Eva-Maria Schitter

Un*learning Archives — Learning Together in and with the Digital Image Plural

Eva-Maria Schitter – Mozarteum University Salzburg, Austria

Abstract:

Digital image archives of the visual arts create a framework connecting art and education, forming a field that calls for engagement both with the what of knowledge construction and the how of conveying (aesthetic) knowledge within it. These archives are not absolute repositories of knowledge; rather, they should be understood as relational, dynamic, and continuously fragmentary, unfinished networks that require ongoing updates and additions. Without these, they risk perpetuating outdated, often discriminatory or marginalizing narratives of the past. Decolonization and the expansion of content visibility and structural visibility fields are two exemplary dimensions to be highlighted within educational practices that engage with the plurality of images. From an art education perspective, it is essential to explore ways to initiate (un)learning processes through engagement with content in a heavily and increasingly mediated (digital) space. In examining strategies for orientation and navigation through this epistemic thicket, and for (un)learning within and through the plurality of images, I place community at the centre of focus. The research asserts that collective (aesthetic) experience and engagement hold a productive, collective potential, allowing learning communities to develop and practice skills that challenge art historical memories, locate gaps, and perhaps even fill them – or at least initiate updated possibilities for contextualization, knowledge construction, and knowledge transfer. In the qualitative-empirical research for my research, I draw on the digital image archive for the visual arts at the University of Applied Arts Vienna, known as IMAGE, as a case study. My focus is on collaborative work situations among prospective educators, in which playful, educational formats are developed within and with the image archive. These aim to make the digital plurality of images accessible as an aesthetic playing field for collective exploration in an educational context. The study seeks to outline, in an exemplary and exploratory way, a theoretical framework for discipline-specific updates in art education that reflect the communal interaction within and with this visually shaped and shaping episteme in the current contextual framework.

Aesthetic Education in Community on Phygital Fields

Eva-Maria Schitter – Mozarteum University Salzburg, Austria

(with Lea Wiednig)

Abstract:

(Aesthetic) teaching and learning situations in Western-influenced discourses are still characterized by a focus on the individual and a subject-centred framing and handling of material. Efforts to shift toward a focus on communal processes have yet to reach a widespread impact or often fall short as does the implementation and establishment of sustainable, transdisciplinary spaces for thinking and acting. Schools and universities are therefore called upon to initiate lasting structural changes that expand the established emphasis on solitary and subject-centred work towards collaboration and transdisciplinarity. In our research, we set the focus on the group of individuals tasked with the future responsibility of educating young people into community-minded citizens. Specifically, we address future teachers of artistic subjects and disciplines. The arts, with their inherent openness regarding both content and form-related points of contact, seem to us a suitable foundation for fostering collaborative artistic co-productions that bring about the co-construction of human and non-human (in our case, digital or technoid) actors. We are considering how working within and on community and relational work, as well as focusing on emotions in collective aesthetic learning groups, can support and strengthen educational processes when exploring unfamiliar territories. In a second step, we illustrate how this emotional and affective network of relationships, along with shared “flânerie” (lingering), can foster a caring, empathic and (self-)reflective critical stance. We argue that collaboration and a focus on relationship-building and a strong sense of community form a productive foundation for learning opportunities in unfamiliar territories and phygital (physical-digital) fields of action.