The November Phoenix Art Museum visit focused on perceptual filters and bias. In this session, students were in the gallery hosting the new exhibit by Amalia Mesa-Bains: Archaeology of Memory. Students were challenged to evaluate art with different criteria and asked to think clearly about a response they might have toward something. Different perspectives from which art is approached may affect interpretations. They were asked to differentiate between tastes and biases and how these might affect an evaluation in the work that they do. A person’s taste is their choice in the things they like while a personal bias refers to learned beliefs, opinions, or attitudes that people are often unaware of. These tastes and biases form the perceptual filters though which we judge things.
“ Knowing that one may be subject to bias is one thing; being able to correct it is another.”
-Jon Elster