Fine Art Year One Collaborative Module

Tuesday was again working with Fine Art year one and getting students ready for collaborative practice. We now have the groups finalised so have to make it clear as to what they need to do. Part of this is delivering a short presentation on the use of gantt charts and how to develop and use project management skills. Students actually seem to be interested in this, the chart I started with them is now posted onto the ‘EStudio’ site. See below.

We also showed examples of last year’s collaborative module, this all being possible because video inductions and introductions to how to use video editing software are done in parallel with the project. Click below to see an example from last year:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WZZZzUAf8O4

Video has become one of those tools that have become almost mandatory for student artists to understand. It is used to make practice, as well as to document practice and because we are surrounded by a media soaked world, without an understanding of how the language is constructed, you are in risk of being cut loose from your culture.  Every group will have to make and screen a video as part of the module and they only have two weeks within which to get this done. This will force group interaction and they will quickly learn to have to manage group dynamics, which is another area we have to introduce.  Tuckman’s "forming, storming, norming, and performing" being another 1960s concept they are being introduced to.

These are half day sessions and we are working with groups of approximately 25. The First year has 50 students on it this year, (planned for 85 next year due to changes in funding and other issues), on Tuesdays the group is split in half to enable more theoretical issues to be introduced within a question and answer framework. While one half of the group is getting gantt charts and group psychology, the other half is getting a more detailed look at the history of collaborative practice.