“It has been demonstrated how art-‐making . . . engendered creative excitement and curiosity in such a way that new narratives and choices subtly emerged (Newell-‐ Walker 2002:53). It is “creative excitement and curiosity” that this research seeks to employ, primarily as a catalyst for learning. Noted as a species advantage (Csikszentmihalyi 1997c), these motivators, when endowed to the most common experiences, generate an interesting life (Csikszentmihalyi 2006), becoming a positive reward for inventive engagement. But more than providing an interesting life, curiosity and creativity carry a circular and symbiotic relationship, each feeding the other.
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Within this circle, arts practice provides room, a space of dis/engaged concentration, where, this thesis argues, knowledge generated through curiosity congeals into other forms, and moves towards understanding. This is the space of incubation (Wallas 1926; see dot L68).
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This is a space within the processes of creativity, the key space in creativity. Of nineteenth Century French mathematician Henri Poincaré’s three stages of creativity (1913), the middle stage of ‘subliminal processing’, or what this paper refers to as sagasuation (see dot D), is this stage. It has also been identified in Wallas’ (1926) influential theory of creativity, enunciated as stage two -‐ incubation, and while not displacing the importance of the other stages; Preparation,
Illumination and Verification, it is this incubating sagasuation that is of primary value in this research, providing space for reflexive understanding. This “wild ranging of the mind” (Hobbs 1650:ChIII) is a space long identified within creativity studies, but seemingly avoided within a controlling productivity-‐focused perception of life and cognition.
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This is a heuristic learning in a phenomenological methodology where n=1. In this case, the one is me, making subjective observations and evaluations of the cognitive processes occurring in this space of art-‐making, a space lying somewhere between creativity and curiosity. This space of n=1 is the place all phenomenological
knowledge resides, welling up into manifestations very different in form, congealing the unknown internal with the external.
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This thesis argues that knowledge -‐internal knowledge already embodied within my mind-‐ and external knowledge, entering during the research project and normal life, will coalesce during the non-‐cognitively focused space provided for in the
methodology, sagasuating into concepts that motivate further research and learning. That non-‐focused space in this case is art-‐making. In utilizing this space, this
research seeks to integrate knowledge, learning, and being, by documenting the emotional, intellectual and theoretical responses evoked during the art-‐making process as a method of co-‐relating interdisciplinary concepts and research.
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This theory is based upon a number of concepts related to the operation of the brain, ranging from neurology, psychology of creativity, and even includes consideration of spiritual practices. It is a concept that resides in a space Claxton (1997, 2007) refers to as “underknowledge”, and where Christoff (2009) and her colleagues theorise the integrated mind operates, processing in a dream-‐like manner connections that may not have been apparent.
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Why use art to educate?
"The burden is shifting away from learning things by rote, by
burdening our memories because the cyber-world is doing this for us, towards now asking the right questions" (Greenfields, 2003).
Pedagogical history is full of theorist who have identified creative arts as highly effective pedagogical tools. The early part of the twentieth century was a particularly rich period, with Maria Montessori’s Casa de Bambini (1907), Rudolf Steiner’s Waldorf School (1919), and Alexander Neill’s Sumerhill School (1921) all advocating and establishing
pedagogical methods drawing upon intrinsic motivation – the “creative excitement and curiosity” (Newell–Walker 2002), characteristics noted by Csikszentmihalyi &
Nakamura (2006) as the key aspect of lifelong creativity and learning -‐ and
contextualisations that manifest in artmaking. Later advocates (see dot L121) argue creativity can “enhance the disposition to think critically" (Lampert 2006:226), and provide pedagogical motivations. The circularity of anticipated skill transference, from other domains to art-‐practice, and from art to other fields is employed in this research as a symbiosis, where skills feed and are fed simultaneously. This symbiotic method builds upon motivations the processes of artmaking generate through the natural curiosity of human creativity.
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The cognitive skills in the arts develop cognitive competencies in "elaborative and creative thinking, fluency, originality, focused perception, and imagination" (Burton, Horowitz & Abeles 2000:252), skills which "demand the ability to take multiple perspectives, layer relationships, and construct meaning in unified forms of representation." (Burton, Horowitz & Abeles 2000:252). (See dot L142-‐156 for an expanded discussion of transference)
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This thesis does not propose to jettison established pedagogical methods such as Vygotsky’s “zone of proximal development” (1978/1997) -‐ learning in progressive stages, from and through the assistance of others. But pedagogical methods, argues Eric Fromm in the introduction to Alexander Neill’s book on the school Summerhill, are appropriated by narrow interests, not to engender the skills to learn, but to “fit men into the economic system . . . [to become] the eternal suckling” (Fromm 1960:para9;
interestingly, Fromm is not included in the Penguin editions of the book. See also Csikszentmihalyi 1997c). Rather, this thesis is grounded in zones of unpredictable development, informal, perhaps even accidental learnings that enrich and enhance proximal development. These “‘Accidental-‐Informal’ types tend to be less disciplined, often with the characteristics of dreaming, and through their exploratory and expansive nature, disturb values and lead towards value shifts" (Loveridge 2008:32). Value shifts are what Fromm argued is needed, and is a prime motivation driving this research.
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There is enough empirical evidence to question if these “informal” learning’s are ever “accidental”, or are cognition residing in the complex realm of ‘under-‐ knowledge’ (Claxton, 1997; see dot L93). Rather, this perception of “accidental” maybe the result from reductionist perspectives failing to account for subtle and complex neurological processes. Gardner’s (1983/1999) comprehensive argument for multiple intelligences opened academia to the acceptance of knowledge beyond that measured in psychometric tests, (though criticism of psychometric tests occurred long before Gardner, see Burt 1962; Hudson 1966). Acceptance of this concept of non-‐accidental knowing lies at the base of this thesis.
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Having accepted the conceptual validity of creativity-‐based cognition and pedagogy, this research is founded in three related concepts/assumptions that manifest in art. Firstly, creativity is inherently convergent. Secondly, the near meditative space of creative play allows space for conceptual convergences; and finally, the metaphoric knowledge transfer methods utilised in art allow for the subtle and complex inter-‐ relationships within those convergences to be expressed. These concepts are explored in the maroon dots.
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"...if the next generation is to face the future with zest and self-
confidence, we must educate them to be original as well as competent." Csikszentmihalyi 1996:12