Stephen Wilson, Professor, Art, San Francisco
State
University
http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~swilson/
** Note this a pre-publication version of a chapter called "Beyond the
Digital"
in Mel Alexenberg, Editor.
Educating Artists for the Future: Learning at the Intersections of Art,
Science, Technology, and Culture Intellect
Books: London, 2007
What kind of preparation do artists need? Some
would
emphasize cultivation of personal vision and creativity, emotional
self-knowledge, intuition, and spiritual awareness.
Others highlight technical skills of working with media,
finding powerful ways to communicate, exposure to the great works of
the past,
and a strong grounding in art history. Still others stress skills of
socio-political analysis, sensitivity to one's own cultural identity,
and
awareness of critical themes in understanding culture and media.
These emphases are quite different and their
relative
importance varies with ideas about what is art. In the contemporary
postmodern
world, the nature of art is greatly contested as is the question of how
to
prepare artists. Framing the
question as "how does one educate artists for a digital age" focuses
the challenge a bit. Highlighting
"digital age" implies a special attention to what might be needed for
artists to function and respond to a technologically oriented world.
Although
the meta-themes in educating artists suggested above are important and
under-analyzed, this essay focuses on the special issues of educating
artists
in a technological age.
More
than Digital
The term "digital age" is misleading.
Digital technology is significant but
it is part of something much more momentous. Scientific research and
technological development are doing much more than creating new gadgets
and
media. They are radically
transforming basic philosophical ideas about the nature of the physical
world,
time, and space; the nature of life and intelligence; and the limits in
our
abilities to transform the world and humanity. The technological is
intertwined
with the ethical, cultural, and social-economic. The
impact of the digital revolution has been enormous, but
it is only one of many revolutions that are brewing - for example, the
biological, materials science, neurological, and cosmological. It is critical to consider how to
educate artists for a scientific/technological age, not just a digital
age.
Historically, the arts alerted people to emerging
developments, examined the unspoken implications, and explored
alternative
futures. As the centers of cultural imagination and foment of the times
have
moved to the technology labs, the arts have not understood the
challenge. It is
a critical error to conceptualize research as merely some narrow,
technical
specialized inquiry. Merely
assimilating the new gizmos to create new media is a timid response.
The arts have a much more profound calling. They can become an independent zone of
research - pursuing agendas ignored by commercial interests and
scientific
disciplines and integrating critical commentary with the search for new
knowledge and the elaboration of new technical possibilities. Those who believe that the arts are now
up to date because they pay attention to digital technology have
misunderstood
the course of history because the research goes on - investigating many
other
fields in which the arts should be proactive pioneers rather than
merely
consumers of the results.
This essay examines this challenge:
Assume a definition of art that sees
keeping watch on the cultural frontier as one of its central functions. Assume an analysis that scientific
and technological research and all their associated implications are
critical
drivers of culture. The question, then, is how to prepare artists not
only to
master the historical issues for all artists, but also the special
challenges
of becoming an strong, independent voice who is competent and
innovative in the
worlds of both art and research.
The following sections will consider an
idiosyncratic
selection of historical approaches to this challenge, identify
dimensions of
variation that art curricula might address, and describe how the
Conceptual
Information Arts program, which I have been associated with, addresses
these
dimensions. The discussion is based on my experience as an artist
working with
emerging technologies, research conducted for my Information Arts book
(Wilson
2002), and the 25 year history of the CIA program, which was one of the
pioneering curricula preparing artists for technological research.
An
Abbreviated History of Art and Technology Programs
It is no wonder there is uncertainly about how to
design art
programs to respond to technological culture. The
arts in general have been confused and slow to address
technological change. It was only a few years ago that museums,
curators, and
collectors began to accept photography or video as valid art forms. Now there is beginning to be interest
in the computers, the Internet, and biology. Art
influenced by science/technology has mostly been
considered outside the mainstream.
Most university art programs ignored these themes until the last
decade.
The following section provides a brief
idiosyncratic history
of programs that addressed the challenge of preparing artists for a
technological age. It considers
the Bauhaus and then two pioneering programs I had personal contact
with -
Generative Systems and Conceptual Design.
Bauhaus
The Bauhaus is often identified as a landmark in
technological education for artists.
This early 20th century European institution brought
together
an illustrious faculty of artists, architects, designers, technology
experimenters, theatre experts, etc.
Rather than ignoring technological changes, it felt that artists
and
designers must embrace the new developments and work with them. All students were required to take part
in a series of interdisciplinary workshops. They
were not afraid to work with new materials - machinery,
electricity, light, sound, factories, and industrial culture. The official Bauhaus history site gives
a little flavor of that period.
At a time when industrial society was in the
grip of a
crisis, the Bauhaus stood almost alone in asking how the modernization
process
could be mastered by means of design.
Founded in Weimar in 1919, the Bauhaus rallied masters and
students who
sought to reverse the split between art and production by returning to
the
crafts as the foundation of all artistic activity and developing
exemplary
designs for objects and spaces that were to form part of a more humane
future
society.( Bauhaus-dessau 2006)
Although most would acknowledge the conceptual
leaps and
significant innovations introduced at the Bauhaus, contemporary
analysts note
several problematic aspects. The
philosophy was dominated by a modernist faith in rational design to fix
the
world, which from a post modernist perspective seems quite naive and
unsophisticated in its understanding of the complexities of modern
techno-industrial culture.
Activities were often dominated by utilitarian goals which may
have
de-emphasized more speculative art directions. Faculty
and students were encouraged to work with industry
and serve its purposes, perhaps without enough distance.
As my upcoming book Great Moments in
Art and Science (Wilson in
press) points
out, there were many other artistic responses to the developments of
science
and technology in that era - for example, deep consideration of new
scientific
paradigms such as relativity, uncertainty, and the unconscious,
emotional
embrace, irreverence, skepticism, and resistance.
As discussed in later sections, many of the Bauhaus
themes continue as issues for contemporary curricula.
Generative
Systems
An extraordinary artist and educator named Sonia
Sheridan
introduced an innovative program called Generative Systems at the
School of the
Art Institute of Chicago in the 1970's.
Sheridan had established her artistic reputation for her early
experiments
with color copier machines, which were just then becoming available. For example, she created a series of
leaves which were synthetically colored by the machine to suggest the
passing
of seasons. Her work was collected
widely by museums. She was also
famous for taking on research residencies in industrial research labs.
(Sheridan 2006)
Students (including me) came from all over the
world to
study with her in relation to these new artistic technologies. But Sheridan held that the specific
technologies should not be the focus.
Much more interesting were the processes by which ideas could be
transformed (the generative systems) and their philosophical and
artistic
implications. She felt the scope
of interest must stretch from historical art practices to the latest
technologies and research. She
taught students to tear the machines apart in order to get at core
understandings. She taught lessons in light, heat, time, sound,
magnetics, etc.
She taught courses called Process I or Process II.
She noted the Bauhaus as a source of ideas but without the
utilitarian preoccupation. In one
famous move, she unplugged the machines for a year so students could
overcome
surface infatuation with the technologies. Years later, she wrote an
article
describing the curriculum in a special issue of the art/science journal
Leonardo -
"Mind/Senses/Hand: The Generative Systems Program at the Art
Institute of Chicago 1970-1980".
Here are some excerpts.
At first we taught extensions of traditional
art
processes, but later we developed a full program of investigation into
the
transformative process occurring in art as a result of the impact of
the
communications revolution on the society at large.
Generative systems was a research center; a resource and
energy bank; a self-generating center where communication tools came
and went
while people remained; a nurturing ground for the Electronic Printout
Systems
(ESP); an extension into the future of photography, drawing, textiles
and so
on; a time machine from instant real time back to mechanical time; an
attitude;
an interactive force between industry, education and the public; and
finally a
viable alternative to the present art education system.
From 67 to 77 we were occupied with exploring
many
communications systems, which we gathered in a great variety of unusual
ways
too numerous to discuss here. The
communications technology that emerged in the 1960s validated the
dreams of the
most imaginative minds. Objects could be stretched in time, layered in
time,
scanned in time, filtered in time, metamorphosed and synchronized in
time, in a
matter of seconds, on the new electronic copiers, telecopiers, and
computers
and their moving lights, lenses, thermal and/or steel rollers and
electronic
gates....
GS was an open system, an ever-changing system,
in which
the machines would come and go, but the humans would remain the
constant
factor. Courses would not be named
for a specific and therefore static technological process - as had been
done
before with the standard art courses of printing, painting, photography
and
video- but rather for a dynamic process encompassing change,
metamorphosis,
inconsistency and chaos. (Sheridan 2002)
Many students remember the time fondly; it was an
exhilarating place. Curiosity and
inquiry ruled. Any source of ideas
– e.g. from art, commerce, technology, or science was welcome. She brought in guest speakers from
outside the closed circle of art and art history.
Sheridan was famous for her long two foot long
technician's screwdriver. Students
brought in strange devices and she would enthusiastically take them
apart to
understand how they worked. It was
clear that she was investigating and learning right along with the
studnets. When a few of advanced
graduate students got interested in microcomputers, which were just
then
becoming available, she offered to change the budget for the department
for
that year so she could buy one to experiment with. MFA students
undertook
highly speculative projects - for example, one experimented with
growing mold
as an image generating system; another tried to understand fax
technology
sufficiently that he could create images by singing into the machine. Generative Systems was an influential
source in shaping approaches to educating artists for a technological
age.
Conceptual Design
Working within the Art Department at San Francisco
State
University, Bryan Rogers and James Storey created another pioneering
program
that attempted to define a relevant education for artists in the
contemporary
technological era. Storey was an
inventor and product design researcher who worked in art education and
Rogers
was an artist who had a joint MFA and PhD in Engineering from UC
Berkeley. Rogers felt that most art
programs
clung to traditional formats that did not respond to the cultural
foment of the
scientific and technological worlds and to the innovations of art
movements
such as the conceptual, electronics, performance, and earth art, which
challenged conventional notions.
The program had several important features:
- Emphasis on ideas not media
(students were encouraged to work in whatever media served
their agendas and to invent new media if necessary)
- Rigorous sequence of common core courses
focused on
processes and systems analysis. The sequence was stepped, growing more
ambitious in its scope as students moved through the program
- Attention focused on the latest developments
both in
art and science/technology
- Use of geometry as a meta-language and
skeleton for
inquiries
Here are some excerpts from the SFSU catalog
course
descriptions from that era that described the core courses, designed
and taught
by Rogers.
Art 410...Process concepts; structure concepts;
and
geometrical form-language correlated with a variety of modes of art
expression
Art 510 ... Continuation of Art 410 with
emphasis on
complex systems and environmental scale.
(SFSU 1986)
Rogers noted that Buckminster Fuller was a
significant
intellectual resource for his thinking.
He seemed influenced by Fuller's cross disciplinary philosophy
that
integrated art, design, engineering and many other disciplines. Also important was Fuller's visionary
"comprehensive anticipatory design" which stressed systems thinking
and exhortation to avoid disciplinary blinders. For Fuller, artists,
when
functioning at their best, were exemplars of the open minded, expansive
innovators that the culture desperately needed. Here
is an excerpt from Fuller's Operating Manual for
Spaceship Earth
(Fuller, 1973) that gives a flavor of this thinking.
The great aesthetic which will inaugurate the
twenty-first century will be the utterly invisible quality of
intellectual
integrity; the integrity of the individual dealing with his scientific
discoveries; the integrity of the individual in dealing with conceptual
realization of comprehensive interrelatedness of all events; the
integrity of
the individual dealing with the only experimentally arrived at
information
regarding invisible phenomena; and finally integrity of all those who
formulate
invisibly within their respective minds and invisibly with the only
mathematically
dimensionable, advanced technologies, on the behalf of their fellow
men.
(quoted in Vesna 2006).
Conceptual Design hired me to help develop
computer and
technology related aspects of the program. In 1980 the program offered
one of
the first computer graphics courses in the country aimed at artists and
designers. 150 potential students
showed up for the first day trying to get in. We
were amazed at the hunger of people outside technical
professions for exposure to this technology.
Gradually the program expanded the technology
curriculum. Storey soon retired
and Rogers resigned to go to Carnegie Mellon to serve as chair of the
Art
Department. There he expanded his
ideas to encompass the whole department and founded the Studio for
Creative
Inquiry. Later he moved on to
expand on the ideas even further as dean of the School of Arts and
Design at
the University of Michigan. Those interested in arts education in a
digital age
should consult the descriptions of these models available online. Here are excerpts from the
prospectus prepared by Rogers for the UM's new MFA program.
Today, viability in the larger cultural context
requires
that creative work engage a broader intellectual and social context.
Context
must be intentionally expanded beyond the self-referential assumptions
of the
20th century. In an effort to address this requirement, the School of
Art &
Design has developed a graduate program in which all students develop a
robust,
intense engagement with one or more fields of knowledge in addition to
art and
design. The School intends that graduates of this program have the
capability
to thrive in a variety of public and private roles and to become
cultural
leaders in a rapidly changing global culture.
The University of Michigan offers a panoply of
intellectual resources matched by few institutions of higher learning.
Many of
these offerings are at the forefront of the nationÕs
intellectual life –
engaging the critical issues of our time. They address such domains as
social
justice, the life sciences and medicine, the environment,
information-communication technologies, visual culture, law and
business. These
arenas, individually and in combination, are available at the
University to
inform creative work. They provide unparalleled opportunities for
artists and
designers to contribute to the comprehensive culture.
(Rogers, 2002)
Conceptual Information
Arts (CIA)
Conceptual Design eventually morphed into
Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA).
The name changed because many potential students, confused by
term
"design", came looking for traditional commercial design and because
critical discourse stressed the ideological baggage and modernist
assumptions
of the term design. CIA is
one of longest running programs that has directly addressed the issue
of
educating artists for a scientific/technological age. Since 1987 I have
directed the program. This section
briefly describes the curriculum and underlying rationale. The next
section
analyzes the educational issues that have been confronted and extracts
dimensions
of variability relevant to all similar programs. Over
the years several colleagues have held positions in the
department and helped define the curriculum including George Legrady
and Paula
Levine. Legrady went on to help
found the joint art/engineering MAT (Masters in Art & Technology)
program
at UC Santa Barbara. Levine is still the other core faculty of the CIA
program.
Here is an excerpt from the CIA core concepts web
page that
presents the basic rationale and foci for the program and suggests some
curricular issues to be addressed in technological arts education.
CIA emphasizes systematic and structured
processes of
inquiry as an underlying support to the experimental searching at the
fringes
of the art world.... CIA
encourages students to supercede, question, and challenge traditional
notions
of what constitutes valid art media, contexts, and approaches. Students
are
encouraged to bring ideas, materials, and experiences from outside the
art
world to become focuses for their art. Students are challenged to
combine
traditional media and to incorporate new media. They are encouraged to
follow
their ideas and artistic impulses even if they don't take them into
traditional
validated art directions.
Contemporary science and technology are
radically
transforming the world. The culture desperately needs artists to
address these
developments. The program encourages students to become knowledgeable
about
world views, ideas, and tools of these fields and to incorporate them
in a
non-superficial way into their art making. Students are expected to
achieve
expertise in technological areas in which most artists only
superficially
venture.
Electronic technology and mediated information
distribution seem on the surface value-free, but in fact, are causing
major
shifts in social interaction and the way we perceive ourselves and
reality.
Artworks generated through digital technology require some knowledge of
strategies learned from semiotics, communications studies, and cultural
theory
for critically understanding technology's impact on culture. (CIA 2006a)
Dimensions of
Variability in
Design of Curricula
Designers of programs to prepare students to
function in a
scientific/technological age face a variety of challenging
philosophical and
curricular questions. Here are some of questions to be confronted:
Established
Media versus Emerging Research
Even within the technological arts there is a
continuum
stretching from established forms such as digital video, web design,
animation
to emerging research fields not yet established as media such as art
&
biology, alternative interfaces, etc. What
range of this continuum does a curriculum
propose to address? How does it
propose to prepare students? Many new programs focus on digital media. They teach the latest software skills,
digital aesthetics, and theoretical background. They
claim that they have prepared artists for the digital
age.
As explained earlier, this may not be enough. The research world is moving so fast
that today's latest technology may soon be out of date.
Even more importantly areas of research
in science and technology that now seem esoteric and remote may end up
being
the core of cultural and media focus. Ironically,
those focused on today's digital media may
be making the same kind of mistake of complacency that art programs did
in 1980
when they thought video was the end state of electronic media. Most art colleagues thought I was crazy
to be interested as an artist and teacher in the computer; they
dismissed it as
only relevant to science and business.
Similarly, in 1988 they dismissed our desire to start an
Internet art
course; the Internet was seen as only pertinent to the military and
advanced
computer science researchers.
If one defines an artist's role as innovator and
anticipator,
then the curriculum must reach out beyond today's new media. Indeed, in our kind of culture every
area of scientific and technological research is a potential focus for
the
arts. This approach poses major
challenges. How does one decide
which emerging fields are worth investigating? How
does one prepare to teach in such rapidly developing
fields? How does one reconcile the
need to teach students mastery of contemporary media while also
preparing for
more imminent futures?
As described in a later section, one strategy is
to teach
students meta-skills of how to learn.
Still one must also address the concrete curriculum. CIA tries to mix contemporary skills
with emergent fields. Most courses
include elements that teach students to master current applications to
as deep
a level as possible. Students are
warned, however, that in 10 years they will probably be working with
application environments that might be quite different.
The courses ask them to penetrate
deeper than surface software manipulations and to analyze the
underlying
structures of what they work with. For example, in an Interactive
Events
course, everyone is required to learn programming rather than just
using canned
behaviors because that helps to demystify the underlying bases of the
application and prepares them to work with unrelated fields. In digital video students are
encouraged to think about the relative ease with which various kinds of
narrative structures are supported and excluded in the applications.
But it is important to reach even further than
deconstructing today's media. Core
faculty in CIA are constantly investigating new areas of research and
inventing
new courses even while still in the midst of their own research. Faculty hope to model this on-going
investigative stance and make discussions of the research process part
of the
course. Operationally it is quite
a challenge for faculty to constantly design new courses and many
colleagues
teaching in more conventional
areas do not appreciate the professional load of constantly reinventing
the
curriculum. Within a limited
budget, CIA also invites visiting artists to teach semester courses in
new
fields. Examples of the experimental
courses taught by core and visiting faculty over the years include: Electronics, Robotics, Physical
Computing, Art & Biology, Locative Media & GPS, Interactive
Web,
Gestural Interfaces, Interactive Video, Tactical Web Media,
Interventionist
Art, and Cartography.
In addition, CIA tries to take full advantage of
university
and community contexts. Many art
students consider their university general education requirements an
annoyance.
CIA converts these requirements to an advantage by explicitly
strategizing with
students to make courses taken elsewhere in the university serve the
research
interests of their art practice.
It also tries to teach students to see the research resources of
the
larger community as artistic resources by field trips and by bringing
in guest
speakers from outside of art. One advanced course requires all students
to
serve internships in art and/or research settings.
For more on these approaches see the later section
describing the art & research course.
What should be the balance of teaching students
specific
digital applications and skills versus teaching more general
orientations and
knowledge? What is the
ultimate future role imagined for the student - work within media
companies,
independent artist, member of research teams, some other yet undefined
roles? Some programs believe that
professional/vocational preparation in the skills needed today is the
best way
to serve students and the larger community and should be the agenda of
higher
education. Even many without
a vocational emphasis believe the best preparation for artists is
intensive
hands-on training in the latest technical skills supplemented with some
history, aesthetics, and theory.
In this view practice is the core of being an artist and art is
best
learned through doing.
Others reverse the balance - believing that the
best
training is teaching meta-skills that can transcend the inevitable flux
of
change. They believe that it is
impossible to predict what skills and perspectives will be essential a
few
years hence and that the student can be prepared by learning inquiry
and
analytical skills so they can cope with inevitable new developments
whatever
they may be. The term 'digital
age' implies that one expects the technological world artists will deal
with to
be in flux and constant reinvention and hence a world where today's
skills and
perspectives can be rapidly out of date. Remember
the thousands of students in 1900 preparing
for a life long trade in blacksmithing.
Indeed, this debate is at the core of liberal arts education,
which is
premised on the value of teaching fundamental non-discipline specific
knowledge
and intellectual skills as preparation for life long learning.
Focusing on meta-skills was a feature of
Generative Systems
and Conceptual Design programs described earlier. Others
propose critical theory as the central meta-skill of
the contemporary age (see section below).
So, what are the meta-skills to best prepare students for a
scientific/
technological age?
CIA attempts a balance. The
challenge may even more complicated because SFSU is not
a research university. Many CIA
students are first generation college; even though they have chosen the
arts,
they (and their parents) still are searching for marketable skills on
leaving. CIA teaches current state of the
art
applications but does as part of a conceptual, artistic inquiry. There
are no
courses named for applications.
Nonetheless students are expected to master these applications
and to
create works that show the highest level of technical excellence. For example, they learn digital video
applications such as Final Cut Pro; yet they do in courses focused on
art and
history of narrative. They take
conceptual strategies courses focused on abstract concepts such as
time,
randomness, and mapping in conjunction with the more technical courses. Every course includes critical analysis
such as how the media produced with the software fits into a larger
cultural
and media context and a push to understand underlying structures of the
software. Ironically, employers
like their portfolios because they combine technical competence with
unorthodox
vision.
As described earlier CIA also teaches courses
focused on
emerging research fields - for example, locative media, art &
biology,
interactive internet, robotics, and
physical computing. Also a
course called art & research focuses on highly experimental
research fields
(see description below). Working
at this edge means there are few consumer applications available. Students must invent their own working
environments and work with beta software and hardware still in
development. When they have
technical questions they must often go to sources outside of the art
and media
world. The meta-skills in these
courses focus on processes of research and development.
Combining these speculative courses with those
focused on
more commonplace applications has unexpected benefits.
Students who have constructed
prototypes are much more enterprising and empowered in their approach
to
troubleshooting and innovation even when working with conventional
applications
and environments. This
comfort and initiative often has benefits in conventional settings
because
supervisors chose them for challenging new assignments and it also
prepares
some to be entrepreneurs, starting their own businesses.
For those working in the arts,
this research background results in a productive skepticism about
digital tools
and a repertoire of ideas that help them keep their art fresh and
compelling.
The balance is difficult. Small
programs like CIA must juggle scope versus depth and
they must reassure students that the speculative courses will have long
term
benefits. It is difficult for some
students to accept the ultimate benefits of speculative courses like
art &
biology over courses which include training in common applications. This move to teach research skills has
begun to spread. For more examples
check out the ACE program at UC Irvine, the MAT program at UC Santa
Barbara and
the DX program at the University of Washington. (ACE
2006; MAT
2006; DX 2006)
What is the relative balance between education in
traditional art practice and special preparation for work in
experimental art
practices?
Digital/Technological Arts programs can be situated in many
different
places in the university - for example, cinema/film, design, art,
communications, or in their own administrative entities.
All programs face the challenge of
defining their relationship to established curricula and their
integration into
other art and media forms. How
much conventional history and practice should be required of students
in
experimental programs? Ideally
students would take a full curriculum in both the historical and new
forms but
often there is not time and choices must be made.
The CIA program sits within the Art Department at
San
Francisco State University. This
has been both an asset and a liability.
Undergraduate students are required to fulfill the general
requirements
of the Art Department which includes courses in art forms outside the
CIA
concentration and art history courses. MFA's similarly take courses
along with
students from historical media. It
has been an asset in that students see the CIA grounded in the
experimental
traditions of the arts. Their
visual work is informed by the centuries of practice and history of
previous
art work. Because the faculty and
fellow students they encounter in general Art Department courses may
not be
familiar with or may be skeptical or even hostile to experimental
technology-based
work, they are forced to articulate and explain their work to these
audiences.
Colleagues from historical art forms sometimes ask fresh questions and
suggest
connections that do not come up from those working exclusively with
technology-based forms.
The link to the traditional art curriculum can
also be a
liability. Students working with
experimental technology arts go in many directions and hence draw on
many media
traditions besides art - for example, theater, cinema, broadcast, music. For some, the most important sources
may even be outside media and art, for example, computer science,
engineering,
or biology. For example,
given limited time, an experimental sound artist might be better served
by
taking courses in the history of music or the physics of sound than
conventional art courses. Also,
other students and faculty members' unfamiliarity with issues of
culture and
technology/science and lack of interest can be demoralizing.
Art departments have a long standing problem with
the
experimental forms of visual arts that do not fit into traditional
media such
as painting or sculpture - for example, conceptual, electronic,
installation,
ecological, performance, and interventionist art. Some
"new genre" and "interdisciplinary"
programs have been attempted although they never became an established
feature
of art programs.
For a long time technological arts were placed in
the same
miscellaneous category outside of historical media. Programs such as
Generative
Systems and Conceptual Design often became a refuge for these kinds of
arts
because they did not give primacy to conventional media.
These alternative traditions can be
important resources for those working with technology. For example, CIA
teaches
these connections: dada, happenings, and performance art for those
interested
in interactivity, conceptual art for those interested in digital text
or coding
based art, installation and kinetics art for those interested in
robotics or
physical computing, and situationist and interventionist art for those
interested in locative media and tactical web interventions. All new technology programs (including
those in disciplines such as cinema or music) must establish this
balance - how
much to emphasize historical connections versus how much to focus on
the new
developments.
Some programs believe that critical theory and analysis of the relationships among
culture, media, and science and technology may be an extremely
important tool
for artists and media workers.
What should be the balance of emphasis between theory and
hands-on
skills?
The last decades have seen a revolution in
thinking about
the relationship of theory to artistic practice and preparation. Some believe it is essential that
artists be aware of semiotics, the socio-cultural context of the art
and media
worlds and the meta-narratives that underlie their work -for example,
in areas
of representation, identity, and the body. In
this view, skills in postmodern analysis are even more
critical for artists who work with new media. Technology
based artists inevitably encounter issues such as
the relationship of popular culture to high culture; virtuality and the
its
impact on time, space and the body; the cultural context of technology
developers claims to progress; and the narratives of science such as
objectivity, access to universal truth and immunity from cultural bias.
Preparing artists requires an explicit focus on
theory. Conventional programs that
emphasize self expression and
technical concerns are seen as romantically self indulgent,
naive, and
out of touch with the present day realities of cultural workers. Theory
based
programs claim the work will be stronger if more time between teacher
and
student is spent on issues such as media archaeology and critiques of
popular
media and power structures than on technical production skills, which
can be
left to assistants.
The Technoculture program at UC Davis is a program
well
known for its emphasis on theory.
Here is an excerpt from its web site.
We concentrate on transdisciplinary approaches
to
artistic, cultural and scholarly production in contemporary media and
digital
arts, community media, and mutual concerns of the arts with the
scientific and
technological disciplines. In contrast to programs which see technology
as the
primary driving force, we place questions of poetics, aesthetics,
history,
politics and the environment at the core of our mission. In other
words, we
emphasize the "culture" in Technoculture. (Technoculture Program
2006)
The media studies program in the Literature,
Communications,
and Culture program at Georgia Tech Univesity is another program well
known for
its theory emphasis. Here is an
excerpt from the web site for their STAC (Science, Technology &
Culture)
program.
Georgia Tech's STAC program is unique in its
emphasis on
communication skills, cultural interpretation, and textual analysis.
Unlike
similar programs, which look at science, technology, and the humanities
as
separate entities, STAC examines the modes of communication and
understanding
common to them all. As a result, students learn to master the range of
methodologies of literary and cultural analysis needed to understand
and
interpret the ÒtextsÓ ranging from novels and films to
scientific journals and
web pages that our society to communicate and to understand itself.
STAC
students pursue a course of study that is genuinely multidisciplinary
and
international, and that draws upon the multiple strengths of the
Georgia Tech
faculty. (STAC Program 2006)
Many contemporary programs see this theoretical
literacy as
the key meta skill for preparing artists in a technological era. Others
think
the theory emphasis can sometimes be overemphasized.
Every curriculum must determine a relevant balance.
What are the best ways to build artists'
curiosity,
competence, and comfort with scientific research and emerging
technologies?
What should be the relationship of established scientific and
technological
disciplines to artistic practice? What are the meta skills artists need
to
flourish in this border area between the arts and research.
The previous sections discussed several approaches. Many of the CIA research oriented
courses include relevant skills such as critical theory, learning what
is
involved in developing prototypes, and working in areas of inquiry that
are in
the process of being defined. CIA
also offered a course, called Art & Research, specifically aimed at
the
research meta skills. It asked
students to familiarize themselves information resources that could
alert them
to developments in the research world, develop competencies in
interpreting
scientific research, define areas of interest, develop art ideas
related to
those areas, establish contact with researchers, and to develop working
styles
necessary to move the research based art projects along.
They read articles and books exploring
the relationships between research and culture, went on field trips,
and heard
visiting lecturers. Here is the
description of the course from the Syllabus.
- What will be the art of the future?
- What is going on in scientific research labs?
- How can artists penetrate the secrets?
- How can artists build on research to create
new art and
media?
This course aims to prepare artists and new
media
professionals to become innovators in the development of emerging
technologies. The past decades
have shown that scientific and technological research that seemed
esoteric and
outside artistic or media realms can quickly become the core of new
cultural
trends and industries (for example, the basic ideas of the World Wide
Web were
considered wild, unrealizable ideas when first promulgated by Ted
Nelson). Artists who want to help shape
future
cultural development and new media must become adept at understanding
the
worlds of research. This approach
is critical for those who want to stay ahead of the current pace of
change.
This course teaches students skills of
monitoring
scientific research and emerging technologies. It
presents several areas of research that promise to be
important in the future. It
demonstrates the artistic possibilities by studying the pioneering work
of
artists around the world who work with concepts, tools, and information
contexts not usually defined as art.
It explores cultural theory that relates to the development of
new
technologies. It helps students to
reconsider the interrelationships of science, technology, media, and art (CIA 2006b: Research Course Syllabus)
Several assignments focus on cultivating
curiosity,
awareness of sources of research information, skills at navigating
these new
information networks, and understanding their possible connections with
art
works. The course uses my book Information Arts: Intersections of
Art,
Science, and Technology (Wilson,
2002) and
the associated art and research web sites as launching points for this
work.
(CIA 2006c: Art & Science Resource Web Sites).
Here are a sample of these assignments:
- Journal Search:
Students are asked to go to the university library and browse
the
periodical section to find journals and magazines in topics they were
not
familiar with. They meet to report
on the findings, explaining their understanding of the journal's
mission and
audience and presenting articles that intrigued them.
- Think Tank Presentation: Students
are asked to conduct web research to investigate
research think tanks working in innovative areas. They
are asked to study the conceptual frameworks the think
tanks use to organize their work and to present several particular
projects
they found interesting.
- Artist Presentation: Students
are asked to find artist web sites for artists
working with experimental areas of research and to make presentations
on
several. They are asked to try to
understand how the research functions in the artist's work and to read
whatever
the artist wrote on the topic.
- Trade shows/ scientific meetings: Students are asked to become aware of
what trade shows and scientific meetings are taking place in town. They are asked to arrange to attend one
that stimulates their interest.
- Patents:
They are taught how the patent system works and asked to browse
patents
via the patent office web page.
- Articles:
Students are asked to find and report on cultural theory
oriented
articles that provide perspective on research fields they are
interested in.
Several assignments ask students to actually
create art
project mockups based on emerging areas of scientific and technological
research. These projects aim to
teach students several skills: identification of cultural theory
relevant to
their interests, learning the language, history, and conceptual
structure
necessary to work in unfamiliar fields, identification of web and other
sources
of information on the research, surveying artists working in related
fields,
formulation of an art project that might build on that research,
identification
of researchers with information relevant to the project, initiation of
contacts
with those researchers or vendors, visits to labs or technology
companies if
feasible, conceptual mock up of the art project with background
material about
the research, and building of models or prototypes if feasible. Here are some examples of projects
students developed:
- A
skywriter painting system based on understanding of local weather
patterns and
skywriting technology
- A method to record the sensations of sexual
encounter
- An autonomous bat robot
- A system that would allow you to dance with a
real time
animated image of your skeleton
- An interface to computers that was good for
your health
- An artificial 3-d audience that responded
appropriately
to your performance
- A system for generating sculptures that look
like
authentic feces
- A "road rage" system that sensed developing
rage and calmed drivers
- A system to record dreams
- A teleportation system
Another project asked students to investigate the
patent
system. Patents are an amazing repository of technological innovation
as well
as a snapshot of cultural history about changing technological
interests. They studied the patent
system's rationale
and history, its procedures, how to conduct patent searches, and the
rudiments
of how to compose a patent. They
browsed the archives of past patents and considered the relationship of
patents
to artistic innovation. Here is
the description of the assignment from the syllabus.
New Invention Proposal: Propose
a new invention that could be produced. The idea
should not be strictly utilitarian.
It should have some element of cultural commentary or artistic
or
conceptual experimentation. Conduct a patent search for similar
inventions. Present a prototype
patent application with text description, discussion of related
inventions, and
diagrams or mock up images done in the line drawing style of regular
patents.
Here are some examples of mock patents that
students
developed:
-Dream recorder and dream imagery
reconstruction device
-A powerful electronic device which simulates a
crowd so
the neighbors don't have to know how lonely you really are
-Recently broke up? Have an ex? send them a
gift they'll
never forget- bad flower revenge system
-A lighted, enclosed shelving unit featuring
electro-luminescent lighting panels!!
-Projection system that allows people to see
different
projections based on position
- Evolving autonomous house
- Bicycle system to power personal electronics
- Invisible tattoo system
- "Nanny Helmet" gives rewards and punishments
to children based on their behavior
- A "safe" fire that burns cool
The course achieved many of its goals. It awakened young artists to vast
reaches of scientific and technological research calling out for
artistic
attention. It helped demystify
these areas, teaching them ways to find resources, to interpret the
materials
they found, to initiate discussions with researchers, to find critical
literature relevant to the research, and to create art that responded
to the
research. It also illustrated some
challenges in this approach. It
showed students the difficulty of undertaking to learn new areas of
technology
or science simultaneous with pursuing art goals. It
awakened a hunger for supplemental education in missing
areas in their background. Since it promoted an independent approach to
research that urged artists to question paradigmatic boundaries handed
down from
science disciplines and marketplace definitions of importance, it
confronted
them with the difficulties of differentiating quackery from lines of
inquiry
that were worth pursuing.
Science and technology are transforming culture at
its
core. How should the arts
participate in this transformation?
How should they integrate the ancient magic of art with the
magic of
science. Answering this
question will require courage and experimentation in the next decades. Creating programs to prepare artists
for these revolutionary times will itself be a significant challenge.
ACE. (2006) (Arts, Computation Engineering Program
–
UC Irvine). http://www.ace.uci.edu/
Bauhaus-dessau. (2006). ÒBahaus
HistoryÓ, http://www.bauhaus-dessau.de/en/history.asp?p=history *
CIA (2006a) (Conceptual Information Arts – SFSU).
ÒProgram DescriptionÓ. http://userwww.sfsu.edu/%7Einfoarts/core.html
*
CIA (2006b) ÒArt & Research Course
SyllabusÓ. http://userwww.sfsu.edu/%7Einfoarts/cdmain/res/a511.research.syllabus.html
*
CIA (2006c): ÒArt & Science Resource
Web SitesÓ http://userwww.sfsu.edu/%7Einfoarts/links/wilson.artlinks2.html.*
DX (2006) (University of Washington - Center for
Digital
Arts and Experimental Media). ÒProgram DescriptionÓ.. http://www.washington.edu/dxarts/
*
MAT(2006).
(Masters in Art & Technology- UC Santa Barbara).
ÒProgram
DescriptionÓ. http://www.mat.ucsb.edu.
*
Rogers, Bryan (2002)
ÒProspectus for MFA program
School of Arts and Design at the University of MichiganÓ.
http://www.art-design.umich.edu. *
San Francisco State University. (1985).
ÒArt Department
Course DescriptionÓ. College Catalog.
Sheridan, Sonia (2002). "Mind/Senses/Hand:
The Generative Systems Program at
the Art Institute of Chicago 1970-1980Ó.
Journal Leonardo. Volume 23
Numbers 2 and 3. 2002
Sheridan, Sonia (2006). ÒBiographyÓ.
http://www.sonart.org.
*
Studio for Creative Inquiry - CMU (2006).
ÒProgram
DescriptionÓ. (http://www.cmu.edu/studio/).
*
Technoculture Program (2006).
(UC Davis). http://technoculture.ucdavis.edu/. *
Vesna, Victoria. (2006). ÒBuckminster
Fuller: Illusive
Mutant ArtistÓ. Excerpt quoted from R. Buckminster Fuller.
Operating Manual for
Spaceship Earth. Penguin, New York: 1973. http://vv.arts.ucla.edu/publications/publications/98-99/bucky/bucky.htm. *
Wilson, Stephen.
Information Arts: Intersections of Art, Science, and
Technology.
MIT
Press. (Cambridge, 2002)
* All websites
were accessed April 2, 2006