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Acculturation: the transfer of culture from one ethnic group to another. In sociology, being able to function in more than one's own culture.
Adaptation: in sociology, a change in behavior to conform to cultural patterns. May be applied to individuals or entire groups.
Ambiguity and Meaning Principle: One of the six principles of shaping that lead to visual logic. This principle draws the artist's attention to a a provable characteristic of perception; that all configurations are liable to more than one interpretation. All configurations must therefore be regarded as always uncertain or indefinite in meaning in the process of being effectively shaped. Inner significance, functional value or a purposeful pattern can only be discovered and developed in a n art work when its continual ambiguity is accepted. Overly predicative and verbally derived goals for a work of art can blind the artist to its visual potentials. These potentials become apparent during the shaping process.
Analogy: A correspondence in 2 or more respects between otherwise dissimilar things. This thinking process is used in visual thinking to discriminate between productive and superficial bisociations. A form logical inference or an instance of it, based on the assumption that if two things are known to be alike in some respects, then they must be alike in other respects.
Analytical (Visual) Thinking: The mental act of separating a visual whole into its elemental parts so that one or more of them can be studied in depth. In visual analytical thinking, mental skill must be expressed in an observable activity that communicates clearly the degree of learning; verbalization about the nature of the learning must never replace appropriate visual expression.
Assimilate: to become similar, to be absorbed and incorporated; as, minority groups often assimilate by intermarriage;... in sociology, the merging of diverse cultural elements. U.S. government policy toward American Indians in late 19th century - virtually equivalent to melting pot theory.
Art Criticism: Verbal response " spoken or written about art." It is not necessarily negative or destructive...can include praise, comparison, description, interpretation and explanation as well as disapproval.
Attention: The ability or power to concentrate mentally through giving close or careful observation or heed to the aesthetic elements in a present environment. Attention is characterized by; being dynamic and undivided, following individual interest, and involving a constant process of discovery.
Beliefs: acceptance of something as true. In theology, faith, or a firm persuasion of the truths of a religion.
Bisociation: The mixture in one human mind of visual physiognomies from two contexts or categories of objects that are normally considered separate categories by the literal processes of the mind. The thinking process that is the functional basis for metaphoric thinking.
Catharsis: the purifying or relieving of the emotions by art: an Aristotelian concept, applied originally to the effects of tragic drama.
Celebrate: to praise or honor publicly; to commemorate ( an anniversary, holiday, ect.) with ceremony or festivity; to proclaim; to perform or solemnize with reverence or veneration, as a religious ceremony. May include many art forms, i.e. costume, drama, music, dance, specialized objects ect. "a public performance that marks an important event in the life of a person or group." They may be joyous or solemn and take place in several stages. Makes visible the social structure of the sponsoring group and gives form to the shared values of the group, community or culture.
Ceremony: a formal act or set of formal acts established by custom or authority as proper to a special occasion, such as a wedding, religious rite, ect. a conventional social act. rules established by custom for governing social behavior;...may include multiple art forms.
Combinatory Thinking: Visual thinking that tends to promote the merging, mixing or coalescing of separate configurational ideas into a new unified whole.
Configurational Processing: Visual thinking that relates to the arrangement and manipulation of configurational elements.
Continuity: the state or quality of being continuous. a continuous series or succession; unbroken whole.
Control of Direction Principle: One of the six principles of shaping that lead to visual logic. This principle holds that human beings are not only able to make conscious decisions about the direction their designs will develop, but they are part of mature themselves must acknowledge that there are many aspects of their actions which are best intuitively directed. These aspects require the artist to be skillful in inventing strategies for guiding the shaping process even while the final goal can not be know logically in advance.
Copy: to make a reproduction or imitation of; to reproduce; to transcribe...to make or do something in imitation of ( some thing or person); to imitate...
Creativity: The belief system which holds that one possesses the ability to bring into existence new, novel and imaginative forms, as if out of nothingness. Behind this belief is the observable fact that visual forms evolve out of disciplined thinking processes. In art, these individuals have both this belief system and a preference for thinking is visual forms rather than words.
Culture: the concepts, habits, skills, arts, instruments, institutions, ect. of a given people in a given period; civilization. the totally of meanings, ideas and values learned by an individual from all sources - family, school, church, the media, work, play, travel ect..
Cultural Pluralism: many cultures together retaining their own individuality, identity and uniqueness. Pluralism is the quality or condition of existing in more than one part or form.
Directed Visualization: A type of mental exercise for increasing the ability of the student to form and control imagery in the mind's eye of imagination. These exercises are characterized by step by step instructions from the teacher that lead the students to image ever stranger scenes, in great sensory detail.
Discipline-Based: Education that is firmly based upon the discipline of art, as practiced and developed by artists from throughout the history of art. Discipline implies controlled behavior, and organized and systematic methodology which leads to knowledge about the world and ones place in the world. The New Art Basics stresses the psychological skills of effective visual thinking and the contextual and analytical skills derived from the universalities of the human condition. This educational program is "taught" by means of a formal, continuous, sequential, written curriculum across grade levels in the same way as other academic subjects", as suggested by the Getty Center for the Education in the Arts.
Discovery Oriented: The structure of sound visual learning, which requires students to gain knowledge to gain knowledge through first hand observation, study and search.
Disguised Symbolism: Bisociations of visual forms, which occur so subtly, that they are not immediately or easily apparent to the conscious mind of the viewer.
Dreams: a sequence of sensations, images, thoughts, ect. passing through a sleeping person's mind. a vision or image of the conscious mind; daydream; reverie. Relates to vision, seeing of an individual in a variety of possible states.
Duplication: another corresponding to the first in all essentials or exactly,...a copy; a transcript: a replica; a facsimile.
Ecological Principle: One of the six principles of shaping that lead to visual logic. This principle holds that all visual thinking and shaping acts pass through a three part process of 1. projection, 2. persecutory feelings and 3. integration and reprojection. Successful visual thinking must go through all three phases. The human mind is seen in this process as a governor to keep the shaping process proceeding at a steady and productive pace.
Effort: The direction of physical and mental energy toward the tasks of effective visual thinking. To be distinguished from "trying" connotes the inappropriate application of energy to tasks. In effort the goals the artist is trying to reach are not prematurely determined in direction and rigidly controlled by verbal processes in the mind, they grow of the very nature of the individual artist.
ETC: An acronym created by Robert McKin to describe the "feedback loop" necessary for graphic development of visual ideas. The letters stand for the three phases in the creative thinking cycle, Expression, Testing, and Cycling back to expression.
Ethnic: designating or of any of the basic divisions or groups of mankind, as distinguished by customs, characteristics, language, ect. or a member of an ethnic group, especially a member of a minority or nationality group that is part of a larger community.
Fantasy: A creation of the fancy or creative imagination, which can often be seen as capricious or fundamentally illogical by the conscious left hemispheric processes. Psychologically, it represents an imagined event or condition that fulfills an individual wish and can therefore lead reflectively to significant self discovery.
Flexibility: A universal condition that fosters productive thinking by allowing the individual to be very responsive to change and adaption of new methods and forms without doing damage to the original goal or vision. Flexible thinking is characterized by easy access to subconscious as well as conscious levels of thinking. The flexible visual thinker should be proficient in a variety of mental operations and be able to move freely from one operation to another with a free choice of vehicles (such s media, style, subject matter, type of configuration, etc.).
Flow experience: The ecstatic feeling that everything is going just right when the individual is totally immersed in a creative act. The flow experience is also characterized by a sense of losing contact with time and the external world. It is facilitated by a physiological state of relaxed attention.
Fluency: The freely flowing and seemingly effortless expression of visual thinking through an observable behavior; production of a large quantity of potentially useful responses.
Gaffron Phenomenon: A psychological principle that grows out of the observation that there are two ways to seeing objects. Near side vision concentrates on details on the side of objects nearest to the viewer and is responsible for analytical vision, such as experienced in contour drawing exercises. Far side vision is diffuse because it concentrates on placing the object from the viewer. Far side vision helps us locate objects in space, which allows us to reach out and grasp an object. Gesture drawing exercises promote far side vision.
Gestalt Thinking: Learning to see and record the world in terms of wholes, whose properties are so unified that they cannot be derived from their parts. Gesture drawing exercises attempt to record the gestalt without the analytical details.
Graphic Ideation: The mental and physical acts which allow the artist to conceive and form a pictorial or configurational idea.
Iconoclasm: The doctrine or practice of opposing and destroying existing or traditional pictorial systems or styles.
Imitation: that which is made is made or produced as a copy; likeness; resemblance; also, a counterfeit aiming at resemblance; employed in the art of creating resemblances. Formed after a model, pattern or original.
Incubation: The name of that period of unconscious mental work which most traditional explanations of the creative process hold must occur before an insight can form. to keep in a favorable for development, a phase of development in problem-solving.
Insight: The capacity to discern the true nature of a situation; an elucidating glimpse.
Internal teacher: A metaphorical invention created to give personal meaning to the inborn ability all humans have for understanding visual logic or good design without formal verbal instruction. Because all good design is the outgrowth of the normal functions of the perceptual system and the mind, artists should be taught to depend upon their internal teacher.
Intuition: To acquire knowledge by the act or faculty of knowing without the use of rational processes; immediate cognition.
Layering: The process of interrelating the appropriate and applicable principles of shaping must effect the application of the other principles.
Magic: The practice of attempting to produce seemingly supernatural effects in art through the use of techniques, tools and practices that are generally unknown or strange in outward appearance to the lay person. The perception of supernatural ability exists because of a lack of knowledge of the actual process employed.
Maquettes: A usually, small preliminary model of something designed especially to gauge the general appearance or composition of the thing that is being planned.
Mental Rehearsal: An educational exercise that prepares the mind for productive visual thinking by practicing the physical marks to be made in advance of contact with any art materials. (for example, air drawing).
Metaphor: A figure of speech or visual presentation in which a word, phrase or image is used in place of another to suggest a likeness between them, while in the process formulating a new concept for the imagination.
Mind-Body Problem: The set of issues that have emerged from the human tendency to postulate a fundamental difference between the realm of mind on the one hand and physical nature on the other.
Mind's Eye: The human faculty held capable of seeing a mental vision consisting of an imaginary or recollected sight as opposed to one actually seen at the time. Usually experienced as occurring somewhere in the center of the forehead.
Monoculture: pertaining to one culture, considered contractive in nature.
Multicultural: pertaining to many cultures, considered expansive in nature.
Myths: a traditional story of unknown authorship, ostensibly with a historical basis, but serving usually to explain some phenomenon of nature, or the customs, institutions, religious rites, ect. of a people; myths usually involve the exploits of gods and heroes. "Myths narrate a sacred history; it relates an event that took place in primordial time...of the "beginnings"...Myths always an account of a 'creation' how something was produced, began to be...Myths describe the various and sometimes dramatic breakthroughs of the sacred into the world.
No Lose Philosophy: An attitude of finding usefulness in all visual configurations from the past history of the individual. By not losing these bits of ones past, they can be brought into a working relationship with the interests and enthusiasms of today. Thus, new combinations representing novel solutions are more likely.
Originality: having to do with an origin; initial, first; earliest. never having occurred or existed before; not copies; fresh; new; novel. capable of or given to inventing or creating something new, or thinking or acting in a independent, individual, fresh way.
Physiognomic Interest: A preference for the observation of outward appearance or character as the most truthful understanding about the fundamental nature of the observed; Looking for the basic structural properties of an object.
Play: To function freely within the prescribed limits of design constraints. Play may involve role playing, change, variation, transition or alteration.
Poetic Vision: The ability to see the world around you with clarity for the metaphoric messages that can be drawn from the observable phsyiognomics.
Production-Based Education: Art education that concentrates almost exclusively on the completion of art projects (art works for their own sake). Usually the emphasis in production-based education is upon media handling skills and knowledge external to the individual. This emphasis separates production-based education from discipline-based education, which concentrates on the internal technology of the individual and that technology's relationship to the external environment.
Progressive Relaxation: Psychological and physiological exercises which usually require the systematic tensing and relaxation of specific muscle groups. The purpose is to heighten the internal state of relaxation.
Puns (Visual): The bisociation of visual forms from two separate categories; merged openly and incompletely, so that it is still obvious what is being merged.
Quickness: The ability to grasp the essence of a configuration, whether in the imagination or exterior environment, with a quick thumbnail sketch.
Randomness: Any strategy activity where specific conscious purpose, organization or structure is minimized in order to allow the artist to discover new patterns to which he or she may respond in a unique manner; haphazard appearance to behavior.
Realism Principle: One of the six principles of shaping that lead to visual logic. This principle holds that all methods or styles of graphic communication deal with reality in one aspect or another. The disciplined graphic thinker must have control of the tools (depth clues) necessary to explore the nature of the real. To mistake naturalism (as one form for communicating optical reality) for realism is a common mistake of those unfamiliar with visual thinking.
Recentering: The creative seeing ability to flexibility change from one imaginative filter to another. Creative seeing requires this ability to see from alternative viewpoints with its differing proportional emphasis on imagination and sensation.
Receptive Visualization: Exercises that lead the student to visualize in the mind's eye a quiet receptive place where they may view a unique visual experience. This type of exercise is often accompanied by soft music, the presence of a great figure or teacher and gentle forms of self hypnosis.
Reflectivity: The mental skill of giving careful consideration to visual configurations which are already present in perception. Distinguished between this quality and the more usual tendency to verbalize and rationalize unformed ideas, present only as mental states, is vital to the development of an effective visual thinker.
Relaxed Attention: The optimal physiological state for productive visual thinking. This mind/body state is characterized by a mixture of riding the body of tenseness and learning to release and focus full energy to the task at hand.
Rites of Passage: defines those stages all human beings pass through and designates between one stage and another. The rite itself is made up of three main culturally defined stages, separation (from a previous stage), threshold (betwixt and between stage) neither what was or will be, a reincorporation (a higher level of status and responsibility) likened to a new being. This process outlines the progress of humans; as defined by culture.
Ritual: a set form or system of rites, religious or secular. the observance of set forms or rites, as in public worship, service or procedure - pertaining to or consisting of rites.
Satire (Visual): The use of visual bisociation for the purpose of exposing folly, vice or stupidity through visual irony, derision or caustic wit.
Strategy: A plan of action for classroom learning activities that is characterized by careful management and organization of both teaching and learning activities. Strategies in the New Art Basics program are directed toward a specific thinking skill or concept.
Style: the look or "feel," specific or characterized manner of expression, execution, construction, or design, in any art, period, work, etc. the way in which anything is made or done; manner. sort; kind; variety; type. a way of reckoning time, dates, ect. A way of work which tells you something about the creator of the work of art, time, environment, country, culture, way of seeing, feeling and thinking. not always intentional but may occur as an involuntary or natural inclination.
Subculture: a group (within a society) of persons of the same age. social or economic status, ethnic background, etc. and having its own interests, goals, etc.; the distinct cultural patterns of such a group.
Synectics: A technique for bringing about the synthesis of disparities; producing unified or cohesive structures and visual ideas from seemingly incompatible elements.
Synthesis: Visual thinking activities that result in the fusion of separate elements, configurations or forms into a coherent whole. The right hemisphere is said to process visual information this way.
Tensional Principle: One of the six principles of shaping that lead to visual logic. This principle draws the artist's attention to the importance and interdependence of tensions within the developing work of art. Tensions are seen as functioning within a field of existing gestalt forces present in every format. The way they are handled determines the mood, character, and communication of that visual configuration.
Thinking Skills: Mental abilities which in visual thinking must take a concrete form in order to be learned and known.
Thumbnail Sketches: Small, quickly drawn configuration studies done more for the study of a visual thought than as a finished work of art.
Trying: Opposite of effort. (See description of Effort.)
Unity Principle: One of the six principles of shaping that lead to visual logic. This principle directs the artist to control the many levels of visual organization within a work of art by skillful use of the grouping principles. The goal is for each visual design to possess the maximum in purposeful organization related to its formal, psychic and content information.
Value: to think of; to esteem; to prize;...to place a certain estimate of worth on in a scale of values; in sociology, acts, customs, institutions, etc. regarded in particular, especially favorable, way by a people.
Visions: a mental image; especially, an imaginative contemplation; that is supposedly seen by other than normal sight; supernatural, prophetic, or imaginary appearance; something seen in a dream, ecstasy, trance, or the like, an apparition; a phantom. the ability to perceive something not actually visible, as through mental acuteness or keen foresight...force or powers of the imagination.
Visual Logic: A characteristic of visual designs that are said to "work." It is characterized by a sense of cohesiveness, comprehensibility and internal integrity among all its elements. Visual logic differs from instruction in the traditional design principles in that it is a concept that can be applied while the art work is "in progress" without damaging the sense of individual control by the student artist. Visual logic is based upon a belief that each person has an internal teacher which they can learn to trust to guide them in developing their designs.
Visual Thinking: A group of generative skills that when practiced with rigorous discipline, results in the production of novel and original graphic ideas. Visual thinking is a high order critical thinking skill conducted by imagistic means alone.
Visualization: The ability to form and control mental imagery in the mind's eye of the individual. In addition to control, vividness and integration of all the senses are the prime characteristics of effective visualization ability. The two types of visualization are directed and receptive visualization.
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