To what extent do stereotypes influence our ability to acquire knowledge?

First off, we are going to start by deconstructing the main kq by defining the terms:

What is a stereotype?
A conventional conception, or a mental representation about a person or a thing, usually negatively
portrayed.

What is knowledge?
Defined as awareness or familiarity gained by experience or education of a fact or situation.

INTRO:
As IB Psychology students, one day we were confronted with learning different studies that
involved the ideas of social representations and stereotypes. These subjects seemed appealing as in
everyday life we observe people that are subjected to stereotyping, through this process appear,
along the way, many consequences which shape or influence our knowledge, perception and beliefs.
In order to understand the origin of stereotyping and the reasons on why people behave like
that we had to have many hours of in depth studying and as we were in the process of studying we
decided that we could relate our TOK presentation to The Arts, Human Sciences and Mathematics.

THE ARTS

As an artist I always had an affinity for learning and being around all kinds of art, from literature to
music or visual art. By trying to observe others, I gained knowledge from them in order to improve
myself.
My goal is to show that through the arts there are ways of stereotyping but we can also find the
contradictions or denials of this process.

My central KQ is the following : To what extent is stereotyping a reliable source of knowledge

concerning in the arts?

At first glance, this question appears to relate to the following ways of knowing:
Sense Perception and Imagination.

By the book, Sense perception is "understanding gained through the use of one of the senses such
as sight, taste, touch or hearing." An example of sense perception is a blind person reading a book
written in Braille by touch, or another person recognising a painting by sight.

What is Imagination? "It is regarded as the "place" where the mind mixes experiences, knowledge,
hopes, and emotions into a cocktail to create ideas and scenarios that can leap beyond the bounds
of reality. Often associated with creativity."
How is art defined?
This question has been discussed for centuries between artists, philosophers and other people who
are concerned in this area. This is the base from which we start in order to expand our views and
knowledge, but what is the essence of this question? Where do we start to understand it and give a
possible definition?
In essence this really means "how do we decide what falls in the area of the arts?".

This question can be divided into two segments : the essential nature and its social importance or
lack of it. Even though if divided, the idea seems simple, there are other factors that come across
this discussion as art is mostly a creative process, can be regarded as the outcome of a persons' mind
and emotions therefore it can be lead to bias or misinterpretations.

In relation to stereotypes, through different techniques, I found out that in

art - visual art and music there are found stereotypes.

What is stereotyping in art?

Claim: Stereotypes are found in art through techniques

While observing different works of art, I have come across the artistic
technique of Victor Vasarely, the father of optical illusion, I will be talking
about his 1957 Vega, in particular.

Taken out of the 20th century expressionism movement, it focuses on the

artistic technique of optical illusion through the placement of different
geometric shapes (usually black and white) in order to give the viewer the
impression of movement, flashing, vibrating, swelling or warping
patterns.
To give you another example, as an IB music student, I have come
across something that has a specific pattern and although it can shift to
create another stunning piece, it can't be devoid of its structure or else it
would not belong into the designed canon, falling to be a stereotype.
I am talking about classical music, to be more specific, a musical architecture -
the ternary form, which was overly used in the classical period. This ternary form, very
symmetric, can be schematised as A-B-A. This form is also used in popular songs or kids songs.
I don't want to play you an ABA form of a classical piece because it might bore you out but while
studying I identified the stunning piece of Chopin, Prelude no.15 in D-flat Major which has this
form. Meanwhile, the simplest example I thought about was Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.

I did not want to exclude literature as a form of art so I want to mention that forms like the previous
ones are also found in literature, whether it is rhymes or other stylistic techniques which replicate
the form.
My counterclaim is that:
Counterclaim: not every piece of art has a certain technique,
therefore there are no stereotypes, there will always be a
genre or movement which will propose to contradict the
initial statements of the movement.
For my counterclaim I chose a rather special piece of art,
belonging to Joan Mitchell - from the abstract
expressionism movement.
She is not the only one who adopted this style which has no
technique whatsoever, it does not focus only on certain
colours or certain types of paper. I believe it focuses only on
pure emotion, that is why it might be subjective to change
from a person to another. Of course, you may say it is an
atypical example but this movement has exploded after the
first world war, maybe as a response to the chaos that was
spreading around the world.

As I also talked about music, I have a counterclaim in that sense which is applicable in literature as
well.
Music, with no structure... that would be improvisation. I'm sure you've heard Eminem or
some other rapper freestyle, so this is the same thing.
The improvisation is known as a mixture of the instrumental technique and the communication of
emotions. Even though this technique has its roots as far as renaissance music, my example is based
on Jazz improvisation
So imagine you're a saxophone player and you forgot the last few bars--- even though the
previous knowledge has been installed in you mind in order to help in this situation, the product is
still called improvisation as it is made in the moment, whether it recalls segments of songs that were
learned before or new pieces that have been created on the spot.
This is subjective as the product of your mind can have little to no structure, but from this point of
view, improvisation is not a way of producing or grasping the way stereotypes emerge, neither is
my previous example on abstract expressionism.

RLS: art- Joan Mitchell - Hudson river day line,

music - improvisation
Art is more than counterclaim, is more than sense perception
what are the wok functions lead to art
there are people who interpret through reason which can be misleading in art as art is a creative
process.

http://colorinmypiano.com/2010/01/15/a-brief-history-of-improvisation-part-3-of-the-series/
https://rateyourmusic.com/board_message?message_id=4572926

http://colorinmypiano.com/2010/01/15/a-brief-history-of-improvisation-part-3-of-the-series/
https://www.apassion4jazz.net/improvisation.html

http://www.op-art.co.uk/victor-vasarely/
https://www.vogue.com/slideshow/women-of-abstract-expressionism-exhibit-denver-art-museum-
photos#6
https://www.artsy.net/artwork/joan-mitchell-hudson-river-day-line
Claim – How is the central KQ extracted

from the RLS?


Assert – What are the goals & why is the

problem in RLS worth-examining? Clarify – How are the key terms in KQ

inter-related and what do they mean? Recognize – What is the

argument

about?

Mention - What implications are drawn/

anticipated though extended questions?

Furthermore, without the knowledge acquired through stereotypes and prejudice it would be
impossible to understand a persons' actions, which were/could be motivated by prejudice. An
example could be the psychological analysis of a murderer or terrorist’s behaviour. We could look
into what has been happening in Europe in the past few years.
What is a stereotype?