Student 73

Object 1. Personal Copy of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet.

The play Romeo and Juliet was written by the notable English writer, William Shakespeare, in 1597. However, this object is a modern-English translation of the play, produced by The Arden Shakespeare company in 2012, which was my first step into the world of Shakespearean literature. While the play has been consistently revered for its innovative depictions of the theme of love, Shakespeare’s play is simply a reimagination of Arthur Brooke‘s The Tragicall Historye of Romeus and Juliet from 1562, which itself is based on a French translation of a tale by Matteo Bandello. This shows how knowledge is recycled and reused through imagination in order to produce additional knowledge.

This object is a compelling addition to the exhibition because of its links to concepts of interpretation and culture. This is because new knowledge in literature is often produced through different interpretations of the same story across various cultures. For instance, myths and tales from one culture bear similarities with stories of another culture, such as Western tales taking inspiration from Asian stories. Often, knowledge from one culture is interpreted in a unique manner using imagination, which allows for presentation of already established knowledge in a new light, resulting in the production of new knowledge.

This object also enriches the exhibition by showing the true extent of the cyclical relationship between knowledge and imagination and how imagination allows for the production of new knowledge based on prior knowledge due to the fact that Shakespeare’s play can be traced back to not one, but three, previous works of literature. This generational pattern demonstrates how existing knowledge feeds imagination, which spurs creation of new knowledge, resulting in a cycle of knowledge production based on the capabilities of one’s imagination.

Object 2. Photograph of Picasso’s Femme Couchée Lisant.

This object is a personal photograph of Picasso’s Femme Couchée Lisant, created in 1939, from the Dallas Musuem of Art. The painting depicts one of the artist’s favorite muses and lovers, Marie-Thérèse, through neo-expressionism, an artistic style developed by Picasso during his later years in life. However, the new knowledge of neo-expressionism was simply derived as a combination of Picasso’s existing artistic styles. Picasso used imagination in order to devise which parts of his previous art styles, such as surrealism combined with abstract expressionism, could best complement each other in order to create new knowledge about forms of art.

This object is an interesting contribution to this exhibition because of its link to the concept of perspective since the creation of new forms of art is based on perspectives since humans have an amazing capability to derive different interpretations from the same object. This infinite possibilities of individual perspectives allows for the continuous cycle of knowledge production in the realm of visual arts, which is exactly why Picasso was able to father many styles of art, such as neo-expressionism.

Finally, this object enhances the exhibition by demonstrating evidence of how inspiration for imagination to develop additional knowledge about the world does not have to come from external sources, it is possible to simply reflect internally within one’s own knowledge, in order to give birth to a unique form of knowledge. Even within oneself, the role imagination plays in producing new knowledge is the same since it is always old knowledge that is molded in an innovative manner in order to produce new knowledge about the world.

Hernandez, Daisy. “500 Years Later: Celebrating Leonardo Da Vinci’s Life and Inventions.” Popular Mechanics, 2 May 2019, www.popularmechanics.com/about/g27311182/celebrating-leonardo-da-vincis-life-and-inventions.

Object 3. Da Vinci’s rendering of The Flying Machine.

This object is Leonardo da Vinci’s sketch of The Flying Machine from the 15th-century. My initial exposure to Da Vinci occurred through the artistic route during my study of history’s most influential artists, however, I soon came to know that Da Vinci was also an inventor in natural sciences. Da Vinci’s sketches are seen as the starting point for modern-day aeronautics, particularly his Flying Machine which is the original inspiration for the helicopter. Da Vinci’s own inspiration for his Flying Machine came from studying species of flight such as birds. The transformation of knowledge from the flight of birds to aviation designs demonstrates how existing knowledge is simply reimagined in unique ways to suit current needs, such as the desire for human flight, which develops new knowledge.

This object is an interesting addition to the exhibition because of its link to the concept of objectivity as it demonstrates how even areas of knowledge considered to be objective in their practices, such as technology and natural sciences, are not entirely objective due to their use of imagination in producing new knowledge. Existing technical or scientific knowledge guides how scientists construct new knowledge about inventions, as shown by the use of Da Vinci’s work as a guiding tool for the creation of aviation designs.

Additionally, this object complements exhibition by providing a technological perspective to the role of imagination in producing knowledge about the world. While the previous objects served as evidence for the cyclical relationship between knowledge and imagination, this object extends the influence of imagination to the realm of technology and science. Often imagination is thought to be solely restricted to the area of knowledge of the arts, such as literature or visual arts as demonstrated by the previous objects. However, scientific fields of study also rely heavily on imagination as the driving force of inspiration for scientists to hypothesize and design unique experiments, based on existing scientific knowledge, in an attempt to produce new knowledge about the world.