Information and communication theories through "total arts".
From the winter class of 2018, I went further in exploring the arts-informed pedagogy by going to a fully-fledged arts-production workshop as a means to facilitate students' understanding and appropriation of Information and Communication Theories. Students were asked to produce art works expressing how certain ICTs operated in plausible, real life or historic contexts. They were to draw from the Bauhaus artistic movement in designing their artwork.
"The Staatliches Bauhaus commonly known as the Bauhaus, was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. The Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. The German term Bauhaus—literally "building house" (...) was founded with the idea of creating a "total" work of art (...) in which all arts, including architecture, would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus style later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, Modernist Architecture and art, design and architectural education." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus.
During the class, students learnt of how this artistic movement became an inspiration during the second world war for American intellectuals gathered around President Franklin Roosevelt to try and combat the spread of fascism in the US. These intellectuals who were mostly from the social sciences and humanities believed that in order to guard Americans from the fascism into which Nazi Germany had fallen, they had to create a situation that will stimulate the making of democratic individuals. They saw the Bauhaus' movement of "total arts" which combined different art forms and media as a model that enables the creation of self-reflecting individuals who can freely form their own opinions owing to exposure to multiple and varied information sources and arts, as opposed to the mass conformity effect fostered by the top-down hierarchic model of the mass media. These intellectuals experimented with several exhibitions recreating the Bauhaus effect in the US. For an account of this post-war movement in the US, read Fred Turner's The democratic surround .
Theoretical course
The course ran for seven weeks at the rhythm of 3 hours per class. The theoretical part of the course delivered by the instructor occupied the first 5 weeks and included topics such as the origins of communication steeped in Rhetorics in Ancient Greece to the use of propaganda techniques in the two world wars which consolidated the mass media and public relations as a profession, mass marketing and the first research programs in communication. The students were further introduced to Wiener's Cybernetic theory, Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication and Gregory Bateson and the Palo Alto's school theories on interpersonal communication.
Preparing the art work
The 6th class was organised as a workshop. Students worked in groups of five or six and discussed how they might materialise their chosen theories in their art work and began working in ernest on their arts exhibit. The instructor consulted with each group to make sure that their ideas were realisable within the logistics constraints of the school (available materials) and timeframe (they had 1 week between this workshop and the exhibition day).
Sixteen groups were thus formed which each designed a form of "Bauhaus-like" arts exhibition that was showcased within the precincts of the school the last week.
The "D" Day: 29th October 2018
The arts exhibition took place in the last week of class. Students arrived early to take up their allocated spaces and set up their art work. The audience was then allowed to come and view the arts work, engage with the students as they explained their ideas and how their "total arts" exhibit reflected the functioning of information & communication theories. Below are some of the most creative and impressive arts exhibits produced by the students.
"The Staatliches Bauhaus commonly known as the Bauhaus, was a German art school operational from 1919 to 1933 that combined crafts and the fine arts, and was famous for the approach to design that it publicized and taught. The Bauhaus was founded by Walter Gropius in Weimar. The German term Bauhaus—literally "building house" (...) was founded with the idea of creating a "total" work of art (...) in which all arts, including architecture, would eventually be brought together. The Bauhaus style later became one of the most influential currents in modern design, Modernist Architecture and art, design and architectural education." - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bauhaus.
During the class, students learnt of how this artistic movement became an inspiration during the second world war for American intellectuals gathered around President Franklin Roosevelt to try and combat the spread of fascism in the US. These intellectuals who were mostly from the social sciences and humanities believed that in order to guard Americans from the fascism into which Nazi Germany had fallen, they had to create a situation that will stimulate the making of democratic individuals. They saw the Bauhaus' movement of "total arts" which combined different art forms and media as a model that enables the creation of self-reflecting individuals who can freely form their own opinions owing to exposure to multiple and varied information sources and arts, as opposed to the mass conformity effect fostered by the top-down hierarchic model of the mass media. These intellectuals experimented with several exhibitions recreating the Bauhaus effect in the US. For an account of this post-war movement in the US, read Fred Turner's The democratic surround .
Theoretical course
The course ran for seven weeks at the rhythm of 3 hours per class. The theoretical part of the course delivered by the instructor occupied the first 5 weeks and included topics such as the origins of communication steeped in Rhetorics in Ancient Greece to the use of propaganda techniques in the two world wars which consolidated the mass media and public relations as a profession, mass marketing and the first research programs in communication. The students were further introduced to Wiener's Cybernetic theory, Shannon's Mathematical Theory of Communication and Gregory Bateson and the Palo Alto's school theories on interpersonal communication.
Preparing the art work
The 6th class was organised as a workshop. Students worked in groups of five or six and discussed how they might materialise their chosen theories in their art work and began working in ernest on their arts exhibit. The instructor consulted with each group to make sure that their ideas were realisable within the logistics constraints of the school (available materials) and timeframe (they had 1 week between this workshop and the exhibition day).
Sixteen groups were thus formed which each designed a form of "Bauhaus-like" arts exhibition that was showcased within the precincts of the school the last week.
The "D" Day: 29th October 2018
The arts exhibition took place in the last week of class. Students arrived early to take up their allocated spaces and set up their art work. The audience was then allowed to come and view the arts work, engage with the students as they explained their ideas and how their "total arts" exhibit reflected the functioning of information & communication theories. Below are some of the most creative and impressive arts exhibits produced by the students.
ENTROPIA: The tree of life of communication and of knowledge
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This very impressive artistic exhibit sought to represent a tree of knowledge bearing images and texts attached to it . The choice of a tree is explained by its symbolism: it exists in all cultures and represents life and communication which is a basic component of life in society or in any group. Its roots reaches deep into the earth. Just as Information & Communication Sciences (ICS) in France is an interdiscipline that draws from several disciplines, the tree trunk represents the common heritage of this interdiscipline while its branches represents the subfields of the ICS (communication, media studies, journalism, information studies, documentation and library science, cultural studies, etc). The branches with their coloured autumnal leaves represent knowledge alreay accumulated by our predecessors. To engage the participation of visitors, each visitor was asked to choose a balloon from a bag. Each ballon contained a piece of paper with a quote or an image on it (see image gallery below). Visitors were then required to pierce the balloon, take out the piece of paper and determine where the image or the quotation might fit on the tree and then stick it there. The tree is thus gradually populated and enriched with knowledge elaborated recursively, each new visitor being inspired by the images and verbal quotes already on the tree placed there by preceding visitors. Through this artistic design, the students sought to illustrate the importance of Norbert Wiener's cybernetic theory in our human interactions: our decisions and knowledge are often guided by those of our predecessors, thus through feedback that we receive from our environment. Overall, this project illustrated Shannon's information entropy, Wiener's feedback and the Palo Alto's interpersonal communication theory which emphasizes the global nature of communication and its links with Wiener's cybernetics. This is explained in this short video by the students who prepared this exhibit (in French, bien sûr!).
The Rwandan Genocide and the "Radio Mille Collines" (The 1000 hills radio)
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This very profoundly researched multimedia art exhibit showcased the functioning of propaganda during the Rwandan genocide of 1994 which culminated in the massacre of 800 000 Tutsis in less than 100 days by their Hutu ethnic counterpart.
The exhibit reconstructed the timeline of the genocide, dug up archival images, photos and texts and extracts from the mainstream media which were displayed on the wall to enable visitors to retrace how the genocide took place and its devastating consequences. So in the first level, were confronted with the history of the genocide. The second level featured the analysis and theoretical explanations of how the genocide became possible.
Three laptop computers were placed on the table in front of the signs "Avant" (Before), "Pendant" (During) and "Après" (After) the genocide on which the students had prepared audio recordings analysing what happened. To create the impression of immersion in this universe, students wore on the front of their white T-shirts the sign "Je suis..." (I am) and on the back, one of the names of the theorists whose theory helped explained various aspects of information and communication that played out in this genocide (Wiener, E. Bernays, Palo Alto, Corneille and Radio Mille Collines.).
This created a Bauhaus effect because the visitor was entirely surrounded in 360° and plunged into the dramatic universe of this genocide, where he/she can discover and appropriate different historic elements of communication put at his/her disposal through the use of various audiovisual displays emitting messages and information in different formats: images, audio recordings, signboards, posters, etc. In order to to convey the gravity of the topic, all the designs were done in black and white.
The way students explained the relevance of N. Wiener's cybernetic theory in explicating why the state controlled media in the Rwandan society pre-genocide was propitious to the genocide is very astute. They observed that the genocide of Tutsis was possible through a privatisation of information by the Hutu government before and during the genocide. The absence of free information was the opposite of the free circulation of information and communication defended by Wiener. This led to an anti-homeostatic situation, thus to entropy which Wieners considered as an absolute evil to be combatted because it is a measure of the degree of disorganisation of any system (society, humans, machines, animals). For N. Wiener, when elements become a system, the whole becomes superior to the sum of the parts. Hence, the individual actors of the massacres relayed by villagers supporting the Hutu cause formed a "system" whose concerted aim was to preserve the Hutu power by destroying the human object of their target: the Tutsis.
The Radio des Milles Collines (RMC) played a major role in orchestrating the massacre of Tutsis. As a vertical and unidirectional media, RMC could not favour free thinking and democracy and thus became a tool for propaganda and manipulation in propagating this hateful ideology through the use of songs, laughter, jokes which rendered banal to its thousands of Hutus listeners, a most heinous crime. All the analysts concord in observing the rise in power of this radio in 1993 and in the months during which the genocide took place. For Wiener, feedback is the action of an element on another which triggers a response from the receiver. The receivers, here tens of thousands of Rwandans that were captivated by this radio emitted a positive feedback to its calls to massacre Tutsis, thereby instigating a retroactive loop of positive feedback by amplifying its message. This showed that students not only understood the subtleties of Wiener's cybernetics theory but also researched further into other theories that shed more light under the sombre functioning of the media in the Rwandan genocide. For instance, whereas they did not encounter this figure in the lecture, the students went out to research the works of Edward Bernays on propaganda and public relations and explained how he had brought the research in psyochanalysis and Gustave Le Bon's work on the psychology of the mob into the field of public relations of which he was a pioneer. Considering that the masses were "irrational and subject to herd instinct—(he) outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desirable ways." Bernays was very successful in applying the theory of consent at a large scale (The Engineering of consent. 1947) and in the marketing of propaganda campaigns.
The image gallery and video below shows some of the exhibits in this project and offers an explanation (in French) of its design.
The exhibit reconstructed the timeline of the genocide, dug up archival images, photos and texts and extracts from the mainstream media which were displayed on the wall to enable visitors to retrace how the genocide took place and its devastating consequences. So in the first level, were confronted with the history of the genocide. The second level featured the analysis and theoretical explanations of how the genocide became possible.
Three laptop computers were placed on the table in front of the signs "Avant" (Before), "Pendant" (During) and "Après" (After) the genocide on which the students had prepared audio recordings analysing what happened. To create the impression of immersion in this universe, students wore on the front of their white T-shirts the sign "Je suis..." (I am) and on the back, one of the names of the theorists whose theory helped explained various aspects of information and communication that played out in this genocide (Wiener, E. Bernays, Palo Alto, Corneille and Radio Mille Collines.).
This created a Bauhaus effect because the visitor was entirely surrounded in 360° and plunged into the dramatic universe of this genocide, where he/she can discover and appropriate different historic elements of communication put at his/her disposal through the use of various audiovisual displays emitting messages and information in different formats: images, audio recordings, signboards, posters, etc. In order to to convey the gravity of the topic, all the designs were done in black and white.
The way students explained the relevance of N. Wiener's cybernetic theory in explicating why the state controlled media in the Rwandan society pre-genocide was propitious to the genocide is very astute. They observed that the genocide of Tutsis was possible through a privatisation of information by the Hutu government before and during the genocide. The absence of free information was the opposite of the free circulation of information and communication defended by Wiener. This led to an anti-homeostatic situation, thus to entropy which Wieners considered as an absolute evil to be combatted because it is a measure of the degree of disorganisation of any system (society, humans, machines, animals). For N. Wiener, when elements become a system, the whole becomes superior to the sum of the parts. Hence, the individual actors of the massacres relayed by villagers supporting the Hutu cause formed a "system" whose concerted aim was to preserve the Hutu power by destroying the human object of their target: the Tutsis.
The Radio des Milles Collines (RMC) played a major role in orchestrating the massacre of Tutsis. As a vertical and unidirectional media, RMC could not favour free thinking and democracy and thus became a tool for propaganda and manipulation in propagating this hateful ideology through the use of songs, laughter, jokes which rendered banal to its thousands of Hutus listeners, a most heinous crime. All the analysts concord in observing the rise in power of this radio in 1993 and in the months during which the genocide took place. For Wiener, feedback is the action of an element on another which triggers a response from the receiver. The receivers, here tens of thousands of Rwandans that were captivated by this radio emitted a positive feedback to its calls to massacre Tutsis, thereby instigating a retroactive loop of positive feedback by amplifying its message. This showed that students not only understood the subtleties of Wiener's cybernetics theory but also researched further into other theories that shed more light under the sombre functioning of the media in the Rwandan genocide. For instance, whereas they did not encounter this figure in the lecture, the students went out to research the works of Edward Bernays on propaganda and public relations and explained how he had brought the research in psyochanalysis and Gustave Le Bon's work on the psychology of the mob into the field of public relations of which he was a pioneer. Considering that the masses were "irrational and subject to herd instinct—(he) outlined how skilled practitioners could use crowd psychology and psychoanalysis to control them in desirable ways." Bernays was very successful in applying the theory of consent at a large scale (The Engineering of consent. 1947) and in the marketing of propaganda campaigns.
The image gallery and video below shows some of the exhibits in this project and offers an explanation (in French) of its design.
The adventures of Maya or bees' communication explained
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This impressive artistic project showcased very beautiful specimens of bees, a beehive in a tree containing entirely designed by the students. Its aim was to explain how bee hives survive through the meaningful exchange of perfectly orchestrated information and communication in order to overcome numerous obstacles and predators. The storyline was constructed around three episodes each illustrating information and communication situations that arise as the bees buzz around to accomplish their daily tasks.
It is constructed around the central character of Maya, a foraging honeybee whose role it is to help the other bees organise their work, find food and defend the queen and the hive from alien and hostile neighbours. To explain how the different information & communication theories operate in this setting, the students explained how Maya communicates with other bees through the prism of Wiener's cybernetic theory: Bees communicate information (where to find food, the presence of danger) to the rest of the community through specific dance patterns (rounds or waggle dance). Bees in the same colony receive and correctly interpret these dances and then act accordingly, sending the necessary feedback that enable the complex system to auto-regulate itself.
It is constructed around the central character of Maya, a foraging honeybee whose role it is to help the other bees organise their work, find food and defend the queen and the hive from alien and hostile neighbours. To explain how the different information & communication theories operate in this setting, the students explained how Maya communicates with other bees through the prism of Wiener's cybernetic theory: Bees communicate information (where to find food, the presence of danger) to the rest of the community through specific dance patterns (rounds or waggle dance). Bees in the same colony receive and correctly interpret these dances and then act accordingly, sending the necessary feedback that enable the complex system to auto-regulate itself.
The hive is perceived as a society seeking to auto-regulate itself via the transmission and reception of messages. Students also referred to systemics theory of Ludwig Von Bertalanffy who inspired Wiener's cybernetics. According to the systemics theory, the self is constructed through interactions with others and isolated acts do not exist because everything is connected, thus reaffirming the circular causality of phenomena. Evoking Shannon's mathematical theory of communication (MTC), the students explained that in such a system, the degree of uncertainty is low and therefore entropy is also reduced because the inhabitants of the hive understand one another through the use of common codes and language. Thus a low degree of entropy while corresponding to a low degree of surprise and of information in Shannon's MTC, is actually a good thing in Wiener's cybernetic theory where a high level of entropy is synonymous with disorganisation, chaos and disintegration of a system. In a second episode, Maya's meeting with bees from a foreign tribe led a situation of non-communication. The students called in Gregory Bateson's theories on interpersonal communication and the resulting Palo Alto's 5 axioms of communication, particularly the axiom that "to communicate is to enter into the orchestra" and employ the same language and be in harmony with the others.
In a third episode, a perilous situation occurs: Maya and the other bees had to defend the hive from an attacking hornet. To explain how the apparently weaker target - the bees and their queen managed to vanquish the powerful attacker (the hornet), the students drew once again from Wiener's cybernetics theory where intelligent systems, when faced with a task, learn from past signals or occurrences (past actions) of their interlocuteur (or rather signals and information emitted by the attacker (the hornet) in order to anticipate the future actions of the latter and learn from his/her mistakes. Through this cybernetic process of self-adaptative system, the bees learnt that hornets cannot bear a body heat above a certain temperature. Hence, by getting into a defensive formation and completely surrounding the attacker, the naturally weaker bees managed to suffocate the hornet and thereby save their queen and their ecosystem. The video below summarises all this in French. Further explanations on this fascinating and scientifically studied bees communication system can be viewed here.
In a third episode, a perilous situation occurs: Maya and the other bees had to defend the hive from an attacking hornet. To explain how the apparently weaker target - the bees and their queen managed to vanquish the powerful attacker (the hornet), the students drew once again from Wiener's cybernetics theory where intelligent systems, when faced with a task, learn from past signals or occurrences (past actions) of their interlocuteur (or rather signals and information emitted by the attacker (the hornet) in order to anticipate the future actions of the latter and learn from his/her mistakes. Through this cybernetic process of self-adaptative system, the bees learnt that hornets cannot bear a body heat above a certain temperature. Hence, by getting into a defensive formation and completely surrounding the attacker, the naturally weaker bees managed to suffocate the hornet and thereby save their queen and their ecosystem. The video below summarises all this in French. Further explanations on this fascinating and scientifically studied bees communication system can be viewed here.
The myth of Icarus or the dangers of AI and Aristotle's rhetoric
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This impressively executed exhibit consisted of two separate works of art, each illustrating one of the information & communication theories the students had learnt about during the theoretical courses. First, one artwork showcased the myth d'Icarus to illustrate the technological armaggedon which Wiener, the father of cybernetics feared may happen if machines took control of humans. In the myth of Icarus, his Father Daedalus, the creator of the Labyrinth warned his son about the dangers of flying too close to the sun because of its extreme heat as his wings are made of wax and would melt when in contact with the heat of the sun. This would result in his being precipitated into the sea and therefore to his death. The students transposed this myth to showcase the attraction but also the risks inherent in Wiener's cybernetics and the Artificial Intelligence to which it led. Icarus represents humans (in the story, he is symbolically called Homo-Numericus) who are getting ever closer to the sun (here by building intelligent machines). Daedalus is represented by Wiener.
The story was designed as a dialogue between Wiener (Daedalus) and his mythical son Homo Numericus (Icarus).
The story was designed as a dialogue between Wiener (Daedalus) and his mythical son Homo Numericus (Icarus).
The students set the scene by recalling Wiener's work for the Allied Armies during WWII where he built the machine "Predictor" with Julian Bigelow. This machine was aimed as providing the Allied armies with an anti-air defense system against German bomber planes. This work later paved the way later for the emergence of cybernetics as a discipline. In this imaginary dialogue, Wiener warns his son Homo Numericus who's also fascinated by his father's intelligent machines of their dangers, i.e. of flying too close to the sun (here pushing too far the automation of human intelligence). Fatally, despite his Dad's repeated warnings, Homo Numericus, like Icarus, under the influence of hubris, flew too high and close to the sun with the result that his wings were singed and began to be consumed. The continuous aspect of the burning wings reflects the fact that we do not yet know the end of the story: will humans be controlled by the machines they built or will they be able to control them? The future will tell. To illustrate the different stages of this evolution, a styrofoam carton was used as a base on which students drew different patterns and displayed images of the main characters (Icarus, Wiener, the sun). The carton was made of three levels, each representing a progression of the Artificial Intelligence adventure. The first level features Wiener, his face turned towards the second level while he warns his son, Homo-Numericus of the dangers of his fascinating invention. The bottom of this level features an image of the sea. On the second level, Icarus alias Homo-Numericus is shown flying ever higher towards the third level. At the bottom of this level is an image of an electronic board showing the transition of the society towards a digital world and a more and more advanced AI. On the third and highest level is the sun towards which Homo-Numericus was flying dangerously, this represents intelligent machines. It is for this reason that the students decided to represent the sun as a computer chip and wrote on the sun keywords that reflect the advances of AI such as "transhumanism, GAFA, governementality". At the bottom of the third level is a representation of digital data mapped in the cyberspace.
The second display illustrated how Aristotle's rhetoric can be used to manipulate the masses. The students constructed a display that recreated the Bauhaus effect of being surrounded at 360° by different sources of information. Mounted on a wooden construction, the central figure of Aristotle is surrounded by different information sources such that the receiver can avoid the propaganda effect of one-way unidirectional mass media. Aristotle's figure is surrounded on all sides by different emotions that humans can feel when confronted with a message: joy, fear, anger, sadness, ... This translates the fact that communication is often used to seduce one's audience by playing on different registers of the discourse (Aristotle's pathos, ethos, logo) which in turn engender different emotions. All this is explained in the video below and images of this exhibit can be seen in the photo gallery below.
The second display illustrated how Aristotle's rhetoric can be used to manipulate the masses. The students constructed a display that recreated the Bauhaus effect of being surrounded at 360° by different sources of information. Mounted on a wooden construction, the central figure of Aristotle is surrounded by different information sources such that the receiver can avoid the propaganda effect of one-way unidirectional mass media. Aristotle's figure is surrounded on all sides by different emotions that humans can feel when confronted with a message: joy, fear, anger, sadness, ... This translates the fact that communication is often used to seduce one's audience by playing on different registers of the discourse (Aristotle's pathos, ethos, logo) which in turn engender different emotions. All this is explained in the video below and images of this exhibit can be seen in the photo gallery below.
Communication molecules :
Palo Alto's 5 axioms of interpersonal communication explained
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This exhibit showcased Gregory Bateson and Paul Watzlawick's 5 axioms of interpersonal communication, the two key figures of the Palo Alto school. The 5 axioms were represented a group of molecules surrounding a central atom. For the students, this was an abstract way of representing the fusion of scientists and thinkers that coalesced around the different schools at the origin of communication theories, which is why they entitled their exhibit "Communication molecules: When science meets thought". The central atom, made of a white big ball is surrounded by 5 smaller balls suspended to it, each representing the 5 axioms of the Palo Alto school.
The choice of colours of the central atom and the molecules was not left to chance. The central atom in white represents the colour of hydrogen and the 5 red atoms around it make reference to the colour of oxygen. The red colour of the molecules also reflect the fact that without oxygen, we cannot breathe, just like without blood running in our veins, we cannot live. The white colour of the hydrogen (a colourless gas) ball is also a reminder that hydrogen is a principal component of the sun and without the sun, we also cannot live.
Furthermore, a plastic square piece of paper in black was attached to each molecule on which the students had printed keywords alluding to the 5 communication axioms such as "social conformism", verbal and gestural relation», «non verbal communication», «feedback», «symmetry and complementarity». Using the keywords as clues, visitors were invited to guess to which axiom a given keyword referred. For instance, Palo Alto's axiom that "to communicate is to enter into the orchestra" is reflected here by the keyword «social conformism».
At another level, this exhibit is a metaphor expressing the fact that without communication, we cannot function harmoniously as a society. The video below and photo gallery give more details of this exhibit.
The choice of colours of the central atom and the molecules was not left to chance. The central atom in white represents the colour of hydrogen and the 5 red atoms around it make reference to the colour of oxygen. The red colour of the molecules also reflect the fact that without oxygen, we cannot breathe, just like without blood running in our veins, we cannot live. The white colour of the hydrogen (a colourless gas) ball is also a reminder that hydrogen is a principal component of the sun and without the sun, we also cannot live.
Furthermore, a plastic square piece of paper in black was attached to each molecule on which the students had printed keywords alluding to the 5 communication axioms such as "social conformism", verbal and gestural relation», «non verbal communication», «feedback», «symmetry and complementarity». Using the keywords as clues, visitors were invited to guess to which axiom a given keyword referred. For instance, Palo Alto's axiom that "to communicate is to enter into the orchestra" is reflected here by the keyword «social conformism».
At another level, this exhibit is a metaphor expressing the fact that without communication, we cannot function harmoniously as a society. The video below and photo gallery give more details of this exhibit.
Doctor consultation scenario explained through Palo Alto's 5 axioms of interpersonal communication
This very beautifully executed consisted of miniature characters set within 5 scenes each depicting the different stages of a doctor consultation. The students used these 5 scenes to portray Palo Alto's 5 axioms of interpersonal communication and the communication problems we can encounter in our daily lives. The characters were based on “trollface” or funny face expressions.
The first scene showcased axiom 1 "One cannot not communicate". In expresses the fact that all behaviour is communication (according to the Palo Alto school), from the way the doctor speaks, his body posture, the tone, facial gestures, everything is interpreted by the other interlocutor and this will punctuate the sequence of future exchanges and determine the nature of their communication and relation. The second axiom "All communication contains two aspects: the content and the relation" illustrates the fact that in any human communication, the relation and the context determine the outcome more than what is actually said. The third axiom "The punctuation in a communication determines the relation" further illustrates axiom one by emphasizing the circular nature of human interaction: one type of behaviour elicits a certain response from the receiver or interlocutor and amplifies it such that both are engaged in a circular chain of action-reaction and this ultimately determines the nature of their relation. In this scene, the doctor faces a difficult patient and at each consultation, their interactions amplify the difficult relationship because each blames the other (implicitly) for the inamicable relationship and thus adopts a defensive attitude. Axiom 4 showcased the different modalities of human communication: digital (as in fingers not computer-based) and analog, the two modes co-exist and complement each other. In the scene, the doctor is late and therefore felt guilty. He comes in smiling but without uttering a verbal apology. However his non verbal communication expresses his desire to disarm his patient who was showing signs of irritation and impatience. No words are uttered but the two each communicate their feelings to the other through non verbal communication. Axiom 5 is used to explain the power dynamics that comes into play in all human relations: communication can either be symmetrical (between interlocutors of equal power) or asymmetrical (between unequal partners where one submits to the other or tempers down his or her response in order to maintain harmony). Here the doctor is in a superior position vis-à-vis his patient over whom he asserts his authority and knowledge who thus has to submit to the doctors diagnosis and recommendations. See video and photo gallery below. |
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The photo gallery below show pictures of some of the other arts projects designed by the students in this 2018 winter course.