The Post Digital
In 1998 Negroponte proposed that “Like air and drinking water, being digital will be noticed only in its absence, not by its presence” (para. 2) suggesting that digital technology would become a vast, quiet element forming a seamless backbone of life. More recently, Jörissen (2018) also refers to this seamlessness and how post-digital culture is a condition where digitality is deeply embedded in not only the medial aspects of everyday life, but also in the infrastructural and material layers of culture. Digital technology is a part of social reality but also capable of changing it. This suggests that the prefix “post” is not about discarding the obsolete but moving past what Cascone (2000) calls the “the revolutionary phase of the information age” (p. 12) and recognizing a period of ongoing social and cultural transformations where digitalisation is no longer seen as disruptive, but as normal and hegemonic (Cramer, 2015; Safonov & Mayakovskaya, 2020; Sinclair & Hayes, 2019).
The post-digital serves multi-purposively in arts education: as a facilitator for artistic practice, as an artefact in and of itself, and as a driver for generation of data which becomes enabling. This ever-expanding digitalisation of everything and the consequence of instant and worldwide distribution via the internet has disrupted arts education and created an urgent and continuous need for revision, for the professional development of the creative arts education workforce, and for keeping up with contemporary arts and creative industry practices (Hillman, 2018; Kerby et al., 2021, Kidenda, 2021). The high degree of intersection of realworld arts with digital, internet-based, and virtual experiences has implications for artists, arts organisations, and arts education. Unlike previous centuries, “there is an increasing desire to insert oneself into the narrative” (Australia Council for the Arts, 2021, p. 28). Reporting the ubiquitous ‘selfie’ as “an act of co-creation” expanding on more traditional museum/gallery viewing and responding, The Australian Council for the Arts (2021) claims it is “a type of interpretative response to the art, contributing to a wider conversation by saying ‘this is what it means to me’” (p. 28). While educators need to respond to and incorporate this type of engagement, it will be important to promote critical appraisal and to broaden students’ exposure to the arts in different ways.
Dezuanni (2021) proposes that the pace of change and the changes in emphases and contexts have far-reaching consequences for arts education curricula. He argues that “when young people are producing, curating, circulating or consuming content on digital media platforms, including video, images, audio recordings, or text, they are deeply involved in arts practice” (p. 874). The permeating practices surrounding media in all its forms are a challenge including “the rise of disinformation, the media industries’ shift of power from Hollywood to Silicon Valley and the impact of algorithmic culture on creative participation” (p. 873). A further challenge is how we appraise broader issues such as “regulation, and the media’s social and political impacts” (p. 884).
Tavin et al. (2021) tackle a myriad of implications for arts education in their exploration of educational futures in arts education that stem from the proliferation and adoption of technological change and digitalisation. Klein (2021), for example, wrestles with the notion of digital cultures and aesthetic production in terms of the properties of distribution, hybridity, fluidity and digital imaginaries. While art education can facilitate aesthetic appreciation through digitalization, Klein also argues that art education “can also explore what eludes digitalization and what cannot be transferred into binary codes” (p. 40). Bolden, O’Farrell and Kukkonen (2020) also articulate a cautionary perspective of “Balancing the potential and risks of technologically-mediated arts practice and learning” in “The Winnipeg Vision” (Bolden et al., 2020).
Conclusion
The project we have outlined brings together a range of arts education scholars from various parts of the globe and across a range of arts forms. We have canvassed some common issues across arts education that are global in scope, and highlighted that arts education is well placed to make a difference and contribute to addressing these concerns. Through analysing issues currently being researched in our respective contexts, we have identified some key imperatives for attention within the field of arts learning. While these proposed imperatives remain at an emergent stage, they are currently crafted to articulate preliminary ideas and understandings. We are also aware that there is scope for elaboration and refinement as they can encompass a range of meanings and complexities. Similarly, they are entangled, messy and mediated by context. They have emerged from a global compendium but require further scrutiny to ascertain if they are internationally representative. In returning to some of the arguments about the purpose of arts education, we propose transcending the intrinsic, expressivist, arts for art’s sake, and instrumental rationales for arts education and further align with Biesta’s (2019) argument of an arts education that affords possibilities to be in dialogue with the world.
Our intent is to initiate and provoke discussions about the imperatives from a global perspective to promote future international collaborations. We are also keen to keep our discussions and dialogue open, inviting our arts education colleagues to stay informed about this work, contribute and even collaborate with us as this project evolves. As Arts educators in various parts of the world, we argue the need to consider these ideas and concepts in the work we do.
Authors: Emily Wilson University of Melbourne, Neryl Jeanneret University of Melbourne, Mark Selkrig University of Melbourne, Jenni Hillman University of Melbourne, Benjamin Bolden Queens University (Canada)
Citation: Wilson, E., Jeanneret, N., Selkrig, M., Hillman, J., & Bolden, B. (2023). Arts education imperatives: Connecting the globe. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 24(4). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea24n4
