Assessors

TEACHER 1: So, before we get down to looking through this student’s work what's your gut feeling about their mark… a “B”?

TEACHER 2: Sorry, I don’t think this is appropriate – we haven’t even looked at the backup work yet.

TEACHER 1: Sure, but you must have an idea of where they stand in terms of mark.

TEACHER 2: No, I don’t know that that I do – that’s what this process is supposed to be about surely.

TEACHER 1: It is. I was just trying to get a sense of whether we were in the least bit in agreement about the overall achievement of this student.

TEACHER 2: How can we even know that without having looked at their work?

TEACHER 1: We have though, throughout the year. Okay, I haven’t gone through it in detail yet but we’ve known them for several years now and we’ve got a pretty good sense of their track record surely?

TEACHER 2: So you think that by plucking a mark out of the air that we will be more likely to award the correct mark?

TEACHER 1: Steady on! No, not in the least. I just thought it might be useful if we knew where we were starting from, that’s all.

TEACHER 2: Well I’d prefer if we didn’t start by pigeonholing anybody and I’d also prefer not to be influenced by suggested marks before I’ve even had a chance to go through the work and form my own opinion.

TEACHER 1: That’s totally fine by me. But you seem to be suggesting that starting with a provisional mark is wrong.

TEACHER 2: I think it is wrong.

TEACHER 1: Really, why?

TEACHER 2: Because you’re starting with a bias and the likelihood is that you’ll just end up confirming the bias.

TEACHER 1: I don’t think that’s true at all. I start with a sense of what the student has achieved in the past and how their current performance compares with that. I’m also comparing their work with other work I have seen over the years at this level. As I look through their work I’m obviously looking for evidence to contradict my initial assumptions. If I find it I adjust my evaluation. If I don’t find any, my evaluation stays the same. I don’t see how that’s wrong.

TEACHER 2: And how can you be sure that the mark you start with isn’t subtly influencing your evaluation?

TEACHER 1: I’m not using it to reinforce my opinions. I’m using it as a starting point. I’m quite happy for it to change – radically if necessary. But are you telling me that you never come to the assessment of work with a ballpark idea of a mark?

TEACHER 2: I think it’s important to try to be as objective as possible.

TEACHER 1: Sure, but that’s not really what I asked. Are you saying that you treat each student’s work as though you’ve never seen it before?

TEACHER 2: I try to divorce myself from any preferences I might have formed in the time that I have known the students and yes I try to approach each student’s work as if I’ve never marked it before. Their track record is totally irrelevant as far as I’m concerned. If they have done really well in the past or really badly it has no baring on what they have submitted here. I have to mark it in relation to what is expected at the level.

TEACHER 1: So it doesn’t matter if they are seriously struggling or have improved massively since their last assessment?

TEACHER 2: Of course it matters, and we should mention it in our feedback, but that’s not what we’re marking. Marks aren’t rewards or punishments for getting better or worse. They’re an indication of the attainment of a specific level of learning.

TEACHER 1: Yes yes I know that, but do you think that we should completely ignore their journey?

TEACHER 2: In the marks, yes.

TEACHER 1: Going back to something you said a moment ago - you said you gauge the students’ work in relation to the level that is expected?

TEACHER 2: Of course.

TEACHER 1: Then I don’t really see how that is significantly different from having a ballpark idea of the mark at the beginning. Surely as you look through their work you begin to form an idea of the mark and then you keep looking until the evidence becomes overwhelming one way or the other?

TEACHER 2: No, that’s not how I evaluate things at all. I start with what is expected at the level and as I go through the work I’m looking for how well it achieves the required level. The marks are secondary.

TEACHER 1: But that sounds almost identical to what I do except I’ve already converted the level outcomes to a grade in my mind beforehand, but I‘m still looking for what is expected at the level.

LATER:

TEACHER 1: So what mark would you award this work?

TEACHER 2: I think it’s a “C”.

TEACHER 1: Yeah, I think it’s a “C” too. So, why do you think it’s a C?...

Any resemblance in the preceding script to characters or situations real or imagined is purely coincidental.

Dialogue

Dialogue 1

TUTOR: Are you interested in how people interpret your work?

STUDENT: Yes.

TUTOR: A lot?

STUDENT: Well I don’t go out looking for comments if that’s what you mean.

TUTOR: So you’re happy for people to interpret your work as they like?

STUDENT: Yes - I’m not interested in forcing my ideas on anybody.

TUTOR: What if someone was offended by something you'd made?

STUDENT: I’m not aiming to offend.

TUTOR: Okay, but what if lots of people were offended?

STUDENT: Then I suppose I’d have to listen to their reasons and decide if they were justified.

TUTOR: Who is your work aimed at then?

STUDENT: Anyone that’s interested.

TUTOR: What if nobody was interested – would you continue?

STUDENT: Yes, I think so.

TUTOR: And who would your work be for in that case?

STUDENT: Me, I guess.

TUTOR: So who is your work for then?

STUDENT: Probably me in the first instance and then anybody that’s interested.

Dialogue 2

TUTOR: Are you interested in how people interpret your work?

STUDENT: Not especially – I don’t really make work to find out what other people think, I make it to find out what I think.

TUTOR: And what if someone took offence at your work?

STUDENT: Well that’s up to them. I’m certainly not aiming to offend anyone.

TUTOR: And what if lots of people were offended?

STUDENT: Then I’d be interested to hear their reasons.

TUTOR: And if they had good reasons, would you consider changing your work?

STUDENT: I’m not sure… probably.

TUTOR: So you’d change your work then?

STUDENT: Probably.

TUTOR: So you are interested in how people interpret your work?

STUDENT: No. What other people think may influence me but, like I said, I make work to explore what I think, not what other people think.

Dialogue 3

TUTOR: Are you interested in how people interpret your work?

STUDENT: To a degree, yes. But I don't actively seek it.

TUTOR: Why not?

STUDENT: I don't think it's really a priority for me.

TUTOR: So what is your priority?

STUDENT: Perhaps it sounds self-centred to say so but I think I'm more interested in exploring my own thoughts rather than seeking other people's.

TUTOR: So you’re happy for people to interpret your work as they like?

STUDENT: Pretty well, yes.

TUTOR: But what if they were offended?

STUDENT: I’m not interested in offending anybody.

TUTOR: But what if it turned out that lots of people were offended?

STUDENT: Then I’d be interested to hear their reasons.

TUTOR: And if they had good reasons, would you consider changing your work?

STUDENT: Probably. I guess if their reasons were good ones then my own interpretation would change too and I’d want my work to reflect that change.

TUTOR: So you’d change your work then?

STUDENT: Probably. It wouldn’t make sense to me to show work that reflected ideas that I no longer stand by.

Art Doesn’t Progress, it Varies

Not only do the results of scientific experiments confirm discoveries but the knowledge gained is accumulative such that further theories may be formulated and new experiments devised for testing them. Science makes progress in a way that no other field of human endeavour can equal, and this sets a challenge for art since the criteria used to evaluate art are predicated upon many of the very same assumptions as are applied to science, one of the most pervasive and misdirected being the idea that artists and the work they produce should improve. Art, according to this logic of achievement, must make progress.

One of the major contributors to this mindset would seem to be the fact that art has adopted and inherited a significant number of the core terms used to describe and evaluate science. Art involves research, development, exploration, experiment, discovery, inquiry, insight, knowledge and so forth and this sets up an expectation that art can, or indeed should, deliver results on the same basis or according to the same principles.

A few days ago James Atherton linked to a wonderfully iconoclastic and enlightening paper by the philosopher Eric Dietrich, entitled "There is no Progress in Philosophy". Dietrich makes an extremely persuasive case that philosophy has made no progress at all since the days of Aristotle:

“Except for a patina of twenty-first century modernity, in the form of logic and language, philosophy is exactly the same now as it ever was; it has made no progress whatsoever. We philosophers wrestle with the exact same problems the Pre-Socratics wrestled with.”

Applying the same arguments to art we find that the case is almost identical: art makes no progress whatsoever. Atherton goes on to speculate whether we might also question the progress of literature and the humanities in general and he also, quite rightly, reminds us that the humanities are already threatened in the academy. How could this be otherwise when compared with the formidable and measurable achievements of STEM subjects?

If a whole raft of disciplines have been found to lack some seemingly essential ingredient, perhaps rather than doubting the validity or contribution of these subjects we should instead examine both the validity and applicability of this required essence as applied to them. We might also do well to more accurately determine what goods we believe the humanities actually bestow upon the world and to ensure that we confidently champion these when faced with demands for such things as “new knowledge” and “progress”. Atherton makes a brief but brilliant connection here by introducing Michael Oakeshott's "The Voice of Poetry in the Conversation of Mankind" (1962). The same was quoted –understandably - by the late Richard Rorty in his Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature (where I first encountered it as a student) and is a fabulous piece of nuanced thinking that deserves to be read in full. Here’s a lengthy extract:

“In a conversation the participants are not engaged in an inquiry or a debate; there is no 'truth' to be discovered, no proposition to be proved, no conclusion sought. ... Of course, a conversation may have passages of argument and a speaker is not forbidden to be demonstrative; but reasoning is neither sovereign nor alone, and the conversation itself does not compose an argument. . . . In conversation, 'facts' appear only to be resolved once more into the possibilities from which they were made; 'certainties' are shown to be combustible, not by being brought in contact with other 'certainties' or with doubts, but by being kindled by the presence of ideas of another order; approximations are revealed between notions normally remote from one another. ... Nobody asks where they have come from or on what authority they are present; nobody cares what will become of them when they have played their part. There is no symposiarch or arbiter, not even a doorkeeper to examine credentials. Every entrant is taken at its face-value and everything is permitted which can get itself accepted into the flow of speculation. And voices which speak in conversation do not compose a hierarchy. Conversation is not an enterprise designed to yield an extrinsic profit, a contest where a winner gets a prize, not is it an activity of exegesis; it is an unrehearsed intellectual adventure. … It is the ability to participate in this conversation, and not the ability to reason cogently, to make discoveries about the world, or to contrive a better world, which distinguishes the human being from the animal and the civilized man from the barbarian.” [my emphasis]

Is it not enough that art, the humanities and culture in general should contribute to - constitute even - this very discourse? For Richard Rorty this constant comparison and contestation of perspectives leads to a kind of discursive distillation whereby the most appropriate framework for the current moment emerges. Recently Hugo Mercier of the University of Pennsylvania and Dan Sperber of the Jean Nicod Institute in Paris have advance a very similar conclusion with their “argumentative theory” of reason:

“Reasoning is made for arguing. Because of this people have a strong confirmation bias that plagues lone reasoners. But when people argue, the biases of the arguers can balance each other out and lead reasoning to felicitous outcomes. Let’s reason together!”

Culture is a framework or lens through which we view the world. It informs our thinking and gives complexion to our ideas and expressions. Without exposure to other cultures though, it becomes practically impossible to recognise, let alone fully appreciate, our own perspective upon the world for the contingent and partial thing that it is. Our desire then should not be to progress to a single ‘perfect’ homogenised global culture but rather to share and experience the profound and subtle interplay of diverse perspectives, tastes and interpretations. This is why a diversity of cultures is so valuable to society, since monoculture discourages discourse and reinforces monotony and dogma. A good analogy here might be to think of cuisine. With all things culinary, we enjoy - and therefore crave - variety as much as perfection itself. If perfection were the only measure we sought in food then we’d be perfectly happy eating the same perfectly balanced meal ad infinitum. But where aesthetic matters are concerned variety is not just the spice of life, as the cliché goes, but its very substance.

New Knowledge

Increasingly in academia there arises an emphasis upon “new knowledge” and in tandem with this comes a growing pressure upon senior art students and art teachers to unearth and explain how their work and research provides a contribution to knowledge. Knowledge, it is felt, is the major commodity of academia, an exalted substance through which intellectual, social, cultural and economic progress is made and in and through which learning is inscribed and enhanced. By focussing specifically upon new knowledge we are able to prioritise those innovations and discoveries at the forefront of human intelligence and ensure that unnecessary repetition and duplication are avoided thereby saving valuable resources and maximising efficiency.

In order to measure up to this formidable objective, substantial amounts of intellectual energy have been and are being expended to establish exactly how and to what extent art might embody or generate knowledge and in the process a litany of philosophers and philosophical theories are being mobilised to underpin the claim that art is indeed a significant, though tricky, producer of new knowledge.

Impressed as I am by the arguments, I can’t help wondering that if it takes such convoluted and complex argumentation to stake this claim then there must surely be something wrong. Aren’t we simply looking in the wrong place? Whilst knowledge might result from artistic endeavour it’s hardly a principle objective.

It seems to me that art is the soil upon which ideas and knowledge are cultivated. This soil is not directly responsible for any knowledge generated but rather it provides the conditions by which knowledge might emerge and flourish. ‘Good’ artworks are those that sustain extended discourse, that keep the conversation going - that continually generate new questions, thoughts and ideas and occasionally new artworks. In this sense art is like an interlocutor who stimulates rich discussion. Knowledge, when it occurs, is not a product of any singular individual or event but is a dynamic outcome of an interaction with already existing and emergent ideas.

We can applaud the perspicacity and rapport of a good interlocutor but I think we’d be perfectly justified in doubting any claim they might make to having singularly generated new knowledge in any significantly involved conversation with us. This might explain why it’s so difficult to ascribe knowledge directly to those artefacts we call artworks. It might also reassure us that the soil we create as artists need not be barren due to lack of care, skill or ingenuity on our part but may simply be waiting for exposure to light, water or the right seed to bring its potential to life.

The Power and the Beauty

Folded card by Laurie and Thomas A Clark, 2010, 7,4 x 5,3 cm

Yesterday Peter Foolen posted the above image on Facebook. I should say straightaway that I admire Tom and Laurie Clark’s work a great deal, not least because it's both intellectually engaging as well as beautiful. However, this particular work urged me to reconsider my attitude towards beauty and in the process to re-read Susan Sontag’s essay “An argument about beauty”:

“What is beautiful reminds us of nature as such–of what lies beyond the human and the made–and thereby stimulates and deepens our sense of the sheer spread and fullness of reality, inanimate as well as pulsing, that surrounds us all. […] Imagine saying, ‘That sunset is interesting.’”

As it turns out, Sontag’s sentiments agree very closely with the Clark’s. In both cases we are presented with formidable arguments which are not in the least easy to contest, indeed they are so articulately and persuasively rendered that it’s extremely tempting simply to chime in and agree (as I did on Facebook). However, at the risk of casting myself as a "new Puritan", I’d like to consider these arguments a little more closely – not from a position of “suspicion” (mistrust) but of skepticism (doubt).

In both cases we’re presented with well articulated, highly crafted and well informed arguments. They could easily be, and probably wish to be, described as beautiful. And here perhaps is the first indication that something is amiss. Not only are these arguments beautifully rendered, they are also authoritative: they announce themselves as skillfully considered powerful ideas despite, in one case, the very unassuming form of a folded card. But this power is also, to some extent, based upon the way these arguments force anyone who opposes them to adopt the mantle of either “Puritanism” or in the case of Sontag: “ludicrousness”. Arguments from positions of certainty often do this: they cast opposing views as faulty and seek to denigrate those who hold them. Perhaps this is the crucial difference between a discussion and an argument: not so much the passions involved but the way each party seeks to characterize the other.

One thing which is only touched upon in Sontag’s essay, but which is very prominently suggested in the Clark’s card is the contrast between culture and nature: between words and feelings, images and flowers, representation and reality. Sontag writes:

“The beauty of art is better, ‘higher,’ according to Hegel, than the beauty of nature because it is made by human beings and is the work of the spirit. But the discerning of beauty in nature is also the result of traditions of consciousness, and of culture–in Hegel’s language, of spirit.”

Whilst we might take pleasure in the sheer beauty of a sunset – and sincerely describe it as such - when it comes to the products of culture, we are dealing with something else entirely. Humans are makers of meaning, whereas, as Sontag reminds us in another essay, nature just is:

“The truth is always something that is told, not something that is known. If there were no speaking or writing, there would be no truth about anything. There would only be what is.”

If it’s beauty alone that we seek then why the need for culture at all? However, if we are to ‘read’ culture - or nature for that matter - thereby perceiving them through the lens of culture, then it would seem to make sense not to be too passive in the assumptions and interpretations we make of what is presented to us. Beauty, flow, grace, unity, balance etc are all pleasurable experiences, but you don’t have to be ‘suspicious’ to realise that such things can be used – whether unintentionally or by design - to conceal, to persuade, to distract or to manipulate. When we’re presented with neat packages of beautifully articulated or rendered information there’s a tendency to accept the flow, to take pleasure in the grace, to appreciate the unity and to enjoy the balance. Perhaps a little healthy skepticism, far from diluting our experience, would help to temper such unquestioning tendencies.

A suspicious puritan is probably the last person you’d want to meet. A skeptical puritan, on the other hand, at least has the vague prospect of recognising the extent to which they've been deluded.

"Balancing Craft with Thought"

The Loggia, Glasgow School of Art, Jim Hamlyn, 2010

I’ve just started reading ART SCHOOL (propositions for the 21^st Century), a collection of essays edited by Steven Henry Madoff. There’s a rousing comment by Mark Dion on the back cover which ends:

“For those who dare to think and act in a utopian mode, this book is an invaluable instruction manual, manifesto, and blueprint. For entrenched entropic faculty and bureaucratic administrative hacks this book is a brick through their window.”

The first essay, by artist Ernesto Pujol, includes some excellent analysis of the current state of art education in the US, with clear echoes of the UK:

“Many schools are still struggling with artists who found a niche on their faculties during the 1970s and 80s and then stopped growing – an unexpected perversion of tenure, which was meant to secure and promote radical thinking.

As an alternative perspective the essay raises several provocative and much-needed observations and criticisms which would certainly benefit from wider distribution and discussion although, at times, Pujol’s suggestions are perhaps less persuasive than one might wish:

“Students should have to develop fully thought-out written proposals before, during, and after painting and sculpting. I don’t mean that they should do this simply to defend an image or object during individual and group critiques, as students have always done, but to learn how to justify that creation intellectually, beyond the subjective, in our visually dense and materially cluttered world. If they don’t want to do this, they have no business being professional contemporary artists.”

Whilst I’m somewhat sympathetic to this idea, I do think that it’s a little over prescriptive in that it clearly privileges the rational over the intuitive (a criticism recently leveled at me on this blog). However, if you visit Pujol’s own website he says:

“Due to the evolving nature of my art practice, which inhabits an intuitive not-knowing flow, the current working categories are only organizational tools, because the gestures deepen, and thus, interconnect over time.”

So, in the context of his own work, Pujol actually gives a clear acknowledgement to what we might call a ‘pre-critical’ stage in the working process: a not-knowing which, interestingly, is almost identical to Anish Kapoor in my previous post “The Threshold of Meaning”.

Earlier in the essay Pujol states:

“Students should receive training in the basic tools of conceptualism, such as scholarly research and literary writing, as applied to traditional painting, sculpture, printmaking, glass, ceramics, and photographic processes, making muscled and poetic gestures more conscious and articulate and balancing craft with thought, while also gazing selectively at other disciplines.”

Establishing exactly what the correct balance between craft and thought should be, is certainly an important issue. But I would question whether this necessarily demands such an explicit emphasis on scholarly research and literary writing in preference to wider forms of discourse – forms in particular which aren’t so readily co-opted by institutional conventions and control and which therefore encourage - or at least allow - students to construct, adapt, invent and negotiate their own more speculative discursive processes and domains.

So whilst Pujol’s description of the context of US art education is well informed and insightful, his understanding of the complexities, drives and potentials of art students seems a good deal more vague.

Having only read six of the essays in this book so far, I’m beginning to notice a common trend which combines clear insight into the machinations of art education with a comparatively narrow understanding of the varied backgrounds and perspectives of students and learning in general. In other words, interesting as these essays are - without a more robust conception and theorization of WHY people come to art school and especially HOW they learn and develop, what currency can these Propositions for the 21st Century really hope to have?

Is Reflection a Class Issue?

I've recently been involved in an online discussion on James Atherton's “Recent Reflection” blog (all relevant links below). The exchange began as a response to a video of Sir Ken Robinson (talking rather hyperbolically about the need for a “revolution” in education) posted on TED.com. The responses very quickly polarised between two differing philosophical viewpoints which might be roughly characterised as a contrast between British pragmatic empiricism and the American Dream. As the debate drifted ever closer to the issue of class, I was reminded of the famous comedy sketch by the two Ronnies and John Cleese which plays upon representations of British class divisions. I looked the sketch up on YouTube and as I watched it I was struck by something said by the working class character, played by Ronnie Corbett: “… though I'm poor, I'm industrious honest and trustworthy. Had I the inclination, I could look down on them, but I don't.”

Since we can't really expect a comedy sketch to explain itself we need to look elsewhere to be able to tease out what's going on here. The remark demands a little, dare I say, reflection.

The first part of the statement is a clear case of what we could call a self-representation; a self-image which describes the qualities which this character values in himself and feels others might value in him also. Interestingly, as a description, it's in marked contrast to those given by the other two characters. He describes himself through qualities which anybody would be proud to say about themselves; he describes himself in ways which have very little to do with his social status as such and he describes himself in ways which actually say only two distinct things: he works hard and he's worthy of other peoples' trust. This begs a question about how he has arrived at these representations of himself? Is this self-image something which is self generated or is it something which has been adopted? Whilst the other two characters describe things about themselves which other people might find distasteful or problematic in some way (and are certainly social constructions too), this character only describes things about himself that the other two would wish to be the case. His self-image conforms exactly to what the other two would have him be. He's a mirror of their idea of the underclass and he is a mirror which shows not the slightest threat nor subversive inclination - even the inclination to look down on them ie: to adopt their repugnant supercilious attitude.

Class society in the UK has changed a great deal since 1966 when this comedy sketch was first broadcast. Thatcher's government presided over an unprecedented fragmentation of the working class, but despite claims of the demise of class society in the UK, the underclass is still a very tangible reality.

I'm currently reading (more like skimming through really) Pierre Bourdieu's book “Distinction” in which he uses the term “habitus” to describe how different social classes distinguish and express their values through their differing tastes. It occurs to me that the very act of critical reflection itself is often seen as being a bourgeois pretension; an elitist nonsense like so many other abstract intellectual pursuits - as Isaiah Berlin is reputed to have said: the British have never had an Intelligentsia.

We often think of critical reflection as freely available, unlimited, and unencumbered, since it can be carried out in the relative comfort one's own mind with no further requirements than a lack of physical discomfort or distraction. But, looked at from this new perspective, it becomes clear that critical reflection is something which is frequently avoided or devalued amongst the very people who, arguably, could benefit from it most. Anti intellectualism may not be exclusive to any particular social class but it undoubtedly benefits some social strata much more than others. It suits them very well because it disempowers the people who might rise against them in a legitimate struggle for emancipation.

As I said in my comments on the Recent Reflection blog discussion:

"People who have the privilege of better education, more money and more time are in the position of being able to “reflect” and make choices about their future. Reflection doesn't come for free - it has to be cultivated and given space to develop. Many people on the bottom rung of society often don't even have the time to be able to reflect and make clear choices about WHAT they'd like to do, let alone HOW, and they very often don't have the inclination to reflect because this has never been cultivated in them or valued by their social habitus."

I wrote the above as a response to the following statement:

"It is absolutely a societal responsibility to the extent possible to create genuine opportunities for everyone."

Opportunities are practically meaningless without the means to take advantage of them. A lottery ticket is an opportunity. We could argue over whether it's a "genuine" one or not, but the fact remains that providing access to opportunities is simply not enough. The "genuine" things that people really need are help, support and encouragement to participate in society at all levels, including the intellectual. If my speculations about reflection are in any way correct, then what we need far more than opportunities is a transformation in the way that people from all social strata view and apply critical, reflective and intellectual thought. Many would argue that this starts with education and yes, this is certainly a major contributor but it also starts much deeper than this, in the very attitudes that society fosters and perpetuates in all its citizens and this is a significantly bigger challenge.

References:

Context of the original discussion here (beware, it's long!).

Video of Sir Ken Robinson on TED.com here

Habitus in Sociology here

Can Creativity Be Taught?

In a far-flung corner of the internet I recently became caught up in a blog debate which started as a discussion about whether it’s possible to teach creativity. You can find the full (and rather lengthy) discussion at the following web address:

http://bitskis.com/?p=279

My interlocutor (Dyske Suematsu) has another site (dyske.com) with many essays on a range of subjects including philosophy, art and politics. This one in particular provoked me:

http://dyske.com/?view_id=917

Perhaps I’m simply being over sensitive – you’ll have to make up your own mind.