Rethinking Popular Culture & Media, pp. 1-16, 24-30, 46-48 & 77-90

This week we switch gears and start a new book. Hopefully I won't get so worked up this time. 

To give my reaction to last week's reading some context, it might help to know that I teach courses on research methods. Upholding ethical standards is key to responsible research. I was flabbergasted that a book recommended by my colleagues contained such a horrible example of research-like education. By "research-like" I mean that KOS and Shooting Back are very similar to research projects done by students at the doctoral level. A doctoral student, however, would never be able to operate in the free-wheeling manner of Rollins or Hubbard. Federal laws protect research subjects from psychological or physical harm. Universities strictly enforce these laws to protect themselves from lawsuits. Any research project involving human beings must first be approved by the University's Institutional Review Board (the IRB). Getting IRB approval for research involving minors is notoriously difficult.

I hope this makes sense.

************

Rethinking Popular Culture & Media is useful to the study of critical pedagogy for a variety of reasons. First, it was published by Rethinking Schools - an organization that promotes critical pedagogy and anti-bias education. Materials produced by Rethinking Schools, including its monthly magazine, are heavily used by Visual Studies faculty at the undergrad and graduate level. Anyone who goes through our programs will be exposed to Rethinking Schools. 

Second, one of the goals of critical pedagogy is to engage with students in ways they find culturally relevant. It doesn't get much more culturally relevant than popular culture. Most if not all of our students are totally saturated with popular media by the time they are 3. This makes them savvy consumers of popular media, but not necessarily capable of understanding the social/political/economic factors encoded within it.

Third, popular culture and media are overwhelmingly visual. This makes it relevant to art educators. We can do a lot with popular culture. It makes a great starting point for art projects that address pressing social concerns, question norms, learn about the role of corporations in our lives and spark critical dialogue. 

Finally, the essays in Rethinking Popular Culture & Media were written by committed, practicing educators. Most of these educators, however, are not art educators. This creates an unique opportunity for us to envision how ideas presented in the essays can be adapted to the art classroom. The aim of this week's blog questions will be to do just that.

One note of caution.  I do not expect you to agree with each author's viewpoint. You might find the views expressed in the readings disagreeably left-of-center. Your assignment is to try to understand the argument the author is making. Understanding is not the same as agreeing. Please avoid making ideological arguments, if possible. 

*******

Question #1

What is critical media literacy? What distinguishes it from media literacy?

Question #2

If you are a public school educator, how many corporate logos are present in your school building? To your knowledge, does the school or school district benefit financially from the corporations whose logos and products appear in your building? If you don't know, see if you can find out.

Challenge!

Suggest at least 2 art lessons, units or projects that would address critical issues discussed in at least 2 different chapters from this week's reading. Don't forget to say how you would integrate research, critical thinking and art-making in these lessons. 

Some questions to ponder as you prepare  -

- How can I challenge students to critique commercial/consumer culture in creative yet thoughtful ways? 

- How might I help students see and question "normal" (i.e., taken-for-granted) ways of thinking about race, class and/or gender? 

- How might I help students detect bias and omission in school textbooks by examining and playing around with images in their books?

- How can art help students notice how they identify with and build social identities around specific corporate brands, logos, images and styles? Who gains the most from what marketers call "brand loyalty" and who loses?

- How might Facebook or some other social networking site be used for making art?

You might think of other questions to ask. I hope that you do!

Good luck!!!

carolyn

Watch Frontline on PBS tonight!

Hello everyone ~

Tonight's the PBS investigative news program, Frontline, looks at our nation's high drop-out rate. The show airs at 8 pm Central Time. Watch if you get a chance!

PBS maintains a great online archive of articles and videos about education. Here is the link -

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/topic/american-graduate/

Hope you get a chance to watch tonight's Frontline!  

Thanks,

carolyn

Finding Art's Place by Nicholas Paley, pp. 117-163 Discussion Questions/Topics

This week we are reading the third and final section of Paley's book, the section titled "Shooting Back." You may also want to read some or all of "Partitives," pp. 167-184, if you have questions about Paley's research methods or analysis. I don't know about you, but by the end of section 3 I definitely had questions.

Here are some questions or topics I'd like to explore this week in our blog conversation -

Question/Topic #1

All three sections of Paley's book expressed a very negative viewpoint of public schooling. I myself made some negative comments that I wish I had not, out of respect for those whose dedicated service makes the public education in the U.S. possible. Several of you are public school teachers. How did  Paley's, Rollins', Bennings' and the Shooting Back participants' condemnation of public schooling made you feel? Several of you are not public school teachers. How did the negative judgement of public schooling affect you?

Question/Topic #2

The Shooting Back project involved hundreds of participants working in different areas and serving various roles in the program. Paley's research exposed a multitude of diverse, competing and/or contradictory viewpoints. What does this tell you about the benefits and potential pitfalls of making "socially conscious" art with young people in non-school community settings?

Question/Topic #3

In my reading of the text, I felt the author turned up evidence that warranted further investigation. In at least two places, I felt the author failed his responsibility as a researcher to ask critical questions of the programs and people he was researching. The interview in the "Partitives" section, like the interview with Jim Hubbard before it, gives some insight into the author's thought process. 

At what point or points in the text do you think Paley overlooked evidence that a more "socially conscious" individual - someone like you - would have recognized? What would you have done differently?

I look forward to hearing your responses to these questions. It should be an interesting conversation~!

carolyn

Finding Arts Place (Paley) - pp. 66-112 discussion topics/questions

Nothing highlights the radical social and cultural changes of digital technology quite like this chapter on the work of Sadie Benning. Rather than cringe at the datedness of Paley's book, I think we should approach this as an opportunity to examine how new communication technologies impact our lives and especially the lives of young people. Of course, digital technologies were immediately adopted by artists to create whole new genres of creative production, much of it interactive and highly innovative. Rhizome is the major organization that presents, discusses and archives net art. See http://rhizome.org/  for examples of recent and classic works of digital media.

However, this chapter in Paley's text is about an artist who emerged on the eve of the digital revolution. Ironically, a relatively low-tech instrument - a toy Pixelvision camera - was used to create a look that became the defining feature of her art. The bedroom studio and diaristic format revealing intimate details of her life, including her sexual orientation, were novel for the time. Her struggle to survive as a lesbian teen in a world that is hard enough for a heterosexual woman/girl to navigate made for perfect '80s-style identity art. (Caveat - the modern LGBTQ movement has always been closely linked with identity politics. This particular form of identity politics, which required LGBTQ individuals to embrace their sexual identities, was necessary to put LGBTQ issues on the national political agenda - issues such as discrimination in the workplace, gay bashing/sexual harassment and hate crimes.) 

Bennings' work is not available on Youtube, perhaps because she is an established art star whose work should not be confused with, or compared to, the pedestrian bedroom-studio teenage video diaries of today. Even though we haven't seen Bennings' work, it's clear that aesthetically it bears no resemblance to those Youtube productions. So we do not confuse this with that. However, we will compare because many of us work closely with teenagers. Some of these teens may be social media queens or kings with hundreds or even thousands of fans. Sadie Benning is relevant to us because her work could be relevant to them.

The authenticity of Sadie Bennings' video personae was never in doubt. Today, however, some of the biggest Youtube celebrities in the teenage diary category have been accused of faking their entire identity. The most famous case I can think of right now is lonelygirl15 - see
 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hyqnJLFiriE&feature=fvwrel
but you may know others. For teenagers this may be old hat. But you can shed new light on it by exploring the topic of "exhibiting the self as screen and secret" (Paley, 105), or, in plain language, examining the relationship between performance and identity.

Topic - How does presenting yourself as "yourself" to a public audience become a performance? To understand this phenomenon, it really helps to have firsthand experience. Make a short video of yourself talking about your life as if you were talking into a mirror. Then watch yourself and look for subtle changes in your self-presentation as you video yourself doing the same thing several days in a row. Make sure to watch your own videos. It's important that others watch them too, because their comments will affect your performance in your next video. It's human nature to want to please other people, even if they are strangers. Younger people have an easier time with this concept than Gen X or Baby Boomers. Older people tend to ask that annoying question, "who cares?" 

I am interested in exploring with you the strange drift that occurs when we speak to a camera in front of an audience. We know this drift occurs with Hollywood stars and other famous people. We criticize them when they "start to believe their own b.s.," i.e., lose the ability to distinguish between their on and off-screen personas. 

The distance between movie stars and fans is much greater than that of bedroom video diarists, whose popularity depends on their ability to close the gap between self and viewer. That is why authenticity matters. But you can see how easy it would be for a creative person to be gradually transformed by this process.  

Ideally we'd all make video diaries and share them in a closed discussion group. Realistically I cannot and will not ask students to divulge personal information for a class assignment.

A more reasonable assignment might entail videoing (or photographing) ourselves in different interior settings, using different lighting techniques, vantage points, etc. It helps if you know how to do it, but don't worry if you don't. If you do, then you know you can manipulate settings to make yourself look younger or older than you actually are. So you could try to pass yourself off as a much younger or much older person. But would it pass the authenticity smell test? 

People believed Sadie Benning. Would they believe you? For a second let's suspend disbelief and pretend someone cares (!) The point - the main point - is that teenagers believe people care, and maybe people of that generation really do care as long as they think you are real. But what is "real" and how do we recognize it? What are the parameters of the "real," the "real you?" At what point do you stop being you? 

Play around with this assignment. See what emerges. You can respond entirely in writing, as we have in previous weeks, or you can respond visually. If you choose the latter, have something ready to share by this Sunday at midnight, our usual deadline. 

Be mindful of the fact that we don't know what you look like. How you represent yourself visually is a performance by you as the "real you." With slight tweaking, you become less you. I'd like to see the "real you," the "slightly less you," the "noticeably less you" and the "really not real you" you. 

So what is this assignment "really" about? You guessed it - the identity politics of the digital age and our social immersion in digital communication technologies. Have fun!

  

Finding Art's Place, Experiments in Contemporary Education and Culture by N. Paley, pp. 19-62

Hello class,                    
 
I hope that everyone has received a copy of the book, Finding Art's Place, by Nicholas Paley. If you have not, please let me know!  I can come up with an alternative complimentary reading assignment based on articles. 

First  I'd to say a few things about your blog comments on last week's reading.  I was impressed by the depth of your engagement with the ideas of Vygotsky, Freire and hooks and by your ability to relate the writings to your own life experiences as teachers and artists. Each of us brings something unique to the discussion.  I want you know how much this is appreciated and valued. I also want to make sure you know that you can disagree or expand on my responses to your comments. As we move forward from here, you are encouraged to interact with other people in the class (including me).  It's vitally important that you read everyone's comments and think of the group as a community of learners. Please keep in mind that I'm a learner too!               

 The articles we read last week prepared you for this week's reading. You will notice that both Nicholas Paley and Tim Rollins (the leader of K.O.S. and the Art and Knowledge Workshop in NYC) mention Paulo Freire among others. This attests to the enduring relevance of Freire's theory of education. In the work of Tim Rollins & KOS, you see a successful adaptation of Freire's theory in action in a contemporary U.S.-American context. 

This week I'm going to ask a number of questions designed to help you focus on specific aspects of the reading.  You might find it useful to familiarize yourself with the questions before you start reading the assigned pages. This way, you will know what to look for as you read. But please don't limit yourself to do the equivalent of "teaching to the test" - don't read only for answers to the questions posted here.  In formulating my questions, I had to select from many, many interesting ideas in the chapter, as you will see!      

Here are the discussion questions. Choose three from the group and write thoughtfully. 
 
 Question #1    Describe the art-making process of Rollins & KOS. What (if anything) surprised you about it? What (if anything) bothered you about it? 

Question #2

 Relate the art-making process of Rollins & KOS to the educational theory of Paulo Freire. How is it similar and how is it different? Cite (quote) the Nicholas book and/or the article on Freire to support your answer.

Question #3

 How does Rollins blend the political and aesthetic in his work with KOS? If you're not familiar with some of the artists who inspire him, look them up and see what Rollins is talking about. Hint - you might find the work of the German artist, John Heartfield, of interest here.   

Question #4

The Art and Knowledge Workshop was not part of the NYC school system. What did some members of the KOS have to say about formal public school education? Could you relate to their feelings about school (for example, do you remember feeling that way about school when you were in K-12?  If you are currently a public school teacher, do you ever feel that way now?). What does the Rollins + KOS example suggest about alternative routes to learning?

Question #5

Why is reading so important to Rollins, and why does he say, "an artist is a person who knows things, who has and makes knowledge," (italics added) (p. 58). Hint - Remember last week's readings.

 

  If you have any questions at all about these discussion questions - for example, if the wording is vague or you you'd like a few more hints, please let me know!!! You can post your questions here or email me privately.           

Happy reading, my friends! You are a terrific bunch!!! 

carolyn/Dr. Erler 
      

This week's assignment - coming up!

I will post our blog questions within the next 24 hours. This is a little later than usual - I usually try to get the assignment posted by Tuesday - but because of the long weekend, and the fact that a few folks had a late start, the questions for this week's reading will be posted on Wednesday, probably by late afternoon or early evening. Stay tuned - and GREAT job on your first round of responses. This is going to be a terrific semester!!!