[-empyre-] teaching and inspiration

[Adrian Miles <adrian.miles@uib.no>]

At 11:04 AM +1100 29/3/02, empyre-request@imap.cofa.unsw.edu.au wrote:
> Well, this seems more than a semantic issue. It looks more like a fairly
> distorted vision of what 'teaching' means. You can instruct someone to
> paint like Degas, but your students will then only be that and cannot
> therefore be called an artist.
> Teaching is to me to help people to THINK, JUDGE, and have OPINIONS with
> their own mind and will. Teaching is definitely not telling your student
> WHAT TO THINK nor HOW TO THINK.

isn't this going sideways here? :-) i think damien's point was more 
that 'inspiration' is not a human only trait as bird, whale, and 
dolphin songs seem to suggest. but while there might be semantic 
issues in your argument above teaching thinking, judgement and 
opinion is a general statement about what teaching might be, but 
certainly has nothing to do with being an artist (i expect the same 
from my motor mechanic).

i also think that these days it seems hard to insist on 'inspiration' 
and 'judgement' as critiera for 'art' given the demonstrably 
contextual nature of 'art'. if i paint like degas and then place that 
work in a local art show with the other twee landscapes and sign it 
jeff koons is this art? which bit? and where is the 'inspiration'?

and teaching, well that's a mixed bag really isn't it. if you have a 
crit. practice where the teacher (as teacher) crit's work then it's 
hard to see how it isn't some form of 'what to think' but i guess if 
you had a process based teaching methodology which might teach 
students how to articulate things about their work in terms of their 
own processes, and the crit. was conducted by peers, then i guess you 
would be teaching thinking, judgement, and opinion. but i don't think 
it's enough to say that teaching is thought, judgement, opinin when 
it's easy (and common) to teach these things by processes that do 
little more than model what to think and how one ought to think.

i'm not sugesting anyone in this discussion does this, just that the 
terms need care.

enjoy your easter
adrian miles
--
   
+  lecturer in new media and cinema studies 
[http://hypertext.rmit.edu.au/vog/vlog]
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