Mimetic Theory Unit

MIMETIC THEORY

Whitney Gasser
Grade Level: 4th Grade
Time needed: Two 45 minute sessions

Objective: Students will understand the mimetic theory and demonstrate an understanding of the essence of their current environment and how it existed in the past through creating a classroom vivarium.

National Visual Arts Standard
3. Content Standard: Choosing and evaluating a range of subject matter, symbols, and ideas
Achievement Standard: Students explore and understand prospective content for works of art
select and use subject matter, symbols, and ideas to communicate meaning

State Visual Arts Standard
Utah State Standard: Visual Art
Standard 1 (Making): The student will explore and refine the application of media, techniques, and artistic processes.
Objective 1  Explore a variety of art materials while learning new techniques and processes.
Standard 3 (Expressing): The student will choose and evaluate artistic subject matter, themes, symbols, ideas, meanings, and purposes.
Objective 1 Explore possible content in art prints or works of art.

1. Determine and explore a variety of sources of inspiration for making art; e.g., panoramic view, microcosm, people, imagination, experimentation, decoration, celebration, events, interpretation of emotions, education, religion.

Utah State Standard: ScienceStandard 5 Students will understand the physical characteristics of Utah's wetlands, forests, and deserts and identify common organisms for each environment.
Objective 2 Describe the common plants and animals found in Utah environments and how these organisms have adapted to the environment in which they live.

a. Describe some of the interactions between animals and plants of a given environment (e.g., woodpecker eats insects that live on trees of a forest, brine shrimp of the Great Salt Lake eat algae and birds feed on brine shrimp).

Materials needed:-glass fishbowl
-dirt
-rocks
-plants
-insects and other local critters
-shovel
1. Explain mimetic theory where art is essentially an imitation of nature. Discuss the difference between Realism and Mimetic theory.

2. Discuss different popular mimetic artists who are able to capture the essence of nature.

a) Introduce Nikki Lee and her process. She first approaches a culture, observes and then tries to become a member of the culture from what she has observed. Explain that her art is a process as she lives with those people for a couple of months and then culminates her project with a picture once she feels like she fits into that reality.

Hispanic Project


Geriatric Project

Yuppie Project
 

b) Questions to promote classroom discussion:
-Is this real art?
-Can you understand the essence of a community or culture with only a couple of months exposure?
-How does this relate to the mimetic theory?

c) Discuss the second Artist, Walton Ford, and his style.

Watch Walton Ford Art 21 Video
00:19-00:51
03:33-05:34

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/walton-ford

Explain that he brings out the dark side of reality in contrast to Audubon's (19th c. artist and naturalist in America) work. Walton Ford tries to recreate these pictures in the same way that Audubon would have, while incorporating  a dark twist of reality.











3. Talk about the Passenger Pigeon and how it impacted those who lived in its time period and how it became extinct. Read: Grandmother’s Pigeon by Louise Erdrich and discuss how things have changed since the peak of the Passenger Pigeon population.  Ask students what would have happened if people wouldn’t have hunted them? Make a direct connection with your students to how this applies to the mimetic theory. The Passenger Pigeon painting conveys the essence of a past reality.

4. Introduce the class to the work of Mark Dion with Art 21 video clip 00:14-1:43. Talk about his installment pieces and how they teach you of a past reality, they capture what that past reality was like and what made up that past reality.

http://www.pbs.org/art21/artists/mark-dion




b) Explain to the class that a vivarium is a “place, especially an indoor enclosure, for keeping and raising living animals and plants under natural conditions for observation or research” (freedictionary.com).

c) Watch ***Mark Dion Art 21 Clip 04:22-13:00

d) Discuss how this artist is “holding up the mirror to the present”. The vivarium isn’t a representation of a tree stump, it is a tree stump. As a class discuss the process that makes this piece so meaningful. Discuss the time, lighting, specialists, water systems, irrigation systems, cooling systems, panels to control the light levels, tinted glass to replicate the color spectrum from original canopy. Discuss the statement “we really have tried to highlight that difficulty of replicating what nature can do.”

5. Discuss with students the essence of their environment at home and at school. For homework have students talk with their parents about what was there before their house was built. Have students draw or tape on different plants and species that they think would have existed in the environment that predated their house.

DAY 2

6. Discuss what students found out about their living environment around their home. Have students do a pair share to compare the similarities and differences of what they found.

7. Assess the class’s understanding of the mimetic theory and vivariums by creating a classroom Vivarium based off of Mark Dion’s vivarium.

a) Start by finding a support for the ground and medium. A fishbowl gives a 3D view, allowing the students to get the essence of the vivarium from all angles.
 


b) Prepare the ground by filling the bowl with dirt and rocks from the actual environment.






c) Do research and find out what kind of critters are natural and common to the area that you are capturing the essence of. If possible, collect a few critters to help create the essence of the environment.
 

(For Utah Valley, critters like the common grass spiders would be an excellent choice, as they are very abundant and not harmful to people.)

d) Materials can be gathered from some place that hasn’t been tampered with by humans. Another approach is to research the plants that are natural to an area and then collect samples of them for your vivarium.