Foundations
Visiting Artist
Department of Visual and Media Arts
Emerson College
©2001
There is no lack of buzz these days about new media topics, new media projects, and new media ideas. The cultural momentum building around the Internet and interactive technologies (i.e., DVD, games, and CD-ROM), and their impact on our collective expectation towards how we “communicate” with each other, is fraught with mass solutions and tools. How do we navigate through the possibilities and in the end help students learn a critical, active understanding of our digital culture? It is one thing to have all the hardware and software resources available, but it is more crucial to have the sensibility and understanding of how to design creative expressions with those tools.
What are the important elements of design in a new media curriculum? Intellectually – the essential awareness and curiosity to observe the world around oneself, critical judgment to take a stand (a point of view in the act of observation), a sense of history, and imagination to visualize possibilities, interpretations, and unique perspectives; Practically – visual, verbal, and computational literacy to enable and mobilize tangible expression from the intellectual realm. If there is any truth that anyone can be their own publisher, director, or virtual actor, then shouldn’t we be asking ourselves how can we enhance and improve the odds for the best artistic vision our students are capable of? There must be a sustained requirement for the best possible work at all times. How is that achieved? We must provide a solid foundation of curriculum content, media tools, contemporary criticism, and historical perspective.
I often rail against the notion that class time can often turn into a tutorial environment if there is not a specific drive to work from principles. The point being that in the work-a-day world a person’s worth is not ultimately determined by what software they know, but how well they think, and their ability to translate experiences they’ve gained through collegial work, employment, applied knowledge, and personal experience. The course experience should include process-oriented production studios, where tools are applied to ideas, where ideas are transformed into visual forms (multimedia), and experimental apparatus and physical models can be rigged and tested. I encourage students to keep a sketchbook/journal for my courses; 1) for the exercise of building ideas, 2) for the exercise of building visual design process, 3) for getting ideas out of their heads and into another media form whether it be written, drawn, pieced together from cutouts, assembled in collage, etc., and 4) to provide a trace, a thread of continuity to help students witness their own progress and iterative thinking. I try to divert students away from the computer screen. To instill direct experience that the screen is not necessarily the only design tableau available for reflecting their thoughts, or for that matter containing or framing their imaginations. In other words, a computer (hardware and software) is not the be-all-end-all means of design.
Where does digital animation and 3-D visualization fall in this realm of activity? For the time being it should provide another venue for generating unique media that contributes to the “new media” or digital culture discussion. As students build their repertoire of skills in photography, film, TV/video, audio, journalism, and visual arts there is ample opportunity to apply different and multiple media resources – 3-D graphics and animation being one. Thereby students gain a wide exposure to tools, and develop their own sensitivities and interests as needed, which are backed up by introductory and advanced courses. The result is an enriched and encouraging environment for student expression, skill building, and critical thinking. The functional requirements for an education need to be balanced by the more intuitive, expressive experiences that require visual thinking to be realized. That is to say, the Visual and Media Arts curriculum should support foundation courses in drawing, graphic design, and even 3-D design. A course, or courses, covering essentials of representational thinking, composition, typography, form, color, light and shade, design process, and visual concept development will go a long way to aid students in their coursework. This kind of design foundation gives a breadth of understanding and usefulness valuable throughout one’s career.