Blog Archives - Stacey Wiseman

Art and globalization ... and technology

24/6/2014

As I finished up a course on Globalization and Art, I found one of the biggest take-aways of the final set of readings in Steer’s conclusion that the “curriculum has to be innovative to meet the profound changes taking place in society and, above all, [must be] localized. Not national, let along global, but local” (Steer, 2009, p. 320). What I have found personally, is that when I step back and look at the “globe” and “culture” I become more interested and aware of what my “culture” is – and what my “world” is like. We really must examine who we are and where we come from to be able to share and have any sort of meaningful exchange with others.

I think as art educators, we should be adept at helping students explore their “cultures” and communities as well as using innovative ways to form meaningful connections with others in other places – across town, around the country or around the globe. Digital technology has many pitfalls, it is not a utopia nor will it lead to a utopian society. It provides us with tools and the possibility of connectivity, but we must know how to use it. As art educators, we really must be creative and find ways to show our students, to model for them, how to use these powerful forums for positive outcomes.

I am not currently teaching in a classroom, but I am fascinated with finding ways to use this digital technology to really promote the positives of society. So often we focus on the negatives and the bad things that need to change, but I believe our students need to see the power of positivity, the possibility … I have found Art 2.0 (a network similar to Facebook but for art educators only) as an invaluable resource for ideas. One project that has caught my eye ishttp://www.rockthoughts.com/ - where students decorate a rock, register it along with a story, and place it somewhere for others to find and continue the story.

Applying digital media to art and art education ... some thoughts

19/6/2014

Digital Media Projects with Purpose
   How do we combine the social aspect of new media with art to create something powerful and purposeful? Minddrive.org is an after school program helping at risk students achieve. Students built an electric car powered by social media. By converting tweets, shares, and likes into wattage, the car had enough fuel power to make a trip to Washington, DC and gain support for their program and students (http://youtu.be/zHj7vusmtCQ).
   Australia’s Benevolent Society in collaboration with Designworks created an interactive tunnel of LED lights. As people shared their hopes for the future through a website or Twitter using #hopesforchange the more dynamic the lighting effects would be come. The hopes were displayed on social media feeds, promoting positive change (http://www.designworks.com.au/tunnel-of-hope-at-vivid-sydney.html).
   Lastly, the transformation of Bejing’s Water Cube into public art serves as a mood ring of China’s social media. By collecting data on emoticons used in the Chinese version of Twitter, the Water Cube is lit in different colors with varying tones and movement to reflect the overall mood of the day (http://youtu.be/9RS92_vnYpw).

Projects for the Classroom
   Using these projects as inspiration, a very practical application would be curating something through the use of hashtags with Twitter or Instagram. What issues are important to your students? Ask them. By using a hashtag and allowing students to tweet for a certain period of time about issues that are important to them or on their minds, you could gather data on how to proceed next with a project. Giving students a true voice and an active role in a democratic microcosm of the classroom will be the first step in the project itself. As students participate in the evolution of the project, they will experience firsthand collaboration as it occurs in real time. Will experts need to be called in to help a project come to fruition? What are practical applications of this project? What do the students hope to accomplish? While admittedly, this is very open-ended, the educator would be tasked with helping to guide the project to be manageable and productive.
   Another use of hashtags would be to connect two classrooms from very different parts of the world, or even two students. Almost as an Instagram pen pal, two students from other ends of the country or world could visually document their typical day as a student, sharing a unique hashtag, they could create a visual diary comparing and contrasting their world. This could build compassion for others, by connecting students and helping them to see commonalities as well as differences. As a culmination of the project, the instructor could work with each student to compile key images and build a website dedicated to the undertaking as a class.