The baby cage - Jenny Godfrey, Cardiff Metropolitan University
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This presentation was delivered at the Art Libraries Society UK & Ireland (ARLIS) Annual Conference in Cardiff on Friday 17 July 2015 by Jenny Godfrey
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The baby cage - Jenny Godfrey, Cardiff Metropolitan University
- 2. Traditional art history Madame Moitessier, 1856 (oil on canvas) Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique (1780 - 1867) The Raft of the Medusa, 1819 (oil on canvas) Gericault, Theodore (1791 - 1824) Louvre, Paris, France oil on canvas
- 3. Constellation lectures term one year one Chris Glynn 2014 https://chrisglynn123.wordpress.com/2014/03/08/are-you-still-there/
- 4. Constellation Workshop skills sessions term one year one 1. Essays and referencing 2. Understanding argument 3. Visual Literacy 4. Interdisciplinary research in art- science-technology 5. Handling history and isms 6. Identifying a question 7. Analysing visual culture 8. Reflection and evaluation
- 5. The baby cage Fox Photos/Getty Images) Caption: 27th January 1934: An example of the wire cage which East Poplar borough council in London propose to fix to the outside of their tenement windows, so that babies can benefit from fresh air and sunshine.
- 6. Contemporary descriptions British Pathe News http://www.britishpathe.com/video/baby-cage Pathe News Issue Date:20/04/1953
- 8. Crucial primary source (found using Google)
- 10. The Lecture
- 11. The best…….. and…… the worst • Looked in detail at the image • Thought about the original function and derivation of the image • Read articles, books and the patent • Supported all assertions with references • Defined ‘controversial’ • No references or only weak online sources • Made generalised unsupported statements (own opinion) • Incorrect referencing • Weak unsupported comparisons • Errors of grammar, spelling and punctuation
- 12. Same but different Reg Speller / Fox Photos / Getty Images Fox Photos /Getty Images
- 13. Saatchi’s Known Unknownshttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Known-Unknowns-Charles-Saatchi/dp/1861543603 Photo: Stanley Foreman
- 14. Why we didn’t get brilliant mini essays 1. For resources directly relevant to this image Google was far more productive than library resources 2. There was a muddle over whether essays could refer to / compare with other controversies some tutors said yes others no. If attempted students had very little space in 500 words to do this adequately. 3. The students needed more guidance on what was expected of them ; feedback from tutors made it clear afterwards that they were being asked very simply to define controversy for themselves (not just from the dictionary) and then apply that definition to the picture. Again very difficult in 500 words to do this intelligently How could we make the project better next time? • Base the project on an image for which we have library materials • Keep the exhibition and lecture simple viz: – Provide written texts exhibiting the sort of critical thinking tutors want to see students produce – Make plainer what the ‘question ‘ is , ie define exactly what is being marked – Show how to use Summon • Maintain tutorials and discussions in the dropin sessions -strong students can be guided further, less able or inexperienced students can be taken through a) and b) and c) one to one • Make the essay longer to allow for arguments, definitions and comparisons to be properly elaborated
- 15. Engaging with an image Madame Moitessier, 1856 (oil on canvas) Ingres, Jean Auguste Dominique (1780 - 1867) 1. Marie-Clotilde-Inès de Foucauld was born in 1821 and married Sigisbert Moitessier, a wealthy banker, in 1842. HISTORICAL FACT 2. The portrait is influenced by the art of antiquity and the Renaissance. VISUALLY SIMILAR 3. The pose, with the hand touching the cheek, is derived from an ancient Roman fresco of a goddess, from Herculaneum.VISUAL REFERENCE 4. This may suggest that for Ingres Madam Moitessier represented the ideal of classical beauty. INFERENCE 5. The National Gallery's 'Portrait of a Lady' by Titian may have inspired him to add the profile in the mirror. VISUAL REFERENCE http://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/paintings/jean-auguste-dominique-ingres- madame-moitessier
Notas do Editor
- Cardiff School of Art and Design , preparing to celebrate its 150th anniversary this year , is in many ways a traditional UK art school , however aspects of the recently re-designed undergraduate degree are unusual. All students from each Subject area within the art school (Fine Art, Product Design, Graphic Communication, Ceramics , Illustration , Textiles attend History and Theory lectures together in their first year. These lectures are called ‘Constellation’ lectures rather than ‘Art History and design History ‘ lectures Our students view themselves as primarily studio practitioners BUT Constellation is important –it comprises a full 30% of their course Although Constellation is the history and theory component of the degree these students do not study art and design history and theory in a traditional way.
- In a traditional art history course first year students are taught to describe techniques and formal pictorial devices, they learn a vocabulary (like romanticism, classicism )around which they can construct essays .The images shown , seen and discussed are part of a recognizable evolving canon and are familiar to them
- The Constellation course that our students undertake is not a chronological and historical survey , rather, in their first year every week they all (300+ of them) attend lectures that introduce them to ‘a broad and diverse range of art and design practices.’
- Whilst enjoying this mixture of cross disciplinary lectures these students need also to develop the same skills that any degree course demands..: the skills of ‘academic research, writing and a grasp of conventions that will enable them to develop autonomous and enquiry-based learning.’ (course document) To help them with that they also attend workshop skills sessions. Last year the students gave feedback that subsequent to their attendance at the skills workshops they wanted to try out their new skills in a written assignment So this year the Head of Constellation set them a task
- In an effort to encourage students to read images intelligently, use the library resources rather than Google and begin to employ critical thinking Ashley Morgan, Head of Constellation and I collaborated on a Project we called ‘Controversy’. The students were given this image and asked to submit 500 words on whether they considered the image to be controversial. They were told to use and reference only resources that were found in the Library and its online resources (ie no references from Wikipedia or Google) It was a very difficult proposition for these new students as there are no academic books or articles specifically on baby cages to help give them a start.
- Several students using Google found a Pathe news reel –a short feature on the baby cage that was contemporary to the time that the Baby Cage was being still used in 1953 . This could have offered students the opportunity to practice Visual literacy skills: there are things to say about it (more of that later)
- In the middle of term and 6 weeks before the deadline we laid out some help for students in the form of an exhibition. For the ten days that the exhibition was on show I made myself available for tutorials and discussions about the Baby Cage project every lunchtime. The exhibition included books on controversial art, one on controversial adverts, another on controversial moments in history, the Health and social sciences librarian contributed two articles on contentious scientific debates (castration of sex offenders? and the use of experimental invasive therapies on patients (stem cells/Parkinsons)
- To my delight (and again using Google) , I found a scan of the original US Patent of 1923 for the baby cage online and it was displayed as part of the library exhibition. It showed the students what the inventor said the baby cage was for and described its construction in detail. It amounted to Primary Source material
- I produced a resource booklet which gave a list for further reading : books on critical thinking, meaning in the media, how to frame a debate and a book called ‘Metaphors we live by’…the booklet also pointed students to a couple of newspaper websites that dealt with topical controversies , a few on how to compose persuasive speech and a website called ProCon.org used by various universities to teach critical thinking. Students were also shown copies of journals and newspapers that are partisan and/or political. Finally the resource booklet contained a crib list of keywords such a Fifty Shades of Grey, Hijab, taboos. Whaling, Capital Punishment were offered to help them ‘get’ what controversy was and how to speak about it.
- My colleague gave a lecture on how to use Summon our search engine to find relevant library resources (print and electronic) We would always give this information to our first years. This seemed perfect timing as they needed to know these things to write their mini essay The talk lasted one hour She showed a selection of other controversial images exhibiting how there can be at least two sides to an argument the effect societal norms have on whether something is controversial or not She advised thinking about the source of the image and its original purpose She advised checking whether the image has been manipulated digitally or is in some other way not to be trusted, She gave full instructions on using the library catalogue to find material She listed some pros and cons of Google
- The students had all the first term of their University career to think about the image and there was a clear period of 2 weeks from the finish of the workshop skills sessions to get their micro essay finished and handed in. So how did they do?‘nearly all the students did pretty well’ was the verdict but this was seen as a problem for this reason as discussed subsequently by tutors: With 500 words there is only room enough for a single sentence to make each point. In a single sentence an average student can make a point pretty much as well as a very good student. The difference between the two becomes more evident over length as the good student can sustain and develop a point in a way that is beyond the average. So the very short length saves the poor student from revealing their lack of lustre and makes it difficult for the very good student to shine.
- Given more space they might have remarked (but most didn’t)..on… the difference between the child seen from outside (danger, isolation) and from inside (its just a balcony, mother nearby) the jolly tone of the Pathe news man-he’s not worried, its all rather fun and his script is full of puns to prove it the increased sense of danger and wrongness one gets from the colour version of the image compared to the ‘it happened a long time ago’ black and white image
- The colour image of the baby cage appears in Charles Saatchi’s latest book ‘Known Unknowns’. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Newer-ways-of-seeing-the-world-and-art/35921 On the screen is another image from the book that previous Conference attendees may have seen already!! A reviewer for The Telegraph wrote about the Saatchi book ‘There is no dialogue with the images to which he is reacting and no genuine attempt to engage with the information they contain’ he uses images rather than engages with them . http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/culturepicturegalleries/11072938/Known-Unknowns-Arresting-images-from-a-new-book-by-Charles-Saatchi.html Christopher Howse writing for The Spectator last September calls this book ‘An old-fashioned chamber of horrors’ he writes ‘One photograph not related to pain and death seemed interesting as a photograph: men spaced along the cables of the Brooklyn Bridge during its repainting in 1914. There is otherwise little information about dates, or photographers. The curiously old-fashioned tone of this volume lies between the grimmer pages of Reveille and Ripley’s Believe It or Not’. http://www.spectator.co.uk/books/9308992/known-unknowns-by-charles-saatchi-review/ It is precisely this approach to an image’s impact the Controversy project was designed to teach students to avoid, fine to notice the impact of an image and describe it but facts, context and critique are important elements we look for too. We wanted students to go beyond the immediate shock value and apply some historical insight to what they wrote about the Baby Cage
- Using a vocabulary and references drawn from history, psychology, cultural studies, anthropology, sociology, literature in fact wherever they can find something relevant …students should be able to begin to ‘read’ and describe the images around us in the same interesting way in which art history and theory has allowed us to understand Ingres’ Madame Moitessier. The difference for the students now is that they can no longer predict the images they will be presented with. Next year they will be asked for 1000 words and I hope to see some visually literate thoughts among them. And…. For me the Baby Cage was a huge success from one very particular and very important standpoint-we forced students into the library to ask for help, view our resources and learn how to use the search engine! A good start!!