Elements in Focus
Asynchronous Session
The Impact of Digital Painting and Calligraphy Creation Systems on the Artistic Performance of Individuals with Mild Cognitive Impairment View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Pei-Fen Wu, Kuang-Yi Fan
This study investigates the artistic performance of individuals with mild cognitive impairment when engaging in digital painting and calligraphy using the " Painting and calligraphy" digital art creation system. The primary objectives of the research were to introduce an eight-week course using the system and to assess the participants' artistic performance in their digital art creation. The participants were 11 individuals with mild cognitive impairment from dementia community service centers in central Taiwan, with an average age of 82.3 years. Their clinical dementia rating scale scores were 0.5. Ethical considerations were ensured through IRB approval. The Formal Elements Art Therapy Scale (FEATS) was used to evaluate the participants' formal art performance during the creation of "Picking Apples from a Tree (PPAT)," with both pre-test and post-test assessments conducted and evaluated by three experts in the field. Overall, Statistical analysis of FEATS indicated significant differences in pre-test and post-test scores for implied energy, logic, developmental level, perseveration, integration, realism, problem-solving, person, rotation, space, details of objects and environment, line quality, and prominence of color. This suggests that participants demonstrated significant enhancements in their formal art element performance following the course. This study designed an art creation program for individuals with mild cognitive impairment using a digital painting and calligraphy system and found significant improvements in participants' formal art element performance. It not only provides innovative experiences for individuals with mild cognitive impairment but also serves as a reference for future exploration of art activities combining technology and art.
Indigenous Creative Crafts and Arts of the Dumagats View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Romero Quennie Rose
Struggles and conflicts involving Indigenous Peoples (IPs) in the Philippines are not new, as they belong to a marginalized sector of the community. The Dumagats is one of the ethnic people which belonged to a social, political and cultural groups with ancestry-based connections to the lands and natural resources they occupy or have been displaced from. They frequently face marginalization or romantic portrayals because of their distinctive beliefs and lifestyles, but the majority of them actually live in abject poverty and are frequently outside the scope of government assistance because they are nomads. Qualitative research method was applied using Document Analysis Method. The study was conducted to improve the indigenous creative crafts and economic condition of the Dumagats and provide them with the entrepreneurial skills that they need to become productive citizens of the country. These objectives prompted the researcher to determine what sustainable entrepreneurial development program might be recommended in order to utilize the community’s abilities and resources to empower them as contributors to economic growth.
The Art of Concentration: Finding New Relevance for Blind Contour Drawing in the AI Era View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Jesse Thompson, Lisa Winstanley
The Art of Blind Contour Drawing was popularized when The Natural Way to Draw was published in 1941. Since then, its philosophy of slow and patient looking, and simultaneous recording through drawing has reverberated throughout the fine-art education world. It is revered for its ability to build aptitudes in visual research, observational skill, attention span, visual communication, caligraphic intuition, composition design, hand-eye coordination to name a few – all skills valued by employers, but ones more difficult to demonstrate and ascertain easily. Despite its previous ubiquity, in an era where the educational conversation is dominated by advancements in and the proliferation of artificial intelligence (AI), the enduring relevance of traditional artistic practices such as blind contour drawing, struggle to maintain their place in outcome-based curriculums often reduced to an afternoon’s novelty activity. Thus, the art, design or media student is rarely given the opportunity to understand the true nature of the endeavor, as Nicolaides recommended - by approaching and sustaining the practice over time. By embracing imperfection and the unpredictability of human expression, blind contour drawing offers a compelling alternative to the algorithmic predictability of AI-generated art, while simultaneously providing rigorous skills training. Additionally, Its procedural nature often yields results can appear chaotic an unpredictable providing unexpected aesthetic qualities or design innovations. it also serves as an excellent "icebreaker" activity, providing students with a procedural activity that encourages "active surrender" helping students reliinquish pre-exisisting notions and giving insights into issues of ownership, and visual plagiarism.
Cubism and Collectivism: Forging Solidarities Amongst Precarious Workers View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Ella Jones
This paper details a developing methodology using Cubism to build solidarities amongst precarious workers, centring the marginalised identities and experiences of a largely migrant workforce, returning the ‘worker’ to the centre of art making and exploring the future possibilities of art and intersectional class struggle. An interdisciplinary model developed in collaboration with Dr Vera Weghmann, Senior Research Fellow at the University of Greenwich, the United Voices of the World (UVW) and International Workers of Great Britain (IWGB) independent trade unions, the project includes documentation of campaign and strike action, worker portraits and art making workshops with union members which will culminate in a group exhibition in 2024. With the absence of artwork about, and created with, trade unions in the UK, the project aims to develop a methodology and visual legacy available to both artists and unions worldwide. A challenge to independent trade union organising, and precursor to the project, is the formation of solidarities amongst precarious workforces existing in geographical, social and cultural isolation from each other; sex workers and cleaners, care workers and security guards. Harnessing Cubism’s ability to portray the fragmentary and contradictory nature of social life, workshops explore the diverse and often disparate identities and experiences of precarious workers. Implementing Cubism as an art of construction and therefore de- and re-construction, the project aims to re-organise these fragments into the future, juxtaposing multiple perspectives simultaneously to construct new shapes, forms, solid-arities.
Women and the Symbolism of Ghanaian Wax Prints: An Interdisciplinary Storytelling Method View Digital Media
Creative Practice Showcase Xorlali Plange
Wax prints (Ankara/Ntoma) have become a fashion trend in the global modern space currently. Historically, Wax Prints have been part of African material culture since the 19th century. Women who joined the trade developed a system of naming these prints and turned it into a mode of conversation among each other. My research investigates the sources, theories and inspiration behind the names and what roles their meanings played in society and how that has evolved. This naming system is very crucial because it juxtaposes material culture with a non-verbal way of communication. As such, it is important for modern wearers to understand the philosophies behind them. This study collects sixty wax prints and examines their contribution to storytelling in today’s society. Key questions explored by the study are as follows: How did women and girls use clothing forms and patterns to address both serious and lighthearted issues in their communities and how are they interpreted in different spaces today such as theater, social justice movements and basic schools? We explore these questions in an organized workshop during which we introduced wax prints to children between the ages of 9 and 15 in a basic school as inspiration to produce essays and art works. The findings suggest that wax prints speak beyond their designs and colors. Hearing what they have to say opens up conversations and ignites creativity.
Rise to your Senses: Social Exchange Artworks as Sustenance View Digital Media
Paper Presentation in a Themed Session Emily O'Hara, Monique Redmond
Joy is an explicit and implicit aspect in the making/dispersal of temporal artworks and exchange-events. Responding to a global urgency to engage in reciprocity (manaakitanga) and be responsible to and care for ‘our relations’ (whakawhanaungatanga), we discuss how joy can manifest within the public-everyday through the slightest of presences. Finding joy in everyday occurrences is a necessity of life—and core to our survival as feeling humans. We believe there is an increasing need for artworks that provide sustenance in ways not necessarily always visible within the usual structures: exhibitions, biennales, festivals. As artists, when we release a durational artwork into the world, we hope it will bring attention to joyous yet urgent moments. The social exchange in art takes many forms. It offers an opportunity to pause, openly embrace sensory responses (“Rise to your senses”), and consider a work’s reception as a modality of appreciation and enjoyment. Exchange-events encourage a personal-political to transition into a social-political space through assembling like-minded people, where action and gesture invite deeper participation. We reflect on the impacts of practising over time and within duration, slowing down to appreciate and enjoy an exchange, and how this interaction can co-create a sense of community. We will ask: how might the event-nature of an artistic project produce resonance, appreciation and joy? By sharing social practice projects that utilise reciprocity as a condition of its unfolding for a public, we explore how presences, resonances, joy provide the basis for affective support structures to nurture collective appreciation.
