Teacher: Kevin
Miller
Arts Discipline:
Visual Arts
Grade Level: High School
Team: E
Topic: Considering the Postmodern
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UNIT:
Conflict in Postmodernism: Destructured, Decentered, Dehumanized!
LESSON: "The Signs of the Time!"
DATE:
TEAM WARM UP: What do you need to know?
- Think of all the signage you pass everyday that is confusing; produces
double-meanings; says one things and means another; etc.
- Observe storefront signage and architectural design/style for similar
confusions.
STUDENT OBJECTIVES:
- Students will explore and understand that Postmodern principles
behind "The Realism of Appearance" (Social and Cultural
Reality).
- Students will be able to define Postmodernism through "The
Dissonant Beauty of Combining Traditional and Nontraditional Postmodern
Motifs" (Street Art/Storefront Signage and Architecture).
- Students will explore and understand the created confusion of "Postmodern
Double Coding" (Producing Multiple Meanings).
ESSENTIAL CURRICULUM
- Outcome One: Perceiving and Responding-Aesthetic Education.
The student will demonstrate the ability to perceive, interpret,
and respond to ideas, experiences, and the environment through the
visual arts.
- Outcome Two: Historical, Cultural, and Social Contexts. The
student will demonstrate an understanding of the visual arts as a
basic aspect of history and human experience.
- Outcome Three: Creative Expression and Production. The
student will demonstrate the ability to organize knowledge and ideas
for expression in the production of art.
- Outcome Four: Aesthetic Criticism. The student will demonstrate
the ability to identify, analyze, and apply criteria for making visual
aesthetic judgments.
BACKGROUND: Postmodernism can be explored through the application
of Jenck's 10 characteristics of postmodern architecture, especially
as applied to the urban scene. (A visual demonstration of each of these
characteristics should be created and presented with a handout of the
listings.) Guide students to see how architectural elements carry values
or references to ideas and cultures. Students should see both the traditional
and nontraditional elements ("Rules" and how they can be broken.)
Choosing either a 2-D or 3-D answer, the student will create a postmodern
signage/architectural building response that serves both function and
communicates its use or concept through drawing, photography, modeling
in dimension (sculpture), video and/or computer graphics (software Aldus
Illustrator, Macromedia Freehand, 3-D Architecture, others).
Hints: Create a building whose exterior tells the viewer what it is.
Specify a list of possibilities such as an eye doctor, art museum, restaurant,
pet store, museum of . .. , etc. Projects should be sketches, collage,
models, shadow-boxes (facades), computer generated graphics, etc.
Function, communication, culture all play a part in postmodern signage
and architecture and have resources available in print, photography,
street sculpture and video. Just one excellent video would be The
Ad and the Ego (High intensity summary, presentation of major analyses
of advertising in contemporary American Culture.)--The California Media
Project.
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