The most appropriate foundation we can imagine right now is one that fosters both the inclination and ability to participate in this process—to articulate current social and cultural phenomena as a group in order to work parallel to them individually. (Bailey, 2010)
I’ve been reading Stuart Bailey’s three pamphlets initiated as part of Parsons’ School of Design’s Academic Workshop, an internal effort in the mid-2000s to reshape the design curriculum. One of Bailey’s core proposals is that the ‘Bauhaus-style’ model still emulated by many art schools at the time, in which students progressed from a basic technical foundation, was outdated and should be reconsidered (Bailey, 2007). In discussing this proposal, Bailey underlines the idea that the proposed approach “isn’t AGAINST teaching basic techniques… only FOR an explicit consenus regarding the whole those components are intended for” (Bailey, 2009).
In (Only an Attitude of Orientation), Bailey advocates for a ‘pragmatic method’ focussed on outcomes and consequences over preconceptions and principles (Bailey, 2009). This is an approach paralleled by The Carpentries, who take an approach to teaching computational skills driven by practical necessities over computer science theory, arguing that a pragmatic approach will allow people to feel empowered in their work with computers (Wilson, 2019). Bailey also insists that “the ongoing process of attempting to understand ‘is absolutely productive'” (Bailey, 2009).
Reflection
I can relate these ideas to my own experiences organising the Technical Skills Workshops at the CCI, which opt for a ‘concrete’ approach to technical skills. I enjoyed Bailey’s invocation of radical 18th-century schooteacher Joseph Jacotot, who insists that Everything is in Everything — e.g. learning is revealed through students’ observations and relations to a medium (Bailey, 2009). I believe this is true in many ways of technical objects: part of the philosophy of the technical skills workshops is that engaging with any specific skill will aid student’s learning as a whole, even if they seem unrelated.
In the third and final pamphlet, From The Toolbox of a Serving Library, Bailey (Bailey 2011) suggests replacing the Bauhaus-informed foundation of many design programmes by a structure based on the Photoshop toolbox “…not in order to capitulate to market demand, of course, but to interrogate its preferences”. This ‘Photoshop-proxy’ course is an interesting provocation, and makes me wonder what an equivalent in creative computing would be. One workshop we’ve debated running for a while is one on the use of AI tools, partly because of our experience of how deletirous the use of these can be to students’ learning. However, I wonder about designing a workshop that truly engages these tools and their limits — potentially in a form of creative misuse, in the vein of artists like Herdimas Anggara and Jaakko Pallasvuo. After all, Bailey’s definition of “criticism” as the ability to confront a subject as it happens (Bailey, 2009).
Lastly, taking Bailey’s invitation to articulate a shared intention between staff and students (Bailey 2009), I feel strongly that “moving from consumers to producers [of technology]” (Lee, 2015) is one of the core ideas behind the technical skills workshops. While it is far from the only orientation in the department, it’s a sentiment I’ve heard echoed by colleagues more generally, and would benefit from further collective discussion.
References
Bailey, S. 2007, Towards a Critical Faculty [Pamphlet], in Frances Stark and Stuart Bailey (eds.), On the Future of Art School: A Primer, Los Angeles: University of Southern California, available here
Bailey, S., 2009, (Only an attitude of orientation) [Pamphlet]. Oslo, Norway: Office for Contemporary Art, available here
Bailey, S., 2011, From the Toolbox of a Serving Library [Pamphlet], The Serving Library and the Banff Centre, available here
Lee, J. 2015, Moving from Consumers to Producers, in Nuncera D. ed., Teaching Community Technology Handbook, Detroit Digital Justice Coalition, available here
Wilson, G. (2019) Teaching Tech Together: How to create and deliver lessons that work and build a teaching community around them. Taylor & Francis. ISBN: 978-0-367-35328-5