[iDC] sharing "new media" curricula/potentials

[kanarinka]

Something of a side note to Ryan's post - but incidentally, I am  
teaching a class at Digital+Media Grad program at RISD right now  
entitled "The Real World" which is primarily about some of the "real"  
art worlds (like Grant World, Gallery World, Academic World, etc.)  
This is primarily a course for fine arts grad students - i.e. people  
interested in being artists once they graduate. Here is a link to the  
syllabus: http://dm.risd.edu/~kanarinka/realworld07/ and to our  
collaborative delicious archive: http://del.icio.us/therealworld.  
Your thoughts and feedback are welcome since this is the first time I  
have taught such a class.

I hear your argument for not reinforcing/supporting what "the real  
world" consists of by codifying it in a university class and tacitly  
endorsing its modes of operation by telling people about them. Doing  
that, we run the risk that both we and our students would simply  
accept the world as it is with its particular hierarchies, power  
structures, and formal hoops (like the CV or the 10 slides). And of  
course then you end up "teaching to the test". And that would be  
entirely terrible to make too many more people believe that the world  
as it is is the only one possible.

However I think it's also extremely important for artists to  
understand the various art/new media worlds, particularly the ones  
they want to operate in, from a critical, sociocultural and economic  
standpoint as a tool for both navigating and changing them. Without  
that understanding, it is hard to do anything effective to change the  
circumstances under which art is created, presented, valued, bought  
and sold nor to do what many new media/digital artists find  
themselves doing - creating a meaningful community and context for  
the work through self-generated, curatorial, organizational, etc.  
activities. What I was hoping to accomplish with the real world  
course was to give students (and myself) a chance to understand and  
_call into question_ the material circumstances and cultural ecology  
that art is a part of in multiple, equally real worlds, how to  
operate in them, what is at stake in them, and what other skills you  
have to learn (probably on your own) in order to be a part of them.

On Jan 26, 2007, at 3:03 PM, Ryan Griffis wrote:

>
> On Jan 26, 2007, at 8:18 AM, idc-request at bbs.thing.net wrote:
>
>> Along these lines I'd like to briefly address Kevin's question
>> regarding whether we as educators have a responsibility to our
>> students to help prepare them for life past school. Why else does one
>> attend school in the first place? If my students are paying a sum
>> greater than most American's annual salary to attend the institution
>> at which I am teaching (and even if they are not), I expect to give
>> them something that will allow them to feed themselves outside of
>> school.  They don't have to be upstanding citizens or join the
>> corporate workforce, but at the very least they ought to be able to
>> get a job which will get them food and rent with what they learn in
>> school. I don't buy the premise that the life of an artist should be
>> any different or more or less difficult than the life of any one
>> else, and I certainly don't buy into any notion that an academic
>> institution has the right to a student for five years in which the
>> student will not receive any real world skills which they can
>> continue to practice, and be paid for, in their chosen discipline.
>
> i think we have to be careful about the collapsing of consumer- 
> rights/economic responsibility and equitable/responsible education  
> practices here. The high cost of education is a problem that needs  
> to be separated from what our responsibility as educators is, or  
> rather, it has to be connected differently. Unless you think "the  
> Market" really will solve everything, and that the problem is that  
> students - sorry, consumers - are not getting their money's worth  
> (based on classical economics and risk analysis), anyway. If that's  
> the case, then i don't know why we're discussing the role of art  
> education at all. Oh right, the MFA is the new MBA. "The creative  
> class" as management philosophy... finally artists can contribute  
> directly to the investing class, not by proxy!
> It seems to me, IMHO (which i don't mean insincerely, as i know i  
> am not the most experienced on this list), we can be arguing for  
> accessible education (if anyone still believes in the right to  
> education as much as consumer rights) AS WELL AS education that is  
> not simply training for an industry that changes with every  
> graduating class. This would also go along with discussions about   
> disconnecting wages from privilege, so that higher ed would not be  
> the index of wealth disparity that it is. So, sure, the life of an  
> artist shouldn't be any more or less difficult than anyone else.  
> The ability to pay rent shouldn't be attached to such roles to  
> begin with.
> Academic institutions should have no rights, much less the right to  
> a student's five years. Students should have a right to the  
> university. But that university cannot maintain any semblance of  
> autonomy if it is inextricably bound up with "real world skills"  
> that are defined as how we understand a "job" to function.  
> Otherwise, we can do nothing other than replicate the structure  
> that currently exists, further subsidizing the privileges already  
> unequally distributed (which is mostly what education has always  
> done). We should be discussing how people not even attending  
> institutions of higher ed are paying for it as much as we discuss  
> how much students are paying for it. Why don't they have as much to  
> say about what students learn as the industries we're training them  
> to work in do? i don't hear anyone calling for town hall meetings  
> to discuss university curriculum.
> Sure, this is all "idealistic" and somewhat based on my own sense  
> of privilege in the economy, but the false opposition of "realism"/ 
> pragmatism and idealism is weak. If you can't be idealistic in  
> education, where the hell can you be?
> Am i saying universities/colleges/art schools have no  
> responsibility for what happens with students post-education? i  
> don't think so... i think that to take that responsibility  
> seriously requires a critical response to the notion of education  
> being about buying jobs/privileges and escalating a system that, i  
> think, only increases inequity. If we want to "train people for the  
> real world," i sure as hell hope that we're considering what we  
> mean by the "real world" and if that's the world we want or not.
> What is at stake in teaching software and programming to potential  
> artists as a discipline? Can a coherent and responsible (again, to  
> what, is a value question, not a technocratic one) methodology be  
> distributed that allows for differences in skills and interests,  
> but also provides room for a general body of knowledge to exist? In  
> other words, can an artist who works with digital media have a  
> basic understanding of how to make something work (enough to be  
> working with a more skilled person even), but not be so indebted to  
> a production process that it is all consuming and over determined?
> Andrea's example of the browser project for example. Even if those  
> students produced lousy code (not saying they did :) ), is the  
> understanding they develop of both how digital networked media and  
> its politics function not worth more than them becoming efficient  
> code writers? Personally, i'm not training people to be web-artists  
> or digital artists, or usually not even artists (most of my  
> students take my classes as electives and often as a one-off  
> because they want to learn how to build a web site either for  
> professional reasons - graphic designers - or personal ones, most  
> everyone else). There is a critical value to becoming fluent in a  
> production process, but there are also critical limitations. The  
> symbolic realm is as complex and challenging to understand as the  
> technological one (pragmatically speaking), and there is a  
> compromise that happens in bringing those skills together in one  
> setting. Should more detailed knowledge of both be included in  
> their education as well? No doubt. But i also believe that it is  
> important that they see these knowledges utilized in the same space  
> (as Andrea's example does).
> as Patrick said, "this is meant as a slightly polemic stance, meant  
> to invite positive and reflective discussion."
>
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