趙 宏 博士
中國書法家
篆刻家
文字學家
DR. HONG ZHAO, PHILOLOGIST & CHINESE CALLIGRAPHY MASTER
DR. HONG ZHAO, PHILOLOGE UND CHINESISCHER KALLIGRAPHIEMEISTER
批评性洞察中国书法的未来（8）
Questioning Chinese calligraphy's tomorrow.
Critical Insights into Calligraphy
“中国书法与STEAM研究”
Chinese Calligraphy & STEAM
(STEM: Science/科学、Technology/技术、Engineering/工程、
Art/艺术、Mathematics/数学)
研究组成员：
Weihong Yan (John Morgan): Chief Executive of Director, WACS（组长）
Zhao Hong: 首都师范大学书法教授
Joey Lopez: 得克萨斯州大学科学研究院新媒体科学教授
Angelica Docog: 得克萨斯州大学圣-安东尼文化研究院院长
Putting Calligraphy Art in STEM
书法艺术融入科学、技术、工程和数学
The Techstyle Haus was one of two American entries in the 2014 Solar Decathalon Europe in Versailles, France.CreditCreditKristen Pelou, 从汉文字中启发的STEM建筑构造(1)
Engineering and art were not always completely separate disciplines. Take Leonardo da Vinci, who seamlessly combined the two.
“Five hundred years ago, you couldn’t really tell the difference between artists and engineers,” said James Michael Leake,director of engineering graphics at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. But education has become balkanized and the field of engineering, in particular, more specialized, complex and math- and computer-oriented. Today’s engineering majors have little room for other pursuits.
“Learning how to think like an engineer is very powerful,” said Domenico Grasso, provost at the University of Delaware. “But other disciplines also have very powerful approaches to thinking.” Mr. Grasso has long been a proponent of holistic engineering, the idea that through cross-disciplinary learning students will be better able to understand, and design for, the human condition.
At Delaware, the work of putting engineering in a broader societal context involves an interdisciplinary collaboration on a senior design prototype. Among last year’s projects was a device humans can safely wear for chest compression simulations during cardiopulmonary training, and so replace mannequins. Art students made the device look more lifelike. Theater students, acting as patients, helped make it function more realistically.
“Engineers focus on how it works,” said Jenni Buckley, an assistant professor of mechanical engineering for the program. “Artists focus on the user experience.”
Few schools actually require engineering students to take art, but the University of Illinois comes close. Mr. Leake incorporates freehand sketching and computer-aided design in his engineering graphics class. Many universities have abandoned such a class altogether, or focus on computer drawing.
Mr. Leake, whose first degree is in art history, believes that learning to make even rudimentary drawings is critical to development as an engineer. “Typically, engineering students are not comfortable with sketching,” he said. “They say, ‘Oh, I can’t draw.’ ” But being able to quickly sketch to communicate an idea, he said, “is an enormously useful tool.” It also helps “see” an idea. “To do engineering you’ve got to be able to visualize.”
The Rhode Island School of Design thinks so much of the need to collaborate that it is spearheading a national initiative to incorporate art and design in STEM education — what it calls STEM to STEAM (as in science, technology, engineering, art and math). Art education, they argue, teaches the kind of risk-taking and creative problem-solving that can be applied to, say, health care and climate change.
In one independent project, R.I.S.D. architecture and design students built an 800-square-foot solar house with engineering majors from the school up the hill, Brown. The project, which culminated in a textile-draped, Flintstones-meets-Jetsons creation called Techstyle Haus, was one of two American entries in the 2014 Solar Decathlon Europe in Versailles, France.
Isby Lubin, a Brown engineering major, said R.I.S.D. design students helped her understand how to effectively use the space within the structure. She learned a lot about structural design, she said, and novel uses for strong, lightweight materials. “It’s been really amazing to work with R.I.S.D. students because of how focused they are on design,” Ms. Lubin said. “We were able to meet in the middle because we’re all trained with a really strong foundation. It’s just in different things.”
John Maeda, who championed STEM to STEAM as president of R.I.S.D. from 2008 to 2013, has degrees in electrical engineering and computer science as well as classical design.
In a commentary last year for Scientific American, he wrote this about art/science synergy: “Both are dedicated to asking the big questions placed before us: ‘What is true? Why does it matter? How can we move society forward?’ Both search deeply, and often wanderingly, for these answers.”
Painters Painting: From Abstract Expressionism to Pop
Imagine going back in time to an era in art history, talking to the artists themselves at work in their studios and hearing first-hand what their concerns, processes and influences are.
Thanks to a recently re-released documentary by Emile de Antonio, we are able to come close. The time and place is post-war New York, the art is Abstract Expressionism to Pop and everything in between.
Painters Painting (1973) (大陆无法打开)
Painters Painting is a 1973 documentary directed by Emile de Antonio. It covers American art movements from abstract expressionism to pop art through conversations with artists in their studios. Artists appearing in the film include Willem de Kooning, Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, Helen Frankenthaler, Frank Stella, Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Motherwell, and Kenneth Noland.
Thomas B. Hess of Art News sets the stage: “Paris was the center of Modern Art. Then the war intervened and Paris was sealed off which turned the New York scene into kind of a pressure cooker out of which a number of American artists found their own way.” In 1972, when Painters Painting was first released, Jackson Pollock, Hans Hoffman, Willem de Kooning and others had broken from the constraints of European easel painting and established Abstract Expressionism as the first truly American art form.
Striking black and white photography intercut with color gives us intimate access to the light-filled loft of de Kooning. Nearly 70 at the time, he retains a youthful air with his iconic white tousled hair and black framed glasses. He explains why he left Europe: “I felt a certain depression over there. I felt caught. I was attracted to America by movies. America seemed to be a very light place, everything seemed to be very light and bright and happy. I always wanted to come to America even as a boy — Harold Lloyd, Charlie Chaplin, Tom Mix.”
We meet a playful Robert Rauschenberg perched high atop a ladder in front of the cathedral windows in his studio talking about the influence of the Abstract Expressionists:
“What [we] had in common was touch. I was never interested in their pessimism or editorializing. You have to have time to feel sorry for yourself if you’re going to be a good abstract expressionist, and, I think I always considered that a waste.”
The specter of European painting looms large in the psyches of the New York artists. Frank Stella, sitting cross-legged on the floor of his studio, talks about how the Abstract
Expressionists solved the problem for him: “I didn’t have to go all the way back and worry again about where I stood in relation to Matisse and Picasso, I could worry about where I stood in relation to Hoffman and Pollock.”
In a revealing interview, a very pretty Andy Warhol talks in riddles and defers most of his answers to the somewhat overbearing Brigit (presumably Brigit Berlin), who is snapping Polaroids of Warhol’s face at a very close range. When asked if there are any critics he likes, Warhol responds:
“I like the kind of critics that when they write they just put people’s names in and you go through the article and you count to see how many names they dropped in the article.”
Heavy.
Critic Clement Greenberg weighs in on what he thinks about Pop Art:
“ . . . people like Lichtenstein and Warhol, they paint nice pictures. All the same? It’s easy stuff, it is, it’s minor, and the best of the pop artists don’t seem to be more than minor. And it’s scene art, the kind of art that goes over on the scene. The best art of our time or any time since Corot, not just since Monet, makes you a little bit more uncomfortable at first, challenges you more. It doesn’t come that far to meet your taste, or the established taste of the market.”
Wise, cautionary words largely ignored even today.
A dapper Leo Castelli, seated at a large desk in his gallery, defends the role of the art dealer:
“Frankly, I think this accusation that’s leveled against the dealers, that they are responsible for shaping the art market is a very silly one. Naturally we are there to do the job and are doing it. Now if people, ourselves and the critics and the museums go along with us, then there is a consensus there and therefore we are right and not wrong, so... what we are doing is merely doing our job.”
Other artists interviewed are Helen Frankenthaler (the sole woman), Jasper Johns, Barnett Newman, Hans Hofmann, Jules Olitski, Philip Pavia, Larry Poons, Robert Motherwell and Kenneth Noland. Interwoven with the interviews is footage of the artists’ work from the Metropolitan Museum of Art’s exhibition New York Painting and Sculpture 1940-1970.
A riveting lesson in art history from the mouths of the players themselves, Painters Painting not only gives us unique access to a particular time and place in art, it also provides a framework for the current state of the contemporary art world — both the good and the bad — and invaluable insight into how we got here.
Cross-posted from Jane Chafin’s Offramp Gallery Blog.
MORE:
Willem De Kooning Jackson Pollock Abstract Expressionism Pop Art Andy Warhol
Laser Cut Chinese Calligraphy Bokeh Lens Cover Concept and Prototype STEAM激光切除汉字书法，bokeh镜头覆盖理念与其原型试验(I)
Laser Cut Chinese Calligraphy Bokeh Lens Cover Concept and Prototype STEAM激光切除汉字书法，bokeh镜头覆盖理念与其原型试验(II)
To build Techstyle Haus, students from Rhode Island School of Design teamed with Brown engineering majors as well as students from the University of Applied Sciences Erfurt, Germany.CreditRyan Conaty for The New York Times
从汉文字中启发的STEAM建筑构造(2)
Laser Cut Chinese Calligraphy Bokeh Lens Cover Concept and Prototype,STEM激光切除汉字书法，bokeh镜头覆盖理念与其原型试验(III)
In the 1990, the National Science Foundation coined a term that swept educational institutions across the nation. After watching this talk, STEM(Science Technology Engineering and Mathematics) is my goal is that each one of you watching and that will never look at this term the same way again. Because I had the help of three awesome people — Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs.
Leonardo Da Vinci, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs
Each of these great minds were not only not only built their careers on the abilities of STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) but they knew the crucial importance of art integration that yields.
Steam education (Science, Technology, Engineering Art and Mathematics). Well done there’s way more you guys are ready for a treat because I’m about to take you through history word explore how each of these amazing figures these great minds the illustrated a steam powered existence.
We look first at Leonardo da Vinci not only was he known for his amazing masterpieces but he was a scientist who was a mathematician and as you can see on lovely Mona Lisa here Hughes the golden ratio also known as the golden sector the golden mean as we just simply mathematical definition of beauty that gives you these proportions that are aesthetically pleasing to the eye found in nature and elsewhere once again here’s our first candidate for a steam powered individual.
We go on to the life of Albert Einstein five hundred years later and we explore not only a world renowned physicist and that the father of the theory of relativity but we see. But he was also a musician a violinist a concert pianist and I just love how he summaries it it epic after certain high level of technical skills achieved science and art tend to coalesce anaesthetics plus the city and form.
The greatest scientists are always artists as well. Finally I bring you to our modern day with the innovative face of apple Steve Jobs.Once again he quotes it amazingly I couldn’t have said it better right insane apples tea it’s if it’s an apples DNA that science and technology is just perfect together and technology alone is not enough its technology married with the liberal arts married with the humanities that yields the results that make our hearts saying.
In other words all the smartphones everyone’s holding today all the iPhones those are bringing children of steam and now let’s discuss now that we know what steam is and how it’s been rocking our world for centuries why does it matter today. Well it just so happens that unfortunately with this increasing pressure of high high test scores cranking out of our students in their math and writing and science field. We’re forgetting the importance of art integration.
We’re forgetting the importance of that a in Stan according to the national association of state board of education the National Science Foundation is funded federally twenty times as much as our arts and humanities programs in the USA.
That means art integration and our current education system today isn’t getting the proper funding isn’t getting those resources need it and without that quality education were missing out on the opportunity to give our future generations the chance to develop a crucial tool and I like to call it a brain tool for a paint brush.
As an engineering major in my and my sophomore year on every time I take it technical course math calculus physics on it goes all the way to auto CAD in my programming courses I’m building these brain tools in my mind the hammer screwdriver ranch and putting them in my toolbox my engineering toolbox it’ll bring with me to the outside world but of late.
As much good quality as much as many good college students do have been questioning right why what’s the point why am I getting all these bring tools and how do I apply them to one another how do we connect the dots to the bigger picture increase something unique stand out innovative thinking outside of the box.
So, I walked into this twenty four hour engineering competition at the society of Hispanic professional engineers conference last fall and it was given the ability to participate in this twenty four hour extreme engineer competition selected out of about five hundred students have the ability to get on this team with nine other students that I’d never met before in my life from all over the US and Porter Rico to innovate of random product that was given to us and for that for that for this session it was a cooler we’re just given a normal basic Monday in cooler.
And in that moment a group of ten crazy college kids who had never met before in their lives just become just became a small start up company out to transform this this item this cooler into like this best selling products that we’re going to sell to the judges and build a prototype and with incredibly limited resources and a budget of about a hundred Bucks.
We were totally up to the challenge we created a company logo not just to physically redesigned the product itself but we have to create a marketing strategy shoot a commercial give the bundling and packaging designs like I said a logo design I mean the list was unless we do this all in twenty four hours so even at three thirty in the morning we all looked like my friend angel here past.
Out under the tables we were still able to feed these awesome ideas right we were still innovatively thinking creatively applying this concept of a paint brush I was blessed to be on a team of kids who were okay doing that.
And quite honestly without that creative mindset without that thinking outside the box we wouldn’t have placed top five and I wouldn’t have been able to continue on to get extremists near of the year and quite honestly it was an amazing competition and a perfect illustration of steam.
This workshop demonstrated to me how critical it was. To show up with not just your stand your science or technology engineering your math but to show up with the day with the arts without paint brush with the innovative tools that we had all developed somehow quite locally in our in our education system because quite honestly it’s not fed to us anymore and that’s the issue we’re missing that a in stem.
The steam that ultimately is going to help transform our future and give our future generations the ability to think outside the box to create what they need to with their stem brain tools they’re missing that day may need that steam because steam powered futures. Steam powered individuals is what is going to paint our worlds better future.