[iDC] Curricula and integration

[patrick lichty]

Actually, this is something that I've written at length on elsewhere,
but can't remember where.

I came from Bowling Green State in the Midwestern US; a place where they
have a very strong Digital Arts program, but in the last couple years,
they have been faced with addressing change.  I wrote about the role of
the tenured new Media artist as sort of cultural repository in "The Role
of the Late-Career New Media Artist" on post.thing.net last month.

But in regards to curriculum development over time, what I suggest here,
as I do with my colleagues, is specificity to praxis.   For example,
naming is a BIG problem, as it locks a program into a mission far too
much in this area of study, but Tiffany made a good argument there.

What I see is a bifurcation of academic praxis - one of integration and
one of experimentation/specification to genre.  In many academies, I see
the Fine Art programs integrating digital media, both to reflect
pragmatic realities that more fine artists are using digital media, and
to coopt the sexiness of technology to ensure there 'relevance' to
parents and administrators.

However, this means that art & tech programs are then continually set in
motion to reflect new and specific aspects of technological art.
Personally, I don't see this as a problem; place imaging in a New Media
Foundations that would be taught by the 2D department.  Let 3D animation
be taught by Film & Video, etc.

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(Understand that I am also very hesitant to see my colleagues get
coopted and shuffled around as genres change, and eventually even
myself)
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What then?  Deal with the current and historical - the bleeding and
trailing edges; the specific aspects to technology and art.  I mentioned
to a colleague in Math that I thought New Media/Tech Art should stay in
the avant-garde (game hacks, machinima, performative media, database
aesthetics, code art, representational DNA, generative forms), and leave
more mainstream practices to the Fine Arts departments.  She didn't
think that was that interesting, but how interesting was imaging 10
years ago?

IMO, the thing that will keep Tech art fresh are two things; the next 5
minutes and the last 50 years.  This would possibly retaining the flavor
of its traditions (that traditional art only shares at a very tangential
point), and securing a 2-5 year lead over any traditionalist practice
(and also keeping the novelty of the genre).

The problem as I see it is that as New Media becomes more
'institutional', it becomes more circumscribed in the inertia of the
academy, which drains it of its life and also destines it for cooptation
by the Fine Arts.  On the other hand, by differentiating its history, it
also guarantees its distinction as a form, and not merely as a tool.
Therefore, for the moment, my personal strategy is to remain critically
engaged with the present (which McLuhan proclaimed to look like the
Future to most, and Clarke as Magic to the masses), and the past, which
the traditionalists could usually care less about, like imaging on a
Williams Tube, ASCII Art on a PDP-11, or Slow Scan TV.

As usual, this is meant as a slightly polemic stance, meant to invite
positive and reflective discussion.

Patrick Lichty
- Interactive Arts & Media
  Columbia College, Chicago
- Editor-In-Chief
  Intelligent Agent Magazine
http://www.intelligentagent.com
225 288 5813
voyd at voyd.com
 
"It is better to die on your feet 
than to live on your knees."