[-empyre-] about Brooke's post

Fri May 24 00:48:24 EST 2013

Gaby,
As a professor at an inexpensive city college - Hunter College where I
work with many immigrant and first-generation students of lower middle
class families/demographics, I am always concerned about preparing
these students to get a job upon leaving college as well as thinking
critically.

As I work with my colleagues to build curriculum, we consistently ask
ourselves two questions - what practical tools do current students
need to know and how can we guide/enhance their analytical and problem
solving skills.  I consider these questions with colleagues who also
teach production courses.  I also have colleagues who only teach
analysis and do not feel that a liberal arts college should be
training students in software and take a more purest stance of the
college as ivory tower.  As the son of poor immigrant parents, I feel
that the liberal arts college as an environment purely for
intellectual engagement is unrealistic and short-sighted and that such
a space reserved for the entitled, wealthy, well-networked elite.  I
agree that this reality is sad and troubling.

With this in mind, my pedagogical objectives in art and media
production are the following:
1. As Ana points out, collaboration in the classroom is key.  Students
learn from one another and gain a shared sense of fulfillment.
2. Develop/teach skill sets that will be lasting - teach the
principles, not merely the latest software.  Understanding the
principles that underlie software will better prepare students to
ever-evolving software tools.
3. Approach software critically - even in computer lab, software-based
production courses, always present software as tools.  I stress to my
students that it is the ideas and rigor of approach and production
that is most important.
4. Pair technical and practical material with analytical material.
5. Expose students to as much weird shit as possible.  Many of my
students have only been exposed to mass media and have no knowledge of
vanguardist movements.  Exposure to alternative modes of production
functions as a trigger, students see that they can do differently.
Last semester after presenting the work of the Yes Men, a student
immediately came up to me to ask how she could join.  I put her in
touch with Igor and hopefully a new collaboration was spawned.

ricardo

On Wed, May 22, 2013 at 6:22 PM, Gabriela VargasCetina
<gabyvargasc at prodigy.net.mx> wrote:
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
> Dear all,
>
> I am enjoying this discussion very much.  What I know of Brooke's work is very inspiring, and it is difficult to see how the scale or her projects would make them manageable by a single person, so the question group / individual becomes very relevant.
>
> I am an anthropologist and we have pretty much the same problems you have all been describing: the humanities and social sciences train students to work individually, and not together with other people.  Furthermore, it is very difficult to get an anthropologist to work with others from mixed training, including mathematicians and artists.  I have been allowed by our Faculty of Anthropology to put together courses where students have to dance or perform their theoretical concepts, or design anthropologically-meaningful websites using theories derived from fiction, always in teams.  However, many of my colleagues (especially at other universities) think this is all bizarre and nonsensical, and even the students think that they do not develop 'useful skills' in my courses.  And yes, like art students, as per Ana's comment, anthropology students today are being told they should find ways to 'market' themselves to corporations, individually, and follow instructions instead of questioning the world.  There is the job market problem, though: where will graduates from anthropology find employment, other than at the local branches of multi-national corporations?  I don't have any answers, but the fact that the questions are so difficult is sad and troubling.
>
> Gaby Vargas-Cetina
> Facultad de Ciencias Antropologicas
> Universidad Autonoma de Yucatan
>
> On 5/22/13 4:43 PM, Ana Valdés wrote:
>
> ----------empyre- soft-skinned space----------------------
>
>
>
> Brooke I loved your rethoric question:
>
> I teach collaboration too and just a few days ago during final
> presentations saw the power of bringing people together who do not know
> each other well -- or at all-- for a common cause or, as Paul notes, shared
> agendas. I pair groups of students to make media work for non-profit
> organizations in Westchester, a pro-bono approach with a participatory
> design bent. But I guess I am left wondering why collaboration is to this
> day is still seen as unusual or something special in art practice and art
> education and not the modus operandi? Now we are going to study
> individuality ... the methods of and reasons for working alone!!
>
> I agree totally with you and wonder why all artist educations
>
> are headed to educate artists as "entrepreneurs", as they were
>
>
> heads of an unipersonal enterprise with only them as contracted.
>
> I think that's the problem when you try to create the idea
>
> artists and writers are "professions" as doctors, podologists,
>
>
> architects, dentists or other.
>
> The writing educations grow as swamps, the "creative writing" is now
>
> an accepted part of the curriculum in many of the world's universities
>
>
> but do we have seen the growing of a talented writing group
>
> of people equivalent to all who are being educated as writers or
>
> do we see the same amount of people writing without any
>
>
> academical education?
>
> My point is: we are evolving from the concept the artist or the writer
>
> as gifted by God and part of an elite to another myth:
>
> the artist or writer as part of a corporation, skilling them in
>
>
> selling of their own works, marketing it and publishing it.
>
> I think collaboration is nearly mandatory today if you want to make
> changes and leave a trace in the world we live into.
>
>
> Ana
>
>
>
> --
> http//congresomujeresdenegromontevideo.wordpress.com
> http://www.twitter.com/caravia158606060606060
> http://www.scoop.it/t/art-and-activism/
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>
>
>
> cell Sweden +4670-3213370
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>
>
> "When once you have tasted flight, you will forever walk the earth with your eyes turned skyward, for there you have been and there you will always long to return.
> — Leonardo da Vinci
>
>
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>
>
> --
> Gabriela Vargas-Cetina
> Facultad de Ciencias Antropológicas
> Universidad Autónoma de Yucatán
> Carretera a Tizimín km 1
> Mérida, Yucatán 97305.  México
> Tel. +52 999 930 0090
>
>
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