Thursday, February 27, 2014

Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers, or: in my perfect world, what should art be like?



This week, a new open online course started at Coursera: "Live!: A History of Art for Artists, Animators and Gamers". I had signed up for it, and now watched the first lectures, and am excited about it. Each course at Coursera is different, some have fascinating themes but are rather technical in the lectures. Just recently, there was one called "Beauty, Form & Function: An Exploration of Symmetry", which turned out to be rather mathematical. But the art course feels like the right course at the right time, escpecially with the series of museums i visited.

And it got me pondering - for the first week, the course invites participants to do a starting assignment called "My World and the Art World" and share it in the course forum. The Instruction is: ""Make or describe something that stands for what you think art really should be in your perfect world - Then, make or describe something that stands for what you think people in the world think art should be. If your version of what art should be like and what the world thinks art should be like are the same, great! If they are different, then think about those differences a bit and write down your thoughts."

So interesting. I guess the photo above is my simplified and a bit stereotypical answer to the second part, how I think people in the world think art should be: something to put on a wall, or to put in a museum.

While I think, in a perfect world, art should be more like this piece of art: Something that offers a different way to look at our world.



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note:
both images are from the square art museum, the one i visited earlier this month. what you can't see in the first image is a brave detail: in the collection of panels, the upper two rows are works of art with moveable elements, and you aren't supposed to touch them. but the two panels in the lower row are "collective" works, and visitors are invited to move the elements.
here's a longer blog post about the museum visit: old stones & modern shapes, or: square afternoon.

1 comment:

Carol Peters said...

My grandson & I are enjoying this course together.