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Elia 03
- 7. Rogier Klomp - http://www.klomp.tv/graphics.html
- 9. Major
- 10. Practices
- 13. (…) For most of the twentieth century, the primary role of design was to make things look and work better, to support the functional and emotional experiences of the consumers, through well-designed artifacts and places. (…) Meredith Davis, Teaching Design, 2017, New York, Allworth Press
- 15. Due to this, the role of technology within art education in general has been neglected for decades.
- 17. Stations - Willem de Kooning Academie
- 18. I think today it is time to rethink this pedagogy in technologies and materials and, in doing so, to rethink the role of aesthetic production and making.
- 19. Joseph Albers: “Experimenting takes priority over studying”
- 20. László Moholy-Nagy Photogram No.II 1925
- 23. What materials, tools and instruments within art education can we provide, to investigate and experiment with crucial phenomena of this time and age?
- 25. • Making is problematic and complex • Reconsidering the artistic toolset • For whom and with?
- 26. Atelier Luma - https://atelier-luma.org/ EcoLogicStudio - Photo.Synth.Etica Algaefabrics by www.tjeerdveenhoven.com MAKING: PROBLEMATIC AND COMPLEX
- 27. Aniela Hoitink - https://neffa.nl/ BluecityLab - Making Kombucha MAKING: PROBLEMATIC AND COMPLEX
- 28. Joost Vette / Mariet Sauerwein - TUDelft MAKING: PROBLEMATIC AND COMPLEX
- 29. Acknowledge making is a problematic and complex CRITICAL ENGINEERING - https://criticalengineering.org/ MAKING: PROBLEMATIC AND COMPLEX
- 30. Anja Groten “Control the Controller” - www.criticalmaking.nl MAKING: PROBLEMATIC AND COMPLEX
- 31. RECONSIDERING THE ARTISTIC TOOLSET RECONSIDERING THE ARTISTIC TOOLSET Grafiky Lab Ink made out of unburned carbon soot Atelier NL How to make paints or ceramics direct from the land WdKA students working in BluecityLab Dishes made of fine-dust by Annemarie Piscaer/Iris de Kievith
- 32. 3d scanning fruit waste Publishing Station The zine content is exclusively accumulated by speaking into a microphone. With text to speech technology the spoken word translates to text. Simultaneously an algorithm is will run an automized image search on google, grabbing some of the words randomly and adding them to the zine. by Hackers & Designers plastic waste sensors endoscopie camera coffee waste felt machine RECONSIDERING THE ARTISTIC TOOLSET
- 33. MAKING FOR - AND WITH OTHER NON-HUMAN ENTITIES
- 34. Frank Kolkman - Outrospectre MAKING FOR - AND WITH OTHER NON-HUMAN ENTITIES
- 35. ListenTree - http://listentree.media.mit.edu/ MAKING FOR - AND WITH OTHER NON-HUMAN ENTITIES
- 36. Acknowledge making is a problematic and complex https://affinelayer.com/pixsrv/ MAKING FOR - AND WITH OTHER NON-HUMAN ENTITIES
- 37. Acknowledge making is a problematic and complex PHONY - Boris Smeenk & Arthur Boer MAKING FOR - AND WITH OTHER NON-HUMAN ENTITIES
- 38. PHONY - Boris Smeenk & Arthur Boer MAKING FOR - AND WITH OTHER NON-HUMAN ENTITIES
- 39. PHONY - Boris Smeenk & Arthur Boer MAKING FOR - AND WITH OTHER NON-HUMAN ENTITIES
- 40. Acknowledge making is a problematic and complex a.van.meer@hr.nl workshop-ok.wdka.nl
Editor's Notes
- My name is Aldje van Meer and I work at the Willem de Kooning Academy as innovation manager. Within this function I am among other things responsible for the educational development of the stations. Stations are workshops with facilities where making, research and education takes place. As an art educator being responsible for the stations I question myself daily whether we are offering the students the right education, tools, skills and technology - that enables students to deal with reality of today. And today I would like to share my questions and struggle in defining the role of the workshop within art education.
- First I would like to talk about the workshop in relation to Bauhaus. Bauhaus will celebrate its 100 year anniversary and I think has had a great influence on the role of the workshop of today.
- Secondly I would like to look into the future and see how current times resonate with the desires and attitude that shaped Bauhaus and how it can inspire us to rethink the role of the workshop of tomorrow.
- The Bauhaus responded to the effects of ‘the First Machine Age’ – were the machine took over handcraftship - artist and designers were seeking a new role within the junction of craft and industrial production.
- Bauhaus was responding to a world which had a lot of insecurities. World war 1 had just finished, Germany was bankrupt there was great inflation.
- In the context of all of this it was clear a new narrative was needed. In all this misery Bauhaus had a rather remarkable positive approach – they developed a utopian vision to make a better world for all, through better designed objects and environments – they wanted to change the world by design –
- Today we are experiencing the emergence of ‘the Second Machine Age’, wherein technologies such as artificial intelligence, robotics and biotech are fundamentally changing the way we live. An age in which the boundaries between the physical, digital and biological blur. Maybe in parallel to Bauhaus you could say we also live in a time of big societal change and transformations. Along with the impact of technology there is ecological and political crisis and we have migration issues. These are not just themes to be reflected upon but they redefine the fundamentals of how artists and designers work.
- Here, at the Willem de Kooning Academy, as at many other art schools, we are putting a lot of effort in looking for ways to connect these urgent topics to the practice of art and design in the 21st century In respons to these developments we applied fundamental changes in our curricula in order to make our education more relevant. I won't go too much into detail, but to give you a general idea:
- The main difference is that students start studying within a ‘traditional discipline but not graduate in a particular discipline
- Our Students graduate in a practice: In the practice, students work in cross-disciplinary teams - from a specific context or from a specific topical issue - Examples of these educational programs are: new earth, data design or new frontiers . (see slide)
- Another major change in the innovation of our education - was our re-invention of the workshop. We saw a great divide between new art and design practices and our craft oriented education within the workshop. We believed that “a changing society also calls for new ways of making. New technologies not only alter the way we make things, they also influence the way we think about production. So we upgraded the workshops – Bauhaus 2.0 - and implemented the stations. Good things happened! - Starting a discussion and questioning the technology we teach; by making room for new technologies and by re-inventing old technologies - Changing the workshop from a place for production and execution; to a place where research can take place - We were able to create an environment which allows more and intensive collaboration between teachers and technical staff.
- But despite successes, I feel we are held back by the past. The division between the art professor - and the technical staff working in the workshop seems to be more hard-coded in the DNA of the Art School - than we realized beforehand. Also the hierarchical (hear financial) divide between educational and technical staff hold us back when trying to fully integrate and innovate the education with the workshop. To gain more insight into where we stand now and to be able to go further it is good to look at history.
- I came across the work of Meredith Davis, she states: For most of the twentieth century, the primary role of design was to make things look and work better, to support the functional and emotional experiences of the consumers, through well-designed artifacts and places. As Meredith Davis describes, this 20st century – Bauhaus based notion on artefact-oriented view of design is very much applicable within todays workshop.
- In practice this means that there is the professor/tutor – teaching in the classroom or studio –and in the workshops, technical staff instruct students in technologies and help them realize their ‘products’. Of course the subjects and classes of professors have changed over time. Due to mass industrialization and the outsourcing of production, a greater removal from the manufacturing process arose. Postmodern ideas were introduced, which related to this mass industry and consumerism. Art education developed a more ‘conceptual’, ‘critical’ and theoretical approach relating to design practices. This led to the shared opinion that the designer/artist is responsible for the concept but not for the execution of the work and that the technology or media that was used was inferior to the overall concept/message. Technology or material knowledge was considered less important and did not have a central role in the creative process; moreover, it was sometimes even seen as limiting the imagination.
- Due to this, the role of technology within art education in general has been neglected for decades. The ever-expanding digital networked technologies have not led to major changes, but to more fragmentation and specialization within the field of higher art-design education.
- In my opinion you see this very much reflected in the lack of awareness regarding the development of the workshop and the pedagogy around learning technology, materials and skills. In most (Northern Europe) art schools you will find similar workshops mostly related to old media and crafts and equipped to make ‘artefacts’: the wood, metal, ceramics and plastic workshop; graphic and print studios; time-based media; photography and film. At the turn of the century, slowly digital technologies were introduced; think of computers, editing studios and fabrication technologies like Laser cutters, 3D printers and the like.
- In practice, however, the art and design professors, were increasingly distanced from ‘teaching’ in the workshops. Art and design educators have limited knowledge in this ever-expanding field of complex technologies. The technical staff and instructors in the workshop have, as in the Bauhaus time, little or no influence on a student’s artistic development. They also have a hard time keeping up with these new technologies and often lack the artistic background and qualities to formulate appropriate pedagogy that critically examines the use of media and material.
- I think today it is time to rethink this pedagogy in technologies and materials and, in doing so, to rethink the role of aesthetic production and making.
- And to come back to Bauhaus, There are things we can learn from the holistic and open attitude of Bauhauslers and their engagement with experiment. I think we can learn from the object lessons and material expeditions of Joseph Albers and Lazlo Moholy Nagy. They taught their students to experiment with different materials through their senses.
- Pushing students to question and research the materials of that day and age
- In a world where we are getting out of touch with the the pyhsical and tangible and have lost control over the virtual its crucial for designers and artist to again engage with the the substantial, real world. Not only through tools and media which have been ‘supposedly’ artistic like the pencil, the camera or wood but through tools and media which relate to our world and time.
- So thinking about this holistic and experimental approach of the Bauhaus I wondered how we would enable students to deal with reality of today. This led me to embark on a research project which actually questions what the workshop of tomorrow should be like: The title of this research project has the title: the workshop of Other Knowledge.
- So my research question is: What materials, tools and instruments within art education can we provide to investigate and experiment with crucial phenomena of this time and age? Can we construct and make our own reality rather than becoming a consumer and a slave of reality. This said: are we still able to construct our reality and what are the skills that we need to know and to be in control of?
- In this workshop of Other Knowledge; which should lead to an online and physical learning environment - I would like to question new modes of making and seeing and to break away from the standard. Can we re-imagine and see the world with other tools and instruments. Making the invisible visible.
- So to conclude I would like to share some (incomplete) points of departure; Let’s face it; making is problematic and complex Secondly the artistic toolset should be reconsidered And at last reconsider who we make with - and whom for - also within the workshop I will try to explain in the next slides
- Making is problematic because how do we make in world where we run out of resources? What tools and materials do we have to offer in the workshop. What role can the workshop play in helping students to make more ecological decisions. What is important ‘matter’ to deal with in the future? (example - lumalab) Are for example algae our future material?
- Or are do we need to grow our material as bio-designers Aniela Hoitink and Emma van der Leest are showing us?
- I think we should work more closely with engineers and scientist like Joost Vette and Mariet Sauerwein and the institutions were they come from - together we come up with solutions of using waste material like mussel shelves?
- Making is problematic and also complex because we have more and more (digital) technologies at our disposal. Technology can be a tool, a medium, or both. It is important to keep on researching and exploring these technologies. You cannot leave it only up to students. They need guidance in this exploration. Like the critical engineers are saying: The greater the dependence on a technology the greater the need to study and expose its inner workings” https://criticalengineering.org/
- While you are making you can question the tools and media you are using. Making has meaning and is not a neutral activity. Technology is not a means to an end. Critical making is for me totally linked to the workshop. We are happy to be able to collaborate with the critical make researchers Anja Groten and Shailoh Philips. I think their research is very important
- As I mentioned before – I think we should reconsider our artistic toolset – Can we leave our traditional toolset behind and think of other ways of looking and researching the world. Great example are the dishes Annemarie Piscaer and Iris de Keith glaced with fine dust they collected in the city of Rotterdam
- Another example - is the zine publication tool - made by Hackers and designers . Its content is exclusively accumulated by speaking into a microphone. With text to speech technology the spoken word translates to text. Simultaneously an algorithm will run an automized image search on google, grabbing some of the words randomly and adding them to the zine.
- At its core, the Bauhaus project revolved around “the New Human being”. It was not about learning a profession but about the universal education/formation of the personality. Making practice has been very much human centred - but can we continue thinking like this? What can we learn from the discourse centered on the notion of the post-human.
- Can we also make for other entities. Can we show solidarity to other entities? 1. Can we use technology – such as VR - to empathize with the other – and with other entities
- 2. How do we research and communicate - can we listen to the other - how do we talk to the earth, how do we relate to our natural world?
- And can we use other entities to help us create? How do we work together with digital entities like ai’s. What happens when new technologies such as AI – enter the workshop?
- To conclude and as a last example I would like to mention a great work by Arthur Boer and Boris Smeenk who graduated at the Willem de Kooning Academy last year. There work is called phony - this ordinary looking photo camera - is actually a camera with a build in computer.
- When you take a picture an algorithm is identifying a human figure and creates a mask - a second algorithm is replacing the content - based on surrounding information. This is called in-painting.
- For me this is a great example of how AI is changing the way we look at the world and that artist and designers can make us aware of these developments. Arthur and Boris made an amazing tool which visualize how AI works but also made a tool which uses AI to makes fascinating artworks.
- Hopefully my talk inspired you to think differently about the workshop. There is not much time left to discuss but I am very curious how research and education is connected within the workshop of your artschool or university. So please share your thoughts with me! You can do this via mail and follow ongoing research on my website -