Picking Your Topic Is Research
Please watch this video from NCSU Libraries prior to your library session. As you watch the video think about your own potential topic ideas, and then answer the questions below.
Used under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 United States License by NCSU Libraries.
Brainstorming keywords for searching
Research Question:
To what extent has the technology you have chosen made the world more beautiful?
How has it got in the way of sensory or aesthetic pleasure?
Examples of search terms, and how to use quotes and AND
technology AND "aesthetic pleasure"
narrower terms
photography AND mimesis
"digital photography" AND expression
"artificial intelligence" AND "visual art" and controversy
painting and stillness and amazement and imagination and surprise and curiosity
related terms & synonyms & antonyms
phone pictures and form and mood
AI AND "art collecting"
Synonyms and Mimesis: imitation, emulation, "poetic representation," evocation, expressive.
Research Question: How is the growth of digital technology changing aesthetic experience?
Examples of search terms, and how to use quotes and AND
"digital technology" and "aesthetic experience"
narrower terms
"Virtual reality" and art and "Critical judgement"
"augmented reality" and aesthetics and ethics
related terms & synonyms & antonyms
"immersive art experience" and "Van Gogh" and "art history" and context
"immersive Van Gogh" and art and context
"born digital art" and ethics
Research Question: How does artwork construct its argument through non-beautiful aesthetics? What did the artist risk by being shocking and controversial? To what degree did the artwork succeed in breaking through status quo?
Examples of search terms, and how to use quotes and AND
aesthetics and ugly and art and controversy
painting and "status quo"
narrower terms
Picasso and Guernica
related terms & synonyms & antonyms
"modern art" and controversy and ugly
Background, Terminilogy
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Oxford Reference Online (a collection of subject encyclopedias) Reference resources help you with the background knowledge as you begin your brainstorming.
Grove Art Online provides web access to the entire text of The Dictionary of Art (1996, 34 vols.) with annual additions of new material and updates to the text, plus extensive image links and all the sophisticated search advantages possible with an online reference source.
Access to the database is limited to 5 users.