What Do Artists Know?

Art Education in a Mediatized World

We live in a media-dominated knowledge society. This describes the situation that has prevailed in the Western world for some three decades. The laptop, the Internet, the mobile phone, the scanner and video camera have become integrated into and an extension of our physical and mental way of life. They dictate the way in which we experience and shape the world. At this juncture we exist as mediatized creatures. One of the consequences of the development and dissemination of new technological resources is that we have never before been confronted by and had such easy access to so many images. Technology has created relatively cheap and accessible means of production and reproduction , giving rise to new ways of dealing with visual material and new means of perception. Thanks to this, the social position of the visual arts has been transformed . The visual arts can no longer lay claim to a domain of their own; now, more than ever, they have become part and parcel of consumer culture and the entertainment industry. And this has eroded much of the romantic value and pretensions of the artistic image—in short, it is no longer regarded as the unique and eloquent expression of an extraordinary personality. What it does stand for, and the specific meaning of the artwork in the context of the media society, is no longer clear. However, the Romantic notion of art that still largely predominates in art education excludes a clear grasp of this situation. Art education frequently envisages art in opposition to current society. Art is, for instance, considered the last refuge of social criticism, an exceptional expression of great insight and meaning , the touchstone of social freedom, or even an epiphany of truth and the absolute. The artist is expected to stand on the sidelines of society and, from this secluded domain, comment on the world. Isolation from society is elevated to a condition for developing new insights and wielding actual influence. The idea is that direct involvement in the ins and outs of social practices erodes the critical potential of the artist and compromises the purity of his or her work. Notions such as the art market, entertainment, and popular culture are avoided. They stand for the corruption of the high ideals of art and are barely touched on in art education. The opinions widely held in art education fail to sufficiently articulate the changes that the theory and practice of new media, the interweaving of art and market, and the worldwide spread of popular culture have engendered. The crossing of borders in the arts that has become commonplace, the fusion of “high” and popular culture, and the emergence of new domains such as virtual ART EDUCATION IN A MEDIATIZED WORLD Bert Taken and Jeroen Boomgaard 00i-228_Elkins_4p.indb 131 9/14/12 1:17 PM what do artists know? 132 art and artistic research underline the fact that these developments can no longer be considered within the traditional parameters. A theory of the artwork no longer suffices and will need to be replaced, or at least supplemented, by a theory of visual culture and visual experience. Furthermore, the broad arena of “the aesthetic ” must become the starting point, which thus includes both experimental and “major” works of art and the artistic expressions of the culture industry and modern media. The aesthetic experience should not be confined to the familiar dimensions of beauty, the sublime, the shocking, and the abject, but will need to treat with the required gravity the reactions that these diverse expressions inspire. The aesthetic is not simply the manifestation of those profound insights and intense feelings; it is also the terrain of the everyday, the exciting, and the banal. It is imperative that current art education sees itself as an explicit part of today’s media culture. In other words, it must take as its starting point the interlacing of contemporary art with the world of commercial and everyday visual production. In contrast to the departure points of the majority of academies, this is second nature to most art students. They combine and mix images and media without applying a specific hierarchy. The author of the images or how they came into being is of little importance. Their interest lies in the eloquence of the images themselves, not their historical or iconic value. The sociocultural and political content of the images is of far greater significance in this process than the formal aspect. What is addressed by or through the image...