I suppose there is a link between how much a subject knows about an item (e.g. a film, a book, a play, a painting) and how pleasant he/she finds the same item.
In particular I would like to apply this knowledge in theatre and staged performances, but any insight on other subjects would be good as well.
Hi Daniele,
I am doing a research similar to yours. You should maybe research on Edutainment. It is the new term used for education/interpretation in combination to entertainment.
Do let me know if you manage to find anything interesting.
KNOWING ART : Essays in Aesthetics and Epistemology
Edited by MATTHEW KIERAN and DOMINIC MCIVER LOPES
University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada
Dear Susan,
Though I have to agree with you that I figured this out based on intuition, I must also note that however obvious the relationship bewteen awareness and enjoyment, no one has ever written it down.
Nor does it seem to me that this correlation is ever exploited by the actual Actors of the entertainment Sector. Just as an example, how often do we receive information about a film (the biography of its director, behind the scenes etc.) before actually watching it? Basically never. Are we ever given a leaftlet, before entering a theatre, telling us what the author/director meant with those obscure cross-text quotes? No, and this is, unfortunately contributing to make e.g. theatre less and less popular.
However intuitive this might seem to any of us researchers, apparently it is not enough.
To begin delving into a question like this, you first have the monumental task of defining your terms "art/entertainment" ( are we talking fine art here? or popular culture?) and "knowledge/information" (are you talking a first hand understanding - such as making the art yourself, or speaking directly to the artist? or are we just referring to participating in discourse?) then you have the issue of knowledge - implying truth, which is a difficult concept to reconcile with art which (in my opinion) is not a static in its meaning generation.
Let me put this another way...
One may understand the the literature or discourse surrounding a work of art, but that only offers a suggested perspective on that art's meaning for a particular informed viewpoint - it does not imply knowledge or insight into the artists mind or intention. And while, you may absolutely enjoy the discourse, it only tengentially translates into appreciation of the art itself by virtue of the art occupying the position of reference - the "index" to borrow from Krauss.
Additionally, a work of art - generates meaning in relation to the viewer and their shared context - for example, the meaning of Jackson Pollock's body of art would be different to an art critic in 1948 than it does to a lay person today. In 1948, the painting were seen as a reaction to the expressionism of the pre-war artists and the heavily controlled art work that were coming out of the bauhaus. This was radical! but today, a lack of control is not new, and so does not bring with it the shock that it delivered in the post-war art world. not to mention that today Pollocks work has become a character of itself - a symbol of modern art, rather than a contributor to it....so the frame within which we experience this work has changed greatly.
To to sum, the main components of your inquiry need definition, but also it is important to understand that they are not static concepts, but are rather players within a frame of understanding that changes depending on the one experiencing the work, and the context in which they are experiencing it.
Consider looking into "frame analysis", "mental space theory", or "structual semantics". I feel they may prove useful here.
A lot of cognitive film theory stems from Bordwell's 1985 Narration in the Fiction Film. For that reason, a lot of current theory either shares or questions the general notion of schemata in Bordwell's account, which is a very broad name he gives to the knowledge we routinely use in order to understand stories. However, it doesn't account for films aesthetic experience, but merely for our film understanding (which is no small thing). For that reason, I'd suggest you read Grodal's Embodied Visions: Evolution, Emotion, Culture and Film, which is a more -radical- cognitive work that develops what Grodal considers a general aesthetic theory called the PECMA flow (Perception, Emotion, Cognition and Motor Action).
I would also like to recommend reading "The Dance of Shiva" by Ananda Cooomaraswamy (1976, especially:36-39), to gain another cultural perspective on the issue. A "sahradaya", that is one who knows Art, has to be initiated into the meaning of the religious and symbolic - and one may conclude - cultural aspects of Art. Only then she can develop the special ability of "sadharana", intuitive perception of the smell or taste (rasa) of a piece of Art. "Rasa", furthermore, is the experience of Art that transcends secular, sensual or merely aesthetic perception. The piece or event of Art may create impression, but this impression has to be actively received and also completed by the prepaired conoisseur, in order to develop to the full. Mere virtuosity is not enough to create or enable the experience of "rasa". "Rasika" is another word for a connoisseur of art or religious ritual. I have written more about that issue in the chapter "Moral, Wert und Ästhetik" (pp. 70-76) of "Tanz/Ritual - Integrität und das Fremde" (http://homepage.univie.ac.at/marianne.nuernberger/Habilitation.pdf), ...unfortunately in German. But Coomaraswamy and other Asian teachers gave the central ideas.
When I first began teaching film to students at Claremont School of Theology, Claremont, California, I struggled to find a way to encourage students to see film as an art form. A colleague suggested I explore the philosophy of art work of Suzanne Langer. I did just that. Her work gave me a methodology that in its basic form allowed me to lead students to ask two questions, "what is the film about, its "aboutness" and what is the film's "isness".
I wrote a small book at the time, alas out of print, Church and Cinema: A Way of Viewing Film, published by Eerdman's in 1971. From Langer I learned to watch for a film's "discursive" and "presentational" levels. The general public focuses on the discursive, what the film is about, but rarely on the presentational, what the film actually is. I explore these different levels on pages 33-38.
My own graduate work was in religion and psychology, where "about" and "is" are essential categories for grasping our human existence. Political scientists may also find Larger helpful in distinguishing between what a politician says and what the public hears what she is saying. At bottom we are examining levels of comprehension.
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