European Journal of Philosophy in Arts Education

Editorial

Ketil Thorgersen — 2024-03-22

It is winter and Christmas and new year is approaching where I live in Sweden. For me personally, the last months have been blessed as I have had the opportunity to be on parental leave for my little baby boy. The only work related task I have done since June is to try to keep up with editing EJPAE and participate in a book translation project. Every hour, minute, and second of the rest of the time has been filled with becoming in synergy with a small person growing into the world. Babies develop so quickly that the tasks of education becomes very prominent: To encourage, to facilitate, to see and recognize, to correct to learn ourselves etc. It also becomes very prominent how much fun music can be – and how reading and acting can create spaces for understanding and growth. As a teacher educator in music and the arts, and editor of a journal of philosophy of education and the arts, this direct application of the ideas, ideals and thoughts that drive our fields is not always this close. It is therefore with a newly recognized gratefulness I welcome all you readers to this issue that contain interesting and important insights into learning and the arts.

This issue of EJPAE contain more articles than any previous issue. I interpret this as a sign that EJPAE is getting more known and also gaining respect among scholars in the relevant fields. This time we can present authors from Scotland, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden, representing the fields visual art, art history, language, dance and music.

The first article in this 10th issue of EJPAE provides interesting tools for thinking about arts education in a broad sense. Miranda Anderson from the University of Edinburgh dives into a cognitive framework called 4E in the article 4E Cognition and the Mind-Expanding Arts. Anderson argues that there are several benefits for arts education to apply a 4E framework on the teaching. 4E refers to embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended cognition and is based on recent cognitive and brain research. She combines this framework with phenomenological philosophy and a discussion of how imagination is of fundamental value to both the arts and for the human as a species. The argument centres around a particular exhibition that exemplifies how imagination and the arts are vital to understanding and interacting with the world.

The second article comes from the Netherlands and is unusually close to empirical education for EJPAE. Starting from an idea of commoning in an action research project situated in a higher education visual arts programme, Frederiek Bennema from Hanze University of Applied Sciences constructs an argument for Artistic Educational Commoning (AEC). The idea is to evolve educational activities as creative co-constuctive learning arenas rather than a knowledge-factory. Bennema argues that such an approach to education can be beneficial in creating a higher degree of democratic and non-hieararchical spaces for learning.

The third article is by Cecilia Ferm Almqvist and Linn Hentschel from Sweden, Södertörn University and Umeå University. The article Lived time in “relay-method” based arts education – sharing the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child as an example, employs a phenomenological theoretical framework to discuss how perception of time is vital in arts education. The themes they discuss are: lived time in meaningful arts education, lived time as diminishing or disappearing in aesthetic pedagogy, lived time and artworks in aesthetic pedagogy, and lived time as didactic frame in aesthetic pedagogy.

Synnøve Myklestad from Norway and Inland Norway University of Applied Sciences is the author of the fourth article in this issue. Her article The Pedagogue and the Poetic - Kristeva and the Quest for Singularity in Education presents an interesting argument that the concepts semiotization and transubstantiation can be utilized to counter neo-liveral tendencies of effectivisation. In line with what several other articles in this issue argues, Myklestad warns against a view of education as mere fulfilment of standards. Instead, education should encourage exploring and experiences.

From Sweden, Marie-Helene Zimmerman Nilsson and Jo Smedley present the last article in this issue. The article discusses how musical knowledge and skills can be acquired and how they can have a positive impact on various areas of life. It also examines the relationship between musical instrumental learning and reflective practice, and the role of self-regulation in music learning. The text suggests that musical skills may influence the way that learners engage with and manage information, and that this experience may enhance their broader knowledge management skills. It also suggests that there is a lack of research on the possible links between musical knowledge and broader information management skills, and calls for further investigation in this area.

The five articles are held together by a desire to connect musical learning to larger issues such as society, personal development etc. All articles also strives at being critical towards narrow-minded views of arts education. I hope the articles will give you as much pleasure as they gave me. ENJOY!

Ketil Thorgersen

Editor-in-Chief Stockholm December 14^th 2022

4E Cognition and the Mind-Expanding Arts

Miranda Anderson — 2024-03-22

Examining imagination, 4E cognition and the arts together expands our understanding of them all. 4E cognition is a framework that comprises the theories separately known as embodied, enactive, embedded, and extended cognition. This paper draws on research in cognitive science (including 4E and recent predictive processing approaches), ideas in phenomenology, and artworks from The Extended Mind exhibition (2019–20). The artworks offer diverse reflections on 4E cognition, as well as revealing personal, political and ethical benefits and issues predicated on a 4E cognition perspective. This approach further provides a way of defending the epistemic value of the imagination and of unpacking the four key puzzles associated with its relationship with the arts regarding its production of emotional response, imaginative resistance, and moral persuasion, and the paradox of our attraction towards horror and tragedy. The arts are a valuable mode of inquiry into the nature of cognition and neglect of their relevance negatively impacts understandings of the mind.

Artistic Educational Commoning as a Laboratory for the Real

Frederiek Bennema — 2024-03-22

This article presents and discusses an extracurricular, co-constructed programme: “The Catalyst Club” as a form of Artistic Educational Commoning (AEC). Having been developed as part of a PhD research at Minerva Art Academy (Groningen, The Netherlands), The Catalyst Club (TCC) explored new perspectives on the education of artists and designers in a globalized world and created alternative modes of operating in higher art education. It brought together students, alumni, teachers from a range of disciplines, and external participants. During developing TCC, the author occupied a dual role as researcher and participant, working together with others in an artistic co-creative process. TCC drew on and developed the methods relating to Collaborative Autoethnography, Participatory Action Research and Artistic Research. This study presents AEC as a communal effort to build spaces for learning and experimentation. They are created through interaction and cooperation, based on social relations and the production of shared values. As such it can offer a counterbalance to the extensive individualisation, instrumentalization, and commodification of communities in higher art education. The article formulates some recommendations on how AEC can re-connect the education of artists and designers with the role of the arts in wider technological, societal, and political contexts.

Lived time in “relay-method” based arts education

Cecilia Ferm Almqvist — 2024-03-22

This article explores the concept of lived time as an aspect of aesthetic pedagogy based on a phenomenological way of thinking. Starting off from the philosophies of Bollnow and van Manen, where time is seen as an existential phenomena, intertwined with other existentials, we used experiences from an ongoing project as examples to make understanding of the phenomenon possible. Lived time concerns reconsidering and revision of thinking, a process that includes personal, relational and emotional qualities. The specific aim of the philosophical study is to describe the phenomenon of lived time in aesthetic pedagogy from a pedagogue perspective. We embrace a holistic view of relations between arts and education, where education in arts, education through arts, education as art, and art as education function as different perspectives of aesthetic pedagogical situations. To get acces to pedagogues’ lived experiences of time in aesthetic pedagogy, a group interview was conducted. Six pedagogues engaged in the Alla har rätt-project, with educational as well as artistic backgrounds, were interviewed together via the communication tool Zoom. Intentions, experiences, the changing situation, as well as visions about the future constituted themes for the group conversation. The philosophical analysis, where the experiences of the interviewees were used as examples, resulted in a description of the phenomenon of lived time in arts-based education constituted by four themes: Lived time in meaningful arts education, Lived time as diminishing or disappearing in aesthetic pedagogy, Lived time and artworks in aesthetic pedagogy, and Lived time as didactic frame in aesthetic pedagogy.

The Pedagogue and the Poetic

Synnøve Myklestad — 2024-03-22

In this article, I argue that Julia Kristeva’s concepts of semiotization and transubstantiation may contribute both to an understanding of the way in which the human subject might realize itself, and to the way in which educational institutions may serve as keepers of such a notion of humanity. To focus the human subject is urgent in a time of various neo-liberal pressures – including the area of education. Mechanisms of effectivization and standardization in education are unable to bring forth the singularity of the human being. Inspired by the Russian Futurists and their word-creation, I follow up on the theoretical discussion with a classroom exercise for students, that potentially provides them with a space to begin the process of exploring (regaining) their semiotic selves and their potential to experience and share human singularity.

Musicianship and Personal Knowledge Management

Marie-Helene Zimmerman Nilsson — 2024-03-22

In today’s information focused world, most days involve contact with some form of screen and keyboard for work and leisure purposes. Learners must be dexterous and agile to effectively respond to shifting labour market requirements reflecting fast-changing technological needs and expectations. Information is available in a myriad of forms and successful engagement requires effective and efficient skills and understanding. With this background, this paper asserts that a musical skill set broadens the way that learners subsequently engage with and manage their information acquisition and use. This provides a broader base for ongoing knowledge management. Using philosophical and reflective approaches, it draws on life experiences from arts education by way of a duoethnographic approach. Two narratives provide insights of individual experiences, subsequent acquisition and engagement with information and consequent enhanced knowledge. These are analysed using a personal knowledge management model, providing a visualisation approach to the collaboration through knowledge sharing. The dialogic results demonstrate how the background of musical competence enriched subsequent learning capability in structuring and operationalising knowledge acquisition and management.