MIMETIC THEORY
Teachers: Cheri Barrett & Whitney Gasser
Grade Level: 4th Grade
Time needed: Two 45 minute sessions
Objective: Students will understand the mimetic theory and demonstrate an understanding of the essence of their current environment and how it existed in the past through creating a classroom vivarium.
National Visual Arts Standard
3. Content Standard: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas
Achievement Standard: Students explore and understand prospective content for works of art
select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning
State Visual Arts Standard
Utah State Standard: Visual Art
Standard 1 (Making): The student will explore and refine the application of media, techniques, and artistic processes.
Objective 1 Explore a variety of art materials while learning new techniques and processes.
Standard 3 (Expressing): The student will choose and evaluate artistic subject matter, themes, symbols, ideas, meanings, and purposes.
Objective 1 Explore possible content in art prints or works of art.
Grade Level: 4th Grade
Time needed: Two 45 minute sessions
Objective: Students will understand the mimetic theory and demonstrate an understanding of the essence of their current environment and how it existed in the past through creating a classroom vivarium.
National Visual Arts Standard
3. Content Standard: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas
Achievement Standard: Students explore and understand prospective content for works of art
select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning
State Visual Arts Standard
Utah State Standard: Visual Art
Standard 1 (Making): The student will explore and refine the application of media, techniques, and artistic processes.
Objective 1 Explore a variety of art materials while learning new techniques and processes.
Standard 3 (Expressing): The student will choose and evaluate artistic subject matter, themes, symbols, ideas, meanings, and purposes.
Objective 1 Explore possible content in art prints or works of art.
- Determine and explore a variety of sources of inspiration for making art; e.g., panoramic view, microcosm, people, imagination, experimentation, decoration, celebration, events, interpretation of emotions, education, religion.
Utah State Standard: Science
Standard 5 Students will understand the physical characteristics of Utah's wetlands, forests, and deserts and identify common organisms for each environment.
Objective 2 Describe the common plants and animals found in Utah environments and how these organisms have adapted to the environment in which they live.
a. Describe some of the interactions between animals and plants of a given environment (e.g., woodpecker eats insects that live on trees of a forest, brine shrimp of the Great Salt Lake eat algae and birds feed on brine shrimp).
Materials needed:
-glass fishbowl
-dirt
-rocks
-plants
-insects and other local critters
-shovel
1. Explain mimetic theory where art is essentially an imitation of nature. Discuss the difference between Realism and Mimetic theory.
2. Discuss different popular mimetic artists who are able to capture the essence of nature.
a) Introduce Nikki Lee and her process. She first approaches a culture, observes and then tries to become a member of the culture from what she has observed. Explain that her art is a process as she lives with those people for a couple of months and then culminates her project with a picture once she feels like she fits into that reality.
Hispanic Project
b) Questions to promote classroom discussion:
-Is this real art?
-Can you understand the essence of a community or culture with only a couple of months exposure?
-How does this relate to the mimetic theory?
c) Discuss the second Artist, Walton Ford, and his style.
Watch Walton Ford Art 21 Video
00:19-00:51
03:33-05:34
<p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 512px;">Watch <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://video.pbs.org/video/1239552786" target="_blank">Humor</a> on PBS. See more from <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://www.pbs.org/art21/" target="_blank">ART:21.</a></p>
Explain that he brings out the dark side of reality in contrast to Audubon's (19th c. artist and naturalist in America) work. Walton Ford tries to recreate these pictures in the same way that Audubon would have, while incorporating a dark twist of reality.
Explain that he brings out the dark side of reality in contrast to Audubon's (19th c. artist and naturalist in America) work. Walton Ford tries to recreate these pictures in the same way that Audubon would have, while incorporating a dark twist of reality.
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Falling Bough
3. Talk about the Passenger Pigeon and how it impacted those who lived in its time period and how it became extinct. Read: Grandmother’s Pigeon by Louise Erdrich and discuss how things have changed since the peak of the Passenger Pigeon population. Ask students what would have happened if people wouldn’t have hunted them? Make a direct connection with your students to how this applies to the mimetic theory. The Passenger Pigeon painting conveys the essence of a past reality.
4.
a) Introduce the class to the work ofMark Dion with Art 21 video clip 00:14-1:43. Talk about his installment pieces and how they teach you of a past reality, they capture what that past reality was like and what made up that past reality.
<p style="font-size:11px; font-family:Arial, Helvetica, sans-serif; color: #808080; margin-top: 5px; background: transparent; text-align: center; width: 512px;">Watch <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://video.pbs.org/video/1239798902" target="_blank">Ecology</a> on PBS. See more from <a style="text-decoration:none !important; font-weight:normal !important; height: 13px; color:#4eb2fe !important;" href="http://www.pbs.org/art21/" target="_blank">ART:21.</a></p>
b) Explain to the class that a vivarium is a “place, especially an indoor enclosure, for keeping and raising living animals and plants under natural conditions for observation or research” (freedictionary.com).
c) Watch ***Mark Dion Art 21 Clip 04:22-13:00
http://blog.art21.org/2008/05/22/mark-dion-“neukom-vivarium”/
d) Discuss how this artist is “holding up the mirror to the present”. The vivarium isn’t a representation of a tree stump, it is a tree stump. As a class discuss the process that makes this piece so meaningful. Discuss the time, lighting, specialists, water systems, irrigation systems, cooling systems, panels to control the light levels, tinted glass to replicate the color spectrum from original canopy. Discuss the statement “we really have tried to highlight that difficulty of replicating what nature can do.”
Class discussion:
In this clip, what were the interactions between organisms? If they don’t understand or can’t remember the part about preserving the insects go back to the clip, then ask: what were the different species that interacted to create that eco-system? How do you think they depended on each other? In an eco-system the different organisms are interdependent. They seem to have their own existences, but they also depend on each other. Now this vivarium was from a different environment than what we see here in Utah. But there are still organisms that make up eco-systems here. Can you think of any? Talk about the different eco-systems that are found in Utah. Then introduce the project. We are going to do something similar to what Mark Dion did with his vivarium. We are going to capture the essence or an eco-system in our area. But we want to try and make it as real and close to nature as possible so we are going to look at eco-systems that existed before humans lived here.
While constructing the vivarium we would identify the different organisms and species that were going into our vivarium and how they interacted with each other. How did they depend on each other? What would happen if one disappeared? We would also ask about how this related to Mimetic Theory. What were we doing to recreate or capture a lost environment?
5. Discuss with students the essence of their environment at home and at school. For homework have students talk with their parents about what was there before their house was built. Have students draw or tape on different plants and species that they think would have existed in the environment that predated their house.
DAY 2
6. Discuss what students found out about their living environment around their home. Have students do a pair share to compare the similarities and differences of what they found.
7. Assess the class’s understanding of the mimetic theory and vivariums by creating a classroom Vivarium based off of Mark Dion’s vivarium.
a) The first step to building a vivarium is to decide what kind of container you are going to use. As a class discuss the building Mark Dion built and how you can find something that is appropriate for the classroom. An example of a support for the medium, that would be appropriate for the classroom, would be a fishbowl. A fishbowl gives a 3D view, allowing the students to get the essence of the vivarium from all angles.
b)After the container is decided upon, decide upon what the ecosystem is that you are trying to capture the essence of. Once that is decided take your students outside and prepare the ground by filling the bowl with dirt and rocks from the actual environment. To have a drainage system, put rocks in the bottom first followed by dirt. Have students be an active part of finding the right rocks and a good place to collect soil.
c) Have students look for critters that you could add to your vivarium. It could help to do research ahead of time and find out what is natural and common to the area that you are capturing the essence of. If possible, collect a few critters to help create the essence of the environment.
(For Utah Valley, critters like the common grass spiders would be an excellent choice, as they are very abundant and not harmful to people.)
d) After rocks and soil (a base) has been collected, decide what kind of plants would be appropriate for the vivarium. As a class, research the plants ahead of time that are natural to an area.
e) Look around for commonly found plant species in the area.
f) Gently remove plants from ground.
g) As a class decide where in the vivarium to place the plants.
h) Gently plant each plant into the soil using a spoon or other digging devise.
j) Add any finishing touches such as moss or other things that your class decides are appropriate to maintain the essence of the environment.
k) Enjoy the final project and decide on a play to display in the classroom. Ask students to brainstorm about ways to maintain the same environment qualities that our found outside. Talk about ways to provide the same type of moisture (mist bottle for dew) or how to provide similar sunlight.
Assessment:
After completing the classroom vivarium we would want to assess our students knowledge in relation to the learning objective and standards that we set. In order to do that we would have each student draw a picture of the vivarium and label the different parts of that living eco-system that we recreated as a class. We would also ask them to answer three culminating questions.
1. How were these organisms dependent on each other?
2. What did we capture through our vivarium? (type of life and other objects)
3. How did this tie into the Mimetic Theory?
Rubric:
5-Student answered all of the questions correctly, correctly labeled picture, and went beyond what was taught.
4-Student answered all of the questions correctly, correctly labeled 80% of picture and showed a thorough knowledge of what we discussed in class.
3-Student answered 80% of questions correctly and labeled 80% of picture correctly.
2-Student answered 50% of questions correctly and labeled 50% of picture correctly.
1-Student struggled to complete assessment and only answered less than 50% of items correctly (questions and labeling combined).
0-Student did not complete assessment even with help from teacher.
Link to Powerpoint: https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/1Nz17AWUuzNGcAvNm9_WmzAnf0sY...
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