[iDC] sharing "new media" curricula/potentials

[Tiffany Holmes]

Dear IDCers,

Thanks so much to Rachel Beth, Geoff, Joel, Kevin, Patrick, and  
Andrea for their recent posts to this thread.  It seems that we are  
wrestling with some pretty difficult questions...here is a recap for  
folks who might want to add to the discussion:

Rachel Beth's question: How do "digital media" departments situate  
themselves in a place of their own without closing themselves off?

One way to avoid departmental isolation is to build community  
outside. I really believe that the answer to this isolation problem  
comes from building bridges---sometimes beyond the institution.

Geoff Thomas’s description of a collaborative Second Life project at  
Georgia Tech using resources from a Ken Perlin's NYU class is one  
example.  Another is the idea of building a network of digital  
artists within one’s own city instead of within the university.

Another great example of community building comes from Upgrade!  
International.  For folks who might not know, The Upgrade (http:// 
treasurecrumbs.com/theupgrade/) was founded by artist Yael Kanarek in  
NYC in the late 90’s as a monthly meeting where media artists could  
bond, show work, and eat pizza.  The program was wildly popular and  
non-institutional for the most part, and now has expanded to include  
22 international “salons” from Skopjie to Wellington.

We started the Chicago Upgrade about a year and a half ago, and it’s  
an been incredible experience.  We are nomads and meet monthly in  
either a restaurant, artist’s studio, nonprofit space, wherever!  For  
our graduate students who attend, it’s an opportunity to network and  
learn what goes on beyond the walls of academia.  For academics, it’s  
a great time to chat over some of the very same questions we are  
dealing with here on IDC, but in person….usually over cocktails.  The  
shared conversations help all of us to identify and sometimes  
confront similar kinds of isolation issues.

Kevin's question: Has anyone else struggled with how to prepare  
students  in terms of post-educational or professional practice?
Kevin asks a tough question: ethically, are we as academics  
responsible at all for our students’ future job prospects? In terms  
of professional practice, graduate students in my department are  
hungry for workshops and information—they need rewarding work or jobs  
that will help them pay off enormous student loans.  As a faculty  
member, it’s often difficult to watch students accumulating ever- 
increasing amounts of debt, work 4 different jobs, and come to class  
exhausted and without homework because their schedules are too full  
to allow time for study.  In the case of our foreign students, many  
will pursue work outside their area of interests post-graduation  
simply to remain in the USA.

A December 24, 2006 NYT article, recounts the rags-to-riches story of  
Elaine Ward, a former ceramicist and glassblower, who was unable to  
support herself after graduating from the University of Minnesota  
with a BFA.  Ms. Ward dove headfirst into the male-dominated world of  
plumbing to found Isis, now a fabulously successful boutique firm on  
Long Island.  One of my most talented students, a gifted kinetic  
sculptor, worked for nearly half a year after graduation fabricating  
hundreds of tiny life-like steel chocolate chips (the real ones melt  
under studio lights).  But we’ve all heard countless stories like  
this: "The odd jobs toughen you up, they prepare you for the life of  
an artist."  Or do they?

SAIC puts fine art and criticism first in the curriculum; we do not  
offer professional practice courses during the academic year,  
however, I traditionally run a 2-hour “professional practices  
workshop” to provide some direction to students attending CAA or the  
first time and so forth.  At SAIC, regular individual meetings with a  
faculty advisor are part of the core curriculum.  These private  
tutorials—really key to the grad experience at SAIC—are used by many  
students to ferret out answers to their questions about gallery  
representation and the like.  I do find that the motivated and  
resourceful students somehow get their questions answered so I worry  
less about the inclusion of post-educational outcomes in our "fine  
arts and criticism" directed curriculum.

Andrea's question: Perhaps we can develop "some more precise  
definitions of programs, clarifying courses in 'digital art' versus  
'digital media' versus 'new media', versus 'computer graphics'  
etc.?"  Defining these terms could help faculty developing new  
programs at institutions.
Yes, attempting to define programs is a challenge---it is an even  
greater challenge when your department might be competing for the  
attention of talented prospective graduate students applying to  
multiple "media" departments in the same institution.  Here are  
program titles at SAIC for all the departments that deal with  
aesthetics, digital tools, criticism and often with technology: Art  
and Technology Studies; Film, Video, New Media; Design for Emerging  
Technologies; Designed Objects; Visual Communication.  All of these  
areas boast excellent faculty and curriculum---but how is a student  
to choose?  At the ever-popular US News and World Reports site, the  
listings of “categories” for graduate MFA programs includes only the  
following:

Ceramics
Graphic Arts
Industrial Design
Multimedia/Visual Communications
Painting/Drawing
Photography
Printmaking
Sculpture

One might ask, where is video--multimedia?  Apparently, digital media  
and media art are lumped under the Multimedia category as well.  This  
question of where the digital arts might wind up in 10 years is  
complex.  Will there be a Multimedia category in 2017?

Many thanks for making this discussion such a pleasure.

Cheers, Tiff
____________________________________
Tiffany Holmes, Associate Professor
Chair, Department of Art and Technology Studies
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
112 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60603
Phone: 312-345-3760,  Fax: 312-345-3565
Mobile: 312-493-0302
http://www.tiffanyholmes.com
http://ecoviz.org


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