School of Experimental Art
from: cafa.edu.cn time: 2021.2.5
1. The Connotation of Experimental Art Discipline
The modern system of education of fine arts in China began to brew and grow after the May 4th New Culture Movement, continuously enriched and renewed its real connotation, and developed into a magnificent and diverse cultural and artistic landscape with Chinese characteristics. The fast-developing teaching of experimental art majors in academies of fine arts in China at the beginning of this century has indeed inherited the context of the experimental exploration and development of China’s art education in the past 100 years, conformed to the inevitable trend of China’s development since the reform and opening up, and marked the dynamics and achievements of system reform of higher professional art education.
“Experimental art” differs from the traditional fine arts such as oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, etc. in that it is a discipline whose nature is determined by the way art works while the formers use tool materials, techniques, and styles as the standard for the division of discipline. Experimental art emphasizes the accuracy and effectiveness of the expression of subject, attaches importance to the dialectical relationship of interdependence and mutual promotion with the aesthetic subject, trying to bring art closer to the reality of life and provide the public with a fresh spiritual space. Therefore, in terms of the means of artistic expression, experimental art focuses more on confirming the importance of rationality and academic reserve and emphasizes the scientific basis for rational verification.
It has changed the single teaching mode of realism in the original teaching system, opened a diversified space for majors, and fully demonstrated the academic thinking of becoming more diverse and open in the original pattern of China’s contemporary higher professional art education while adhering to the traditional advantages, making necessary preparations for achieving a contemporary professional art education model with international leading standards and Chinese characteristics.
2. Construction of Experimental Art Discipline and Development of School of Experimental Art
On July 8, 2005, the first group of 14 undergraduates entered the experimental art studio. This class was later widely known as the "Pioneer Class". The first class of the undergraduate teaching “Survey on China’s Public Family Aesthetics” then assigned projects, conducted the teaching of basic methods of field survey, and gave survey assignments.
On July 13, Pan Gongkai, Dean of Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), and Fan Di’an, Deputy Dean of CAFA, presided over a special meeting to announce the official establishment of “Experimental Art Studio of Central Academy of Fine Arts”.
On November 10, 2006, the first experimental art document exhibition “From Life” opened in the exhibition hall of the main building of CAFA. This document exhibition, for the first time, made a systematic display of the discipline construction and teaching achievements in experimental art and opened up the experimental space in the school’s teaching -- a “space for connecting historical culture and confronting people’s survival in contemporary time” (Lv Shengzhong).
This exhibition was a classic review of experimental art teaching and students’ creative achievements of academies of fine arts in China over the past ten years. The exhibition was divided into seven theme sections, four exhibition halls, and nearly one hundred art works on display.
On April 14, the Experimental Art Committee of China Artists Association was established.
On April 29, the first “Conference on China’s Academy of Experimental Art Education” was convened in the Academic Lecture Hall of CAFA Art Museum. The three-day agenda included survey reports on the existing state of experimental art teaching in Chinese academies, statement of problems and discussions, discussions on document exhibits, reports on first-line cases, high-end forums (the relationship between contemporary art perspectives and the education delivered by academies, the international situation facing China’s contemporary art), Dean Forum (the position of experimental art in the discipline of art education), negotiation and contention (the commonalities and characteristics of discipline construction among schools and academies), and dialogues between young students and guests. Participants genialized problems, concluded experience, summed up wisdom, and shared the results on the current situation of experimental art education, and strived to reach a consensus on a variety of fundamental issues of the current situation of experimental art education. In the context of international contemporary multicultural art, efforts are made to promote the orderly and effective development of experimental art discipline based on Chinese profound traditional culture.
Since then, the experimental art discipline has established a basic structural framework for teaching of majors and academic research and summed up the ideological methods and ways of work for the implementation of teaching of majors, producing a complete syllabus and course system that have common features while keeping each teaching unit’s own characteristics. This has laid a solid foundation for the school’s teaching and has become an unshakable part of the contemporary art education pattern.
On May 30, 2013, CAFA decided to establish School of Experimental Art (in preparation) at the fifth annual dean’s office meeting. On September 12, the “Report from CAFA on Application for the Addition of ‘Experimental Art’ as a major for undergraduate students” was specially submitted to the Ministry of Education.
On March 25, 2014, the Ministry of Education announced “Filing or Approved Results of Undergraduate Majors in General Institutions of Higher Learning”, and “Experimental Art” in CAFA was included in the “Added Majors Approved” catalog. This was the only new major under the item of “Art Study” that year. On August 8th, “The Year of Experimental Art – Report Exhibition on Experimental Art Teaching of CAFA” opened at the CAFA Art Museum.
On September 4, 2014, School of Experimental Art in CAFA was established.
On January 14, 2017, the “Teaching Benefits Teachers and Students -The 3rd Document Exhibition on Experimental Art” was hosted by CAFA and undertaken by School of Experimental Art and “The 2nd Conference on Experimental Art Education in Academies in China” opened at CAFA Art Museum. Many teachers working on the front line of experimental art teaching across the country were sincerely invited to participate in the exhibition. Meanwhile, each teacher selected three students once taught to participate in this exhibition together to present the creations of teachers and students in recent years. And the conference also displayed the teaching methods and academic research results of each teacher in his or her own major area. At the 2nd Conference on Art Education of Academies, representatives of the academies of fine arts spoke about the development status of individuals and the related disciplines of experimental art in the academies they were teaching, the problems they encountered, and their exploration and reflection about teaching these related disciplines.
On June 8, 2017, the series of research projects of School of Experimental Art “Entering Chinese Academy of Sciences and Approaching Scientists” was officially launched at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. These research projects enabled students to gain tremendous nutrition through direct communication with scientists and close observation of frontier disciplines, hoping to incubate more artistic and technological creations. Looking at the world, there is still not much in-depth cooperation between art academies and scientific research institutions. Therefore, School of Experimental Art needs to be brave enough to lead in this area and play a more active role in the exploration of science and technology.
In 2018, the undergraduate teaching reform was basically completed, formulating three educational orientations: experimental art, scientific and technology art, and social art. The undergraduate teaching evaluation set by the Ministry of Education was successfully completed, and CAFA was rated as a "Double First-class" university.
The school undertook the special training for spreaders of non-material culture heritage protection under National Art Fund (2018-2019).
In the same year, the 2nd “EAST Science and Technology Art Season” was successfully held, including EAST- International Education Conference on Technology and Art, EAST-Forum on Corporate Innovation, EAST- Forum on Technology Public Art, series of lectures and workshops on science and technology art, and Future Evolution - Our Shared Planet, the 39th Anniversary Document Exhibition, Ars Electronica Festival in Austria.
In 2019, School of Experimental Art participated in the 13th National Art Exhibition, Experimental Art Exhibition; Conference on Asia Civilization Dialogue, Ingenuity of Civilization – Exhibition of Asian Non-material Culture Heritage; the 13th Summer Davos Forum 2019
Important papers were published for top international academic conferences such as The 39th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Conference of IEEE International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and The 9th Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing in 2019.
The 3rd “EAST Science and Technology Art Season” was successfully held. With the theme of “Global Science and Technology Art Panorama in the New Era”, and held in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen under coordination, more than 50 artists, theorists, scientists and over 30 people from well-known high-tech companies were invited to conduct discussions on the related topics. The activities included three top academic conferences, four exhibitions, four workshops and several lectures.
As an important practice of the school’s teaching reform and an important exploration of scientific and technological art teaching and research, the School of Experimental Art, together with Science and Education Development Alliance of Chinese Academy of Sciences and CAS Science and Education Development Fund jointly designed a series of activities of “Grand Science Lectures by School of Experimental Art” as the supporting research and learning project. School of Experimental Art will organize students to gradually station in 25 research institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences to carry out field research and The Institute of Psychology of Chinese Academy of Sciences is the first field of the research project. In the following days, students in our school will go to the Institute of Mechanics and the Institute of Biophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences to carry out in-depth research. We will invite experts from Chinese Academy of Sciences to participate in the teaching of relevant courses of our school at an appropriate time.
3. The Objectives of the School’s Education and Setting of Major Orientation
The School of Experimental Art of CAFA is committed to cultivating art workers with experimental spirit and innovative ability, willing to shoulder social responsibilities and participate in contemporary cultural and artistic creation. Students are expected to possess five fundamental capabilities: 1) strong humanistic spirit; 2) comprehensive knowledge equipment; 3) rational thinking; 4) effective communication skill; 5) strong hands-on ability.
The School of Experimental Art has 3 major orientations: experimental art orientation, science and technology art orientation, and social art orientation.
The experimental art orientation aims at, based on the commonness of human culture, studying the inheritance of culture tradition and modern society, the relationship between development and innovation, and cultivate art professionals with professional quality of artistic creation and research, independent thinking and independent learning ability, and comprehensive knowledge system, and artists and the related staff who can integrate with the art ecology. The experimental art curriculum system consists of two major sections: the traditional language curriculum system and the materialized presentation curriculum system. Courses highlight research and investigation of traditional culture and the in-depth tempering of artistic language and enter in-depth exploration and research of different propositions from the level of ways of work and ways of thinking. From the perspective of conflict between traditional culture and contemporary culture, this orientation attempts to gain an overall understanding of the development of contemporary art, and a more specific understanding and verification of its characteristics and the characteristics of contemporary society.
The objective of science and technology art orientation is to cultivate all-round talents who are familiar with the development of science and technology and are good at making in-depth integration of the latest technological means to engage in artistic creation. This science and technology art orientation currently includes future media art, image art and other courses. In the future, it will gradually increase cross-border cooperation with scientific laboratories such as physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and medicine to establish an experimental base that truly combines art and technology. The science and technology art orientation not only provides new possibilities for today’s artistic creation, but also fills gap for today’s art teaching. The purpose of this orientation is to establish a laboratory where art and science and technology are mutually infiltrated and integrated, which not only enlightens the development of art, but also opens up a new field of stimulating scientific and technological development in an artistic way.
The biggest teaching characteristic of social art orientation is to promote practice to social public space. The social art orientation is committed to cultivating artistic talents who have strong social care, keen social observation skill and can effectively apply sociological research tools as the basis of creation and are good at using art works in social spaces. The concept of experimental art from the perspective of social art is to complete dynamic experiments and innovations in the social changes and develop humane and practical experimental art. It is committed to guiding students to surpass the small emotions and tastes of an ego, reshape themselves in their social experiences, and obtain a greater ego so as to attain limitless energy for artistic innovation, undertake their historical mission in the society, and realize their own value. Meanwhile, in this process, students also fulfill self-actualization and realize the integration of internal and external adaptation, collectivism and individualism, artistic transcendence, and social responsibility.
The modern system of education of fine arts in China began to brew and grow after the May 4th New Culture Movement, continuously enriched and renewed its real connotation, and developed into a magnificent and diverse cultural and artistic landscape with Chinese characteristics. The fast-developing teaching of experimental art majors in academies of fine arts in China at the beginning of this century has indeed inherited the context of the experimental exploration and development of China’s art education in the past 100 years, conformed to the inevitable trend of China’s development since the reform and opening up, and marked the dynamics and achievements of system reform of higher professional art education.
“Experimental art” differs from the traditional fine arts such as oil painting, printmaking, sculpture, etc. in that it is a discipline whose nature is determined by the way art works while the formers use tool materials, techniques, and styles as the standard for the division of discipline. Experimental art emphasizes the accuracy and effectiveness of the expression of subject, attaches importance to the dialectical relationship of interdependence and mutual promotion with the aesthetic subject, trying to bring art closer to the reality of life and provide the public with a fresh spiritual space. Therefore, in terms of the means of artistic expression, experimental art focuses more on confirming the importance of rationality and academic reserve and emphasizes the scientific basis for rational verification.
It has changed the single teaching mode of realism in the original teaching system, opened a diversified space for majors, and fully demonstrated the academic thinking of becoming more diverse and open in the original pattern of China’s contemporary higher professional art education while adhering to the traditional advantages, making necessary preparations for achieving a contemporary professional art education model with international leading standards and Chinese characteristics.
2. Construction of Experimental Art Discipline and Development of School of Experimental Art
On July 8, 2005, the first group of 14 undergraduates entered the experimental art studio. This class was later widely known as the "Pioneer Class". The first class of the undergraduate teaching “Survey on China’s Public Family Aesthetics” then assigned projects, conducted the teaching of basic methods of field survey, and gave survey assignments.
On July 13, Pan Gongkai, Dean of Central Academy of Fine Arts (CAFA), and Fan Di’an, Deputy Dean of CAFA, presided over a special meeting to announce the official establishment of “Experimental Art Studio of Central Academy of Fine Arts”.
On November 10, 2006, the first experimental art document exhibition “From Life” opened in the exhibition hall of the main building of CAFA. This document exhibition, for the first time, made a systematic display of the discipline construction and teaching achievements in experimental art and opened up the experimental space in the school’s teaching -- a “space for connecting historical culture and confronting people’s survival in contemporary time” (Lv Shengzhong).
This exhibition was a classic review of experimental art teaching and students’ creative achievements of academies of fine arts in China over the past ten years. The exhibition was divided into seven theme sections, four exhibition halls, and nearly one hundred art works on display.
On April 14, the Experimental Art Committee of China Artists Association was established.
On April 29, the first “Conference on China’s Academy of Experimental Art Education” was convened in the Academic Lecture Hall of CAFA Art Museum. The three-day agenda included survey reports on the existing state of experimental art teaching in Chinese academies, statement of problems and discussions, discussions on document exhibits, reports on first-line cases, high-end forums (the relationship between contemporary art perspectives and the education delivered by academies, the international situation facing China’s contemporary art), Dean Forum (the position of experimental art in the discipline of art education), negotiation and contention (the commonalities and characteristics of discipline construction among schools and academies), and dialogues between young students and guests. Participants genialized problems, concluded experience, summed up wisdom, and shared the results on the current situation of experimental art education, and strived to reach a consensus on a variety of fundamental issues of the current situation of experimental art education. In the context of international contemporary multicultural art, efforts are made to promote the orderly and effective development of experimental art discipline based on Chinese profound traditional culture.
Since then, the experimental art discipline has established a basic structural framework for teaching of majors and academic research and summed up the ideological methods and ways of work for the implementation of teaching of majors, producing a complete syllabus and course system that have common features while keeping each teaching unit’s own characteristics. This has laid a solid foundation for the school’s teaching and has become an unshakable part of the contemporary art education pattern.
On May 30, 2013, CAFA decided to establish School of Experimental Art (in preparation) at the fifth annual dean’s office meeting. On September 12, the “Report from CAFA on Application for the Addition of ‘Experimental Art’ as a major for undergraduate students” was specially submitted to the Ministry of Education.
On March 25, 2014, the Ministry of Education announced “Filing or Approved Results of Undergraduate Majors in General Institutions of Higher Learning”, and “Experimental Art” in CAFA was included in the “Added Majors Approved” catalog. This was the only new major under the item of “Art Study” that year. On August 8th, “The Year of Experimental Art – Report Exhibition on Experimental Art Teaching of CAFA” opened at the CAFA Art Museum.
On September 4, 2014, School of Experimental Art in CAFA was established.
On January 14, 2017, the “Teaching Benefits Teachers and Students -The 3rd Document Exhibition on Experimental Art” was hosted by CAFA and undertaken by School of Experimental Art and “The 2nd Conference on Experimental Art Education in Academies in China” opened at CAFA Art Museum. Many teachers working on the front line of experimental art teaching across the country were sincerely invited to participate in the exhibition. Meanwhile, each teacher selected three students once taught to participate in this exhibition together to present the creations of teachers and students in recent years. And the conference also displayed the teaching methods and academic research results of each teacher in his or her own major area. At the 2nd Conference on Art Education of Academies, representatives of the academies of fine arts spoke about the development status of individuals and the related disciplines of experimental art in the academies they were teaching, the problems they encountered, and their exploration and reflection about teaching these related disciplines.
On June 8, 2017, the series of research projects of School of Experimental Art “Entering Chinese Academy of Sciences and Approaching Scientists” was officially launched at the Institute of Psychology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. These research projects enabled students to gain tremendous nutrition through direct communication with scientists and close observation of frontier disciplines, hoping to incubate more artistic and technological creations. Looking at the world, there is still not much in-depth cooperation between art academies and scientific research institutions. Therefore, School of Experimental Art needs to be brave enough to lead in this area and play a more active role in the exploration of science and technology.
In 2018, the undergraduate teaching reform was basically completed, formulating three educational orientations: experimental art, scientific and technology art, and social art. The undergraduate teaching evaluation set by the Ministry of Education was successfully completed, and CAFA was rated as a "Double First-class" university.
The school undertook the special training for spreaders of non-material culture heritage protection under National Art Fund (2018-2019).
In the same year, the 2nd “EAST Science and Technology Art Season” was successfully held, including EAST- International Education Conference on Technology and Art, EAST-Forum on Corporate Innovation, EAST- Forum on Technology Public Art, series of lectures and workshops on science and technology art, and Future Evolution - Our Shared Planet, the 39th Anniversary Document Exhibition, Ars Electronica Festival in Austria.
In 2019, School of Experimental Art participated in the 13th National Art Exhibition, Experimental Art Exhibition; Conference on Asia Civilization Dialogue, Ingenuity of Civilization – Exhibition of Asian Non-material Culture Heritage; the 13th Summer Davos Forum 2019
Important papers were published for top international academic conferences such as The 39th International Conference on Artificial Intelligence, Conference of IEEE International Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, and The 9th Joint Conference on Natural Language Processing in 2019.
The 3rd “EAST Science and Technology Art Season” was successfully held. With the theme of “Global Science and Technology Art Panorama in the New Era”, and held in Beijing, Shanghai, and Shenzhen under coordination, more than 50 artists, theorists, scientists and over 30 people from well-known high-tech companies were invited to conduct discussions on the related topics. The activities included three top academic conferences, four exhibitions, four workshops and several lectures.
As an important practice of the school’s teaching reform and an important exploration of scientific and technological art teaching and research, the School of Experimental Art, together with Science and Education Development Alliance of Chinese Academy of Sciences and CAS Science and Education Development Fund jointly designed a series of activities of “Grand Science Lectures by School of Experimental Art” as the supporting research and learning project. School of Experimental Art will organize students to gradually station in 25 research institutes of Chinese Academy of Sciences to carry out field research and The Institute of Psychology of Chinese Academy of Sciences is the first field of the research project. In the following days, students in our school will go to the Institute of Mechanics and the Institute of Biophysics of Chinese Academy of Sciences to carry out in-depth research. We will invite experts from Chinese Academy of Sciences to participate in the teaching of relevant courses of our school at an appropriate time.
3. The Objectives of the School’s Education and Setting of Major Orientation
The School of Experimental Art of CAFA is committed to cultivating art workers with experimental spirit and innovative ability, willing to shoulder social responsibilities and participate in contemporary cultural and artistic creation. Students are expected to possess five fundamental capabilities: 1) strong humanistic spirit; 2) comprehensive knowledge equipment; 3) rational thinking; 4) effective communication skill; 5) strong hands-on ability.
The School of Experimental Art has 3 major orientations: experimental art orientation, science and technology art orientation, and social art orientation.
The experimental art orientation aims at, based on the commonness of human culture, studying the inheritance of culture tradition and modern society, the relationship between development and innovation, and cultivate art professionals with professional quality of artistic creation and research, independent thinking and independent learning ability, and comprehensive knowledge system, and artists and the related staff who can integrate with the art ecology. The experimental art curriculum system consists of two major sections: the traditional language curriculum system and the materialized presentation curriculum system. Courses highlight research and investigation of traditional culture and the in-depth tempering of artistic language and enter in-depth exploration and research of different propositions from the level of ways of work and ways of thinking. From the perspective of conflict between traditional culture and contemporary culture, this orientation attempts to gain an overall understanding of the development of contemporary art, and a more specific understanding and verification of its characteristics and the characteristics of contemporary society.
The objective of science and technology art orientation is to cultivate all-round talents who are familiar with the development of science and technology and are good at making in-depth integration of the latest technological means to engage in artistic creation. This science and technology art orientation currently includes future media art, image art and other courses. In the future, it will gradually increase cross-border cooperation with scientific laboratories such as physics, chemistry, biology, astronomy, and medicine to establish an experimental base that truly combines art and technology. The science and technology art orientation not only provides new possibilities for today’s artistic creation, but also fills gap for today’s art teaching. The purpose of this orientation is to establish a laboratory where art and science and technology are mutually infiltrated and integrated, which not only enlightens the development of art, but also opens up a new field of stimulating scientific and technological development in an artistic way.
The biggest teaching characteristic of social art orientation is to promote practice to social public space. The social art orientation is committed to cultivating artistic talents who have strong social care, keen social observation skill and can effectively apply sociological research tools as the basis of creation and are good at using art works in social spaces. The concept of experimental art from the perspective of social art is to complete dynamic experiments and innovations in the social changes and develop humane and practical experimental art. It is committed to guiding students to surpass the small emotions and tastes of an ego, reshape themselves in their social experiences, and obtain a greater ego so as to attain limitless energy for artistic innovation, undertake their historical mission in the society, and realize their own value. Meanwhile, in this process, students also fulfill self-actualization and realize the integration of internal and external adaptation, collectivism and individualism, artistic transcendence, and social responsibility.