It's New Media: But is it Art Education?
Trebor Scholz
Institute for Distributed Creativity
There is a crisis in new media arts education. Yet there has been
surprisingly little debate about it until recently, despite the
widespread emergence of new media arts programs and massive student
interest all throughout the North American university landscape.
The current crisis is only now starting to get widespread acknowledgment
from new media educators in the United States, Finland, Switzerland,
Germany, Australia and beyond. Fields of conflict range from undergraduate
students exclusively demanding vocational training, to the lack
of advanced debate about new media artwork, and the media-specific
orientation of departments. Once beyond the certainty of technical
instruction new media arts educators on many campuses experience
a crisis due to the unbearable lightness of their topical orientation.
In addition, it is an almost impossible challenge for a single human
being to keep up with all technological advances. And last but not
least, there is the quest for the education of artists, whether
or not their preferred media are digital.
Other pertinent issues are the introduction of open source software
in the classroom, the professional future of graduates of new media
arts programs, the contestation of the definition of art in a new
media context, and the breaking out of the isolation of the university
lab to connect students with the real life world. State budget cuts
in Europe and the United States have led to the emergence of many
"anti-universities," and teach-yourself-institutions.
A conference at the Department of Media Study, The State University
of New York at Buffalo, reflected on educational models in new media
arts education (nmae) and the negotiation of the ground rules for
collaboration. In April 2004, 150 artists and academics arrived
in Buffalo to discuss anti-universities, the notion of free cooperation,
radio experiments, collaborative performance projects, distributed
authorship, self-organised educational initiatives, collaborations
between artists and scientists, peer-to-peer porn, networked virtual
reality, collaboration in the open source movement, and participatory
networked art. Many of these topics were discussed on a preparatory
mailing list and selected postings were included in a free conference
publication.
Amsterdam-based media critic Geert Lovink and I organised this
international conference. In the context of a report about the "Free
Cooperation” conference, this essay examines critical issues in
new media arts education and makes proposals to overcome its current
crisis. I will present creative models of online collaboration and
briefly address the organising of this conference questioning traditional
academic formats such as "panelism."[1]
Networked collaboration.
The topic of (online) collaboration may appear marginally academic
to some. But from cell phones to email, multiplayer online games,
mailing lists, weblogs, and wikis our everyday lives are increasingly
enmeshed with technology. [2, 3]
Much of the politics of the everyday is connected
to issues that are on some level involved with technology. This
is true at least for societies benefiting from the globalisation
of the information order, which is limited and partial by all means.
The necessity to examine the ways in which we collaborate in the
technological channels through which we communicate will soon become
more apparent.
We invited the Bremen-based media critic Christoph Spehr to the
Free Cooperation conference. Spehr coined the term ‘free cooperation’
in his essay 'Gleicher als andere' (2003). Most of Spehr's writings
are not yet translated into English and this conference was an opportunity
to introduce his ideas into Anglophone media discourses (Spehr,
2004). Spehr's writings use references to 1960s sci-fi movies to
think about contemporary cooperation. They insist on the option
of refusal, the right of withdrawal from cooperation, independence,
negotiation and re-negotiation with corporate or state ‘monsters.'
We asked: how could these ideas of equality and freedom be made
useful for alternative networks of learning and the university?
On collaboration.
For media artists, collaboration and consultation are increasingly
inevitable, since technology-based artwork requires increasingly
deeper levels of specialisation in the process of bringing together
technological and conceptual components. In business contexts "groupware"
has become more and more important and recent versions of proprietary
software such as Macromedia’s Dreamweaver focus increasingly on
the development of file-sharing and issues of permissions in co-authoring.
Networked collaborators are alerted to changes other team members
have made to a document and can decide if they choose to overwrite
them or merge their contribution with that of others. Permissions
here refer to the ability of team members to alter documents created
by others. How can Spehr's notions of 'free cooperation,' developed
in the context of Social Democratic Germany, become more relevant
in countries such as the United States with its iron grip on student
loans and credit reports unsupported by safety nets like state grants
or unemployment benefits? In the US there are no social nets to
fall down into when trying to live the politics of refusal and independence.
Yet there are a number of examples of free cooperation already at
work within the Northern American context.
In the urban United States, Critical Mass and Reclaim the Streets
are promising and productive cooperative group models. During the
anti-war protests of 2003, hundreds of cyclists in San Francisco,
California, blocked major urban intersections and highways as part
of a Critical Mass initiative. This began with a leafleting campaign
advertising times and dates of such actions, yet the campaign took
place without any central leadership. In a similar vein, Reclaim
the Streets uses a decentralised model to reclaim the public sphere.
Other examples of decentralised, community-organising efforts include;
broadcasting free radio, graffiti, and street parties. The Green
Movement exemplifies a type of temporary alliance that chooses no
one particular subject position (e.g. class, gender, race) in pursuit
of a shared goal (Laclau and Mouffe). Another example is Paper Tiger
TV. Founded in 1981, Paper Tiger TV presents a consequential model
of collaboration to create and distribute collectively produced
activist video works that critique the media. And the New York City-based
chamber orchestra, Orpheus, works without a conductor and rotates
all of its functions among the musicians. These are examples of
horizontal, leaderless social structures.
The ABC's of collaboration.
According to the Cambridge Dictionary the term collaboration assumes
that two or more people work together to create or achieve the same
thing. Participants in the Free Cooperation conference suggested
that each collaborator needs to be given authority over her task.
Collaborators should get to know each other as people and should
find out about each other's agency and professional needs. Collaboration
demands genuine dialogue, and a human encounter. This requires the
skills of receptivity and responsiveness. At times, the dedication
to the other person can be a bit scary; collaboration does not work
for everybody. The ABC's of collaboration demand that needs are
addressed and lines of communication kept open. Collaborations need
to constantly change and question their work and goals, or they
will get trapped by their own definition. Collective leadership
is a critical issue. Leadership needs to rotate. Leaders are defined
and designated by commitment of time, energy, resources and intellectual
contributions. Commonly, the person who contributes the most to
a project has the most say, but this dynamic endangers the cooperation
as it marginalises silent or withdrawn group members.
In the context of situations of learning, a wireless tool developed
at The University of California San Diego is relevant here: "ActiveClass"
employs wireless technology in an attempt to encourage disembodied
classroom participation via Personal Data Assistants (PDAs) and
laptop computers from students who might otherwise not participate.
"ActiveClass" permits students to "silently"
ask questions, answer questions, and provide other types of feedback.
The results are aggregated and then broadcast to all students and
the teacher, facilitating verbal discussion. [4]
What is 'free cooperation'?
We are always already collaborating on a face-to-face or networked
basis. From cross-cultural, and cross-disciplinary, to cross-professional
exchanges, cooperation is evident. It is nothing new, nor is it
something we actively choose. Extending beyond the focus on internal
group dynamics (and the relationships of different individuals),
we asked at the Free Cooperation conference what really happens
when the many collaborate. Conference participants with as much
as twenty years of experience said that collaborations should start
with the building of trust and testing out the compatibility of
values and interests instead of immediately focusing on the project
goals. Social resources including trust, mutual respect, tolerance,
and shared values make it easier for people to work together on
a project. With trust, true communication can take place. In “free
cooperation” everyone stands to benefit and anyone can leave at
any time. If there are disagreements, the cooperation must remain
workable. There is no ideal cooperation; there always are elements
of compromise.
Online and off, there is the risk of involuntary altruism caused
by the possibility of freeloaders in the collective process. We
must ask: whose labor becomes invisible and which type of labor
steps to the front stage? Issues of accreditation are more developed
in theatre, dance, architecture, music and film, where each person
receives credit for her individual contribution. [5]
Some members of the Open Source movement suggest
a ‘tit-for-tat’ strategy based on exchanges of effort-- one gives
a bit of code and then receives a bit (Baldwin and Clark). Comparably,
jazz musicians and dancers who improvise study the moves of the
others and take turns leading. However, as Dave Brubeck suggests,
improvisational freedom needs to be guided by discipline. At best,
collaborations can playfully spark off one another, with a "third
body" resulting from a chorus. [6]
The free development of each individual is the
condition for the free development of all although, commonly, self-sacrifice
and the absence of personal gain, rather than freedom, are associated
with collaborative work (Marx and Engels).
How do the art market and the idea of free cooperation work together?
According to the logic of the art market the artist is produced
as exemplary sufferer and genius, not as somebody who is in control
of her work. The logic of the art world and that of technology-based
art are opposed to each other. The art world focuses on the romanticised
idea of an author who creates an art object that can be distributed
by many institutions. Technology-based art is variable, often ephemeral,
discursive, concept-based, existent in many copies. It is collaboratively
authored, and can be distributed online (Manovich). Artists have
taken the internet on as a context for their work since its emergence,
de-emphasising individual authorship and responding to Bertolt Brecht's
demand for an apparatus that goes beyond distribution and allows
communication (Brecht). Early projects aiming at collaborative authorship
include Robert Adrian X's Die Welt in 24 Stunden (1983), Douglas
Davis' The World's First Collaborative Sentence (1994) and the project
'Epreuves d'ecritures' as part of the exhibition 'Les Immatrieux'
that was conceived by Jean-Francois Lyotard (1985). Yet art institutions
have for the very most part been neither interested in, nor supportive
of free cooperation.
Many of these artworks were discussed at the Free Cooperation conference.
Before I'll talk more about new media arts education I'll now make
some comments on the organisation of conferences. People love conferences
because they provide new opportunities for collaboration. They are
venues where you can reflect, meet future collaborators, debate
your ideas and artworks, party intensely, get inspired, provoked,
learn, make new friends, and then occasionally carry on the debate
in the sauna. Conferences offer an opportunity for people who cannot
meet otherwise to spend a few days together away from their obligations,
zooming-in on ideas. For practitioners whose geographic location and
financial situation makes access to these venues impossible, technologies
such as video conferencing and the AccessGrid allow for remote participation.
[7]
I have always looked for a conference without lectures and panels.
It is challenging not to read from notes, to be brief and to leave
ample time for questions, and to focus on the points raised by the
chairperson of a particular session. The rigid structure of panels
and the non-communicative form of the keynote speaker feed into
the celebrity system, reinforcing hegemonic paradigms that get in
the way of genuine dialogue and of other voices being heard. In
the ideal setting, participants can read each other’s papers or
presentations before they arrive at the venue. At the event itself
a presenter would only have to give short reminders of their work
and the focus could move to discussion. This works best with participants
who are open to present what they have to say in a few minutes and
are interested in debate. Specific software could make it easier
for participants to find each other more easily (ie. recognise the
person you wanted to meet in large conference crowds). Technology
that enables this is still too expensive to integrate it in media
arts conference but business contexts already see similar location
aware networks. Here, nametags contain information that makes the
person locatable in a close proximity area network. A possible project
that could be brought into use for this is WiFi.Bedouin. [8]
The Free Cooperation conference of 2004 took place on a university
campus but the atmosphere was theatrical rather than academic. We
modeled the scenario of the event after a Brechtian play. For example,
there was a talk show in which participants impersonated sci-fi
filmmakers, scientists, and "flexible personalities,"
accompanied by musical intermezzos on the phonarmonica. Remote guests
commented via internet Relay Chat. We also set up a ‘talkathon’
(one room, two speakers, eight people in the audience), a few dialogues,
a video conference, a weekend conference game (about games), streamed
net radio lectures, brainstorming sessions, film screenings, a small
exhibition, several workshops, a turntablist collaboration, and
one monologue. There were no keynote speakers and no panels, which
worked well because the topic was itself collaboration. We explicitly
asked participants not to deliver long lectures aiming for a more
dialogical format. The rooms were organised with seating in circular
shapes.
Large gatherings such as this one are good opportunities for students
to create their own networks - relationships that may become fruitful
for them in the future. Encounters with other students, artist friends
or cultural critics may in the end even turn out to be more formative
than regimented course work. The people who teach may stay in the
particular research institution but students will have to leave.
It is essential for them to make linkages not only in the city where
they study but also (inter)nationally. It is these networks that
will give an important context to their work once they have graduated.
These outside arenas are as much places of learning as classes.
At the Free Cooperation conference, a session focused on self-organised
educational initiatives, free universities, and anti-universities.
Massive attendance demonstrated a great deal of urgency. The organisation
of this session was inspired by a debate that developed in October
2003 when I posted some thoughts and observations about new media
arts education on the mailing list <nettime> (Scholz, 2003b).
There were many responses on the Rhizome mailing list, the collaborative
weblog Discordia (Scholz, 2003a), as well as dozens of emails to
me. [9] The
responses ranged from enthusiastic support to uneasiness. This text
was predominantly concerned with the boredom, apathy and anti-intellectualism
encountered in American undergraduate new media classrooms, the
role of the teacher and some issues to engage with beyond the teaching
of "just-in-time-knowledge."
I studied in Dresden, London, and New York City and have taught
undergraduate and graduate students in several research institutions
including The Bauhaus University, The University of Arizona in Tucson
and currently The State University of New York at Buffalo. Reading
many of these list responses I realised that there were big differences
between those who have the actual human experience of the here-and-now-ness
of teaching in the classroom and others who approach teaching with
the there-and-then-ness of ideas that they have not had the chance
to test-drive with students. Part of the purpose of writing this
essay is to reflect upon this debate.
Universities throughout the United States are increasingly restructured
to fit the imperatives of corporate business logic. Bill Readings
in The University in Ruins elaborates on the replacement
of culture by the discourse of excellence as the University's response
to 1968. Undergraduate students may conceive of themselves as consumers
who conveniently make a down payment on education and with next
to no effort (like shopping) graduate into the good life. It would,
however, be elitist to blame students for the system that socialised
them and now puts a tremendous weight on them. Undergraduate students
in the US are under tremendous pressure to find a job. This pressure
is both self-imposed and created by their peers and parents. It
is the task of the faculty to outline clearly what the interests
of the department are and where the education provided here will
get the students professionally. In addition, In the United States
45 million people are uninsured, and Medicare premiums are the highest
they have ever been... (Gore). Amy Alexander, who is a media artist
and faculty at the University of California San Diego, points out
that: 'Unemployment payments and food stamps don't go very far;
neither do paychecks from WalMart.' She adds: '…once you work full-time,
for a while, you'll realise how amazingly unfulfilling jobs are,
and that you'll want an engagement with culture outside of your
employment.' [10] In
the United States a person can only receive welfare benefits for
5 years in their entire life. Students in new media art programs
in the US rarely have the hopes that their counterparts in European
universities held - especially during the more prosperous 1980s.
There the aspiration was to belong to the 1- 2% that could make
a living with their work in the art market (Bauer: 22). In the United
States, especially for young technologists, this art market does
not exist anyway and sustaining grants are basically unavailable.
This is highlighted by a comparison to Nordic countries where artists
may manage to go from one grant to the next or be supported by unemployment
benefits. [11]
The increase in bureaucratic demands and duties in many universities
diminishes the time of artists who are also teachers, and therefore
both teach and remain actively engaged with contemporary cultural
production and its discourses. In addition, it is an almost impossible
challenge for one human being to constantly keep up with the developments
in technologies. There has been much written about the turning of
the university into a for-profit knowledge factory (Bok; Slaugher
and Leslie; Aranowitz; Johnson, Kavanagh and Mattson) but few alternatives
or positive counter-examples have been offered. Throughout new media
art departments globally there is widespread disagreement, if not
disconnection, between undergraduate students and faculty members.
Students do not aspire to become artists but are often exclusively
focused on gaining vocational skills for their future in the "industry."
They may smirk dismissively at media archeology, and all that theory
and political context material that belongs to the unfashionable
past. But to which industry do they refer? In reality, there is
no such thing as one stable new media industry and the required
skill sets are constantly shifting. A fixed identity of the artist
as it may have been possible for filmmakers, for example, is no
longer possible. In new media job opportunities drift from the VJ
turntable, VR lab, and the local non-profit organisation to the
theatre stage. Skills that are up to industry-standard may also
be better provided by higher training than higher education. In
Steal this University Ana Marie Cox talks of the corporate
desire for '"just-in-time-knowledge"; that is, skills
necessary for the job at hand, rather than basic broader skills.'
She continues: '...the state of Washington granted a baccalaureate
of science in "Real Time Interactive Simulation," and
this new higher education institution is run by the Nintendo Corporation.
A journalist points out that in such institutions students take
no humanities or social science courses whatsoever. That's because
those things are superfluous for the needs of the Nintendo corporation'
(Cox: 12). It is exactly the focus on the novelty involved that
is the most fickle of all companions in an educational context.
Young new media artists should not be seduced by the idea of novelty
of creation but rather locate their practice in an historical context.
What is in the best long-term interest of the student may not be
immediately apparent to her and it takes courage on the part of
the instructor to insist on her vision. What will students fall
back to if their first job choice does not come through straight
away? Most faculty members have a desire to educate students instead
of preparing them for cognitive Taylorism in an HTML factory camouflaged
as start up office. Independent and difficult courses will provide
longer lasting skills, more than the teaching of "just-in-time-knowledge"
and run-of-the-mill software applications. In addition, a consumer
approach to education often comes with anti-intellectualism, which
manifests itself in the classroom by not reading assignments, not
contributing to class discussions, complaining about high workloads,
or by dispassionately condemning intellectual debate as "boring."
Bill Readings describes undergraduate students in North America
as having a widespread sense of being "parked" at the
University: taking courses, acquiring credits, waiting to graduate.
In a sense this is their reaction to the fact that nothing in their
education encourages them to think of themselves as the heroes of
the story of liberal education... (Readings: 138).
Like public broadcasting, education should not be afraid of low
ratings or small profits. But mainly adjunct and untenured faculty's
academic careers rely heavily on student evaluations, which is where
the system is itself problematic.
The Future of Critical New Media Arts Education: Suggestions
for the Morning After
I am a media artist teaching within the system of a research university
and my suggestions come from this difficult place. The rhetoric
of resistance to the corporatisation of the university rarely leads
to concrete proposals. We do not need more manifestos. They rarely
offer concrete suggestions for the morning after. What are ways
in which we can escape the business logic of the “university of
excellence" (Readings) that is fundamentally at odds with responsible
education? What is the professional future of students graduating
from new media arts programs in the post-dotbomb era? Today, media
arts programs that directly sent their graduates into dotcom companies
like Razorfish in the mid and late 1990s have to adjust their focus
in a time of dwindling resources. What is the professional future
of students graduating from new media arts programs in the post-dotbomb
era? What are innovative structures for learning contexts in critical
new media arts education? In the context of the post-welfare state,
what are examples of self-organised educational projects that respond
to the soaring cost of education? Has the time come when we can
replace all proprietary software with open source or free software
applications? Which tools can we easily use to network student groups,
departments, and universities? How can we introduce wireless technologies
for teaching? How can theory and production be brought together
in a meaningful way? Between technophobia, hyped techno-optimism,
and Futurist discourses of progress that make us blind to the clumsy
reality of computers, how do we think about and live with technology?
What about professors professing their politics in the classroom?
Some may argue that there is no room for the personal politics of
the professor in the classroom. I disagree. The Greek word "professore"
means "to proclaim." It does not mean to look the way
when thousands die in Iraq, when our civil liberties vanish under
the Patriot Act, academic freedom of speech is questioned (or when
the International Monetary Fund ruins yet another Jamaica). Teaching
involves questioning, the development of an educated position on
world politics. Participants in class are not necessarily to agree,
but they are urged to search out their own position. Which topics
are urgent and which readings are relevant and lasting? I want to
turn to a number of concrete proposals for a critical new media
education, some of which are drawn from models already at work.
Theme-based rather than media-based.
Rather than developing traditional media-oriented departments,
universities should develop theme-based work groups (departments)
around issues such as "Cooperative Technologies," "Media
Art and Politics," or "The Knowledge Commons." This
theme-based research would enable cross-disciplinarity beyond the
set boundaries of even the most progressive media-based departments.
As feasible, teams would use and teach Open Source software to facilitate
this theme-based research. The theme-based structure is applied
in universities such as the Design Academy Eindhoven where each
theme-based group works with an organisation or a company. This
model is more flexible and requires less administrative effort.
If fewer classes were mandatory we might be able to encourage a
more informal, individualised learning process. Learning and teaching
could take place in a way in which the transmission of knowledge
through authority can be questioned. All involved in the learning
and teaching process should follow the logic of educational responsibility
and accountability that is at odds with the logic of accounting.
Teaching should not be reduced to the training of technocrats without
ever questioning the purpose and function of that training. If we
would allow for less efficiency, more play, and more experimentation
in education we would be undaunted by the prospect of failure. More
attention should be paid to the building of friendships, relationships
among peers, and interpersonal/ soft skills. Ergonomic chairs and
healthy food (rare to find on US campuses) would also contribute
to a good learning environment. Participants should be motivated
towards self-learning, self-directed time and the use of social
software for intellectual exchange. [12]
Modeled after the Freie Klasse participants
should organise courses in which they teach each other, write their
own curriculum and invite speakers of their choice. Within the context
of the theme-based department they should have the autonomy to decide
what and how they want to learn. Self-reflexivity is encouraged
and no grades are given. Exchanges with local tech-businesses are
enabled in creative ways. A creative and thoughtful attempt to involve
students in local manufacturing facilities is the Howstuffismade
project. [13] Here
students produce photo essays about the creation of products and
get involved with local businesses, which could aid in a more organic
movement of artists into non-art contexts. Similar connections are
facilitated by the Hypermedia Research Centre at Westminster University,
London. [14]
Bell Hooks, in Teaching to Transgress describes her struggle
to counter 'the overwhelming boredom, disinterest, and apathy' in
her classroom (1994, see also 2003). Hooks claims teaching as a
site for resistance, a place where the teacher must practice being
vulnerable, and fully present. I agree with her that the teacher
can become a conflictual site in the classroom encouraging students
to develop a similarly genuine expression of their position, free
of sarcasm and false irony. This approach is more about learning
than teaching. It is a process of productive conflict in which the
teacher is also transformed. The teacher should simply be an older
student who has devoted more time to a subject. She should be an
amateur in the sense that she loves her work and takes risks. She
should be a good listener, concise, patient, creative, explain her
thinking, ask for feedback, apologise, admit if she does not know
the answer, do her homework, teach to distrust authority, teach
to break the rules… Get worried if there was no conflict in class.
Risk taking involves acknowledging failure as part of the teaching
process, self-criticism for both teachers and students, and increasing
de-specialisation.
Diversity and alternative histories.
Students might begin to learn that the conquistadors of new media
art do not only produce in New York, Buffalo, Berlin and London
but also in Riga, Singapore and Delhi. International student exchanges
facilitated through personal contacts rather than long administrative
processes allow for this understanding to be introduced into the
context of the Western classroom. Networked international events
of like-minded departments and colleagues are useful to achieve
this opening of horizons as well. Locally, the university is an
agglomeration of people of different ages, classes, genders, sexualities,
and ethnicities. Yet, the benches of new media arts classrooms in
the urban United States are often filled with young Caucasian males.
One reason for this is that most teachers are themselves white and
male. For the most part, it will take minority teachers who will
attract minority students. Focused recruitment in high schools is
another possible approach to end this imbalance. The best suited
participant in a new media arts program would be self-motivated,
would present independence of thought, and an interest in programming
and cultural theory. She should have a degree of cultural competence,
openness, and curiosity and be at least partially invested in teamwork.
Teach-yourself-education.
In the Paris of 1968 a student uprising started that lead to general
strike, and the occupation of universities, and libraries. At the
same time George Maciunas designed Fluxus charts that argued for
an experimental educational laboratory, student-run seminars, and
an optional non-degree program for independent study. The United
States witnessed massive university dropouts not much later. Today,
in the context of state budget cuts self-organised DIY educational
projects such as the Commune des Arts, Freie Klasse and School for
Missing Studies offer inspiring approaches. The Munich-based art
historian, journalist, and artist Stefan Römer describes the Commune
des Arts as non-hierarchical, self-organised by participants with
a commitment to social engagement, no curriculum or formal instruction,
and no emphasis on the production of objects. While the base budget
is covered by the German state, participants raise money for projects
in collaboration with museums, libraries, universities, and agencies.
In the same trajectory, in Freie Klasse (free class) in Vienna
and Berlin, participants are students enrolled in the academy and
responsible for the content and collective organisational structures.
The curriculum is based on artistic practice, reflection on the
ability to act politically, and intensive study in contemporary
art history and theory. The self-organisational pattern prepares
them for a future that demands them to be self-motivated, discursive
media artists and organisers. Participants learn to evaluate their
own work and gain self-confidence. An assembly of students of the
Freie Klasse decides about admissions. The danger, to which several
European critics point, is that student-motivated, self-organised
courses are seen by institutions as a way to decrease funding and
delegate responsibility.
The School of Missing Studies [SMS] provides a flexible educational
platform for international study and exchange on cultural issues
related to the urban environment in cities marked by or currently
undergoing political, social, and cultural transition. [15]
SMS provides productive research and project
opportunities for young professionals in architecture and art who
are struggling with what is “missing” in their studies with regard
to processes of local urban change.
The University of Openess (sic) is a framework in which individuals
and organisations can pursue their shared interest in emerging forms
of cultural production and critical reflection such as Unix, cartography,
physical and collaborative research. [16]
Approaching teachnology.
New media arts curriculum should be concept-driven rather than
media-defined. In a time when the idea of craft skills is changing
away to computer literacy, networking, and organisational skills,
we should not focus on teaching technical skills alone. This kind
of cybertriumphalism that leads to 'an exclusive emphasis on software
programs is extremely problematic as it leaves out the history of
the tools we use, the politics of these very machines and the all
permeating social context' says Amy Alexander who is faculty at
the Department of Visual Arts, University of California at San Diego.
'The pure application of software programs creates the most boring
people...' thinks John Hopkins, University of Colorado at Boulder
'... It's like amateur photo-club members comparing the length of
their telephoto lenses' (in Lovink: 169).
I advocate for an educational project that avoids both technophobia
and technophilia. New media cultures should be demonstrated as part
of our culture that don't come out of the computational blue. They
should be demonstrated in their social context and not as an escape
from it. This idea locates itself in the tradition of the Black
Mountain College that had at its core the idea that education needs
to be consistent inside and outside of the classroom. In My
First Recession Lovink points to Simon Penny who argued for
a transition from a technical to a cultural agenda. This takes into
account that increasingly cultural practices drive technical developments.
The Sydney-based media philosopher Anna Munster argues that the
notion that art can be defined according to the medium through which
it is realised stands firmly within the discourse of modernism.
She refers to Clement Greenberg who argued that what was unique
to a particular art coincided with what was unique about the medium
it deployed. 'The concentration on technology per se, whether it
features as part of the content, the development of a kind of digital
style or the emphasis on computational processes, thus draws so
much of this "cutting edge" digital artwork back within
the discourse of modernism. The machines are not reducible to a
set of technical parameters nor can the digital be considered solely
in terms of the formal qualities. The content and ideas expressed
through digital art should be addressed over and above the technology
that supports them.' [17]
The knowledge commons and tools for cooperative learning.
For those teaching in new media departments it seems especially
obvious and logical to use available networked communication tools.
Over the last few years the term 'tool' for these software applications
became widely used in academia. Currently, there is an explosive
growth of a variety of new web-based tools for collaborative cultural
practices. How do contemporary forms of cultural production make
use of newly available collaborative applications to subvert corporate
models of forced cooperation and foster self-organised, independent
modes of cultural production and dissemination? Collaboration means,
to work together to achieve the same goal that we could not achieve
as individuals, to contribute to something larger than themselves.
Cooperation suggests that people assist each other.
While the cost for education is on the increase, independent networks
and online environments provide free parallel projects. Students
devise situations of learning for themselves that escape rigidities
and inadequacies. Over the past number of years, technologies such
as web cams (ie. polycom or iSight), iChat, internet Relay Chat
(IRC), Instant Messaging (IM) and video streaming became widely
used in teaching. According to educators who experiment within this
area, video streaming and video conferencing technologies work best
when used in between universities in the United States. When working
internationally often technical problems occur. I can attest to
this from collaborations with student groups in South Africa, Germany,
and Israel.
Natalie Jeremijenko, artist, engineer and faculty at the University
at California at San Diego, states in an email interview that it
is 'the main challenge to teach the use of web-based resources,
not for convenience, but for restructuring of participation, and
for engaging students in the primary role of the academy: to produce,
underwrite and validate the information commons.' [18]
The software designer and media theorist Warren Sack of the University
of California at Santa Cruz wrote in an email interview that in
the last year, since the advent of the Apple's iSight he began to
invite colleagues from the east coast and Europe to 'attend' the
end-of-the semester critiques. 'This worked surprisingly well: students
get one-on-one, or two-on-one crits with the virtual visitors via
two-way web cam.' For Sack, iSight is the first web cam that 'works
well enough to support this kind of extended, distributed dialogue.'
He thinks it would be interesting to extend this practice so that
all of us across the country (and beyond) teaching these kinds of
classes might become regular visitors to each others' studios.
Online businesses such as Friendster or LinkedIn offer many-to-many
communications systems (multi-participant virtual worlds) and forums
for interaction, which are already used by students outside of the
classroom. Such electronic environments are new pedagogical spaces
which can further educational goals. In Smart Mobs Howard
Rheingold advanced the idea that many-to-many venues are not only
a new form of communication but a potential revolution in social
organisation based on 'communities of shared interest' (Rheingold:
157). Free textbooks, for example, are put online at Wikibooks and
many complimentary texts can be found at the Gutenberg Project.
MITOpenCourseWare is a free and open educational resource for faculty,
students, and self-learners around the world. [19]
The project Opentheory applies ideas of free
software to the development of texts as users of the site improve
on each other's text submissions. [20]
Wikiversity facilitates learning through the
Wiki-real-time logging format. [21]
A Wiki is a type of server application that
allows people to create and edit web page content using web browsers.
Wiki supports an open editing approach in which users can modify
the organisation of contributions in addition to the content itself.
The open submission online encyclopedia Wikipedia will eventually
become more comprehensive than traditional encyclopedias. Here chunks
of content can be searched for in new kinds of micro-content "browsers"
enabling new kinds of navigation and browsing. Despite the fact
that these tools were welcomed with hyped enthusiasm and are fairly
easy to use, many still find it too much of a burden to give these
tools a try in their daily life.
Nevertheless, the aforementioned open content formats introduce
a new production paradigm, offering editorial opportunities and
a potential for broad participation in the knowledge commons- from
collection, and re-combination, to the distribution of knowledge.
In my opinion, these tools will succeed alongside face-to-face meetings.
This necessity is underlined by the research of the University of
Toronto sociologist Barry Wellman who shows that apart from online
communication, people maintain their geographically diverse social
network through email, as well as telephone, cars, train, air travel,
face-to-face meetings and letters.
Education goes Open Source.
Computer-based teaching demands introduces an overhead of required
upgrades, equipment, and technical and administrative support. New
media departments could immediately cut the escalating and (pointless)
IT costs by moving away from spiraling license costs and move to
Linux and Open Source software. It is no magic pixie dust installed
by midnight elves as there are still costs relating to maintenance,
services, and training. However, these costs are investments in
our own intellectual assets. Linux and the use of Free Software
allows schools and universities to become independent from the dominance
of global economic players such as Microsoft and Apple. The Open
Source technologies that have evolved over the past years now offer
Linux, Apache, mysql, python, perl and php-- to name just a few.
Largely useful applications include Openoffice and Gimp. [22,
23] Open source refers to source code
of software that can be read on the internet, modified and re-distributed:
it evolves. Free Software are several kinds of software that can
be legally copied and given free of charge to other users (you should
think of "free speech," not "free beer"). Linux
is a freely distributed operating system for PCs and a number of
other processors. The use of Free Software allows for the education
of wider groups of people and gives an opportunity for students
to install the software that they use in the university also at
home, at no charge. To switch to Linux and Open Source software
courses is a concrete goal that should be considered by new media
departments. Rather than constantly lagging behind industry standards
and paying for updates this will give students a set of skills that
they can bring to the local business that may employ them. This,
of course, is a difficult negotiation with students who may come
to the university with expectations to learn proprietary software.
In a recent email interview Ralf Homann, artist and professor at
Bauhaus University, Weimar stated: 'We use software to organise
group work, to set up collaborations. We try to use Open Source
software for all applications but it is not always possible. We
can't ignore the fact that we educate students for their professional
future, and if outside the university there is no professional application
of Open Source, then we can’t teach it inside the university either'
(in Scholz, 2004). However, there is rapid movement to Linux and
Open Source. The French government announced its switch to Open
Source and the city of Munich (Germany) did the same. In North America,
The University at Buffalo passed a resolution to move to open source.
[24]
The uneasy connection between theory and practice.
Many in the programming communities are distrustful of the humanities
because, in their view, they have little to contribute to their
field. Computer Science and Informatics departments may not even
be aware of humanities or other technology departments on their
own campus. In my experience American undergraduate students find
it often challenging to overcome the initial hindrances that are
needed to make discourse vivid and engaging. But despite widespread
misconceptions knowledge is nothing innate, nothing we are born
with or which we inherited. In the United States undergraduate students
often find it challenging to overcome the obstacles to make discourse
vivid and engaging. The widespread delegitimisation of reading and
print culture maybe at the heart of this problem. It also can be
traced back to a popular culture that glorifies triviality and mindlessness.
On the other hand faculty needs to resonate with students, pick
them up from where they are -- conditioned, in part, by reality
TV, consumer culture, and first person shooter games. This is also
the theatre into which theory is introduced. That is why entertainment
is a valid part of the performance of theory in the classroom.
Wouldn't it be wonderful to see a dance piece where in the
first half dancers danced, and in the second they would show the
audience how to dance? Augusto Boal, from Games for Actors
and Non-Actors
Augusto Boal's exercises for non-actors such as "ideological
warm-up" could be used to perform theory in a way, which physically
engages student's bodies. This involves the staged reading of articles.
Once beyond the certainty of technical instruction new media arts
educators on many campuses experience a crisis due to the unbearable
lightness of their topical orientation. What should be read in a
new media context that (luckily) does not have much of an established
canon? To the theorists like Michel Foucault, Paul Virilio, Vannevar
Bush and Jacques Derrida, we can add, for example, the rich collection
that Noah Wardip-Fruin and Nick Montfort's New Media Reader
offers. Readings should be socially relevant and need to have meaning
outside the institution in which they are taught. Once beyond the
certainty of technical instruction new media arts educators on many
campuses experience a crisis due to the unbearable lightness of
their topical orientation. I will give here a few thematic suggestions
in the form of keywords, which can, of course, only be spotty hints
guiding relevant discourses.
The merging of theory and production is not easily implemented
in the classroom. The practice of writing curriculum in this field
is quite similar to pursuing an event-based cultural practice. One
is prompted to find sources and make connections to other institutions,
peers teaching in the same fields, linkages between discourses in
emerging media, film, activism, and pedagogy. What do we hope to
teach? What are we unable to teach? Can art be taught? What is the
relationship between teaching art and student "success?"
Anna Harding, former director of the curatorial program at Goldsmiths
College in London, points to these questions. First and foremost
education in critical new media culture should focus on educating
artists. Whether their preferred media are digital or not.
There is a difficulty in finding faculty that is equally discursive
and technically advanced, artists who have in-depth knowledge of
theory and programming for example. Web-based open content tools,
which enable the sharing of resources are one step to finding adequate
responses to this. Co-teaching is another possibility. In any case,
teachers need to constantly learn, and build on their own technical
and theoretical skills.
The Distributed Learning Project.
Dedicated new media arts educators have to work harder than many
of their colleagues in other departments due to the fast-paced changes
in the field. Instructors spend much time looking for relevant texts,
art works that use specific technologies, and good technical tutorials.
They spend days searching the web for each others syllabi and often
re-invent the wheel. For these reasons Tom Leonhardt and I developed
The Distributed Learning Project, DLP. [25]
It is a situated tool for learning communities
to create, find, edit, re-use and share content in new media. The
DLP is a web-based, collaborative, educational project that is accessible
twenty-four hours seven days a week for anyone with an internet
connection. It is an experimental network supporting collective
research in new media. It links knowledge from the audio sound lab,
the non-profit organisation, the new media art studio, the independent
media initiative, the small new media company, cultural new media
organisations, the design studio, the club scene and the many departments
and disciplines within universities internationally.
This easy to use tool for teaching and research interconnects chunks
of knowledge from different departments, disciplines, universities,
cultures and professions to aid new media arts education.
The DLP cohesively links blocks of knowledge from fields of inquiry
as diverse as conceptual art, film, literature, computer science,
political science, social science and cultural theory. We may ask:
How did ideas in literature or music relate to or precede notions
in programming? Modules about loops in programming may link to others
on John Cage, Steve Reich or an entry about expanded cinema. The
DLP encourages free distribution of research materials. Sharing
research saves time, resources and improves teaching. The DLP offers
up-to-date, real-time available resources needed in a fast changing
field. The DLP questions the creation of curriculum as lone cowboy
in a university lab - it is an alternative to traditional modes
of teaching. It challenges the way knowledge is created, developed,
and distributed to a public. The project enables inter-authorship.
Rather than the single-author-to-one-text relationship here collaborative
inter-authorship appears within groups of researchers, industry
professionals, students, media critics, VJs, media artists, musicians,
and educators.
Cross-connections within the DLP are enabled when the content in
two modules is similar. Words within the module link the participant
to relevant other modules based on topic maps and connections made
through the semantic web. [26,
27] The DLP offers an area in which
participants can assemble modules for use in class, focal points
for disseminating research such as lectures, annotated presentations
and more. Semantic associations enable cross-disciplinarity in the
creation of syllabi. Courses, lecture series or research material
can be aggregated in the project stage of this web-based application.
The project's approach actively encourages Open Source software
and open content. [28]
The DLP is the first project of the Institute for Distributed Creativity
that I founded in May 2004. The research of the Institute for Distributed
Creativity (iDC) focuses on collaboration in media art, technology,
and theory with an emphasis on social contexts. [29]
In the spring of 2005 the iDC will start a
series of events and web cam luncheons about issues in new media
arts education. [30]
Educational concepts from the Bauhaus to Paulo Freire's notions
of informal, non-hierarchical teaching and proposals for new collaborative
models by contemporary media critics like Christoph Spehr should
be introduced into the practice of critical new media arts pedagogy.
The Free Cooperation conference was one of the venues in which the
discussion about education in new media culture started. We should
protect the discomfort we feel with our situation. We should insist
on the University as a framework for critical activity, production
of knowledge, negotiation, experiments, failure, and possibilities
of refusal. Many discussions hopefully will follow. How can we invent
our own future? We need more independent learning projects that
orient themselves towards radically new configurations of communities
based on sharing and cooperation.
Author's Biography
Trebor Scholz is a media artist, writer, and organiser. [trebor@thing.net]
http://molodiez.org
Acknowledgments
Many thanks to the Fibreculture editors and Jenny Perlin for their
critical feedback. Warm regards to the people on the <nettime>
mailinglist, the collaborative weblog Discordia and Rhizome list
for inspiring discussions.
Notes
[1] The networks, art, and collaboration
conference, a.k.a. Free Cooperation conference, took place in April
2004 at the Department of Media Study, The State University of New
York at Buffalo. The conference was organised by Trebor Scholz (New
York/ Buffalo) and Geert Lovink (Brisbane/Amsterdam), assisted (in
more-or-less-free-cooperation) by Dorothee Gestrich (now Banff Centre)
and Orkan Telhan (Ankara/ Buffalo), Tom Leonhardt (Toronto/ Buffalo)
and Arzu Telhan (Ankara/ Buffalo). http://freecooperation.org
[back]
[2] Weblog: a weblog, or simply a blog,
is a web application, which contains periodic, reverse chronologically
ordered posts on a common webpage. Such a Web site would typically
be accessible to any internet user. Part of the reason "blog"
was coined and commonly accepted into use is the fact that in saying
"blog," confusion with server log is avoided.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Weblog
[back]
[3] Wiki: A Wiki or wiki (pronounced "wicky" or "weeky"
or "viki") is a website (or other hypertext document collection)
that allows any user to add content, as on an internet forum, but
also allows that content to be edited by any other user. The term
can also refer to the collaborative software used to create such
a website. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiWiki
[4] ActiveCampus: The ActiveCampus project aims
to provide location-based services for educational networks and
understand how such systems are used. activeclass enables collaboration
between students and professors by serving as a visual moderator
for classroom interaction. ActiveCampus Explorer uses a person's
context, like location, to help engage them in campus life. ActiveCampus--
explorations in community-oriented ubiquitous computing. http://activecampus.ucsd.edu/
Also see: Active Class: http://activecampus.ucsd.edu/info/activeclass/ActiveClassIntroduction.htm
[back]
[5] The film Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow
(2004) uses extremely developed accreditation. In the credits of
the film even the most minor contribution is listed, something that
was not the case ten years ago.
[back]
[6] The notion of the third body was developed
by Charles Green in his book The Third Hand. There the third
body emerges out of true collaboration.
[back]
[7] Access Grid: the Access Grid is an ensemble
of resources including multimedia large-format displays, presentation
and interactive environments, and interfaces to support group-to-group
interactions across the Grid. The AccessGrid Project: http://accessgrid.org
[back]
[8] WiFi.Bedouin: WiFi.Bedouin is a wearable, mobile
802.11b node disconnected from the global internet. See TechKwonDo.
TechKwonDo__WiFiBedouin. (2004) Available: http://www.techkwondo.com/projects/bedouin/
[back]
[9] For these responses, see: http://www.discordia.us/scoop/story/2003/10/6/0332/15602
[back]
[10] Email interview with Amy Alexander, August
2004.
[back]
[11] The fact that many artists in Nordic countries
can make a living off state grants is not statistical but anecdotal
knowledge drawn from many conversations with artists from Finland,
Denmark, and Sweden.
[back]
[12] Social software is any software that supports
group communications. The dynamics of social software are significantly
different from traditional interactions. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_software
[back]
[13] HowStuffisMade is an encyclopedia
of manufacturing processes and labor conditions involved in the
production of contemporary products. This information is often hard
to obtain and little of this material exists on the web. The encyclopedia
is an independent academic web-based Twiki publication that uses
primarily visual documentation. The entries are summative (short)
photo essays produced primarily by students guided by faculty who
ensure the standards of evidence. The project is set in contrast
to the HowStuffisMade.com resource, which excludes any information
on manufacturing and labor. For more discussion see: http://xdesign.eng.yale.edu/howstuffismade
[back]
[14] Hypermedia Research Centre at Westminster
University: http://www.hrc.wmin.ac.uk/
[back]
[15] School of Missing Studies: http://www.schoolofmissingstudies.net/
[back]
[16] University of Openess: http://twenteenthcentury.com/uo/index.php/AboutUo
[back]
[17] Email interview with Anna Munster, August
2004.
[back]
[18] Email interview with Natalie Jeremijenko,
August 2004.
[back]
[19] MitOpenCourseWare: MIT's OpenCourseWare is
a free and open educational resource for faculty, students, and
self-learners around the world. OCW supports MIT's mission to advance
knowledge and education, and serve the world in the 21st century:
http://ocw.mit.edu/index.html
[back]
[20] Opentheory (in German): http://opentheory.org
[back]
[21] Wikiversity: Wikiversity, a free, open learning
environment and research community. Online courses are being created
as a form of co-operative and interactive exchange of knowledge.http://wikiversity.org
[back]
[22] OpenOffice: OpenOffice's mission is to
create, as a community, the leading international office suite that
will run on all major platforms and provide access to all functionality
and data through open-component based APIs and an XML-based file
format. http://OpenOffice.org
[back]
[23] Gimp: Gimp is the open source equivalent of Photoshop: http://gimp.org
[back]
[24] 'France goes open': http://www.teledyn.com/node/500
… 'Munich goes with Open Source Software' 'The city council of Munich,
Germany, announced that they plan to move 14,000 PCs and 16,000
users from Windows to Linux, in a move to make Linux their standard
desktop operating system environment'
(http://www.desktoplinux.com/news/NS3199247984.html)
… 'University of Buffalo faculty goes for open source': http://www.canopener.ca/article.php?story=98
[back]
[25] Distributed Learning Project (Trebor Scholz,
Tom Leonhardt): Through topic maps and the semantic web the DLP
cohesively links blocks of knowledge from fields of inquiry as diverse
as art history (ie. conceptual art), film, literature, political
science, social sciences or cultural theory. How did ideas in these
areas precede, inspire or parallel developments in programming for
the arts or machine culture in general? How do these works relate
chronologically to each other? The DLP is a knowledge network aiding
research and teaching in the fields of new media art, cultural theory,
and programming in their social context.
[back]
[26] Topic Maps: Topic maps address the information
overload that we are faced with. Book indexes basically perform
a similar function. Topic Maps are the online equivalent of printed
indexes-- they are made up of multiple links. Knowledge is described
and associated in more complex ways. Topics are grouped in classes
of topic types. Topics maps are about optimisation of navigation.
They are "connection hubs" between the modules. Information
is accessed through a semantically associated list terms that offers
all entries that semantically relate to the search term (for example
"employment" would be associated with "employee"
and "employer". This method is more effective than the
alphabetical arrangement of keywords. This is made possible by XML
technology. The navigation allows you to visualise connections between
concepts, code, theory, and art. Module A module is a self-contained
component of a system, which has a well-defined interface to the
other components; something is modular if it is constructed so as
to facilitate easy assembly, flexible arrangement, and/or repair
of the components. We refer to modules here as knowledge chunks.
[back]
[27] Semantic Web: The Semantic Web is a project
that intends to create a universal medium for information exchange
by giving meaning, in a manner understandable by machines, to the
content of documents on the Web. Currently under the direction of
its creator, Tim Berners-Lee of the World Wide Web Consortium, the
Semantic Web extends the ability of the World Wide Web through the
use of standards, markup languages and related processing tools:
http://www.semanticweb.org/
[back]
[28] For an introduction to open content debates
see Stalder and Wark.
[back]
[29] Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC):
The research of the Institute for Distributed Creativity (iDC) focuses
on collaboration in media art, technology, and theory with an emphasis
on social contexts. The iDC, founded by Trebor Scholz in May 2004,
is an international network with a participatory and flexible institutional
structure that combines advanced creative production, research,
events, and documentation. While the iDC makes appropriate use of
emerging low-cost and free social software it balances these activities
with regular face-to-face meetings: http://distributedcreativity.org
[back]
[30] See http://newmediaeducation.org
[back]
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