Ocularcentrism, or the Western predilection to emphasize and relate experience through the sense of vision, asserts frames of experience to questions of making and process that preoccupy fields of creative practice. It also can create barriers to accessibility for curriculum and schooling. A recent exhibition at Cooper Hewitt, titled “The Senses: Design Beyond Vision,” explores this concept by displacing the centrality of vision to open up the possibilities of what design may become if other senses lead the way. Not only do the array of senses offer an increased panoply of resources in experience that we may draw from, but a focus on senses allows us to also reflect on how we may make sense of the complex world in which we live. In challenging times that are politically charged and ecologically unstable, how might we put the sensorium to work as makers and educators?
The Matters of Art & Design (MADE) 2019 symposium will focus on exploring art and design practice through the senses: how is the sensorium integrated / embodied in the teaching and theorizing of art and design practice? What are pedagogical strategies that may open students to learn by sensing and produce emotional design and spaces of affect? From sustainability, neuroscience to the making of virtual environments, the senses are primary resources–how, when, why and for what purpose do we utilize multi-sensory approaches to practice? These are some of the questions that we anticipate exploring during the 2019 MADE Sense.
MADE Sense will be on April 5, 2019 at the Penn State Art & Design Research Incubator