The arts can help us understand ourselves, our patterns of behaviour and our relationships to each other and our wider environment. Students of the arts subjects study the various artistic approaches through which knowledge, skills and attitudes from different cultural traditions are acquired, developed and transmitted. They analyse artistic knowledge from various perspectives and acquire knowledge through experiential means as well as more traditional academic methods. Questions related to TOK activities that a film student might consider include the following.
• Are certain ways of knowing employed in radically different ways in the arts as opposed to other areas of knowledge?
• How do artistic judgments differ from other types of judgment, such as moral judgments?
• Is it possible for film to represent the world without transforming it?
• To what extent do you agree with Michael Haneke’s (b. 1942) claim that “film is 24 lies per second at the service of truth, or at the service of the attempt to find the truth?”
• To what extent is imagination a fundamental requirement for viewing film?
• What moral responsibilities do filmmakers have?
• What, if anything, do the different subjects that make up the arts have in common?
• Why might we be more concerned with process rather than product in the search for knowledge?
The arts subjects complement the TOK ethos by revealing interdisciplinary connections and allowing students to explore the strengths and limitations of individual and cultural perspectives. Studying the arts requires students to reflect on and question their own bases of knowledge. In addition, by exploring other Diploma Programme subjects with an artistic bias, students can gain an understanding of the interdependent nature of knowledge through which they are encouraged to become, “active, compassionate and lifelong learners who understand that other people, with their differences, can also be right” (IB mission statement). Questions related to TOK that a visual arts student might consider include the following.
• To what extent is artistic knowledge something which cannot be expressed in any other way?
• Are ways of knowing employed in radically different ways in the arts than in other areas of knowledge?
• To what extent does imagination play a special role in the visual arts?
• What moral responsibilities do artists have?
• How can the subjective viewpoint of an individual contribute to knowledge in the arts?
• What are the standards by which we judge artworks?
• Why might we be more concerned with process rather than product in the search for knowledge?
• Do the arts have a social function?
• To what extent is truth different in the arts, mathematics and ethics?
INTERPRETATION: Dance is the hidden language of the soul of the body. Martha Graham
RESPONSIBILITY: The artist’s job is to be a witness to his time in history. Robert Rauschenberg
VALUES: The essential function of art is moral. But a passionate, implicit morality, not didactic. A morality which changes the blood, rather than the mind. D. H. Lawrence
TRUTH: Life imitates art far more than art imitates Life. Oscar Wilde
EXPLANATION: The director is the only person who knows what the film is about. Satyajit Ray
PERSPECTIVES: Every viewer is going to get a different thing. That's the thing about painting, photography, cinema. David Lynch
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Key thinkers
The politics of fiction - Elif Shafak talks about how to overcome the problems associated with having different perspectives, via links to the arts.
JR - purpose of street art JR’s talk is one of the most visually interesting of all TED talks, and shows the power of taking an original approach to the arts. It shows the way the arts can impact on people’s lives, and empower them.
Janet Echelman - imagination Echelman takes imagination very seriously, which means trusting the inspirations she receives from whatever source they come, and acting on them in order to create incredible art.
Evelyn Glennie - listening to music It is riveting to watch a talk about hearing by a brilliant musician who is unable to hear, and this challenges many of our assumptions about how we use our auditory sense to interact with the world.
Michael Tilsen Thomas - music & emotion Tilsen Thomas is immensely erudite about music; this talk also links music to emotion, charting the way both of them developed over time, and influenced each other profoundly.
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An Art Newspaper podcast, which considers the old question about whether we should judge art via the moral perspective of the artist.
A Guardian article discussing the work of Bruce Nauman, and the themes his artwork explores. “The true artist helps the world by revealing mystic truths.” Discuss!
A BBC article, reporting on how cleaners on a London Underground train erased a new work off art by Banksy. Was the work an example of graffiti, or art? Was it both? Was the act of cleaning it part of the piece? How should we judge what is, and what isn’t, art?
A Guardian article about how the artist Edward Hopper managed to convey the loneliness that many people are now experiencing in Covid-19 quarantine.
A Smithsonian article, exploring the historical usefulness and accuracy of the film 1917. can we learn about the past via art - or is it just ‘entertainment’?
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An LA Times article, looking at how the LA Museum of the Holocaust is changing its name, and developing a clearer mission in order to fight hatred and intolerance.
A Telegraph article, looking at the installation of a statue of Medusa as a statement about the ‘Me Too’ era. Is all art protest art?
A DW video which looks at the relationship between the arts and the level of freedom that exists in society. Is the purpose of artistic knowledge the advancement of society?
A Guardian article, looking at the statue that was put up to replace the one of a slave trader that was knocked down during a Black Lives matter protest in Bristol, UK.
(Dunn)
“The arts” is used in TOK to include a diverse range of disciplines such as visual arts, theatre, dance, music, film and literature. The forms and methods of these disciplines are often dissimilar, so the diversity within this single area of knowledge can itself be an excellent stimulus for TOK discussions. The arts provide rich material for discussions of concepts such as interpretation. For example, students could consider how we ascribe meaning to works of art, or whether the intention of the artist is what determines meaning. During these discussions, students could be encouraged to draw on their experiences from their DP studies in language and literature classes, where they are required to understand and interpret a range of texts.
Students could also consider the role of the audience in the arts. This could include, for example, whether art requires a response from, or an emotional interaction with, an audience.
It could also include the role of critics and experts, and whether everyone is an equally competent judge in the arts. Another interesting focus for discussions could be the social character and function of the arts. This could include the way that the arts are often seen as helping to shed light on fundamental questions about the human condition, or how the arts are often regarded as having an important function as a medium for social criticism and a vehicle for social change.
Discussions of the arts could also focus on exploring whether there are, or should be, limits to what is acceptable in art. Students could consider examples of controversial works of art, such as Marco Evaristti’s Helena or Sruli Recht’s Forget Me Knot, considering whether there should be ethical constraints on the pursuit of knowledge in the arts, or whether artists or audiences have any particular ethical responsibilities. Another focus for discussions could be the relationship between arts and culture. Students could explore art forms and art works that are strongly rooted in a particular culture or tradition, as well as reflecting on the diversity of the arts across time, cultures and contexts.
Students could also explore examples of “outsider art” as a way to stimulate conversations about the potential for art to challenge established values.
Examples of knowledge questions arising from this area of knowledge are suggested below.
• Do the disciplines in the arts diverge from one another more fundamentally than disciplines within other areas of knowledge?
• Does new knowledge in the arts always build on what is already known?
• How have new technologies changed the nature and scope of the arts as an area of knowledge?
• Are the arts best seen as a system of knowledge, a type of knowledge or a means of expressing knowledge?
• Is artistic knowledge something that cannot be expressed in any other way?
• Is the relationship between “knowing how” and “knowing that” different in the arts compared to other areas of knowledge? Does art enlarge what it is possible for us to think and know?
Core theme:
• Does art provide knowledge of the artist or of ourselves? (scope)
• Is there such a thing as “obsolete” knowledge in the arts?
• Can a work of art have meaning of which the artist themselves is unaware?
• How does knowing more about the social, cultural or historical context of a work of art have an impact on our knowledge of the work itself?
• Can art change the way we interpret the world?
• What are the justifications for, and implications of, claiming that there are absolute standards for “good art”?
• Who determines what art is valued, and on what criteria?
• Should your judgments about art be given the same weight as those of an expert?
• What role does the history of an artform play in evaluating present work?
Core theme:
• How is art used in advertising to affect the beliefs of individuals and groups? (perspectives)
• Does convention play a different role in the arts compared to other areas of knowledge?
• Does sense perception perform a radically different role in the arts compared to other areas of knowledge?
• If the language of an art form is non-verbal, does this free it from being limited to propositional knowledge?
• Can some knowledge in the arts only be gained through experience? How does the medium used change the way that knowledge is produced, shared or understood?
• To what extent are the methods of justification different in the arts compared to other areas of knowledge?
Core theme:
• Does artistic creation rely more heavily on imagination than on other cognitive tools? (methods and tools)
• In what ways are moral judgments similar to, or different from, aesthetic judgments?
• Do the arts play a role in the development of our personal value systems?
• How important is the study of literature in our individual ethical development?
• Is the production and enjoyment of art subject to ethical constraints?
• On what criteria could it be decided if the state has the right to censor art that is deemed immoral or blasphemous?
• Do the arts have the power to challenge established moral values?
• Are moral and aesthetic judgments more a matter of taste than a matter of truth?
• Can we separate the moral character of the artist from the value of the artwork?
Core theme:
• What moral responsibilities do we have regarding art that has been created or published by other people? (ethics)
• What moral responsibilities do we have regarding art that has been created or published by other people? (ethics)
Bibliography:
Dunn, Michael. “Theoryofknowledge.net.” Theoryofknowledge.net, theoryofknowledge.net/. Accessed 9 Feb. 2021.
International Baccalaureate Organisation. Film Guide First Assessment 2019. The Hague, International Baccalaureate Organization (UK) Ltd, Oct. 2019.
International Baccalaureate Organisation. Visual Arts Guide First Assessment 2017. Wales, International Baccalaureate Organization (UK) Ltd, Feb. 2017.