IB Theory of Knowledge - an ongoing list of interesting finds

The idea of a "mind's eye," or powerful visualization skills, is often seen as being at the centre of artistic creativity and can lead to a misconception that, without this ability, one cannot be creative. What happens, then, when some of the most creative minds in film today suffer from a condition called Aphantasia - the inability to visualize mental images? How can some of the chief artists and animators in the Pixar / Disney franchise create such powerful works of art with "blind mind's eye"?

"(A)s artificial intelligence evolves and eventually perhaps reaches or surpasses human level intelligence, what will this mean for human artists and the creative industries in general?"   Through discussions of creativity, artificial intelligence and expressions of human experience, the article questions whether works of art produced by AIs are more than just "creative problem-solving" and the mimicking of patterns. 

Have a look through some of the following pieces to explore why the discovery of a previously unknown sketchbook by the famous artist has led to widespread controversy.  Addressing issues of consistency and authenticity, but also tackling the ever-difficult-to-explain role of intuition, the controversy illustrates the fierce battles that can ensue when one's personal knowledge of art, meaning or style is called into question.  Resources : Cain, Abigail.  " 'Unprecedented' Van Gogh Sketchbook Controversy, Explained. "  Editorial. Artsy.com.   November 16, 2016. " Found Sketchbook With Drawings Is Not By Van Gogh, According To Van Gogh Museum ."   The Van Gogh Museum.  Press Release.  November 15, 2016. Siegal, Nina.  " Sketchbook Attributed to van Gogh Pits Scholars Against a Museum ."  New York Times: Art & Design.  November 15, 2016.  " Van Gogh: Dispute over sketches book ."  BBC News: Ent...

Here are a few pieces that look directly at  patterns in stories or storytelling . Consider some of your own storybook heroes/heroines - how well do their story lines fit  the mold ? Which  perspectives  of the world are  offered  and which are  missing ?  How do you feel about your favourite story fitting into what is essentially a skeleton  pattern of stories ? Are they each still  unique ? Are they  original ? If the perspectives are correct, and all stories carry the same patterns, what does that suggest about the ways in which we use stories to understand the world around us?  What do these specific patterns suggest about our needs as knowers?  What is it about these patterns that make so much sense to us that we keep telling them over and over again?  BBC Culture -  The 100 stories that shaped the world BBC Culture -  Every story in the world has one of these six basic plots TEDEd -...

"Every day millions of people ask Google life’s most difficult questions...." An in-depth look at what makes the Mona Lisa so fascinating and so famous .   The piece tackles some of the better-known justifications, such as DaVinci's (apparent) use of "golden ratio," and the focus on his style and technique.  It also, though, poses an interpretation on the "smile" justification which is a different take on other theories I've read in the past.  Definitely an interesting perspective for those art lovers out there. Or for those who continue to ask what or who determines what is "good art." People look at the Mona Lisa painting by Leonardo Da Vinci at its new home in the Louvre museum, in Paris. Photograph: Lydie/EPA

And do we have a right, so many decades later, to reinterpret or redefine an iconic work of literature?  Can we accept that the novel is a "simple folk tale," as claimed by L. Frank Baum, the author?  Must we always attempt to interpret works of art or reason their "deeper meanings"?   Can a work of art simply stand as a piece of knowledge itself outside of our responses to it?  How valid is our personal knowledge or interpretation of a piece of art? Does it matter in the end what the artist may have "intended"? To what extent can we actually know what was "intended" by an artist without their direct input? An intriguing video that explores these questions and more. 

Thanks to Liora for this suggestion - Dan Brown's thriller Angels and Demons  combines history, science (although both are somewhat distorted at times) and religion in this exploration of the apparent and ongoing controversy between religion and science. The text is an entertaining read - it takes place around a "24-hour" style action-packed life-and-death scenario.  Science threatens religion, which threatens science.  With a few ironic turns of events, the main characters, educated and well-respected members of the historical and scientific communities, find themselves working with the Catholic Church and the Vatican to solve the mystery and save key religious figures from the figure who has decided to use science as a weapon against faith. A controversy surrounding the novel is that, while Brown is creating a work of fiction and thus to a degree is awarded "artistic licence," the liberties he has taken with presenting historical or scientific information ...

Activision is about to release further information on the new Call of Duty: WWII - while reviews illustrated that gamers were becoming more alienated by the technological advancements as the game moved further into the future, it seems Activision is changing course and returning the game to the "boots on the ground" experience of the original games. As is stated in the Guardian article , "This game is likely to be one of the largest pieces of historical entertainment ever released." An exciting time for the video game industry!

"Truth was the first casualty of the Great Depression. Reflecting the anguish of the time, propaganda was manufactured on an unprecedented scale. As economic disaster threatened to trigger shooting wars so, as George Orwell said, useful lies were preferred to harmful truths. He went further, declaring that history stopped in 1936; after that there was only propaganda." A feature article that explores the blurring of lines and the manipulation of truth. An international collection of propaganda posters from before and during the second world war. Composite: UIG/VGC via Getty Images Death of truth

“Is there a right length of time to look at – or engage with – an artwork?” asks Linda Kennedy in this video from Art Basel Hong Kong. “What’s worth a glance? What deserves a gaze?” How to look at a work of art

New York art world bitterly divided over ‘ cultural appropriation ’ of 1955 photograph of murdered 14-year-old Emmett Till "It is one of the most powerful images to emerge from the racism that infected the southern states of America in the 1950s – the photograph of a badly beaten 14-year-old boy, lynched after being falsely accused of flirting with a white woman, lying in a funeral casket. Now protests over a painting based on the photograph, included in a New York museum show, are dividing the city’s art world amid claims of racist exploitation and censorship. At the centre of the battle over cultural appropriation is artist Dana Schutz’s expressionist painting Open Casket (2016), a gruesome depiction of Emmett Till, lynched in Mississippi in 1955. The painting, on display at the Whitney Biennial exhibition, initially drew swift condemnation from critics who claimed Schutz, who is white, was taking advantage of a defining moment in African American history." Ar...

This article sparked quite a bit of controversy in TOK teacher groups with arguments centering on supporting the artistic license to revise or adapt historical events for artistic purposes, and others criticizing the blatant revision of historical fact and presenting an alternate version of events than what has already been documented in detail. Either way, the piece is critical of a film that essentially retells the partition during India's liberation from British rule, basing part of the condemnation on the fact that many still have living memory of what actually happened and therefore oppose the point of view the director has taken, and highlighting that the "sin" of the film is that it takes "breathtaking liberty with the historical record; " diminishing it to "fake history." To what extent are artists or artistic representations obliged to accurately depict historical fact? How might a misrepresentation of history become dangerous, or in thi...

Danielle Dufault creates artistic renderings of creatures that roamed the Earth millions of years ago. Who says art and science don't mix? Not Danielle Dufault, a Toronto illustrator who is one of only a handful of people around the world called on to create artistic renderings of the mysterious creatures that roamed the Earth millions of years ago.  "I really take a lot of pleasure in trying to reconstruct these lost worlds," Dufault told CBC News. "And there's a lot of imagination that can be applied to that." Using photos of a fossil, paleontological illustrator Danielle Dufault came up with this drawing of  Hallucigenia, a prehistoric worm-like sea creature that lived 500 million years ago.  (Illustration by Danielle Dufault, photo by Jean-Bernard Caron, Royal Ontario Museum) CBC News

Ron Eglash is an ethno-mathematician: he studies the way math and cultures intersect. He has shown that many aspects of African design — in architecture, art, even hair braiding — are based on perfect fractal patterns. "When Europeans first came to Africa, they considered the architecture very disorganized and thus primitive. It never occurred to them that the Africans might have been using a form of mathematics that they hadn't even discovered yet." TED Talk

With references to historical events and responses from the art world, Art and Architecture critic Philip Kennicott addresses the reactions, roles and potential responsibilities of those in the art community when the world turns "ugly." An excerpt:   "Many artists today are horrified by the current state of political affairs, the election of Donald Trump, the rise and mainstreaming of racist, misogynist and anti-Semitic rhetoric, and the assembly of a cabinet of billionaires whose commitment to the public weal is unknown and deeply distrusted. But if there is collective outrage at what has happened, there is anything but a unified response. Should art be a weapon of mass resistance? Should artists embrace politics and wield the blunt weapons of satire, caricature and scorn? Or, at the far end of the temperamental spectrum, should they preserve the artistic impulse — underscoring complexity and refinement — unsullied by the low and grotesque values that now dominate the...

A look at how writers, painters and composers have obeyed laws of nature for centuries. An excerpt:   "I have spent many years as a mathematician working alongside artists and what has struck me is how similar our practices are. I have so often found artists drawn to structures that are the same ones I am interested in from a mathematical perspective. We may have different languages to navigate these structures but we both seem excited by the same patterns and frameworks. Often, we are both responding to structures that are already embedded in the natural world. As humans we have developed multiple languages to help us navigate our environment." The hidden maths in great art

"In her new book Mathematics and Art , historian Lyn Gamwell explores how artists have for thousands of years used mathematical concepts - such as infinity, number and form - in their work. Here she chooses ten stunning images from her book that reveal connections between maths and art ." History of Maths = History of Art

Edvard Munch’s portrait of existential angst is the second most famous image in art history – but why ? "Beneath a boiling sky, aflame with yellow, orange and red, an androgynous figure stands upon a bridge. Wearing a sinuous blue coat, which appears to flow, surreally, into a torrent of aqua, indigo and ultramarine behind him, he holds up two elongated hands on either side of his hairless, skull-like head. His eyes wide with shock, he unleashes a bloodcurdling shriek. Despite distant vestiges of normality – two figures upon the bridge, a boat on the fjord – everything is suffused with a sense of primal, overwhelming horror. This, of course, is The Scream, by the Norwegian artist Edvard Munch – the second most famous image in art history, after Leonardo’s Mona Lisa." BBC Article

Thank you to Braden, who used this piece in his recent TOK essay. A visual exploration of how mathematics and art overlap in photography. The piece also includes discussion on the Golden Ratio, aesthetics and composition.   "Whether the artists were planning the composition on purpose, subconsciously, or by accident, it might explain why they are seen as so good to just about anyone who lays eyes on them." SEE HOW THE GOLDEN RATIO PLAYS A HUGE ROLE IN NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC’S BEST PHOTOS FROM 2016

In this piece, author Andrew Postman presents claims from his father's novel, Amusing Ourselves to Death , looks at the "predictions" his father presented about our "current public discourse" - concerns raised over patterns of social, media and personal behaviour in the 1980s.  While many media outlets are making almost daily allusions to George Orwell's famous dystopian fiction, Nineteen Eighty-Four , Postman highlights that it is more of an Aldous Huxley reality we need to fear - that Huxley's novel Brave New World  was a much closer illustration of social patterns than Orwell's text. An excerpt from Amusing Ourselves to Death (1985): "What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to pass...