Videos by Jinan Kodapully
The future of traditional knowledge depends on the children of these communities. But, in my view... more The future of traditional knowledge depends on the children of these communities. But, in my view, the present drive to send all children to school will ensure the death of all traditional skills; craft, farming, healing, folk arts, and other specific knowledge systems that artisanal and village communities hold within.
Education, as exemplified by the system that we are all part of
institutionalized, structured, instruction-oriented, and
expert-dependent will make extinct all other ways of knowing. The reason for this, very briefly, is that the process of ‘knowing’ in ‘non-codified knowledge societies’ (instinctual, biological, unselfconscious, relating to senses) is very different from the
process of ‘knowing’ in ‘codified knowledge societies’ (Memory, text and digital codification). And these present-day systems of learning tend to create blinkers that do not allow an understanding of the earlier systems. 86 views
Papers by Jinan Kodapully
Let me share with you why the project to de-school, de-colonize, or even develop a knowledge syst... more Let me share with you why the project to de-school, de-colonize, or even develop a knowledge system to counter Western hegemony is possibly a failed initiative from the start itself, considering the progressive atrophy of our natural cognitive processes. The real solution doesn’t lie in the modern paradigm of education at all. One has to deeply explore the way human beings CREATE knowledge itself from direct experience, and understand how modern education turns us into analyzers and storage bins for second-hand information masquerading as knowledge.
Western knowledge system or the operating system of the modern Western mind/worldview has evolved due to dependence on the written text, which also means reliance on codified, readymade ‘knowledge’, or ‘hand-me-down’ symbolic information/misinformation of others. This rewires the cognitive process totally and the west has taken centuries to perpetuate and accentuate this cognitive damage. Even though they are aware of mind-body split, left-brain-right brain issues, fragmentation, etc, they think that it is natural and can be corrected by taking certain measures. This can never happen because the linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm and outside the realm of language.
Let me share with you why the project to de-school, de-colonize, or even develop a knowledge syst... more Let me share with you why the project to de-school, de-colonize, or even develop a knowledge system to counter Western hegemony is possibly a failed initiative from the start itself, considering the progressive atrophy of our natural cognitive processes. The real solution doesn’t lie in the modern paradigm of education at all. One has to deeply explore the way human beings CREATE knowledge itself from direct experience, and understand how modern education turns us into analyzers and storage bins for second-hand information masquerading as knowledge.
Western knowledge system or the operating system of the modern Western mind/worldview has evolved due to dependence on the written text, which also means reliance on codified, readymade ‘knowledge’, or ‘hand-me-down’ symbolic information/misinformation of others. This rewires the cognitive process totally and the west has taken centuries to perpetuate and accentuate this cognitive damage. Even though they are aware of mind-body split, left-brain-right brain issues, fragmentation, etc, they think that it is natural and can be corrected by taking certain measures. This can never happen because the linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm and outside the realm of language.
We, who are attempting to challenge the Western knowledge hegemony, are also largely trapped in this paradigm of ‘text’, ‘linearity’, and ‘certainty’.
In this paradigm, written text is the cognitive source and conscious reasoning is the cognitive tool. You can deduce how and when the celebrated ‘Age of Reason’ happened in western history. (This is the age of treason).
Sustainability is the way of Nature. It can't be practiced as an afterthought. A sustainable syst... more Sustainability is the way of Nature. It can't be practiced as an afterthought. A sustainable system is one in which harmony of all aspects of production- man, material, method- has a symbiotic relationship. In the act of engaging with the world, man is awakened to the cyclic nature of life. This defines the process and the way material- re source-able, renew-able, re generate-able and recycle-able- is used.
The linear, exponential 'growth' of modernity and sustainable, re-cyclic change in tradition are after all formed by respective cognitive conditions. An objective enquiry is called for to understand how the respective world views- one of alienation and other
reintegration- are formed. So what needs to be explored are the two paradigms of being- one which the very notion of 'waste' is absent and the other which generates waste from almost all activities it engages with. This is important as we represent the later group and the traditional artisans, the first group.
The structure of the relationship between the two groups involved in this transaction is clear. one has power over the other group - politically, economically, and technologically and hence defines the meaning and method of all this. The powerful also have a make-belief sense of justice that in fact is a means to protect this power
relation. This is caused by several myths, misconceptions, and misunderstandings we hold about various aspects like progress, educated, developed, sustainability etc. Two things need to be explored in this context. One is to understand how one is made to
believe in what one is believing. This needs to be done quite brutally as this will break the self-image of oneself and all that one thought was one's identity.
The second is to explore the role of cognitive conditions in shaping one's world view and self-image. But this demands us to step out of the designer's role, to step out of the notion that one is developed at least hypothetically and also to step outside the do-gooder's role. Both make us feel superior. Can we at least temporarily hold these assumptions and together explore how tradition practiced crafts and how they lived sustainably.
Spontaneity and Rationality-a fresh look Or DIFFICULTY IN UNDERSTANDING the spontaneous nature of... more Spontaneity and Rationality-a fresh look Or DIFFICULTY IN UNDERSTANDING the spontaneous nature of CHILDREN by reason based knowledge system. Once, I happened to watch two people swimming and noticed that one's actions were totally spontaneous whereas the other person seemed to think and act, kind of mechanical. Sure enough, when I enquired I found out that the first one was self-taught and the second person was taught by a coach. Self-taught is a way of expression that we have started using after we 'invented' teaching-both the word and the act. Actually ' self-taught' in this case really means that it is the water that taught the person to swim. The person began to respond to the water as a whole (mind and body together), each moment attentively learning from water what to do next. The mind is totally present with the body and here thought doesn't seem to have any role. Whereas the one taught by the coach had to break down the learning, giving priority to the mind because the coach first taught the mind with the help of language and then the student taught the body how to act. Seeing (sometimes even without seeing) and doing (learning) is different from instructing/ thinking/ understanding and then doing. In the first case, language does not come in as the primary source of knowledge whereas in the second case the teaching and instruction are happening in language. So here the mind learns first and then the body executes the action. In autonomous learning, the feedback is internal and experiential whereas in teaching the feedback is external and in language. With the mind and body thus fragmented and distanced, time entered our being. From timelessness, we got trapped in time. I remember reading an anthropologists description of how these two cultures cross a river. In the case of the rational cultures first thing is to study various factors like the direction of the wind, the strength of the flow, variations in this at particular time etc etc and after a thorough study the total plan is made. Start at so and so time in this direction and at another point change the direction etc and several mental rehearsals and then they set out to do the act. So the mind does the act first and the body obeys the mind. In case of spontaneous cultures learning happens while in the act. Of course, they are indeed familiar with the river. They have been living there and 'knowing' the river without any conscious learning. Two other situations worth exploring are one the football game and the traffic. In the case of football, the Brazilians are extremely spontaneous whereas the Germans and England etc are very rational in their moves. Even within Europe, one can see the difference between Spain, Italy-more spontaneous-on one side and North Europeans on the other. 'Rational' football looks like chess being played. When you watch
Exploring the WORD, mind and thought based cognitive system and the WORLD, senses and experience ... more Exploring the WORD, mind and thought based cognitive system and the WORLD, senses and experience based cognitive system.
Learning is the basis of life. All living beings are cognitive beings. All living beings learn. L... more Learning is the basis of life. All living beings are cognitive beings. All living beings learn. Learning is the natural mechanism to sustain life. They are internally designed by nature to learn in order to live. They have tools with differing capacities to support learning. Before we go further into exploring the 'human' learning ecology it is important to remind ourselves of our biological nature and that all biological beings learn in accordance with the internal laws of each species and their given contexts. Even though modern man wants to assert his difference and boast his greatness from the rest of life, it is important to remember that we have minor similarities with all life forms and also some abilities that other living beings have. Let us keep this in mind as we explore the learning process of human beings. Cognitive conditions dictate not only what and how we learn but also what we be. In this sense culture is the cognitive conditions and the cognitive source. We are formed by culture as much as we are forming the culture. I would like to draw attention to the primacy of cognitive condition/space in the act of knowing/being. Through the following four situations the above point will be easier to understand.
In October 2015 while I was at the temporary campus of the Sanchi university, near Bhopal (India)... more In October 2015 while I was at the temporary campus of the Sanchi university, near Bhopal (India) I saw a Thulsi thara decorated with a line drawn around on the ground. The way the circle was drawn can only be done by some one free from any rules, both self imposed and external. Total self abandonment!
Again on 11th January 2016 while travelling to the Sanchi University campus on the way I spotted houses decorated like this. The treatment is very unusual and I guessed that the villages around would also have such work. So next two days I was able to take two hours each to visit two villages near by. Really it was such a treat for the eyes and soul to see total innocence and freedom.
It appears that the vernacular is not about materials but about something in the being-ness of the people.
They are continuously responding to materials that come in their way, both aesthetically and innovating new ways of doing.
In a way doing very little or a feeling of letting things be with no effort to control.
We miss this because we are trained to see the product or at best the process but never the people behind and their effortless action. Nor do have any experiential reference to understand due to our regimented ‘schooling’.
Above all this is it possible for us to imbibe these qualities and enable the students to acquire ‘indigenous- ness’. Is it possible to work with the ‘vernacular’ with total respect to initiate a new way of engaging with them.
Learning is the nature of life and is rooted in biological principles. Human beings rooted in nat... more Learning is the nature of life and is rooted in biological principles. Human beings rooted in nature will naturally connect with this principle of life. Alienation of modern man is directly connected with this disconnection from nature. His 'knowledge' is de contextualized and homogenous where as the knowledge of the indigenous cultures are contextual and thus diverse. Vernacular belongs to totally another paradigm inaccessible to the 'modern literate mind'. Vernacular architecture cannot be separated from their total life. It is way of relating to a place, knowing a place, the kind of cognition that connects/ roots man to their context. It is connected with what they eat, what they farm, what they make, what is available in their context, their relation to the nature around, the mountains, rivers, sea, jungle etc etc. The biggest threat of modernity is homogenization of the human cultures. The visual experience of modern spaces all over the world is beginning to look alike- Architecture, artifacts, life style. The real issue is to understand how culture is formed and how cultural diversity could be retained. The author of this paper has spent several years working with non literate artisans in various parts of this country not only studying their knowledge system but also the conditions that enabled the creation of knowledge and formation of their world view. Context is the ground for the formation of culture. Culture has direct link with aesthetic sense, creativity and the respective ecology in which people live and connect. In fact beauty is the link that connects people to their environment. Some basic aspects of design education is like the way knowledge is created in indigenous cultures. Even though in modern context children are schooled out of their innate impulse to be rooted, design education has the potential in re claiming that. The experiential nature of design education allows the possibility of body mind integration. Designing also demands one to observe the now which calls for being present to the world and thirdly due to the fact that one does not know what would be the final outcome one is also brought to face the unknown. The exploratory element of Design education can also be compared to the way children play thus brining out the openness and playfulness of the person. By sensitively learning from the cognitive system among the vernacular one can reconnect to the timeless way of knowing and being.
KEY WORDS: authenticity, context, cognition, aesthetic sense, culture, timeless, ecology.
Modern knowledge system or the operating system of the modern mind/ world view has evolved due to... more Modern knowledge system or the operating system of the modern mind/ world view has evolved due to dependence on the written text. This also means dependence on codified knowledge. This rewires the cognitive process totally and west has taken centuries to perfect this cognitive damage. Even
though they are aware of mind body split, left brain right brain issues, fragmentation etc they are thinking it is natural and it can be solved by taking certain measures. This can never happen because their linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm.
We, who are attempting to challenge the western knowledge hegemony, are also trapped in this paradigm of ‘text’ , ‘linearity’ and ‘certainty’.
In this paradigm, written text is the cognitive source and conscious reasoning is the cognitive tool. You can deduce how and when the celebrated ‘age of reason’ happened in western history. (This is in fact the age of treason).
Learning to see’ is a workshop I was fortunate to conduct with about fourty 6th standard child... more Learning to see’ is a workshop I was fortunate to conduct with about fourty 6th standard children from the Sahyadri school. Pune. Children blessed me with their innocence, love, curiosity and spontaneity that was still some what intact. I could see naming was slowly getting prominence than the seeing of the object. Once naming gets more important the cognitive processes related to senses die and thinking and reasoning takes over. As they get entrenched in the linguistic world the world of objects recede from their vision. They stop being present to the world around. From the realm of timelessness they also get caught up in the clutches of time. My exposure to the rural tribal non literate people have made me realize that people who are using senses to cognize the world are in the realm of timelessness as they are always in the present.
Re imagining beauty includes even asking fundamental questions like what is beauty? what role do... more Re imagining beauty includes even asking fundamental questions like what is beauty? what role does it play in life? Is it universal? natural?
It is clear that befor instituionalised education came in to existanance people kept alive context based aesthetic sensibilities. Distinct from each other yet integrating aptly as and when exposure happens.Cultural diversity was kept alive. Almost every 5o miles change took place- in language, food and habitat keeping in line with the enviornment.
What institutionalized education did was to homogenize all this. Thus architects, designers and every one responsible for the making of habitat and artifacts began to respond with this standardized, conditioned and engineered sense of beauty. All cities have begun to look alike.
Let us come together and engage in this explorations and reflections.
An approach to integrate beauty, and values and knowledge.
'Art' workshop to awaken one's sense... more An approach to integrate beauty, and values and knowledge.
'Art' workshop to awaken one's sense of beauty by connecting with the beauty of nature
Sensing Nature; Knowing Nature is a programme I have been conducting in Aruvacode, Nilambur, Kera... more Sensing Nature; Knowing Nature is a programme I have been conducting in Aruvacode, Nilambur, Kerala for the past ten years or so (from 2003). Each and every time, during the programme, the children have proved the fact over and over again that they are born geniuses and just need to be left alone to make sense of the world. (See the link http://naturallearning.blogspot.in). Making sense of the world is both an inward and an outward process and senses are our doorways to both the outer and the inner worlds. When our senses ,which are our tools for knowing, get developed and sensitized these worlds reveal their secrets.
We are all born with a sense/meaning making instinct. This urge in us drives us to engage with the world. ‘Meaning making’ is an act of situating ourselves in the world, to know what the world offers us, to be, to live in the world.
The process of making sense of the world is a natural one and involves a concrete engagement with the environment which is the field in which one lives. Everything one sees / feels/ hears – ones own body , the people around ; plants, animals, insects, water, earth etc. are all subjects of observation, connection and engagement. From this concrete engagement one observes, abstracts and draws conclusions, asks more questions, creates more doubts- there is a dedicate balance between certainty and doubt, a constant crossing over between the unknown and the known. This ‘known’ is never ‘certain’. There is constant flux. This process can only happen authentically, independently and individually. In this act the child learn to be patient, unafraid, to plan, to make, to abstract, to explore, to innovate, to make connections, to take risks, to take responsibility for one self and even to be self disciplined. The whole body is engaged in this act of knowing.
Author of this paper has been involved in an existential research from 1985 to understand the cog... more Author of this paper has been involved in an existential research from 1985 to understand the cognitive damages of modernity- reductionist, alienated, fragmented and anthropocentric way of being and also the biological roots of human beings. The author of this paper has spent several years working with non literate artisans in various parts of India, not only studying their knowledge system but also the conditions that enabled the creation of knowledge and formation of their world view. Some details of this would be elaborated to understand the so called modern knowledge system and the conditions that make this knowledge to happen. Author's work as designer with artisans was a turning point as he saw originality, creativity and authenticity in their work. This happened only because instead of designing products for them to produce he initiated creativity among them. Anthropocentrism is a result of cognitive crisis. Dependence on mediated knowledge rather than direct engagement has distanced him from the outer nature and his inner nature. This is the cause for the fragmentation and the alienation now rampant in modern man. Even though this has happened very gradually the present schooling is creating anthropocentric human beings on a mass scale. This is happening due to the denial of the biological aspects of cognition or being in the world to function in the modern cognitive conditions.
All children are born as nature centric beings and in the context of modernity they are educated or conditioned out of it. In communities where there is neither mediated knowing nor instructed living the nature centrism stays put or it is rooted firmly. The knowledge paradigm of indigenous communities are such that the human being's autonomy and the innate urge to live comes to act.
Some basic aspects of design education is like the way knowledge is created in indigenous cultures. Even though in modern context children are schooled out of their natural learning process design education has the potential in re claiming that. The experiential nature of design education allows the possibility of body mind integration. Designing also demands one to observe the now which calls for being present to the world and thirdly due to the fact that one does not know what would be the final outcome one is also brought to face the unknown. The exploratory element of Design education can also be compared to the way children play thus brining out the openness and playfulness of the person.
Sensitive and objective examination is required to understand people who belong to totally different paradigm. Modern man and traditional man belongs to two entirely different paradigms. One gets used to ones belief system because it psychologically protects one and create a veil to thwart any attempt in seeing things differently which might make one uncomfortable. This is so diabolical that even scientific proofs are brought in to fend oneself against reality! Even 'objectivity' could be used for this purpose. Two things needs to be explored in this context. One is to understand how one is made to believe in what one is believing. This needs to be done quite brutally as this will break the self image of oneself and all that one thought were ones identity. Second is to explore the role of cognitive conditions in forming ones world view and self image. But this demands us to step out of the designers role, to step out of the notion that one is developed or advanced, at least hypothetically and also to step outside the do gooders role. Both makes us feel superior. Can we at least temporarily hold these assumptions and explore how indigenous cognitive conditions created nature centric human beings and how modernity is creating anthropocentric human beings. A careful study of the total paradigm in indigenous, non literate knowledge system corresponds to this but is also dissimilar in some crucial ways which is what helps the person rooted in their nature centric beingness.
This could help in re designing design education to help in centring us in to the beingness of Nature.
Keyword : nature centric, cognitive crisis, Alienation, sense cognition
Human beings are formed by the conditions in which they grow.
Modern education is the most danger... more Human beings are formed by the conditions in which they grow.
Modern education is the most dangerous activity happening today. It has homogenized the so called educated people, disconnected them from their contexts, and alienated them from their inner nature. It has killed autonomy, authenticity and the potential for human's originality.
Definitions of ' what is knowledge', ' where and how knowledge is imparted ' and 'who are certified to give knowledge' are questions that are essentially political in nature in the context of Modernity, which clearly exhibits control and exclusion in its functioning.
It is as if colonized mindset has become the normal way of being. Education is a belief system that has been imposed on man. When the learning is not based on experience it will invariably become belief. Experiencing requires the functioning of senses and a real context of which learning is supposed to be taking place.
Language which has become the cognitive source of modern man installs its characteristics and impacts his formation. After all human being is primarily a biological beings and will be effected biologically as it engages with the context. Modern mans context is people who have become experts in using words(teacher) or who are in the process of acquiring this mastery (students), text or digital information and a make belief game with tests and certificates. This context damages and distorts the biologically based cognitive tools, process and structure.
The most important aspect of design education is that it has the potential in making the learner ... more The most important aspect of design education is that it has the potential in making the learner ‘present’ to the concreteness of the world around. It also has the potential in approaching designing as if one is encountering the issues for the first time. One needs to start from a clean slate all the time which makes the design perfect. One has to go in to realm of unknown instead of taking things for granted.
Two core aspects of design education is design process and aesthetic sense and of course it deals with the tangibles and move on from exploring quantity to quality. From concrete to the abstract. Design education has the aspect of observing the phenomenon and exploring the materials. It looks at human beings, their practices, products they use and how they are related.
As methods and theories precede the process of knowing a cognitive reversal happens and reasoning... more As methods and theories precede the process of knowing a cognitive reversal happens and reasoning becomes the way to comprehend and apply what is known. Then intuition becomes a mere tool in the hands of reason. Creativity becomes bounded within the frame work of the prescribed. But if we let the method evolve naturally a totally new possibility is awoken. This shift will immediately put us in to the realm of unknown thus paving way for creativity and spontaneity.
Some aspects of our life have to be reinvented, lived and experienced firsthand.
Beauty is one of them. To relate to the world, to make sense of it and engage with it also has to be first hand. Unfortunately the whole educational process as well as the instructed living takes away the directness and authenticity of living. The possibility of unfolding what is inherent is replaced with doctrines and methods.
Three key aspects that need re-examining are what, how and why of knowledge. Here knowledge needs to be understood as the totality of living itself. What constitutes cognition, how is about beauty and why is about value. But all this needs to seen in the context of existence and not anthropocentric.
The biggest threat of modernity is homogenization of the human cultures.
The visual experience of... more The biggest threat of modernity is homogenization of the human cultures.
The visual experience of modern spaces all over the world is beginning to look alike- Architecture, artifacts, life style. About a century ago we had diverse cultures with distinct way of life and aesthetic sensibilities.
The real issue is to understand how culture is formed and how to retain cultural diversity.
Culture is the result of how aesthetic sensibilities of people get manifested in the things they make and how they live. But the aesthetic sensibilities were awakened naturally by engaging with their contexts.
In modern situation, education conditions and homogenizes the sensibility of people through various subjects like art, architecture, design etc.
All over the world the same syllabus is taught!
So if aesthetic education is treated as awakening the sense by creating situations for connecting to the natural context of the learners lives, do have the potential for making the learner authentic and original.
This authenticity will create diverse cultures.
Learning ‘process design’ also allows the designer to see social process in action and also enabl... more Learning ‘process design’ also allows the designer to see social process in action and also enables them to take part in the indigenous knowledge in wider manner. It is a tragedy that this area has not been addressed properly by design schools.
The artisan is definitely benefited by this process as their own creativity and initiative is put to use and this will enable them to take the craft forward in a holistic manner.
It makes us, the designers sensitive to several other issues. Appreciating and respecting creativity in other people makes us less egoistic and democratic. This will also help to open up and help us in addressing our own inadequacies as a ‘trained’ professional.
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Videos by Jinan Kodapully
Education, as exemplified by the system that we are all part of
institutionalized, structured, instruction-oriented, and
expert-dependent will make extinct all other ways of knowing. The reason for this, very briefly, is that the process of ‘knowing’ in ‘non-codified knowledge societies’ (instinctual, biological, unselfconscious, relating to senses) is very different from the
process of ‘knowing’ in ‘codified knowledge societies’ (Memory, text and digital codification). And these present-day systems of learning tend to create blinkers that do not allow an understanding of the earlier systems.
Papers by Jinan Kodapully
Western knowledge system or the operating system of the modern Western mind/worldview has evolved due to dependence on the written text, which also means reliance on codified, readymade ‘knowledge’, or ‘hand-me-down’ symbolic information/misinformation of others. This rewires the cognitive process totally and the west has taken centuries to perpetuate and accentuate this cognitive damage. Even though they are aware of mind-body split, left-brain-right brain issues, fragmentation, etc, they think that it is natural and can be corrected by taking certain measures. This can never happen because the linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm and outside the realm of language.
Western knowledge system or the operating system of the modern Western mind/worldview has evolved due to dependence on the written text, which also means reliance on codified, readymade ‘knowledge’, or ‘hand-me-down’ symbolic information/misinformation of others. This rewires the cognitive process totally and the west has taken centuries to perpetuate and accentuate this cognitive damage. Even though they are aware of mind-body split, left-brain-right brain issues, fragmentation, etc, they think that it is natural and can be corrected by taking certain measures. This can never happen because the linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm and outside the realm of language.
We, who are attempting to challenge the Western knowledge hegemony, are also largely trapped in this paradigm of ‘text’, ‘linearity’, and ‘certainty’.
In this paradigm, written text is the cognitive source and conscious reasoning is the cognitive tool. You can deduce how and when the celebrated ‘Age of Reason’ happened in western history. (This is the age of treason).
The linear, exponential 'growth' of modernity and sustainable, re-cyclic change in tradition are after all formed by respective cognitive conditions. An objective enquiry is called for to understand how the respective world views- one of alienation and other
reintegration- are formed. So what needs to be explored are the two paradigms of being- one which the very notion of 'waste' is absent and the other which generates waste from almost all activities it engages with. This is important as we represent the later group and the traditional artisans, the first group.
The structure of the relationship between the two groups involved in this transaction is clear. one has power over the other group - politically, economically, and technologically and hence defines the meaning and method of all this. The powerful also have a make-belief sense of justice that in fact is a means to protect this power
relation. This is caused by several myths, misconceptions, and misunderstandings we hold about various aspects like progress, educated, developed, sustainability etc. Two things need to be explored in this context. One is to understand how one is made to
believe in what one is believing. This needs to be done quite brutally as this will break the self-image of oneself and all that one thought was one's identity.
The second is to explore the role of cognitive conditions in shaping one's world view and self-image. But this demands us to step out of the designer's role, to step out of the notion that one is developed at least hypothetically and also to step outside the do-gooder's role. Both make us feel superior. Can we at least temporarily hold these assumptions and together explore how tradition practiced crafts and how they lived sustainably.
Again on 11th January 2016 while travelling to the Sanchi University campus on the way I spotted houses decorated like this. The treatment is very unusual and I guessed that the villages around would also have such work. So next two days I was able to take two hours each to visit two villages near by. Really it was such a treat for the eyes and soul to see total innocence and freedom.
It appears that the vernacular is not about materials but about something in the being-ness of the people.
They are continuously responding to materials that come in their way, both aesthetically and innovating new ways of doing.
In a way doing very little or a feeling of letting things be with no effort to control.
We miss this because we are trained to see the product or at best the process but never the people behind and their effortless action. Nor do have any experiential reference to understand due to our regimented ‘schooling’.
Above all this is it possible for us to imbibe these qualities and enable the students to acquire ‘indigenous- ness’. Is it possible to work with the ‘vernacular’ with total respect to initiate a new way of engaging with them.
KEY WORDS: authenticity, context, cognition, aesthetic sense, culture, timeless, ecology.
though they are aware of mind body split, left brain right brain issues, fragmentation etc they are thinking it is natural and it can be solved by taking certain measures. This can never happen because their linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm.
We, who are attempting to challenge the western knowledge hegemony, are also trapped in this paradigm of ‘text’ , ‘linearity’ and ‘certainty’.
In this paradigm, written text is the cognitive source and conscious reasoning is the cognitive tool. You can deduce how and when the celebrated ‘age of reason’ happened in western history. (This is in fact the age of treason).
It is clear that befor instituionalised education came in to existanance people kept alive context based aesthetic sensibilities. Distinct from each other yet integrating aptly as and when exposure happens.Cultural diversity was kept alive. Almost every 5o miles change took place- in language, food and habitat keeping in line with the enviornment.
What institutionalized education did was to homogenize all this. Thus architects, designers and every one responsible for the making of habitat and artifacts began to respond with this standardized, conditioned and engineered sense of beauty. All cities have begun to look alike.
Let us come together and engage in this explorations and reflections.
'Art' workshop to awaken one's sense of beauty by connecting with the beauty of nature
We are all born with a sense/meaning making instinct. This urge in us drives us to engage with the world. ‘Meaning making’ is an act of situating ourselves in the world, to know what the world offers us, to be, to live in the world.
The process of making sense of the world is a natural one and involves a concrete engagement with the environment which is the field in which one lives. Everything one sees / feels/ hears – ones own body , the people around ; plants, animals, insects, water, earth etc. are all subjects of observation, connection and engagement. From this concrete engagement one observes, abstracts and draws conclusions, asks more questions, creates more doubts- there is a dedicate balance between certainty and doubt, a constant crossing over between the unknown and the known. This ‘known’ is never ‘certain’. There is constant flux. This process can only happen authentically, independently and individually. In this act the child learn to be patient, unafraid, to plan, to make, to abstract, to explore, to innovate, to make connections, to take risks, to take responsibility for one self and even to be self disciplined. The whole body is engaged in this act of knowing.
All children are born as nature centric beings and in the context of modernity they are educated or conditioned out of it. In communities where there is neither mediated knowing nor instructed living the nature centrism stays put or it is rooted firmly. The knowledge paradigm of indigenous communities are such that the human being's autonomy and the innate urge to live comes to act.
Some basic aspects of design education is like the way knowledge is created in indigenous cultures. Even though in modern context children are schooled out of their natural learning process design education has the potential in re claiming that. The experiential nature of design education allows the possibility of body mind integration. Designing also demands one to observe the now which calls for being present to the world and thirdly due to the fact that one does not know what would be the final outcome one is also brought to face the unknown. The exploratory element of Design education can also be compared to the way children play thus brining out the openness and playfulness of the person.
Sensitive and objective examination is required to understand people who belong to totally different paradigm. Modern man and traditional man belongs to two entirely different paradigms. One gets used to ones belief system because it psychologically protects one and create a veil to thwart any attempt in seeing things differently which might make one uncomfortable. This is so diabolical that even scientific proofs are brought in to fend oneself against reality! Even 'objectivity' could be used for this purpose. Two things needs to be explored in this context. One is to understand how one is made to believe in what one is believing. This needs to be done quite brutally as this will break the self image of oneself and all that one thought were ones identity. Second is to explore the role of cognitive conditions in forming ones world view and self image. But this demands us to step out of the designers role, to step out of the notion that one is developed or advanced, at least hypothetically and also to step outside the do gooders role. Both makes us feel superior. Can we at least temporarily hold these assumptions and explore how indigenous cognitive conditions created nature centric human beings and how modernity is creating anthropocentric human beings. A careful study of the total paradigm in indigenous, non literate knowledge system corresponds to this but is also dissimilar in some crucial ways which is what helps the person rooted in their nature centric beingness.
This could help in re designing design education to help in centring us in to the beingness of Nature.
Keyword : nature centric, cognitive crisis, Alienation, sense cognition
Modern education is the most dangerous activity happening today. It has homogenized the so called educated people, disconnected them from their contexts, and alienated them from their inner nature. It has killed autonomy, authenticity and the potential for human's originality.
Definitions of ' what is knowledge', ' where and how knowledge is imparted ' and 'who are certified to give knowledge' are questions that are essentially political in nature in the context of Modernity, which clearly exhibits control and exclusion in its functioning.
It is as if colonized mindset has become the normal way of being. Education is a belief system that has been imposed on man. When the learning is not based on experience it will invariably become belief. Experiencing requires the functioning of senses and a real context of which learning is supposed to be taking place.
Language which has become the cognitive source of modern man installs its characteristics and impacts his formation. After all human being is primarily a biological beings and will be effected biologically as it engages with the context. Modern mans context is people who have become experts in using words(teacher) or who are in the process of acquiring this mastery (students), text or digital information and a make belief game with tests and certificates. This context damages and distorts the biologically based cognitive tools, process and structure.
Two core aspects of design education is design process and aesthetic sense and of course it deals with the tangibles and move on from exploring quantity to quality. From concrete to the abstract. Design education has the aspect of observing the phenomenon and exploring the materials. It looks at human beings, their practices, products they use and how they are related.
Some aspects of our life have to be reinvented, lived and experienced firsthand.
Beauty is one of them. To relate to the world, to make sense of it and engage with it also has to be first hand. Unfortunately the whole educational process as well as the instructed living takes away the directness and authenticity of living. The possibility of unfolding what is inherent is replaced with doctrines and methods.
Three key aspects that need re-examining are what, how and why of knowledge. Here knowledge needs to be understood as the totality of living itself. What constitutes cognition, how is about beauty and why is about value. But all this needs to seen in the context of existence and not anthropocentric.
The visual experience of modern spaces all over the world is beginning to look alike- Architecture, artifacts, life style. About a century ago we had diverse cultures with distinct way of life and aesthetic sensibilities.
The real issue is to understand how culture is formed and how to retain cultural diversity.
Culture is the result of how aesthetic sensibilities of people get manifested in the things they make and how they live. But the aesthetic sensibilities were awakened naturally by engaging with their contexts.
In modern situation, education conditions and homogenizes the sensibility of people through various subjects like art, architecture, design etc.
All over the world the same syllabus is taught!
So if aesthetic education is treated as awakening the sense by creating situations for connecting to the natural context of the learners lives, do have the potential for making the learner authentic and original.
This authenticity will create diverse cultures.
The artisan is definitely benefited by this process as their own creativity and initiative is put to use and this will enable them to take the craft forward in a holistic manner.
It makes us, the designers sensitive to several other issues. Appreciating and respecting creativity in other people makes us less egoistic and democratic. This will also help to open up and help us in addressing our own inadequacies as a ‘trained’ professional.
Education, as exemplified by the system that we are all part of
institutionalized, structured, instruction-oriented, and
expert-dependent will make extinct all other ways of knowing. The reason for this, very briefly, is that the process of ‘knowing’ in ‘non-codified knowledge societies’ (instinctual, biological, unselfconscious, relating to senses) is very different from the
process of ‘knowing’ in ‘codified knowledge societies’ (Memory, text and digital codification). And these present-day systems of learning tend to create blinkers that do not allow an understanding of the earlier systems.
Western knowledge system or the operating system of the modern Western mind/worldview has evolved due to dependence on the written text, which also means reliance on codified, readymade ‘knowledge’, or ‘hand-me-down’ symbolic information/misinformation of others. This rewires the cognitive process totally and the west has taken centuries to perpetuate and accentuate this cognitive damage. Even though they are aware of mind-body split, left-brain-right brain issues, fragmentation, etc, they think that it is natural and can be corrected by taking certain measures. This can never happen because the linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm and outside the realm of language.
Western knowledge system or the operating system of the modern Western mind/worldview has evolved due to dependence on the written text, which also means reliance on codified, readymade ‘knowledge’, or ‘hand-me-down’ symbolic information/misinformation of others. This rewires the cognitive process totally and the west has taken centuries to perpetuate and accentuate this cognitive damage. Even though they are aware of mind-body split, left-brain-right brain issues, fragmentation, etc, they think that it is natural and can be corrected by taking certain measures. This can never happen because the linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm and outside the realm of language.
We, who are attempting to challenge the Western knowledge hegemony, are also largely trapped in this paradigm of ‘text’, ‘linearity’, and ‘certainty’.
In this paradigm, written text is the cognitive source and conscious reasoning is the cognitive tool. You can deduce how and when the celebrated ‘Age of Reason’ happened in western history. (This is the age of treason).
The linear, exponential 'growth' of modernity and sustainable, re-cyclic change in tradition are after all formed by respective cognitive conditions. An objective enquiry is called for to understand how the respective world views- one of alienation and other
reintegration- are formed. So what needs to be explored are the two paradigms of being- one which the very notion of 'waste' is absent and the other which generates waste from almost all activities it engages with. This is important as we represent the later group and the traditional artisans, the first group.
The structure of the relationship between the two groups involved in this transaction is clear. one has power over the other group - politically, economically, and technologically and hence defines the meaning and method of all this. The powerful also have a make-belief sense of justice that in fact is a means to protect this power
relation. This is caused by several myths, misconceptions, and misunderstandings we hold about various aspects like progress, educated, developed, sustainability etc. Two things need to be explored in this context. One is to understand how one is made to
believe in what one is believing. This needs to be done quite brutally as this will break the self-image of oneself and all that one thought was one's identity.
The second is to explore the role of cognitive conditions in shaping one's world view and self-image. But this demands us to step out of the designer's role, to step out of the notion that one is developed at least hypothetically and also to step outside the do-gooder's role. Both make us feel superior. Can we at least temporarily hold these assumptions and together explore how tradition practiced crafts and how they lived sustainably.
Again on 11th January 2016 while travelling to the Sanchi University campus on the way I spotted houses decorated like this. The treatment is very unusual and I guessed that the villages around would also have such work. So next two days I was able to take two hours each to visit two villages near by. Really it was such a treat for the eyes and soul to see total innocence and freedom.
It appears that the vernacular is not about materials but about something in the being-ness of the people.
They are continuously responding to materials that come in their way, both aesthetically and innovating new ways of doing.
In a way doing very little or a feeling of letting things be with no effort to control.
We miss this because we are trained to see the product or at best the process but never the people behind and their effortless action. Nor do have any experiential reference to understand due to our regimented ‘schooling’.
Above all this is it possible for us to imbibe these qualities and enable the students to acquire ‘indigenous- ness’. Is it possible to work with the ‘vernacular’ with total respect to initiate a new way of engaging with them.
KEY WORDS: authenticity, context, cognition, aesthetic sense, culture, timeless, ecology.
though they are aware of mind body split, left brain right brain issues, fragmentation etc they are thinking it is natural and it can be solved by taking certain measures. This can never happen because their linear mind will not be able to even understand the real issue. It is beyond the linear paradigm.
We, who are attempting to challenge the western knowledge hegemony, are also trapped in this paradigm of ‘text’ , ‘linearity’ and ‘certainty’.
In this paradigm, written text is the cognitive source and conscious reasoning is the cognitive tool. You can deduce how and when the celebrated ‘age of reason’ happened in western history. (This is in fact the age of treason).
It is clear that befor instituionalised education came in to existanance people kept alive context based aesthetic sensibilities. Distinct from each other yet integrating aptly as and when exposure happens.Cultural diversity was kept alive. Almost every 5o miles change took place- in language, food and habitat keeping in line with the enviornment.
What institutionalized education did was to homogenize all this. Thus architects, designers and every one responsible for the making of habitat and artifacts began to respond with this standardized, conditioned and engineered sense of beauty. All cities have begun to look alike.
Let us come together and engage in this explorations and reflections.
'Art' workshop to awaken one's sense of beauty by connecting with the beauty of nature
We are all born with a sense/meaning making instinct. This urge in us drives us to engage with the world. ‘Meaning making’ is an act of situating ourselves in the world, to know what the world offers us, to be, to live in the world.
The process of making sense of the world is a natural one and involves a concrete engagement with the environment which is the field in which one lives. Everything one sees / feels/ hears – ones own body , the people around ; plants, animals, insects, water, earth etc. are all subjects of observation, connection and engagement. From this concrete engagement one observes, abstracts and draws conclusions, asks more questions, creates more doubts- there is a dedicate balance between certainty and doubt, a constant crossing over between the unknown and the known. This ‘known’ is never ‘certain’. There is constant flux. This process can only happen authentically, independently and individually. In this act the child learn to be patient, unafraid, to plan, to make, to abstract, to explore, to innovate, to make connections, to take risks, to take responsibility for one self and even to be self disciplined. The whole body is engaged in this act of knowing.
All children are born as nature centric beings and in the context of modernity they are educated or conditioned out of it. In communities where there is neither mediated knowing nor instructed living the nature centrism stays put or it is rooted firmly. The knowledge paradigm of indigenous communities are such that the human being's autonomy and the innate urge to live comes to act.
Some basic aspects of design education is like the way knowledge is created in indigenous cultures. Even though in modern context children are schooled out of their natural learning process design education has the potential in re claiming that. The experiential nature of design education allows the possibility of body mind integration. Designing also demands one to observe the now which calls for being present to the world and thirdly due to the fact that one does not know what would be the final outcome one is also brought to face the unknown. The exploratory element of Design education can also be compared to the way children play thus brining out the openness and playfulness of the person.
Sensitive and objective examination is required to understand people who belong to totally different paradigm. Modern man and traditional man belongs to two entirely different paradigms. One gets used to ones belief system because it psychologically protects one and create a veil to thwart any attempt in seeing things differently which might make one uncomfortable. This is so diabolical that even scientific proofs are brought in to fend oneself against reality! Even 'objectivity' could be used for this purpose. Two things needs to be explored in this context. One is to understand how one is made to believe in what one is believing. This needs to be done quite brutally as this will break the self image of oneself and all that one thought were ones identity. Second is to explore the role of cognitive conditions in forming ones world view and self image. But this demands us to step out of the designers role, to step out of the notion that one is developed or advanced, at least hypothetically and also to step outside the do gooders role. Both makes us feel superior. Can we at least temporarily hold these assumptions and explore how indigenous cognitive conditions created nature centric human beings and how modernity is creating anthropocentric human beings. A careful study of the total paradigm in indigenous, non literate knowledge system corresponds to this but is also dissimilar in some crucial ways which is what helps the person rooted in their nature centric beingness.
This could help in re designing design education to help in centring us in to the beingness of Nature.
Keyword : nature centric, cognitive crisis, Alienation, sense cognition
Modern education is the most dangerous activity happening today. It has homogenized the so called educated people, disconnected them from their contexts, and alienated them from their inner nature. It has killed autonomy, authenticity and the potential for human's originality.
Definitions of ' what is knowledge', ' where and how knowledge is imparted ' and 'who are certified to give knowledge' are questions that are essentially political in nature in the context of Modernity, which clearly exhibits control and exclusion in its functioning.
It is as if colonized mindset has become the normal way of being. Education is a belief system that has been imposed on man. When the learning is not based on experience it will invariably become belief. Experiencing requires the functioning of senses and a real context of which learning is supposed to be taking place.
Language which has become the cognitive source of modern man installs its characteristics and impacts his formation. After all human being is primarily a biological beings and will be effected biologically as it engages with the context. Modern mans context is people who have become experts in using words(teacher) or who are in the process of acquiring this mastery (students), text or digital information and a make belief game with tests and certificates. This context damages and distorts the biologically based cognitive tools, process and structure.
Two core aspects of design education is design process and aesthetic sense and of course it deals with the tangibles and move on from exploring quantity to quality. From concrete to the abstract. Design education has the aspect of observing the phenomenon and exploring the materials. It looks at human beings, their practices, products they use and how they are related.
Some aspects of our life have to be reinvented, lived and experienced firsthand.
Beauty is one of them. To relate to the world, to make sense of it and engage with it also has to be first hand. Unfortunately the whole educational process as well as the instructed living takes away the directness and authenticity of living. The possibility of unfolding what is inherent is replaced with doctrines and methods.
Three key aspects that need re-examining are what, how and why of knowledge. Here knowledge needs to be understood as the totality of living itself. What constitutes cognition, how is about beauty and why is about value. But all this needs to seen in the context of existence and not anthropocentric.
The visual experience of modern spaces all over the world is beginning to look alike- Architecture, artifacts, life style. About a century ago we had diverse cultures with distinct way of life and aesthetic sensibilities.
The real issue is to understand how culture is formed and how to retain cultural diversity.
Culture is the result of how aesthetic sensibilities of people get manifested in the things they make and how they live. But the aesthetic sensibilities were awakened naturally by engaging with their contexts.
In modern situation, education conditions and homogenizes the sensibility of people through various subjects like art, architecture, design etc.
All over the world the same syllabus is taught!
So if aesthetic education is treated as awakening the sense by creating situations for connecting to the natural context of the learners lives, do have the potential for making the learner authentic and original.
This authenticity will create diverse cultures.
The artisan is definitely benefited by this process as their own creativity and initiative is put to use and this will enable them to take the craft forward in a holistic manner.
It makes us, the designers sensitive to several other issues. Appreciating and respecting creativity in other people makes us less egoistic and democratic. This will also help to open up and help us in addressing our own inadequacies as a ‘trained’ professional.
So the documentation of the Aruvacode project is not about how I 'developed' them, but about what I have learnt from them. In that sense, it is a critique of the modern paradigm of life. It is also about what harm we, the 'educated' are doing in the name of 'development' and 'education'.
So what does the world consists of?
The world consists of 'forms', its functions, movements, processes, materiality and its qualities, human relationship and various activities and interactions.
All this used to be the 'subject' of children's play in traditional communities before modernity took away their time, space and freedom.
Whatever phenomenon the child encounters is made in to a play.
Every phenomenon has form, components, process and relationship.
All this becomes aspects for children to explore and play
FORM, FUNCTION, PROCESS, STRUCTURE
Sometimes the form making becomes play, the structure making becomes play, or else the function is played out or all these gets mixed up. There aren't strict rules but ultimately what they explore is LIFE as it happens in front of them.
Exploring the myths around children, play and 'toy'
RE IMAGINING THE EXISTENTIAL RIGHTS OF THE CHILD
Should children learn the world or the word
Should children play as per their cognitive need or by the instruction of the adult
Should children make toys as per their need or they play with the toys made by adults?
Should children make toys in conjunction with what they play or with the toys made by adults?
In order to learn the three-dimensional world children play and make toys.
This is the process that has been granted by life.
But what children play is what children experience every day. What they see, touch, feel etc
Play is a complete system designed by Life and is done by almost all animals- dogs, kittens,
The complexity and type depend on the species. The human child needs more time, unlike other creatures.
Playfulness is the nature of the child and whatever they do becomes play and learning happens in the process. The child sitting on soft sofa would naturally bounce feeling the bounciness of sofa. This act is play and learning at the same time. The sofa becomes their 'toy' in this act. The notion of toy as a miniaturized product is a modern invention supported by commercial interest as well as genuine misunderstanding. Toy is the material aspect of their play and often the body itself is used as the 'toy' especially when they imitate the object itself. Imitating vehicles is a good example.
children are learning the way the world looks, the quality or the property of its materiality and the functions, processes and the various phenomenon that happens around them. This is the most scientific way of understanding the world around as well as sharpening the tools to understand the world and developing the qualities to be in the world. The integrity of the world is retained by this integral way of relating to the world. The holistic nature of the world awakens the holistic nature in the child.
There are 8 presentations including this introduction.
Introduction
Playing as a means to explore the outer world
Playing as a means to awaken the inner world
Toys that makes children
Toys that children make
Drawing. Two dimensional play?
Cognitive process- Being in the world
Further research- An integral understanding
Why learn about children?
Child is the unit of human life, the way cell is for life.
Knowing and being can only be understood by revisiting some of this fundamental aspects of life- why, what and how children learn! Of course we will have to revisit the very idea of 'learning' itself.
Explore afresh what the child is all about
Its capacity, existential needs…..
There are about 6 to 7 thousand videos and images to support the present research.
Unfortunately modern adult is looking through the frame/ categories they have created.
Fresh look calls for not just ‘out of the box thinking’ but learning how we entered into this box using mind constructed concepts.
Children can help us to get out of this box.
It is interesting another nature of the modern mindset which can be called an ‘afterthought’. This means first destroy, make this as default and then pretend for the first time a solution is provided.
Take the usage ‘out of the box thinking. A much-celebrated usage…. The stupidity of the modern mindset is that they are not asking why are you in the box in the first place. Who put us in? So, our default setting is in the box, fragmented……. And instead of trying to find the root cause, a temporary solution is offered.
Natasha Jen: Design Thinking is Bullsh*t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_raleGrTdUg
One doesn’t require an anthropologist, sociologist, psychologist, and least of all a cognitive scientist to understand the modern mindset. Just a bit of common sense (the most uncommon in modernity which is what schooling takes away) will do. A proper examination of the term ‘design thinking’ will do. How they bring in two totally diverse phenomena together in words and pretend the job is done. This is the same drama with first fragmenting knowledge into various subjects and making the pretense of integrating all by just creating a few terms- multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, etc…
It is interesting another nature of the modern mindset which can be called an ‘afterthought’. This means first destroy, make this as default and then pretend for the first time a solution is provided.
Take the usage ‘out of the box thinking. A much-celebrated usage…. The stupidity of the modern mindset is that they are not asking why are you in the box in the first place. Who put us in? So, our default setting is in the box, fragmented……. And instead of trying to find the root cause, a temporary solution is offered.
Natasha Jen: Design Thinking is Bullsh*t https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_raleGrTdUg
Two-dimensional experience is very new to human beings which became part of the general lifestyle only much after the invention of the printing press. One could say only by eighteenth-century literacy occupied the cultural space in Europe. In most of the non-western countries even now, half of the population would still belong to the oral cultural sensibility.
The manner in which literacy is being introduced clearly alienates people from the real world and is creating an uprooted way of existence.
From raw food to cooked food was the first major change that took place in the biological nature of human beings. It totally impacted the digestive system in a very deep manner and also impacted total change in behavior and the whole social life changed due to this.
The second event that totally changed our biology was our shift from orality to literacy which took place on a large scale after the invention of the printing press. Till then writing was like small craft activity which only a few skilled people could do, who scribed letters into various mediums. It was just like any other craft skill.
What cooked food did to the digestive system, literacy did to our cognitive system. It totally changed the cognitive source, cognitive tools, cognitive process, and cognitive foundation or the structure. It completely changed the realm of understanding. The two-dimensionality that literacy brings in, in fact, has created a virtual cognitive realm and many of our experiences are now not only two-dimensional but also vertical.
"TEACHING obliterates LEARNING. HELP obliterates SELF-WORTH. INSTRUCTIONS obliterates EXPLORATION. KNOWLEDGE obliterates KNOWING"
'Parenting' as a deliberate and stressful activity is what prompted the term 'do-nothing parenting' the way 'do-nothing farming' was in response to the toxic farming that we established in the 20 th century. Previously, people understood the nature of life and were living in alignment with life. Hence, parents never 'looked after children. Children just grew up in an environment of care, freedom, and trust. This is how all living beings live. If one casts a glance to few generations prior, people didn't seem to have any problems. What seems to be happening now, is that the 'greater the knowledge the people have about how to do, the less they know how to be.
Children, being in the realm of the unknown, are providing us with an opportunity to recover our natural cognitive system – essentially designed to discover & create knowledge. We are of the past, whereas children are of THE NOW. Children are process-oriented, whereas we are product-oriented. Children autonomously create knowledge of the real world, but we have been taught to analyze the written word.
The catch is that children have a potential that needs to be awakened. Engaging with us, children imbibe what we are. So, if we choose NOT to change, we are going to condition and, in the process, we will be creating clones out of our children.
Though de-conditioning ourselves is a very difficult process to attempt, it will enable the child to experience us as a process.
Experientially explore the centrality of experience. The resultant destruction of life around is the result of the denial of experience, body, the senses, and the feminine. To critically explore how the screens (the digital and the textual) have rewired our cognitive architecture, reshaped our behavior, and alienated us from life. The workshop will provide an opportunity to understand the detrimental cognitive habits instilled by the screens-text and digital. Explore ways to de-school and unlearn these habits and establish processes that are life-sustaining from the very start. The process also helps in re-integrating our fragmented selves.
So, the catch is can we know without thinking?
There is a need to revisit why what how children learn the REAL WORLD autonomously to understand how we got fragmented…..
Modernity has fragmented the integral nature of life into several types of categories and packed them into neat compartments. Learning, working, and playing is one such compartment and so are play and toy. Children are born holistic and the world around them is integrated. But our artificial categories fragment their integral experience.
Childhood is the time when simultaneously several abilities, qualities, and knowledge is developed. The knowledge of where they belong, what is to be done there, how etc is learned, along with developing the tools, qualities, and abilities for learning? The language also is learned during this time. They learn to name the world, understand the connections, and also learn to communicate their understandings of the world.
Beauty is a dynamic configuration of appropriateness inherent in nature. We are born aligned to this configuration and in people in indigenous communities where there is no ‘teaching’ keep up this alignment spontaneously and organically as they grow up. So naturally what they do turns out to be beautiful.
Modernity, due to its mental preoccupation derails us from this alignment. Instead of awakening us to our inherent qualities, education in general and art education in particular conditions us to the mental construct called art and to its various theories on aesthetics. Experience is replaced by mental myth-making.
Even though we are equipped by life to see the world as it is, the educated get trained not to use their senses but to see the world as per their mental constructs. Such a society then builds a narrative to establish its psychological dominance by constructing a worldview that helps it to continue and propagate this story. Modernity as progressive, scientific, advanced in every way and even on the evolutionary path, is an oppressive system against the illiterate and the indigenous considered as backward, uncivilized who need to be ‘saved’ by educating them. It is very difficult to dismantle this narrative from our minds. It is by mere chance that one even gets a glimpse of another way of seeing.
The mark of a civilized community must be measured by the conditions it provides for children – the foremost of which is freedom – cognitive freedom – the freedom to know and the freedom to be. This must never be taken away. Unfortunately, this is exactly what we are doing to our children in ‘educated’, so-called civilized societies. What we need to make available is a condition in which children live in trust, in unconditional love and care and a state of psychological abundance.
The linear, exponential 'growth' of modernity and sustainable, re-cyclic change in tradition are after all formed by respective cognitive conditions. An objective enquiry is called for to understand how the respective world views- one of alienation and other reintegration- are formed. So what need to be explored are the two paradigms of being- one which the very notion of 'waste' is absent and the other which generates waste from almost all activities it engages with. This is important as we represent the later group and the traditional artisans the first group.
The structure of the relationship between the two groups involved in this transaction is clear. one has power over the other group - politically, economically and technologically and hence defines the meaning and method of all this. The powerful also has a make belief sense of justice that in fact is a means to protect this power relation. This is caused by several myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings we hold about various aspects like progress, educated, developed, sustainability etc. Two things needs to be explored in this context. One is to understand how one is made to believe in what one is believing. This needs to be done quite brutally as this will break the self image of oneself and all that one thought were ones identity. Second is to explore the role of cognitive conditions in forming ones world view and self image. But this demands us to step out of the designers role, to step out of the notion that one is developed at least hypothetically and also to step outside the do gooders role. Both makes us feel superior. Can we at least temporarily hold these assumptions and together explore how tradition practiced crafts and how they lived sustainably.
‘Exploring experience’ is a three-part event being planned as along with the thanima conference (www(DOT)thanima(DOT)co(DOT)in) on March 6 7 8- 2 pm to 5 pm. A three-part event exploring the fragmentation of man in the 21st century, to such an extent that seemingly he has set fire to his own home.
Why are we living in a most unscientific way in the so-called most scientific of times? Why is there a deep alienation between man and nature? All these issues are interrelated, and it seems this stems from the basic crisis in our way of knowing, between knowing through experience and knowing through words. There will be three sessions each day, structured as dialogues along with the main conference, which will attempt to peel different layers of the main theme.
http://thanima.co.in/
Every generation needs to relive, recreate and reinvent certain aspects of its cultural sensibilities by engaging with the reality around them. Unless we have the possibilities for organic learning the cultural diversity will be a thing of the past. If not, we will have homogenized, desensitized, standardized and mechanical existence. Modernity seems to be pushing us in this direction with its notions about the learning process, creation of knowledge etc. An encounter with the non-literate community was organized for a group of students to understand how people learn on their own.
This paper is regarding that exploration