Fine Art Year 1 week 6

I delivered the final part of the first phase of the contextual studies element of the individual and social brief on Monday. This was focused on ideas surrounding identity and how as individuals we ‘realise’ ourselves. The students seemed more responsive to this than the social aspects introduced last week, perhaps in our society they are tuned in far more to the self. Each week I also recommend students watch a particular old TV programme on art. There is a huge amount of material now on YouTube, the suggested viewing this week was “Shock of the New” episode 5. This will be the last of the formal lectures, most of the following sessions will be much more ‘workshop’ orientated. Students have to annotate selected texts and break them down into understandable chunks and this means that they have to be guided through close reading. At the end of the lecture I introduced these texts and pointed out that they are now all available to be downloaded from EStudio. Next week I will be giving students extracts in photocopy form and we will be working on these. I know these future sessions will be hard work, not just for me but for the students. The feedback already is that some students don’t understand why they need to understand what lies behind practice, one student in particular stating that they just want to make art not spend time thinking about it. Part of me does sympathise with this but as I pointed out at the time, if students want a university degree, they also have to prove that they can undertake academic learning. We also had a discussion about the move from artists as craftspeople to artists as intellectuals, which was hopefully much more useful.  

Some slides taken from the PowerPoint.

The area I thought was going to be the hardest, introducing Lacan and 'Mirror Theory' seemed to go OK and I thought that on the whole students could see the relevance to their own developing practice. However as I pointed out, what is really interesting is that I can't see into their heads and they cant see into mine. 

Tuesday I was back in the studios hosting critiques. I had groups of 6 and we spent the time trying to focus on what individuals should be doing, as opposed to what they were doing. By ‘should’ I mean not what the briefs suggests, but what as individuals they ‘feel’ is right. We are already half way through the first term and students will have to opt for a particular strand after Christmas. By trying to identify the ‘feeling tone’ or natural interest that lies behind the work, we can hopefully help individuals gain ownership of their own practice. This is a slow process and works a bit like this.

In groups of 6 after a short individual student presentation and a reflection back to see if we all understand what was presented, certain questions are asked. Such as, “This particular piece of work suggests that you take it forward in this way….., however this one over here suggests……. and this suggests……. Which direction feels better for you?  These suggested directions are carefully thought through and include not just differences in approach but differences in uses of materials, scale and ways of using content. Slowly students open out and we get to an area that they reflect back to the group that they are fairly comfortable with. For instance it might be that the student identifies something as straightforward as “I just want to paint”. Well if this is the case, we can focus on some simple basics, such as what happens if you mix and apply different grounds? How and why are you applying the paint in the way you are etc. Sometimes this can be a real relief to a student who is struggling to intellectualise a practice and yet deep down what they really love is moving paint around. Others will identify the fact that it is an approach that they feel comfortable with. One student for instance was coming to terms with the fact that what they wanted to do was “Make art like life”. We then spent some time trying to unpick this, what did he mean? The closest we got to was the “Moment of Epiphany” concept. He wanted to develop a way of sharpening his awareness to the everyday potential of experience. It was thought that he probably therefore needed the right toolkit for this, a still camera, sound recording equipment, video etc. and in what formats? Is this kit one of those new phones that does everything, or do you really need specialist equipment that allows you to ‘capture’ these moments at the best possible resolution? At the end of each ‘crit’ students were asked if the session had helped them become much clearer as to direction, most felt that they were now much more focused and they were asked to come up with a series of clear actions to get them moving on whatever track was identified. (I.e. make notes before they forgot what it was that had been identified)

There are problems to this approach, the main one being that students can move away from what the briefs are suggesting. However, my experience is that all they have to do is present the work at assessment in such a way that outcomes are identified, and there is always a way to do this. The real danger is that students start to feel that the course is offering nothing for them. If they seem to be simply going through a series of hoops, hoops that if documented will enable them to achieve the outcomes, at some point they will become emotionally detached from the work and either stop coming in or just lose interest all-together. The moment a student says, “I really feel excited by doing this” or “Yes that really feels like me”, you know there is a chance of something interesting going to happen. I’m a firm believer that students need to become obsessed with what they are doing, that they need to have total ownership over their work, if not we will lose them, emotionally if not physically.