Osho on thought, emotion and action, and art in this arena.
Best wishes,
Terry
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Dr Terence Love
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Director,
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-----Original Message-----
From: [log in to unmask] [mailto:[log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Jinan K B
Sent: Wednesday, 11 June 2014 5:47 PM
To: PhD-Design - This list is for discussion of PhD studies and related research in Design
Subject: Re: Research Needed on Drawing
Dear Chuck and list
I have been following works of cognitive neuroscientist Semir Zeki (http://www.vislab.ucl.ac.uk/), Dr. Vilayanur Ramachandran, Director of the Center for Brain and Cognition { http://cbc.ucsd.edu/ramabio.html } etc on what they consider as biological roots of art. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuroesthetics
Now there are so many people exploring this.
But my questions and doubts are as follows
Exploring the biological roots of art is like exploring the biological roots of bread.
One can explore the biological roots of hunger but can one explore the biological root of bread. Like food art is what is produced to satisfy a biological need. What is this biological need?
Food has also undergone changes in a manner that is similar to art (balanced diet and all that kind of ideas!). The present conception of art is a modern construct. can something that has been constructed mentally have biological roots? When one sees food it is natural to salivate especially if one is hungry. This indeed is a biological response But by studying this act one can not understand the biological roots of hunger!
Product of a particular culture cannot have biological roots. Biology is for things that are universal- like hunger or the need to eat. The way is art is understood and practiced in modernity was not the way the non western cultures dealt with 'art'. For the time being I am calling this aspect 'beauty' which is part and parcel of the operative principle at work in life. One could understand this as the natural ergonomics of the living system that enables the most apt action. This is not a conscious action but inherent in the way life happens.
Modern and traditional human beings are fundamentally different in their being-ness and that is why they have created different kind of culture and knowledge system. One thing to be kept in mind is that we are exploring this within the framework of modernity and an extra effort is required to understand the paradigm of traditional being-ness.
This aptness exists whenever there is freedom for organic and spontaneous action. In modern spaces as spaces have become more and more formal and defined the natural response would be less. for instance in an informal space when two people meet they would sit in a particular manner and when one more person joins this gets reorganized and this would go on as people start joining. Every one would find the most comfortable posture for one self and position in relation to others. This organization can be seen as 'composition'. This is evident also in the manner leaves are formed in plants, creepers, trees etc and also the way groth happens in nature or the way a dog would find a place to sit and the manner in which it sits, etc. This aptness is the feature on life.
This aspect is reflect in the operative principle of life. They way things happen or are being done. When an artisan works their actions
would have this quality. Please see the link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1W_2WrXzfAI, lady pounding http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p2NVHGnmTyc and man carrying load http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2fx6ClBTv0.
I have also seen this in the manner in which artisan make things. for instance i had observed that women potters would cut out perfectly round shapes from sheets of clay. This is also seen in the manner food gets prepared etc. (will upload this when i get better net access) What i have observed is that this aptness - order, rhythm, comfortable postures etc are the way non literate people naturally respond.
I am now getting more proofs from our exploration at the school.
children have begun to exhibit this quality.
Now we have children from 3 years to 11. Each year we go up one class.
I have been exploring cognition, creativity and beauty in both these
cultures- literate and non literate from 1990 and I think it was in
1998 or so I felt the biological aspect or roots of beauty and cognition. It happened in a flash as i was watching a potter making a pot. It suddenly dawned up on me the difference in the manner trained person and untrained person would make. I found this difference in the manner formally trained person swimming and self taught person swimming.
Trained person would know first and act accordingly. Mind first body later.
One can also see this in the manner foot ball is played especially in the earlier as now European coaches are training the south Americans.
South american foot ball is more spontaneous where as European foot ball looks more planed. Brazil is a good example. Even with in European foot ball this can be seen Italians and Spain more spontaneous than England, Germany etc.
What all this point out is the integral nature of beauty and cognition. So artificially dividing and compartmentalizing the integral nature of content would naturally lead to fragmentation with in ones being also. If at all this needs to be done it will have to be after the formative stage, may be after 16 years, definitely not with younger children.
Jinan
I have uploaded some more videos at http://www.youtube.com/user/jinansvideos
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