Anthony Hobbs
Acting Head, Fine Art Media, National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland
Cliona Harmey
Irish artist who works across a variety of media including video, photography, sound and the Internet.
Claire Nidecker
Artist and lecturer in Fine Art Media, National College of Art and Design, Dublin, Ireland
Loss of Journey
Theme or research question:
Integral to the experience of practice and research is the journey. This journey could be virtual, real, physical, mental or metaphorical. The journey can be a distance traveled to find solutions or the stretch of the imagination necessary to encompass a bigger picture or idea.
The rapid proliferation of communication media has shortened the journey experience for everyone. Information now comes to you rather that you having to find it. The journey experience can be confined to a few mouse clicks. The changed quality of that experience is what we want to question.
Issues that the presentation is intended to raise:
What has been learned on the way from question to answer? Is the quality of information compromised by the diminution of the journey experience? Is the destination less satisfying than the route traveled?
Are the tangential directions one can take in pursuing research limited by technology? Does technology allow for the augmentation of traditional pedagogies?
Is the intimacy of presence equivalent to the immediacy of connectivity? What is lost in transmission? Does technology mediate and frame the quality of the learning experience?
The presentation will link to the qualities and values inherent in art education and how to maintain a humanist approach while operating in an economically influenced educational environment. A-learning* can offer strategic solutions to imposed strictures whilst facilitating new modes of teaching, learning and practice based research.
