New Knowledge and New Technology: restructuring fine art education

Abstract

For more than thirty years, conventional art school wisdom has dictated that ‘learning through practice’ is the best way of accommodating the increasingly diverse preoccupations of art students. Of all undergraduate courses, fine art courses can be seen as the least structured, concerned mainly with providing time, studio space, and a context for self-directed development. In focusing on the individual, the issue of exactly what constitutes ‘subject knowledge’ in fine art is sidestepped. With important new developments in disciplines that inform visual understanding, such as perceptual psychology, imaging science, and computing, and the gradual displacement of traditional, craft-based studio practices by digital technologies, the limitations of self- directed learning are likely to become more evident, and the issue of subject knowledge needs to be addressed. Through a review of existing data relating to course curricula and graduate employment, a common core of relevant conceptual and technical knowledge will be identified. The authors will argue that it is possible to establish a teaching context which promotes the integration of thought and practice. The challenge is to devise a structure which will enable students to understand, assimilate, and contextualize new knowledge, and to acquire the transferable skills, both intellectual and technical, which will enable them to adapt and thrive within a rapidly changing visual culture. It will be argued that new technologies can catalyse these changes, providing visual ‘points of entry’ into relevant fields of contemporary knowledge, and enabling meaningful connections to be made between the history, theory, and practice of art.