WORKOUT 1 about "Perform in the arts how nature affects"  guides you through the composition, improvisation and visualisation of students at Gakugei University in Tokyo, Japan. Enjoy this workout from the perspective of the Japanese young generation and feel free to send your impressions.  

The medial products of the students of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences which are reflecting this Japanese workout you will find at WORKOUT 2, the analysis of the comments of WORKOUT 2 you find at WORKOUT 3. 

"Perform in the arts how nature affects"  
Three Polyaesthetic Videos of students of Tokyo Gakugei University, 2021
All concers of copyright and quoting  are the responsibility of the authors. 
Translation into German: Masayuki Nakaji and Gerhard Hofbauer.
German lyrics: Gerhard Hofbauer

Using images and poems by Japanese artists as well as paintings by French painter Claude Monet, students of music education with Prof. Dr. Masayuki Nakaji musically reflected on the invitation to "Show in the arts how nature touches." They composed, improvised and played music and created three video films. With this they participate in the project to which "Polyesthetic Education International" [ www.paeb.org ] had invited cross-culturally. With students of the German University of Applied Sciences Cologne they share their experiences.

Product A    （葛飾北斎の木版画による富嶽十六景）

Scenes of the Fuji-Yama after woodblock prints by Hokusai Katsushika / Szenen des Fuji-Yama nach Holzschnitten von Hokusai Katsushika

https://youtu.be/PdoVtIDSXaY

Hokusai Katsushika (葛飾北斎 1760-1849) is one of the most famous Japanese woodblock artists. His works had significant influence on impressionist painters of Europe. Four students used European instruments to create musical scenes to 16 motifs of his woodblock series about Fuji-Yama, the sacred mountain of Japan.

Product B    （クロード・モネ「睡蓮」への４つのオマージュ）

Hommage to Claude Monet and his paintings of „Nympheas“ – „Water Lilies“ / Hommage an Claude Monet zu Bildern der Serie „Nympheas“ – „Seerosen“

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sAUwn5VCO0k

Claude Monet was influenced both by Hokusai and by Japanese woodcarving in general. There would be even more to add: Vincent van Gogh was also inspired, and a picture by Hokusai features the title page of Debussy's "La Mer". - The students composed four musical scenes using European tonality and had it interpreted by the traditional Japanese instrument “Koto 箏”. The mottos of the four movements are " Closeness - Freshness - Tranquility - Brilliant". 

Product C   （八つの短歌による四季の情景）

Four Seasons represented in eight Tankas / Vier Jahreszeiten in acht Tankas

https://youtube.com/watch?v=V2p1V9YkYq4&feature=share

Tanka is a Japanese short poem of 5-7-5-7 syllables, much older than the 5-7-5 syllable haiku. The students selected eight tankas to represent the four seasons. They tankas date from the 7th, 8th and 10th century. The students composed the music vocally and instrumentally. They used traditional European and Japanese instruments as well as electronic instruments. The German text translation into the syllabic structure of the tanka was done by Gerhard Hofbauer according to the translation by Masayuki Nakaj.

The authors of the poems (see below) and the dating of the anthologies:

For messages to the youth authors, please use our contact form. We will do our best to forward them promptly.

WORKOUT 2 is presenting the multi-medial productions of the students of the Cologne University of Applied Sciences who were reflecting creatively the Japanese videos, we published as WORKOUT 1.
A short summary of the analysis of the comments about WORKOUT 2 please see under WORKOUT 3 (Translation in progress).

In January, 2022, via a Webex conference, the working groups of the Cologne courses "Setting the scene for everyday life" and "Nature as a place of aesthetic education" presented their results. As design for the presentation the majority chose short videos, some preferred PowerPoint, partly as slide shows. Some groups recited texts or gave a commentary to the presentation. 

Please feel free to watch the pdf and mp4 contributions as listed and linked below and to send your comments via the contact form. Information about the dialogue you will find -> below the matrix.

Contributions from: "Exercise in Aesthetic Education: Setting the scene for everyday life - polyaesthetics in social work".

Contributions from: "Seminar on Aesthetic Education: Nature as a Space for Aesthetic Education"

The international Online-Dialogue about the contributions

After each presentation, everyone participating in the event was asked to pause for five minutes and communicate a maximum of ten words via the communication platform chat about what they perceived. All students also wrote their feedback texts collectively in an email and submitted the result to the course instructor for anonymized evaluation. (For a short report about the analysis please follow WORKOUT 3.)

The dialogue event was prepared and organized by Prof. Dr. Dr. Dietmar Jürgens, Vice President of IGPE, Catholic University of Applied Science North Rhine-Westphalia, Cologne in cooperation with Mag. Gerhard Hofbauer, President of the International Society for Polyesthetic Education, Salzburg and Prof. Dr. Masayuki Nakaji, Gakugej University Tokyo and member of the board of IGPE. 

The dialogue was concluded by a contribution of Prof. Dr. Anna Zembala, Member of the Expert Council of IGPE, about the intended projects for autumn 2022.

Milestones of the work in progress 2019-2022:

1) Dec. 2019: Conference of the international and interdisciplinary council of experts 

2) Sept. 2020: symposium "Perform in the Arts, how Nature Affects"

3) Summer 2021: Video sequences by students of Gakugei University Tokyo.

4) Winter-term 2021/22: Artistic-aesthetic reflections of the students of the Kath. University of Applied Sciences Cologne

5) Jan. 17, 2022: Virtual dialogue between Tokyo and Cologne, analysis

1) In December 2019, the international and interdisciplinary council of experts defines the motto "Perform in the Arts, how Nature Affects".

2) The international symposium "Perform in the Arts, how Nature Affects" discusses the basics of the topic; Experts of sciences and arts meet in Hohnhurst, Germany, others join via internet, in September 2020. (see: Events)

3) The students of Dr. Masayuki Nakaji at the Gakugei University Tokyo publish on the same topic in 2021 video sequences with their own compositions and texts. See Workout 1.

4) Dr. Dr. Dietmar Jürgens from the Kath. University of Applied Sciences Cologne introduces the students of his courses "Staging scenes of everyday life - Polyesthetics and social work" and "Nature as a field of aesthetic education" to the videos made by the Japanese students. Starting with the impulse to work independently with this task, they form small groups to reflect the Japanese workout. They create their aesthetic reflections following their perception independently. See Workout 2.

5) In a virtual dialogue between Tokyo and Cologne, the working outcome was presented, discussed and reflected together with guests from Polyaesthetic Education on January 17, 2022. Gerhard Hofbauer analyzed the feedback and the comments by quantity- and quality-content research. Please feel free to ask for more information. A short report see Workout 3.

An overall documentation is intended.

Workout 3 is a short report on the analysis of the group-feedback given in the Online-dialogue of Polyaesthetic's "Performing in the Arts how Nature Affects" (Workout 2).

Under the title "Polyaesthetic Perception of Nature Online?" Gerhard Hofbauer analyzed in detail the feedback of the participants about eleven multimedia presentations of the students of the University of Applied Sciences NRW Cologne at this Online-dialogue. The results are briefly reported here. The overall result will be published a.s.a.p. If you are interested, please feel free to contact "Polyesthetic Education International" via the contact form.

In addition to the main exploratory question of what impressions were left by the presented contributions, the response material was subjected to a structural analysis in terms of content and syntactic and semantic aspect of language, leading to insights into what and how was reflected aesthetically.

The International Society for Polyesthetic Education has been working on the topic "Performing in the Arts how Nature Affects" since 2019 (see article "Timeline..." on this WebSite). The basis for the workout by the students in Germany were the multi-media contributions of the students of Gakugei University Tokyo (see WORKOUT 1).

Methodologically, the analysis follows essential approaches of Philipp Mayring's Qualitative Content Analysis[1], reflected on an overview of research methods in educational science. [2] The data material was extracted from the feedback on the chat of the video session. The number of responding participants* was 34 in total, of which student 29, non-student 5. The total of answers given was 137. The median and mean value of responses is 4 each (see below Figure 2 from the results report).

All contributions are anonymized in the report. The socio-cultural background of the students are their studies for social professional qualifications and in Aesthetic Education in this context in the courses "Setting the scene for everyday life" and "Nature as a place of Aesthetic Education" by Prof. DDr. Dietmar Jürgens.

How many feedbacks each of the eleven presentations received is shown in Figure 4 from the final report, vertically the number of feedbacks, horizontally the contributions 1 to 11. This distribution is also moderate, the mean is 12.5 and the median is 12.

Fig. 2: Number of answers per participant                   Fig. 4: Number of answers for each presentation (B1-B11)

Category system

Content analysis was guided by the central question, "What impressions did the presentation of each group outcome leave on the other participants?" Formal structuring of the data led to categorization into pedagogical, design, impact, content, reflection, and external. The reflection and external categories also provided insight regarding the context of answers given.

Figure 5 from the final report shows quantitatively how many passages (vertical) were assigned to which categories (horizontal) in the process of coding. The multiple reference to 2-3 categories, which resulted from quite a few passages, is shown in the final report. (see right: Figure 5, distribution of the number of responses to the six categories).

Creation of subcategories

In the second, critical process of the analysis, a subdivision of the 4 categories design, effect, content, and reflection by subcategories became essential:

Design was differentiated into a technical and an aesthetic subcategory. In the category effect, a distinction was made between cognitive and sensual-aesthetic feedback, in the category content between content-related and ideological, in the category reflection between rationalizing, ethical-moral and psychophysical formulations.

This step can be considered highly efficient because clear quality characteristics of the feedbacks emerge (see Figure 8 from the final report): The coded passages on aesthetic moments of the design amount to more than five times those on technical aspects. Sensory-aesthetic impact receives twice as many assignments as cognitive impact aspects. On the other hand, almost twice as many assignments are made to content-related content aspects as to ideological content aspects. Also in the category reflection, the passages that can be coded as rational amount to almost the same number as the two subcategories ethnic-moral and psychophysical together.

Fig. 8: Totals of the passages assigned to the subcategories

What can be clearly deduced from this:
Aesthetic context clearly predominates over other contexts. How far this result can be attributed to the fact that the courses are located in the department of "Aesthetic Education" or to the design and effect of the presented contributions cannot be concluded from this. In any case, the following is true: Aesthetics moves, affects.

Whether this feedback on "aesthetics" refers to medial design or to its content-related messages, such as the moment "...how nature affects", was examined and discussed in the last, extensive section of the analysis. In order to protect and preserve the meaning content of the phrases, each text summary is followed by a kind of syntactic and semantic [3] language analysis (in a broader sense) according to word categories, which is also summarized interpretatively.

More details cannot be subject of this brief presentation. But we can enable a time limited offer to the analysis material. Table 2 (see below) from the final report shows an excerpt of the pdf file [4], which can be enlarged as desired for readability.

Further impulses

Of course, it would make sense to also subject the Japanese contributions to a kind of media analysis and to examine the German contributions for visible traces of the Japanese stimuli. Up to questions of possible cultural transfer, this would result in further research aspects, which are highly familiar to Polyesthetics due to its interdisciplinarity. In any case, the Japanese students have already inquired after the publication of the German results in order to trace the medial reflection on their own works. Basically, one could speak of a modern form of a "Hermeneutic Circle", which resulted and will still result in this procedere.

[1] Mayring, Philipp: Qualitative Inhaltsanalyse. Grundlagen und Techniken. 11. Aufl. Weinheim: Beltz, 2010 (Beltz Pädagogik).

[2] Friebertshäuser, Barbara; Langer, Antje; Prengel, Annedore (Hg.): Handbuch Qualitative Forschungsmethoden in der Erziehungswissenschaft. 3. Aufl. Weinheim: Juventa, 2010 (Juventa-Handbuch).

[3] Vgl. ebd., S. 94–95.

[4] www.paeb.org/files/dialog2022/Dialog_2022_Datenanalyse_Sammler.pdf

Kontakt: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it., Gerhard Hofbauer, (C) 2022

Intercultural and international online-project, 2021/22, Universities of Cologne/Germany, Tokio/Japan 

What Moves the Senses.
Resources of sensory experience in comparison.

Whether nature or the arts, both often touch people intensively and sustainably. Students and experts tried to investigate the hidden backgrounds of these aesthetic touches. Experience and acting out, perception and expression are the complementary components of Polyaesthetics. 

Read more: What Moves the Senses

WORKOUT 4 zu "Perform in the Arts how Nature Affects": Prolongation summer and autumn 2022.

The Dean and Professor of music pedagogics at the Japanese  Gakugei University of Tokyo was invited to present "Creative Interactions in  Polyaesthetic Video Processes" as results of the project at the international congress "Creative Interactions 2022" at the University of Music and Performing Arts, Munich/Germany. (Link to the -> handout)

Japanese students responded to the presentations of their colluaeges of the University at Cologne. Please follow the link to -> one example how they start an intercultural dialog.

The Polyaesthetik-Symposium EROS und THANATOS in October 2022 at Salzburg will present thematic songs composed by children and young people of the region, followed by further artistic and scientistic contributions. (please see our program of the symposium)

Gerhard Hofbauer
Global Warming / Individual Freezing?

With the song "Nur Noch Kurz Die Welt Retten"[1], Tim Bendzko has delivered a slogan that can be interpreted in many ways. He himself promises after having saved the world he would return to his love-mate again. However, if mankind is an integral part of the world, it might be lucky to be saved by this hero. Otherwise?

„Performing in the arts how nature affects “, the current topic of Polyaesthetic Bildung International is leading the relationship of the individual to all that concerns nature to a crucial point, to a pivot: A revitalised awareness of everything that concerns nature in the broadest sense is intended to help people reposition themselves in their world.

There is no doubt about the urgency of averting global overheating, however and wherever opportunities arise. - But isn't individual coldness spreading wherever we look? Has not physical distancing already demonstrably led to a trend towards 'social distancing'?

No doubt, everything that distances the hostile virus has primary rank, so that "I can't breathe" does not become a heinous reality.

Let us leave the horror vision and its metaphors, but without running away from it all. For complementary counter-programmes are an imperative of the hour. Making the human psyche visible, audible, tangible in its psychophysical correspondence, simply put, its manifold system of reference to all nature on and around us, is the essence of our approach.  To demonstrate and communicate through creative, artistic expression how - in what way and in what respect - nature touches us is the program[2].

From the sensual experience of how the world affects us, clear-headedness[3] can emerge. Focusing on how to be affected and reflecting on its aesthetical effects without predetermined purpose and utility[4], ‘eo ipso’ may create space, let us breathe more freely, may enable us better awareness and deeper feeling of the self[5].

Especially in urban areas, experience of nature has been noticeably tipped out of the overall experience of the world, but also beyond that, in all settings where other priorities take over the educational canon. We urge aesthetic educational processes back into context and hope you will stand with us.

The-> IGPE PUBLIC FORUM at htpps://paeb.org is open for your comments and contributions.

[1] See the Youtube-Video Tim Bendzko - Nur Noch Kurz Die Welt Retten (Offizielles Video) - YouTube (1.5.2021).

[2] Wolfgang Seierl, composer, painter and musician from Vienna, member of IGPE, made a 1 metre long string into a comprehensive artistic impulse on the issue of 'closeness and distance'. His works were presented at the Symposium 2020. For more details see the report of the symposium at https://paeb.org.

[3] Johann Gottfried Herder has described this aesthetic process in detail: Herder, Johann Gottfried von; Heintel, Erich (Hg.): Sprachphilosophische Schriften. 2. Aufl. Hamburg: Meiner, 1975 (Philosophische Bibliothek 248)

[4] Without going into detail, that kind of request can be found in Friedrich Schiller's Letters on Aesthetic Education: Schiller, Friedrich; Berghahn, Klaus L.: Über die ästhetische Erziehung des Menschen in einer Reihe von Briefen. Stuttgart: Reclam, 2000 (Universal-Bibliothek 18062)

[5] As incomparable as the time of origin of both sources of reference may be with the present pandemic situation, both approaches signify concrete aesthetical counter-programmes to the perceived psychic suffering of their time. While Herder criticises the human distance of rationalism, Schiller expresses his harsh disappointment about the French Revolution being able to lead to a 'better man' and trusts on the aesthetic education of the individuum. - Different signs of those times with similar effects as in the present?

In July, 2021, the European Graduate School Saas-Fee, Switzerland, invited Gerhard Hofbauer to give a lecture at the sommerschool. The main topic was the anchoring of polyaesthetics in the theory of "Expressive Arts" according to Paolo Knill. Similarities in the development of both concepts were explored, examples of polyaesthetic projects were presented and discussed shortly. Participants from all continents followed interactively.

The video-recording is accassible on youtube: -> Link to the Video  .

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