[iDC] sharing "new media" curricula/potentials

[Blanca Rodrguez]

Hi all and thanks Trebor for propitiating this discussion.
My name is Blanca Estela and I am also an artist working with technological 
media, basically working on language and communication issues. I found 
really interesting the question you have raised Tiffany since I find really 
urgent that professors and artist re think the way these “programs” have to 
develop in a further time.
In my case I was studying at the Science Art & Technology Masters program in 
Sweden directed by a Doctor in Physics. In the beginning we were also about 
40 students from different countries and different disciplines (artist, 
designers, architects, dancers, doctors, engineers, biologist, performers 
etc).  The aim of the program as usual was to provoke people working 
together in a community environment in multidisciplinary projects which was 
a great idea. While working in group was not always easy, some designers and 
engineers forced themselves to become artist, there were differences of 
ideas and goals of people, and it was very hard for some artist to 
understand the media; some groups worked out  and some people worked better 
alone. The interesting fact was that people got used to the community after 
some time, and people helped each other even though they were not in the 
group selected for working.
Learning programming was also hard, since some people new more than others, 
therefore we learned in small groups the different programming languages 
regarding to personal interest for example some groups were learning java, 
others c++, open GL, Python, regarding to the project proposed; of course 
some people never managed to get into programming at all because of the 
complexity of this and also because they thought that was a problem to be 
solved by engineers.
One of the biggest problems in this program was the lack of contact to other 
universities, small institutions or schools working with same issues since 
people really needed that in the beginning. Students felt really isolated, 
of course that made people to react and to look for their own way, which I 
found interesting because that made us autonomous but I think that the 
process was too hard and some people gave up before finishing the program.
I find important that education related to new media and art need structured 
programs but flexible as well. Defined goals for teaching are important but 
I do not think defined goals for projects are necessary since the goals and 
projects need to be proposed by the students and their projects. Each 
project and student requires independent time, technology, information and 
assessors. And for sure it is also necessary to have independent students 
enrolled in these programs, they need to be sure about their conceptual 
ideas.

Well that is my viewpoint.
Best, Blanca Estela

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