Seven Statements Art Education Materiality

National Art Education Association

Beyond Visual Culture: Seven Statements of Support for Material Culture Studies in ArtEducationAuthor(s): Paul E. Bolin and Doug BlandySource: Studies in Art Education, Vol. 44, No. 3 (Spring, 2003), pp. 246-263Published by: National Art Education AssociationStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/1321012 .Accessed: 25/04/2011 16:47

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Copyright 2003 by the Studies in Art Education National Art Education Association A Journal of Issues and Research

2003, 44(3), 246-263

Beyond Visual Culture: Seven Statements of Support for Material Culture Studies in Art Education

Paul E. Bolin

University of Texas

Doug Blandy

University of Oregon

This article explores and promotes the expanding field of material culture studies as a viable theoretical foundation and practical direction for art education. Challenging the current shifting stance of art education toward accepting a position of visual culture, the authors argue that rather than adopt a visual culture perspective, art education would be more readily served by embracing far-reaching holistic forms and practices that can be critically examined through the interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary methods associated with material culture studies. The persuasiveness of the authors' case is based on seven statements supporting a material culture studies orientation within art education.

Writing in the early 19th century, de Tocqueville (1988) predicted the

plethora of cultural forms and practices that people in the United States now engage with and experience. He believed that in contrast to non- democratic societies, culture in a democracy would be less firmly defined and more responsive to wide variances in people's values, attitudes, and beliefs.

For this reason a healthy, vital, and sustainable democracy requires a

citizenry educated around cultural issues of individual and collective concern as well as having the capability to consider such issues from a critical perspective. Art educators can uniquely contribute to this preparation of citizens by promoting the investigation and appreciation of the broadest

possible range of objects, artifacts, spaces, expressions, and experiences. A number of art educators are proposing that the field of art education

should transition to a visual culture studies orientation. Such a move would continue to confirm the importance of teaching to the full breadth of visual images available to us. The writings of Duncum (1999, 2001), Freedman (2000), and Freedman and Wood (1999) have been particularly persuasive in this regard.

Theoreticians associated with the study of visual culture argue that its

usage is increasing in response to the proliferation of images challenging the hegemony of text and spoken word (Mirzoeff, 1998). Visual culture also assumes that the processes and products of culture are studied in relation to multiple contexts such as politics, economics, gender, race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, age and power relations among others. Visual culture studies is described by its proponents as being "fluid and subject to debate" and "resolutely interdisciplinary" (Mirzoeff, 1998). Because of its

Author Note: The

listing of authors for this article is arbitrary. Both Bolin and Blandy should be considered first authors.

Correspondence regarding this commen-

tary may be addressed to Doug Blandy, 5230

University of Oregon, Arts and Administration

Program, Eugene, OR 97403. E-mail:

dblandy@darkwing. uoregon.edu

246 Studies in Art Education

Beyond Visual Culture

association with critical theoretical perspectives, visual culture studies links easily with critical pedagogy and social reconstruction, both of which have been researched and implemented within art education.

Reconceptualizing art education as visual culture education would be a relatively comfortable transition for the field to make. Many art educators are already including a broad range of visual images in their teaching and research. The sociological, political, cultural, economic, sexual, and genera- tional concerns inherent to the study of visual culture are long established in our literature. Much of the rhetoric surrounding visual culture proposes a world in which the visual has become dominant. Art educators are thus advantaged over other educators in preparing people to live and learn in a visual environment.

We, however, question the desirability of visual dominance and in this article will argue our reluctance to embrace a position that favors the visual sense over other sensory receptors. It is critical to recognize that our current multimedia world is expanding rapidly towards multi-sensory experience. It may be that if art educators continue to privilege visual objects and/or visual experiences, which is characteristic of visual culture studies, our students and the field will be susceptible to manipulation through our other sensory modalities. In this, our field will continue to perpetuate the disciplinary and sensory boundaries that fail to encourage a holistic and systemic understanding of experience. We risk being rendered obsolete because of our restricted and limited orientation to the world around us.

If the field is committed to change, then that transformation should not be timid or lead us into obsolescence. Change should be at least equal to the breadth and depth of sensory experiences that contribute to life in 2003 and beyond. These experiences are best understood and appreciated by engaging with all of their attributes. Let us assist our students in looking at the interaction of images, music, architecture, science, electronic communication, kinesthetic experience, performance, storytelling, the design of computer code, and the multitude of other materials that shape and define culture.

Rather than a visual culture orientation that neatly exchanges one narrowly conceived form of education for another, we should instead consider carefully and implement the more holistic and systemic approach associated with material culture studies.

de Tocqueville's observations on American culture are as true today as they were in the early 19th century. As a consequence we propose that incorporating more fully a material culture studies orientation is the responsible choice for assisting students in comprehending and engaging the cultural forms and practices encountered on a daily basis. We will also argue that a material cultural studies viewpoint will assist students in

understanding and appreciating their cultural heritage. The persuasiveness of our case is based on the following seven statements supporting a material culture studies orientation within art education.1

SInspiration for the form in which we have made our argument comes from Lanier (1984).

Studies in Art Education 247

Paul E. Bolin and Doug Blandy

1. A focus on material culture studies gives credit and recognition to those in art education who for years have been vocal advocates of expanding this field to include the study of a broad range of forms and objects.

Within the field of art education there have been strong advocates for the importance of studying a broad range of forms and objects that can be associated with a material culture studies perspective. McFee (1970), an

early advocate in this regard, promoted an instructional framework for art educators heavily influenced by cultural anthropological perspectives. This framework encouraged art educators to bring students' attention to a multitude of objects, environments, and experiences beyond those associated with the fine arts and art history (McFee & Degge, 1980). Bolin's (1992/1993) survey of material culture studies and art education suggests the importance given by art educators to material culture associated with folk art (Blandy & Congdon, 1988; Congdon, 1985), popular culture (Lanier, 1982), mass media (Lanier, 1984), and anthropological artifacts (Chalmers, 1978) as well as "personal" or "familiar" approaches to

teaching art history (Calvert, 1992-1993) and multicultural approaches to art education (Chalmers, 1987). Bolin cited these curricular approaches as

being conducive to teaching from a material culture studies perspective. Since the publication of Bolin's (1992/1993) survey, numerous art

educators have continued to focus attention on material culture. For

example, Efland, Freedman, and Stuhr (1996) oriented art educators to

postmodernism and postmodern curriculum through examples such as Amish quilts, postcards, and an American Indian Pow Wow. Boughton and Mason's (1999) anthology contains numerous chapters focusing on material culture from diverse cultural settings. Guilfoil and Sandler's (1999) volume includes chapters on the material culture associated with gardens, schools, homes, and public buildings. Recent research has focused on soap operas and Internet fandom (Congdon & Blandy, 2001b), fakes (Congdon & Blandy, 2001 a), roadside attractions (Kakus, 2001), customized cars (Keys & Ballengee-Morris, 2001), and kit crafts (Agostinone-Wilson, 2001). Art education scholars have also explored venues in which material culture is created. These have included the Chautauqua (Gladney, 2000), the Federal Art Project (Funk, 2000), and traditional Indian arts programs (McCollister, 2000), among many others.

A thorough catalog and analysis of the material culture and orientations to material culture that have been discussed within art education is yet to be accomplished. Nor does data currently exist that can tell us to what extent preservice and inservice art educators are currently being prepared to teach about material culture, or to what extent graduate students are being prepared to do material culture studies. However, literature like that cited above suggests that material culture studies has gained acceptance and prominence in the field over time and can be associated with a

growing body of research and curricula. Art educators are obviously main-



taining a scholarly interest in material culture studies and art teachers are

teaching about material culture in a variety of art education settings.

2. Material culture is a term that is broad-based in its meaning and

application, and describes all human-made and modified forms, objects, and expressions manifested in the past and in our contemporary world.

Throughout the past 125 years there have been many uses of and mean-

ings given to the term "material culture." Since the late 1800s, the expression material culture has been an integral part of the professional vocabulary exchanged by anthropologists, and it is now a phrase employed by those working in an extensive variety of academic fields (Berger, 1992). According to Schlereth (1985, 1992) the term material culture can be traced initially to the writings of anthropologist A. Lane-Fox Pitt-Rivers when in 1875 he referred to material culture as "the outward signs and

symbols of particular ideas in the mind" (Schlereth, 1992, p. 19). Schlereth (1985) acknowledges a range of definitions for material culture

published during the past 65 years. A few examples given by Schlereth (1985, pp. 3-4) reflect some of these various and shifting views regarding material culture: Clellan S. Ford, in 1937, offered that material culture "entails the actions of manufacture and use, and the expressed theories about the production, use, and nature of material objects." Soon afterward, in 1940, Cornelius Osgood wrote that, "material culture is the ideas about

objects external to the mind resulting from human behavior as well as ideas about human behavior required to manufacture these objects." In the early 1960s, Melville Herskovits described material culture in this way: "The

totality of artifacts in a culture; the vast universe of objects used by humankind to cope with the physical world, to facilitate social intercourse, to delight our fancy, and to create symbols of meaning." And, elaborating on the meaning of material culture Jules Prown, an art historian at Yale

University, wrote in 1982: "Objects made or modified by [hu]man[s] reflect, consciously or unconsciously, directly or indirectly, the beliefs of individuals who made, commissioned, purchased, or used them, and by extension the beliefs of the larger society to which they belonged" (pp. 1-2).

Schlereth (1985) proposed his own definition: "Material culture is that

segment of humankind's biosocial environment that has been purposely shaped by people according to culturally dictated plans" (p. 5). Material culture is, then, a descriptor of any and all human-constructed or human- mediated objects, forms, or expressions, manifested consciously or uncon-

sciously through culturally acquired behaviors. This extremely inclusive definition, similar to the view of material culture held by Deetz (1977), "includes all artifacts, from the simplest, such as a common pin, to the most complex, such as an interplanetary space vehicle" (p. 24). Schlereth's (1980) and Deetz's views toward the meaning of material culture run

parallel with our own, and we are in hearty agreement with these writers in

accepting their vastly encompassing delineation of the term "material culture."



The expression material culture is often thought to refer only to the

plethora of human produced or manipulated objects found in the world,

past and present. As prevalent as this perspective might be, such is not the case. Material culture refers not only to the objects that we view and

engage, but it also encompasses the immense array of cultural expressions that transcend objects themselves, and applies as a descriptor of all human-

generated expressions and activities of a culture. Deetz (1977) exemplifies this broad view of material culture:

We can also consider cuts of meat as material culture, since there are

many ways to dress an animal; plowed fields; even the horse that

pulls the plow, since scientific breeding of livestock involves the conscious modification of an animal's form according to culturally derived ideals. (p. 24) Deetz (1977) continues his discussion, stretching ever wide the expansive

parameters of material culture: Our body itself is a part of our physical environment, so that such

things as parades, dancing, and all aspects of kinesics-human motion-fit within our definition [of material culture]. Nor is the definition limited only to matter in the solid state. Fountains are

liquid examples, as are lily ponds, and material that is partly gas includes hot-air balloons and neon signs.... Even language is a part of material culture, a prime example of it in its gaseous state. Words, after all, are air masses shaped by the speech apparatus according to

culturally acquired rules. (pp. 24-25) All human-mediated sights, sounds, smells, tastes, objects, forms, and

expressions are material culture. When there is purposeful human inter- vention, based on cultural activity, there is material culture. This being the case, nothing affected by human agency is overlooked as too insignificant for intensive examination, nor viewed as too small for eliciting substantive

meaning.

3. Material culture studies crosses borders between a vast and growing number of academic disciplines and fields of study, thus drawing on a wide range of research methodologies and subject matter.

The term material culture has been frequently used in two fashions. First, it is utilized to capture the entire breadth of human made or modified objects, forms and expressions; and second, it is expressed as a phrase that describes a "method of cultural inquiry employing physical objects as its primary data" (Schlereth, 1985, p. 6). This duality of meaning has at times obscured a specific denotation of the term, creating some confusion when in such cases "material culture stands for both the subject to be researched as well as the method of studying the subject" (Schlereth, 1985, p. 6). To overcome this ambiguity and to make clear the distinction of how this term is used in any particular situation, researchers in various fields now employ the separate terms "material culture" and "material culture studies" to describe features of their work. Material culture is used



to reference the artifacts and other human-mediated forms and expressions in the world, while "material culture studies" is utilized to describe the effort undertaken to investigate and interpret the various forms, objects, and expressions of material culture. Thus, material cultural studies is

employed "to describe the research, writing, teaching, exhibiting, and

publishing of individuals who endeavor to interpret past and present human activity largely, but not exclusively, through extant physical evidence [i.e., material culture]" (Schlereth, 1985, p. 6).

The number and range of individuals and professional fields exploring material culture is expanding rapidly. The study of artifacts, forms, and

expressions is very cross-disciplined, thus contributing to the dissolution of

many of the discipline-based barriers that have divided the academic world for years, which "means we can make use of information we have from historians, economists, sociologists, anthropologists, psychologists, journal- ists, and travelers when we make our analyses" (Berger, 1992, p. 9). Describing the multidisciplined features of investigations into material culture, Schlereth (1985) writes, "material culture studies is deliberately plural because it comprises several disciplines, among them the triad of art, architectural, and decorative arts history; cultural geography; the history of

technology; folkloristics; historical archaeology; cultural anthropology, as well as cultural and social history" (p. 6). In the nearly 20 years since Schlereth's attempt to describe the academic terrain of material culture studies, the field has expanded to include other areas such as African American studies, materials science research, gender studies, hermeneutics, horticulture, semiotics, textile studies, museum studies, industrial archae-

ology, biology, genetics, microphysics, and religious studies, just to name a few. Martin and Garrison (1997) write that, "there is hardly a field or

profession where the study of material evidence has not raised new ques- tions or brought new insights to old ones" (p. 403).

An acceptance of the multidisciplinary and cross-disciplinary nature of material culture studies does not occur without obstacles. Berger (1992) believes "one reason analyzing material culture is so problematical for

many academicians (and others) is that it is a multidisciplinary kind of research and we still haven't figured out very well how to do this kind of research" (p. 4). Comprehending how to "read" the artifacts and expressions of a culture is a complex activity and one that requires focused skill and learning (McFee & Degge, 1980). Kingery (1996) asserts, "the

grammar of things is related to, but more complex and difficult to deci-

pher than, the grammar of words" (p. 1). This is so, he proposes, because "artifacts are tools as well as signals, signs, and symbols. Their use and functions are multiple and intertwined. Much of their meaning is sublim- inal and unconscious" (p. 1). Because of this, we must constantly work to

develop skills that will enable us to "read" carefully and insightfully the cultural expressions that permeate our world.



Another challenge for those involved in cross-discipline work, such as material culture studies, is to recognize the validity and value of multiple viewpoints drawn from various fields of study. An imposing problem, as

Berger (1992) puts it, is that "each in the prison of his [or her] own discipline is convinced of its own centrality" (p. 4). This perspective of elitism (or at the very least separatism) occurs particularly when two or more individuals, who engage in a partnership of analyzing an object or expression of material culture, are expected to do so in tandem when they are most accustomed to working in isolation within disciplines viewed traditionally as distinctly different from one another. To overcome this isolationist impediment we argue that rather than view this dissimilarity in field of study as a liability, it is far more useful to welcome the diversity of knowl- edge and skill that each participant brings to the process and to communi- cate in a positive alliance, recognizing the essential "need for applying a variety of methods in order to reach a confident interpretation of material culture" (Kingery, 1996, p. 14).

Considering the current state of material culture studies, Martin and Garrison (1997) write, "two general trends have emerged: first, a greater variety of scholars, regardless of their scholarly background, have accepted the notion that material objects function as a kind of text, and, second, most scholars emphasize the necessity of a contextual understanding of human behavior" (p. 13). Considering the multitude of objects, forms, and expressions available for study, it becomes a priority to remember that the purpose for investigating material culture is to learn about the people who make, use, respond to and preserve these phenomena. Such explo- ration is successful when the investigation of these objects or expressions is "undertaken from the contextually-based viewpoint of material culture studies, and not solely through a formalistic and descriptive examination of these objects" (Bolin, 1992-93, p. 154).

Kingery (1996) summarizes the desire we and many others propose for material culture studies, as the field reaches to embrace a wide variety of people, disciplines, and areas of study:

It is hoped that material culture studies can bring together performance and production, consumers and creators, men and women, diachronic and synchronic, tools and signs, practicality and aesthetics, societies and cultures in a way that enlightens a wide, multidisciplinary audience. (p. 15) This is also our ambition for art education, and we believe it is a worthy

goal that can be successfully achieved through the utilization of information, ideas, beliefs, and research methodologies drawn from the field of material culture studies.

4. Material culture studies is directed toward exploring the truly commonplace objects, forms, and expressions that people in the past and present experience on a daily basis.



The field of material culture studies embraces the investigation of

objects and expressions located within the everyday world of the present and the past. Material culture studies strives to be inclusive of the vast

array of people, ideas, expressions, objects, and investigative methodologies encountered throughout our daily experiences. For this reason, material culture studies is not a field wherein explorations are made into only those

objects and forms deemed by experts to be the grandest examples repre- senting a particular cultural group or type of object. Instead, those working in this field believe that any and all human-mediated objects or expressions are worthy of study, for doing so reveals "concrete evidence of the presence of a human intelligence operating at the time of fabrication" (Prown, 1982, p. 1).

There are a multitude of investigations into various forms of material culture that make up the everyday world of times past as well as life today. It is impossible to even scratch the surface of those studies available for art educators to examine and to draw on for information and insight into the

people who make, use, respond to, and preserve objects and other cultural

expressions. We include a brief list of some of the "common" or "everyday" objects investigated by those involved in material culture studies, as a way to both display the range of topics addressed by those

studying material culture and also to reveal the "commonness" of investi-

gations undertaken within this field. Studies into everyday material culture include the following: children's toys and objects of childhood (Mergen, 1984; Schlereth, 1992; Wagner-Ott, 2000; Washburn, 1997); Tupperware containers (Clarke, 1997); cooking stoves and kitchen utensils (Brewer, 1990; Petroski, 1992a); highways and roads (Jackson, 1994; Schlereth, 1997); vernacular lawns and gardens (Bormann, Balmori, & Geballe, 1993; Jackson, 1994; Jenkins, 1994; Schlereth, 1992); the pencil (Petroski, 1992b); office furniture (Forty, 1986); corncribs (Roe, 1988); low rider cars (Bright, 1995); the American axe (Kulik, 1997); domestic earthenware (Claney, 1996; Gallucci, 1997; Mullins, 1996); mail order

catalogs (Schlereth, 1992); cemeteries and grave markers (Brown, 1993; Deetz, 1977; Deetz & Dethlefsen, 1982; McCarthy, 1997); homes (Ames, 1982, 1985; Cohen, 1982; Cowan, 1982; Csikszentmihalyi & Rochberg- Halton, 1981; Forty, 1986; Halle, 1993; Hamilton, 1987; Menzel, 1994; Miller, 2001; Motz & Browne, 1988; Spencer-Wood, 1996); handmade chairs (Jones, 1993); The Coca-Cola? bottle (Gilborn, 1982); vernacular

landscapes (Jackson, 1984; Lewis, 1982, 1985, 1993; Schlereth, 1992); service stations (Lohof, 1982; Margolies, 1993; Witzel, 1999); and miniature radios (Schiffer, 1996).

Common everyday objects and expressions that make up our world offer the rich potential of enabling us to forge valuable insight into the actions of those who make, use, respond to and preserve these phenomena. Exploring the seemingly "small things" in life (Deetz, 1977) presents us with potent opportunities to investigate the people who have engaged



these frequently ignored forms and expressions in the past, and to consider

thoughtfully those who join in such activities on a regular basis today. Deetz (1977) summarizes the important benefits of investigating often- overlooked everyday things and experiences that make up our world:

It is terribly important that the 'small things forgotten' be remem- bered. For in the seemingly little and insignificant things that accu- mulate to create a lifetime, the essence of our existence is captured. We must remember these bits and pieces, and we must use them in new and imaginative ways so that a different appreciation for what life is today, and was in the past, can be achieved. (p. 161)

5. Material culture studies strives to be inclusive and does not privilege the visual sense over the other senses.

Ivey (2000) recognizes American material cultural production as being a

multiplicity of simultaneous languages consisting of "layers of sound, text, music and moving images, photographs and spoken voices, layered and blended at a blinding pace." The 2002 Whitney Museum's Biennial aptly illustrates Ivey's position. The Biennial is a disparate collection of works. Some are easily classified as art or visual culture. However, they are surrounded by many other multi-sensory forms and experiences that chal-

lenge conventional visual aesthetics and/or might be more immediately recognized as theater, story telling, biology, robotics, ritual, performance, sound, political propaganda, sdance, and worship.

Classen (1998), an anthropologist of the senses, has explored ways that

enlightenment philosophers, industrialists, and scientists were mesmerized

by the visual to the detriment of the other senses. Smell, touch, and taste were eclipsed in importance as the visual became associated with objective reality. In Classen's view, the aesthetically imaginative person is one who is

multi-sensory in her or his appreciation and understanding of the world.

Unfortunately, cultural bias towards the visual has encouraged generations of aesthetically unimaginative people. Classen speculates that people with visual and auditory disabilities may be our only sensory visionaries.

Museums and galleries that once encouraged the contemplation of

objects surrounded by, and placed on, white walls are being transformed into multi-sensory synergistic centers of entertainment, multimedia experience, and creative education. Fine arts departments in colleges and univer- sities are being reshaped into centers for multimedia (multi-sensory) studies. To an increasingly greater degree, art educators working with children and youth are incorporating multimedia content and experiences into their teaching.

Contemporary public and private sector trends, such as these, indicate that as a multicultural society our cultural forms and experiences are becoming increasing fluid, multi-sensory, and multidimensional. This is true to such an extent that once taken for granted aesthetic conventions are being challenged, revised, and exploded on a regular basis. Once again art and cultural forms are perceived as supporting rituals and entertainments as was the case in Western Europe prior to the Renaissance (and what is



still the case in many parts of the world). Objects matter far less than the overall sensory experience.

Evidence suggests that orientations to educating people about the arts and culture that are vision centric or focus only on traditional arts disciplines will fail students by preparing them in a much too myopic manner. The multi-sensory orientation of material culture studies is congruent with contemporary trends in arts and culture and will permit art educators to facilitate the aesthetic imagination necessary to engage and to participate with contemporary arts and cultural experiences as well as appreciating and understanding the history of arts and culture in a much more holistic way. 6. Learners, particularly adolescents, are currently engaged in multi- sensory lifestyles that extend far beyond the visual. Material culture studies provides opportunities for learners to explore in meaningful and immediate ways the complex contemporary world in which they live.

Art educators are striving to educate children and youth about art amid what Gitlin (2002) describes as a torrent of fast moving sensory experiences that are pervasive, encompassing, and distracting. He argues persuasively that the proliferation and casualness of this media is now beginning to threaten democracy. Rushkoff (2000) reinforces Gitlin's view by describing the aggressive, exploitive, manipulative, coercive and insidious communicative tactics used to create and market products and ideas through multi-sensory approaches. Two recent examples, from the great many that could be chosen, dramatically and disturbingly confirm the insights of Gitlin and Rushkoff into the multimedia environment in which young people are living and learning. Our examples, here, come from the very popular and ubiqui- tous world of "computer gaming."

Scheeres (2002) observes that media such as film and television dramatize politics. The role of the audience is one of passive participant or critical analyst. However, games, specifically computer games, now require participants to become part of someone else's political point of view. Sony has released a Playstation 2 (2002) computer game titled State of Emergency. In this game players take on the role of anarchists fighting the forces of global- ization and multinational corporations. Within the game players find that the natural environment, as well as democratic governance, has been compromised. Dissent is prohibited.

Our second example, Ethnic Cleansing, is an inexpensive computer game in which players are told that their skin is their uniform in a "battle for the survival of your kind." The uniform in this game is white and the villains are people of color and Jews. The objective is to kill them. According to the Ethnic Cleansing website (Resistance Records, 2002) the purpose of this game is to:

Run through the ghetto blasting away various blacks and spics in an attempt to gain entrance to the subway system, where the Jews have hidden to avoid the carnage. Then, if YOU'RE lucky.... you can blow

away Jews as they scream "Oy Vey!", on your way to their command center. (2002)



These games are repugnant for obvious reasons. However, what some

people find revolting, others find compelling. The First Amendment to the United States Constitution rightly protects the creation and right of access to games such as these. However, one of the many problems associated with a game like State ofEmergency is that it greatly oversimplifies the

complexity of the political issues and constituents it addresses, and over-

amplifies the stereotypes associated with those issues and constituent

groups. Players of the game are not asked to critically examine the situation being depicted, but to only play a role in someone else's imagined version. The creators of Ethnic Cleansing engage players through inflam-

matory rhetoric and heinous stereotypes, and the game is reportedly being used by "Hate" groups to recruit new members (Scheeres, 2002).

We recognize that our examples are extreme among all the computer games we could have selected to discuss. While we could have chosen much more benign examples to consider within the context of art education, we believe those we have identified speak to the urgency of our task as art educators to work with students towards mediating the multimedia environment.

Rushkoff (1999) has acknowledged the proficiency with which children and youth adapt to technology. However, Congdon and Blandy (2001a) propose that art educators can facilitate the acquisition of wisdom, experience, long-range view, and commitment needed to more fully understand and appreciate technology and its social implications. Politically oriented

games such as State ofEmergency and Ethnic Cleansing speak to the importance of considering such games within educational contexts. For this reason it is imperative that art educators be among those who assist students in negotiating the multimedia environment and the range of

experiences it contains.

Certainly State of Emergency and Ethnic Cleansing, or any game for that matter, could be discussed with primary emphasis given to its visuality, or as an example of visual culture. However, we do not believe that multimedia of this type can be fully critiqued, appreciated, and/or understood as visual culture alone. It is impossible to consider any sophisticated computer game, like the ones discussed here, by only thinking about their visual components. Within these games images are combined with sound and kinesthetic involvement that compel players to enter and exist within a multitude of possible virtual environments. In order to be evocative of the "real" world, these environments engage a range of senses. Experiencing virtual environments involves spatial sensations, kinesthetic involvement, interpersonal relationships, the material culture found in the environment, sound and sometimes even the tastes and smells that are evoked through seeing, touch, and hearing. For this reason virtual environments, like those associated with computer games, are ones that are best considered from a material culture orientation.



7. Employing the term material culture rather than visual culture

helps to eliminate the similar linguistic dilemma that "visual art" has struggled with for more than 40 years.

The world of visual art has extended well beyond the visual, particularly within the past forty years, to embrace artwork and expressions that engage a wide range of human senses. Art today is not constricted primarily to visual representation. Sounds, smells, and tactile participation have become essential features of many contemporary artworks. For example, according to Larry Rinder, curator of the 2002 Whitney Biennial, an

important issue for artists who exhibited in this venue was "protection from other artists' 'sound bleeds'" impinging upon their own work

(Plagens, 2002, p. 56). This being the case, how are auditory artworks and other multi-sensory forms to be critically addressed through a means described by the terms visual art or visual culture, when the visual features of these vibrant expressions are secondary or perhaps even tertiary within the artist's overall purpose? In other words, why call it "visual art" or "visual culture" when it is an object, form, or expression that is much more than visual?

How are we to fully engage the work of Edward Kienholz, for example, through visual means only, when the impact of his expressions is so depen- dent upon our sense of smell? His (1966) The State Hospital is described

by Janson (1991): "the horrifying realism of the scene even has an olfac-

tory dimension: when the work was displayed at the Los Angeles County Museum, it exuded a sickly hospital smell" (p. 775). Smell was also crucial to Kienholz's The Beanery (1965), when the smell of beer and burnt

cooking oil permeated his environmental installation at Barney's Beanery in West Hollywood. The sense of smell was not a feature art critics and historians years ago had to address in their analyses of artwork, but it is vital for their interpretive work in many cases today. In similar fashion, Mamie Moore, an artist working in Austin, Texas, employs the senses of smell and touch into her work, creating large wooden and fabric thrones for participants to sit on while encountering the wafting fragrances of aromatic herbs that emanate from beneath the seat of the thrones.

Likewise, for the past 40 years the extensive video installations and the

many other artistic forms of Nam June Paik stretched the boundaries of art into multi-sensory experiences, making it inaccurate and inappropriate to label them visual art. Even more broad, the Happenings of the 1960s, championed by Allan Kaprow and others, were "sort of kinetic self-

destructing sculptures with real people and environments both as subjects and participants" (Fichner-Rathus, 1989, p. 454). In these Happenings, artistic expression was not intended to be solely, or primarily, visual. More

recently, conceptual, installation, and performance artists regularly employ sound, smell, touch, and even taste in their work. It is awkward, at best, to call these multi-faceted artistic expressions forms of visual art, and the same is true if the term visual culture is employed as a descriptor.



We currently reside in a world wherein art is becoming less narrowly defined. Synchronous with this expanding emancipation of artistic delineation is the growing acceptance of ever-increasing sensory expression within a purview that has traditionally been regarded as visual art. The

phenomenological and linguistic disjuncture between what is occurring throughout the artworld (multi-sensory artistic expression) and what we are calling it (visual art or visual culture) is increasing rapidly, to the detriment and confusion of all. Perhaps at an earlier time it made sense to refer to objects made by artists as "visual art." Such is not the case now, and the same is true for calling a great number of them visual culture. Yet, many within the field of art education are advocating or have already embraced the inadequate term visual culture to describe the vast number of objects and expressions present in our world (e.g., Boughton et al., 2002; Duncum, 2001; Duncum, 2002; Duncum & Bracey, 2001; Freedman, 2000; Tavin, 2000). We question strongly this shift toward employing the term "visual culture." Utilizing the label visual culture, along with the

ideologies, approaches, and methodologies it carries, seems tremendously out of step with the breathtakingly fast-paced and ever-changing multi- faceted and multi-sensory world and artworld in which we live. Doing so will continue to restrict the growth of our field and our interpretation and

understanding of the vast array of human-made objects and expressions that transcend the visual. For this reason, we believe the term material culture rather than visual culture to be a more explicit and precise descriptor of the multifarious human-mediated objects, expressions and forms present throughout our world.

Conclusion The expanding pervasiveness and influence of the Internet and the

continuing refinement of electronic communication affirms the signifi- cance of networks and the systemic interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary thinking that is required for fully participating in, appreciating, and understanding, life in this new century. Vetrosick, Jr. (2002) proposes that most living things are operating according to the same general model and that this model is a network. Vetrosick, Jr. associ- ates life with intelligence. Intelligence is equated with the ability to recognize the features and patterns of experience in their totality. Intelligence is the ability to find the connections between the disparate parts towards an

understanding of the whole. Our purpose in this article has been to promote the expanding field of

material culture studies as a viable theoretical foundation and practical direction for art education. We believe that the emerging interest in visual culture studies within the field of art education is a first response to the challenges associated with living and learning in these times. While we

recognize the important and ongoing contributions arising from the field's traditional theoretical and practical orientations as well as this emerging



interest in visual culture, they do not fully respond to, or encourage, the

systemic intelligence required by people today. Students, art education, and our democracy, will be more readily served by embracing far-reaching holistic forms and practices that can be critically examined through the

interdisciplinary, multidisciplinary, and transdisciplinary methods associated with material culture studies.

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