A User's Guide to Art Speak

Photo from Emmanuel Dunand/AFP/Getty Images

At The Guardian Andy Beckett discusses "art speak" -- something that's now been dubbed "International Art English" in a widely circulated article by an artist and an art critic. Mr. Beckett describes it:

If you've been to see contemporary art in the last three decades, you will probably be familiar with the feelings of bafflement, exhaustion or irritation that such gallery prose provokes. You may well have got used to ignoring it. As Polly Staple, art writer and director of the Chisenhale Gallery in London, puts it: "There are so many people who come to our shows who don't even look at the programme sheet. They don't want to look at any writing about art."

With its pompous paradoxes and its plagues of adverbs, its endless sentences and its strained rebellious poses, much of this promotional writing serves mainly, it seems, as ammunition for those who still insist contemporary art is a fraud. Surely no one sensible takes this jargon seriously?

David Levine and Alix Rule do. ...

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They christened it International Art English, or IAE, and concluded that its purest form was the gallery press release, which – in today's increasingly globalised, internet-widened art world – has a greater audience than ever. "We spent hours just printing them out and reading them to each other," says Levine. "We'd find some super-outrageous sentence and crack up about it. Then we'd try to understand the reality conveyed by that sentence."

"International Art English" is a great neologism. IAE is the patois of the ignorant attempting to describe the ineffable.

I am so happy with that last sentence, I should stop. But ...

Advancements in Science 2012: Mouse Training

As part of our 2012 yearly wrap-up here at GF we would like to draw your attention to the breakthroughs in getting mice to perform chores before being fed. This demonstrates that mice are more capable of being trained than my children.

Today's Study Subject: Math (or "Maths" if You're English or Under the Age of Five)

Just because it is a holiday does not mean we can let our studies slip. As a token of our recently acquired cultural breadth, today we will learn mathematics from Donald Duck! Are those snowflakes? Yes! This is perfect for Christmas! So, go get some eggnog to stay warm, um, kids, and let's get going!

'Twas The Night Before Christmas

Continuing our extraordinarily successful educational series, and crossing it with our gone but not forgotten Herzog series, this mornings a reading for the little childrens: 

Today's School Break Assistance: Germs

We cover the entire subject of biology today:

School Break Study Assistance: The Markets of Britain

Grade schools are now on break for "the holidays" -- which is really one holiday -- here in the U.S. of A., and, as a public service, I will be posting educational material each morning so that the students don't fall behind. Today we cover economics with educational film The Markets of Britain:

The "Pupose" of Life -- A Few Words by Buddhist Alan Watts as Interpreted by Trey Parker and Matt Stone

Via Boing Boing -- and, yes, the central metaphor is simplistic and mistaken (there's still something to glean here).

Well, This Development Caught Me By Surprise

According to journalists at Stanford University, the University of California at Berkeley, or "Cal," has changed its logo to consist of wingdings. I am heartened that regional schools like these do not let their rivalry get in the way of learning about each other. I understand both have excellent husbandry programs for women who were not able to find a suitable spouse in high school.

Duolingo

Duolingo is a website that teaches languages (Spanish, French, German, and Portuguese) on the web for free by having its students translate webpages. The concept is simple, involves intuitive learning, uses relevant material, and, if I did not mention it, free. My son has started learning Spanish on the site and says it's awesome.

A Few Words on Valuing Education, Intellectual Attainment, and Science, and the Role of Religion

In the United States education is primarily provided by state and local governments rather than the federal government. Indeed, for many U.S. states, education is the largest budget item. Nonetheless, federal contributions still are very large -- about 10.8% of the overall funding for primary and secondary education. At both the state and federal level ideological issues have intruded into the attempt to teach facts.

Bill Nye "The Science Guy" on Why One Should Believe in and Teach Evolution

The short answer is because evolution is factually correct. The alternative is to believe in and teach fantasies and superstitions that hold people back.

A $60 Million High School Football Stadium

In Allen, Texas, they just built a $60+ Million dollar football stadium for their high school. To put this in perspective, the average per pupil expenditure (PPE) for a high school student in the United States is around $10,500 per year. So, the cost of the stadium is equivalent to the average annual cost to educate about 5700 high school students students. Allen is a fairly affluent district,¹ so that may not seem like much to them ... and, after all, this is football we're takin' about here! Season tickets are still available. Originally via Time Magazine.
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¹ Allen has one high school for the district and a student enrollment of slightly over 5000.

14 Wacky "Facts" from Louisiana Voucher Schools

Via Mother Jones magazine's website and boing boing, I bring you 14 Wacky "Facts" Kids Will Learn in Louisiana's Voucher Schools. Here are the highlights (but really, the whole thing has to be read):

MORS: My Outstanding Rating System

The MORS system is an ABC grading system where ABC are the grades for performaces falling on the main sequence of the bell curve, F is for failure (low end outliers of the curve) and O is for Outstanding (high end outliers of the curve).  ABC grades can also get pluses and minuses. It's that easy.