Kandinsky's Effect: Reflections on Synesthetic Lesson in Abstraction

When Wassily Kandinsky introduced his theory in art composition in the 1920s, his method of abstraction was perceived as objective and universal resulting in a learned language believed to be able to communicate universally. As historians have asserted that Kandinsky's theory was influenced by his genuine synesthesia experience, the method can also be viewed as subjective. Therefore, objective teaching and critique of abstraction often raises controversies due to the perceived universal quality. In this light, this paper proposes a quasi-experimental study based on a small cross-modality experiment conducted by Kandinsky in order to gain insight understanding in abstraction lesson design. In this study, 30 students are randomly divided into two groups, one with single-modality method of learning another with synesthetic or cross-modality method of learning based on Kandinsky's synesthetic paintings. In the cross-modality method, students immerse themselves into the paintings by creating sound samples from percussion instruments, which are then blindly assigned to other students in the same group to compose three dimensional models that best depict the sound samples. Findings are presented in a narrative amalgamation in order to provide an understanding in advantages and disadvantages of single-modality method (objective-based lesson) and cross-modality method (subjective-based, synesthetic lesson) in abstraction. (By: Chutarat Laomanacharoen, Assumption University)

Category:

Education

Tags:

• Commonground
• Design Principles and Practic
• G11R0265
• Cross-Modality
• Abstraction
• Wassily Kandinsky
• Synesthetic Lesson
• Artificial Synesthetic