Title: “Our
creations recreating us.”
Journal:
Arts Education Policy Review v. 102 no. 3 (Jan/ Feb 2001) pp. 11-12
Author:
Wilson, Marjorie
Source:
WilsonSelectPlus
The author responds to two quotes from recent articles in the New York Times magazine, concerning technology: “Science is now, arguably, a much more interesting avant-garde than say, art,” and another, which starts, “The 1.2 million college graduates of the nation’s class of 2000 are entering the nation’s strongest job market in memory, a result in the flourishing economy and, especially, the boom in technology.” The Leonardo Electronic Almanac claims its mission as being a dedication to providing “a forum for readers interested in the realm where art, science and technology converge.” (p. 11)
Not long ago, a work of art referred to a painting or a sculpture, yet now, it refers to a digital image or a virtual image, or video productions. Technology has rapidly changed the world and the very nature of art. From this, the author proceeds to describe how arts education has and will continue to be affected by the convergence of art, science and technology. Rapid changes have occurred in the realm of digital imaging and the art forms that have emerged from them, including multimedia forms of performance and installation. These have become a form of text to be read and interpreted by the artist, the critic, the historian, and the student of art and art education.
The basic framework of all verbal systems has been made more visible by the use of the computer as hypertext. This framework becomes a necessity for the art student in order to proceed from the work of art (the pre-text) to the world (the hypertext). “In a graduate hypermedia class, because the students were dealing with both a work of literature and a work of art as text—and drawing parallels between the hypertext computer program to which the students were being introduced and the concept of the labyrinth—we began working a complex literary work/text.” (p.11) In undergraduate art education courses, students use individual works of art as their pretext, and the resulting hypertext carries them through into the worlds of artists and curriculum. Students take responsibility for their own learning by finding works of art and making connections between them and artists, or between the works and other works of art, or between the works and themselves, or between the works of art and the rest of the world. They become learners and teachers by creating digital and virtual works of art and discovering new art forms.
The difference between a traditional art education program and the possibilities that technology in art education can provide is the ability to allow the learners to build the content. We do not abandon curriculum, but rather, we build on it. We do not forget about textbooks or other traditional media, but rather, we use them as resources that provide essential knowledge on which to expand and grow from. Teachers cannot throw away everything they know or believe, and they cannot continue to think that they are the only ones with all of the knowledge. They have to become intelligent guides and co-learners as students explore new avenues of knowledge through technology. Teachers also need to learn to use and to teach the students how to use the resources that technology and the Internet provide, particularly how to distinguish between information that is useful and that which is invalid.
“William Gibson, who gave us the term “cyberspace,” now predicts a future in which our own creations will recreate us. Gibson’s visions have already proved prophetic and we—and art and art education—have even now begun the re-creation process.” (p.12)
My opinion of this article is one of agreement, which ties back into the learning theories that I try to employ in my teaching: collaborative learning and whole-brain learning where the students use their logic skills, their imaginations and each other to build their own learning. I think of technology as a valuable resource for artistic endeavors, which helps to enrich young imaginations and helps students to expand on their own creative impulses.