How can I help new fine art graduates navigate and construct their own career map of a successful career?
ABC Classic (2018). Music in Time: Isaac Newton. [online] ABC Classic. Available at: https://www.abc.net.au/classic/programs/music-in-time/music-in-time/10201654 [Accessed 8 Aug. 2021].
Madcap Logic / Creativity Express (2013). Creativity Express: Newton’s Discovery. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3ButdiKfJLU [Accessed 8 Aug. 2021].
Google Arts & Culture (2009). The Sound of Colours – Google Arts & Culture. [online] Google Arts & Culture. Available at: https://artsandculture.google.com/story/the-sound-of-colours/0ALymHuhPl1jLg [Accessed 3 Aug. 2021].
Google Arts & Culture (2021a). How to Play a Kandinsky: behind the Scenes. [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-h6wQ2rP4M&t=157s [Accessed 18 Nov. 2021].
Google Arts & Culture (2021b). Play a Kandinsky. [online] Google Arts & Culture. Available at: https://artsandculture.google.com/experiment/sgF5ivv105ukhA [Accessed 3 Aug. 2021].
Light blue – Flutes
Dark blue – Cello
Deeper blue – Double bass
Deep, Solemn blue – A deep organ
Vermilion – Tuba
Yellow – Trumpet
Red – Violin
After intervention 3, I redesign my research question:
How can I increase the audience’s participation and interaction when visiting the exhibition so that the audience can have more understanding and connection with the artwork?
I no longer regard buying and selling as my sole purpose, but turn to the multi-experience and better understanding when they visit the exhibition in the gallery.
Thinking from this perspective, inviting the audience to create music and sounds during the visit is not very easy to achieve. So I reviewed Kandinsky’s theory of music and colour again.
I plan to test whether the audiences can better understand the artwork by adding music corresponding to the colour of the artwork?
There are 2 reasons： 1. In Intervention 3, I found that the music and the painting are connected to some extent through the instruments chosen by the audience. (wood instrument)
2. Not everyone has synesthesia, but the conclusion shows that music and pictures are connected to a certain degree. So, can Kandinsky’s theory apply to more people?
Now, I need to solve three problems:
1. What instrument’s sound should I use? 2. What tone should I use? (C、D、E、F、G、A、B) 3. Which octave sound should I use?
TED-Ed (2014). Ideasthesia: How do ideas feel? – Danko Nikolić. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GIF2tssedLI [Accessed 30 Jul. 2020].
TED-Ed (2013). What color is Tuesday? Exploring synesthesia – Richard E. Cytowic. YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rkRbebvoYqI [Accessed 30 Jul. 2021].
Good Mythical Morning (2019). Can You Hear Colors? (TEST). YouTube. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xj7vukZT9sI [Accessed 29 Jul. 2021].
Good Mythical Morning (2020). Can You Taste Colors? (Test). [online] www.youtube.com. Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Ji84tLYeTQ [Accessed 29 Jul. 2021].
Urbanowicz, N. (2013). Study Reveals That Color Affects Taste Perception. [online] Perfumer & Flavorist. Available at: https://www.perfumerflavorist.com/flavor/research/Study-Reveals-Color-Affects-Taste-Perception–200479401.html [Accessed 28 Jul. 2021].
Synesthesia only occurs in some people, although it may be more common than previously thought. But ideasthesia itself is a fundamental part of our lives.
Virtually all of us recognize the color red as warm and blue as cold. Many would agree that bright colors, italic letters and thin lines are high-pitched, while earth tones are low-pitched.
Color affects taste perception:
D.D. Williamson, which supplies colors for the food and beverage industry, recently conducted an informal taste test with two dozen students. It revealed that color affects taste perception.
According to the study, the students, aged 16 to 18, were presented with carbonated drinks in three different hues (clear, brown and pink) and asked to describe how each tasted. They were not told that all three beverage samples were actually the same flavor, lemon-lime, in three different colors. The study said the results demonstrated yet again that color affects taste perception and an overwhelming majority responded (inaccurately) that the beverages had different flavors.
For the results of the study, the clear, colorless soft drink was accurately described as having a lemon-lime or citrus flavor by 81% of the teenage taste testers. A small segment said it was flavorless. The brown, caramel-colored soft drink was described as either “sweet” or “fruity” by one-third (34%) of the students. Cola was the next flavor identified, named by 15%. Nearly half did not offer a specific description on the flavor. The pink, beet-colored soft drink was described as “fruity”, “berry” or “sweet” by more the one-third (38%). Other responses included “cola”, “ginger-ale”, and/or flavorless. Of the three beverages tasted, the teens named pink as their favorite. Multiple students indicated that the pink beverage was the most flavorful and visually appealing.
A very small segment of the students accurately responded that all three beverages tasted exactly the same, despite having different colors, the study also revealed.
Tate (2015). IK Prize 2015: Tate Sensorium. [online] Tate. Available at: https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/ik-prize-2015-tate-sensorium [Accessed 24 Jul. 2021].
Sillito, D. (2015). Taste the art at Tate Sensorium. BBC News. [online] 25 Aug. Available at: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-34049150 [Accessed 25 Jul. 2021].
Stimulate your sense of taste, touch, smell and hearing in this immersive art experience at Tate Britain.
https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-britain/display/ik-prize-2015-tate-sensorium
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/av/entertainment-arts-34049150
I think this is a good example of exploring the use of multi-sensory experience in art. They have also used some modern technology to make devices that utilize sensory perception. For some interactions, such as the black ball painting, the audience can feel a ball shape by putting their hands in the installation. This installation is very creative, but I still can’t understand the painting better through this device.
Huber, C. (2021). Expanded Interiors at Herculaneum and Pompeii. [Contemporary Art Installations].
I went to this exhibition this month, and I think it’s a good example of how artists communicate their work in an art exhibition.
This art exhibition is quite abstract for me. I don’t understand the meaning of this huge painting but feeling cool.
When I walked through the corridor to another exhibition hall, I saw a 3D dynamic image projected on the wall, and there was a gamepad next to it that could be manipulated.
When I walked through the corridor to another exhibition hall, I saw a 3D dynamic image projected on the wall, and there was a gamepad next to it that could be manipulated. After I picked up the handle and manipulated it for a few minutes, I instantly understood that this work was originally placed in an archaeological site.
This is what it looked like when it was exhibited at the archaeological sites, and it is also the complete look of this work.
Let’s not say whether I, as a viewer, like this work, whether I feel sympathy. At the very least, through 3D dynamic images, I can understand what the author wants to express.
This diary is mainly to sort out the logic behind my project, and to reconfirm the purpose of the project. The original goal of my project is to solve the problematic employment of art students. Especially for those art students who want to support themselves by selling their artworks.
I thought the first reason that the audience won’t buy art paintings is that they don’t have resonance. So my intervention 2 and 3 is to combine other senses to help audiences to understand the meaning behind artworks and have more resonance.
However, for the audience, there is no direct connection between resonating and buying behaviour. I need to find other resonances that can resonate with the purchase behaviour.
I reanalyze the reason behind this question from different aspects (audiences, artists, exhibition, social, education and application), and I am trying to design my next intervention from a different angle.
For example, I can look for a special group as my potential customers, and try to establish the demand for buying art among them. This idea made me think about those people who need art therapy.
Or I can use an exhibition perspective as an entry point. For instance, the popularity of commercial exhibitions created for social media has led to more and more behaviours using exhibitions as background boards for photographing. People don’t want to immerse themselves in and admire a painting, let alone resonate and generate buying behaviour.
But I found that changing from another angle would deviate from my original purpose.
Maybe the problem is that the question I asked is not good enough. ‘How can I strengthen the connection between the audience and the artworks so that the audience will have the desire to buy? ’
Through my interventions 2 and 3, I verified that there is no direct connection between connection and purchase behaviour. Buying behaviour is a very complex behaviour, involving many complex factors, and resonance is only one of them.
In addition, it is too commercial to make buying behaviour the goal of my research. If art is just for buying and selling, this is not what I want.
So, based on the intervention I did before and some thoughts, I decided to optimize my question into: How can I increase the audience’s participation and interaction when visiting the exhibition so that the audience can have more understanding and connection with the artwork?
Of course, this project is not aimed at all art students. First of all, I am aimed at art students who are willing to add other factors to their works, so that the relationship between me and these creators is a cooperative relationship, rather than relying on my own understanding to modify their works. Secondly, as an art student and illustrator myself, I am willing to use my own work to do such experiments.
I communicated with an expert. She graduated with a master’s degree in music therapy from the State University of New York and is now engaged in music education.
I showed her this picture and asked whether these instruments have anything in common from a musical and psychological ?
She said except Cymbals, others have something in common.
‘In the classical period, the oboe, contrabass and cello were all wooden instruments. The oboe was later improved into metal. Wooden musical instruments have a long history and generally feel simple and close to nature.’she said.
To a certain extent, this is consistent with what this painting wants to express.
2. There may be no direct connection between buying behavior and resonance
From intervention 2 to intervention 3, all participants said they have stronger resonance with the art work.However, when I ask whether they will buy the art work, no one said yes.
3. For my next intervention, I need think about other ways to increase the resonance of the audience, and thus generate buying behavior.
In the process of studying the relationship between artworks and audiences, I am also looking for special audience groups.
Then I thought about art therapy.
If I can use art therapy to help people in need of psychotherapy get good psychological counselling, and at the same time let artworks be sold, wouldn’t it be a win-win thing?
Specific Groups:
This is a group with high similarities. For example, the reasons for their depression are very similar. Most of them are caused by the panic when they became mothers at the first time, the inability to adapt to their own identity conversion, the changes of their bodies and so on.
Some secondary research about Art Therapy:
Online Art Therapy Course:
Potential experts and stakeholders:
MA Art psychotherapy course – Goldsmiths University of London
https://www.gold.ac.uk/pg/ma-art-psychotherapy/
MA Creative Arts and Mental Health – Queen Mary University of London
MA Art Therapy – University of Hertfordshire
https://www.postgraduatesearch.com/university-of-hertfordshire/52980868/postgraduate-course.htm
MA Art Therapy – University of Derby
https://www.derby.ac.uk/postgraduate/therapeutic-practice-courses/art-therapy-ma/
MA Art Therapy – University of Queensland
https://future-students.uq.edu.au/study/programs/master-mental-health-5151/art-therapy-artthx5151
Q1: Please describe the degree to which you feel connected to this painting?
Q2: Please use this website to create sounds for this painting. http://www.moodil.com
Q3: Please describe the degree again.
Q4: Now, please use this website to choose an instrument’s sound that comes to your mind when you see this painting.
Q5: Please write down a song/melody that comes to your mind.
1. The swan (instrumental song by Camille saint-saens)
2. Hair Flowin, Snow Falling – Jay Chou
3. Daytime nighttime – Tristesse Contemporaine
4. Calabash Brothers – Chinese nursery rhymes
Q6: Please write down a smell that comes to your mind.
1. Smell of rain/drizzles
2. Smell of grass
3. Smell of museum, cold
4. Dry ice smell
Q7: Please describe the degree again.
Q8: Will you buy this painting
All of the answers are ‘NO’.
Comparison three results:
Inviting the audience to create sound by themselves is a good way to strengthen the connection and resonance. But that doesn’t inspire them to buy art, which is the failure point of this intervention. And this failure made me realize that there is no direct relationship between resonance and purchase behaviour.