Art and Telematics: Towards a Network Consciousness
When thinking about Arts Education (visual, music, dance and drama) I am asking myself where are we. This is the only thing I seem to be asking. Perhaps I am dumbfounded at having been institutionalized and complicit in helping those constructs continue. It has taken stepping back from it all and pulling at the string attached to the ball of yarn to realize the mess that can't be untangled.
Or can it?
I really don't know.
Having read all the rhetoric from the art educator's perspective... crying to be heard and understood. Going as far to provide scientific evidence that the Arts improve test scores. Using the only valid currency (science) to validate the only "true" markers of education, the test score.
I have looked at the need for certain elements to be reintroduced into education to help round out the student and to "flex" all their learning muscles so speak.
And I have looked through Roy Ascott's Telematic Embrace and my own assumptions on everything have been laid bare. I am realizing I am holding onto this rigid notion or art, or society, or communication, even the fluidity that is supposed to exist in a Post Modern educational institution has become rigid (laughably).
In Telematic Embrace you realize that Ascott's visionary ideas and theories aren't for the weak of heart or the lazy. And I don't think an educator that has let his work effect them can walk away from it, quietly and do nothing. Ascott's message is one of inclusion and unification that encompasses everything from science, art and telecommunications. Everyone is welcome in his telematic embrace. In stark contrast to the current Art community that is exclusive and out of reach, art transcends and melds into the structures of communication, society and culture.
As I spend the majority of my working life in museums, the chapter, Mind of the Museum, was interesting but after beginning to understand Ascott's theory, it wasn't surprising. Ascott states that the museum is a cultural institution and they need to be responsive to the imminent social transformations. Ascott foresaw that new of expression would emerge in the future and the museum/ cultural institution needs to stay current with those movements.
Ascott's theories and practice pushes the limits of the conscious and imagination as a part of the creative process that creates cultures and society. Artists play an important role in developing the ideas that have broad cultural ramifications. Ascott in a way charges the museum or cultural institution with realizing what their role is and what their potential could be.
I found Ascott's words bewildering but optimistic. But I am still asking myself some rather existentially artistic questions:
Is my disdain for technology healthy? Viable? Could someone like me with my "traditional skills" prevail, be successful etc?
I found myself thinking that perhaps due to Post Modernism we are in a position now where we need to reevaluate the approach to art. This would need to include the plurality of possibilities. Or does? A truly post modernist sentiment.
Or can it?
I really don't know.
Having read all the rhetoric from the art educator's perspective... crying to be heard and understood. Going as far to provide scientific evidence that the Arts improve test scores. Using the only valid currency (science) to validate the only "true" markers of education, the test score.
I have looked at the need for certain elements to be reintroduced into education to help round out the student and to "flex" all their learning muscles so speak.
And I have looked through Roy Ascott's Telematic Embrace and my own assumptions on everything have been laid bare. I am realizing I am holding onto this rigid notion or art, or society, or communication, even the fluidity that is supposed to exist in a Post Modern educational institution has become rigid (laughably).
In Telematic Embrace you realize that Ascott's visionary ideas and theories aren't for the weak of heart or the lazy. And I don't think an educator that has let his work effect them can walk away from it, quietly and do nothing. Ascott's message is one of inclusion and unification that encompasses everything from science, art and telecommunications. Everyone is welcome in his telematic embrace. In stark contrast to the current Art community that is exclusive and out of reach, art transcends and melds into the structures of communication, society and culture.
As I spend the majority of my working life in museums, the chapter, Mind of the Museum, was interesting but after beginning to understand Ascott's theory, it wasn't surprising. Ascott states that the museum is a cultural institution and they need to be responsive to the imminent social transformations. Ascott foresaw that new of expression would emerge in the future and the museum/ cultural institution needs to stay current with those movements.
Ascott's theories and practice pushes the limits of the conscious and imagination as a part of the creative process that creates cultures and society. Artists play an important role in developing the ideas that have broad cultural ramifications. Ascott in a way charges the museum or cultural institution with realizing what their role is and what their potential could be.
I found Ascott's words bewildering but optimistic. But I am still asking myself some rather existentially artistic questions:
Is my disdain for technology healthy? Viable? Could someone like me with my "traditional skills" prevail, be successful etc?
I found myself thinking that perhaps due to Post Modernism we are in a position now where we need to reevaluate the approach to art. This would need to include the plurality of possibilities. Or does? A truly post modernist sentiment.
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