Art Production in Discipline-Based Art Education

Abstract

Throughout history the images of art have provided the record and expression of civilization. We turn to the arts when we wish to convey our most profound observations and values. Through the arts we imbue thought with feeling, plumb the mysteries of existence, record our tragedies and triumphs, and celebrate the joy of living. Today an education in the arts-particularly the visual arts-assumes a new importance as we realize that mass communication has developed a language increasingly characterized, if not dominated, by images. With powerful new computers driving the telecommunications media, a potential for enhancing communication further through visual images is developing exponentially. Verbal language, the dominant communication form for centuries, is being forcefully reintroduced to its roots in pictorial and symbolic visual form-with consequences that have profound implications for human thought and notions of consciousness based on language models. Our thinking is increasingly being molded by the direct perception of images. Not only has photojournalism become a standard for mass communication, but the omnipresent television and film media heavily overlay our direct experience of events and places. An enormous flow of raw, visual information is being presented daily to a worldwide audience. Whether or not this mass communication flood will carry to ruin the hallowed traditions of language or instead enrich them with new linguisticvisual amalgams is a matter of serious concern for all educators, especially those in the visual arts. To be visually illiterate-that is, not able to appre-