Initial+Proposal

Initial Proposal My driving question is “ How are the different views of aesthetics manifested and what are the different criteria in which a society considers something ‘art’.” I plan to study different views of aesthetics. I chose to study and research this project because I have always been interested in art and would like to learn more about how other people view it. For my project, I would like to make a collage out of small drawings and “doodles” made by the public. By doing this, it would help me understand more about what people like to portray on paper subconsciously. I would first like to publicize my project around the school and then have boxes where people can submit their doodles. I would like to require the drawings to be a certain size. After collecting submissions, I plan to make a montage out of the pieces of drawings. Hopefully, I will display the collage as well as take pictures of the collage and make bookmarks out of them to be available for the public. Possible areas of research include philosophy, psychology, art history, and multicultural art. So far, I believe that the preliminary sources I found will serve as my research keystone. I particularly like the books “Art and Visual Perception: A Psychology of the Creative Eye” by Rudolf Arnheim as well as the book “Art as Experience” by John Dewey. My mentor will help me keep track of getting research done and my topic expert will provide me with advice when I am stuck during the writing process or research process. For my project, I believe I will have to spend a good deal of time collecting the submissions, advertising, and making the collage of the submissions. Since I want the collage to be “aesthetically pleasing,” I predict that I will spend a lot of time arranging the clips of doodles. I also suspect that because my question is so general, it would be hard to focus on a specific thing for my research. Moreover, it would be difficult to define “art” because there are so many diverse definitions and options to delve into. I believe that because my topic is so broad, I will have to research various aspects of perception and art in order to come to a conclusion.