The beginning of my final year studies of an undergraduate degree at the Glasgow School of Art, was introduced by the director of the Fine Art School, describing the school as;
‘an art school run by artists for artists’
This statement opened up a reflection and a series of questions surrounding the politics surrounding higher education specifically, in art schools. Like the majority of art schools GSA is modelled after the traditional modernist principles, in which disciplines are separated through mediums. Originally opened in 1845 as the Glasgow Government School of Design becoming The Glasgow School of Art in 1853, its affiliation with the University of Glasgow during 1996, the erection of the Reid Building in 2014 and the following Mackintosh fire in 2014. With the recent history of protests at GSA led by current students, groups like ‘ 25% Extra – an exhibition from 2nd year Fine Art, organised entirely out with the Institution’ June 2016, and ‘This is A Protest’ a school wide protest in October 2016. These events illustrate the discontent within the student body, caused by the expansion of class sizes – with little to no effort in matching staffing or studio sizes with this rise in demand, as well as the increase of tuition fees.
These rising tensions within my own Institution, have encouraged and fed my interest in what the alternatives to art school can look like, and what they are. How artists, educators, and practitioners have taken art education into their own hands. Either within the structure of a a pre-existing Institution or completely autonomously. Uncovering the politics and discourses around these in conjunction with educationists and theorists, like Paolo Freire and Jacques Rancière discussing them in correlation with contemporary examples of ‘pedagogic projects’.
The responsibilities of providing a good art education is the primary role of those that run the Institutions, and the fight for improving these conditions has historically been down to the student body. The rise of alternative art schools and art programmes, when considered simultaneously or adjacent to traditional and historical education establishments, like the Academies, illustrates the wide array of opportunities and diverse possibilities to engage in an art education. What is perceived as an ‘Art School’ can be expanded and be thought of as the ‘art project’, a place for development; and as a site for contemporary thinking.
I intend to separate my argument within two sections, the Institute and the institute, a term borrowed from artistic researcher Elke Van Campenhout’s essay ‘Strange Love: How I learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Institute’ in which she describes this small difference in cases as:
‘An institute with a small ‘i’ which distinguishes itself from the capital ‘I’ Institute that is profiling itself as a centre of investment and attention’
Discussing the pedagogic projects affiliated with Institutions, and those that remain autonomous ‘institutions’, the organisations that surpass the art project and move into the political, a proposal to policy makers and acts as subversions of our government structures.
Many believe education and pedagogic art practices are unable to have a universal aesthetic, as they are seen to be a ‘domain for producing dynamic experiences for participants rather than the production of complex artistic forms’. I have decided to use my own art education and contextual awareness of visual art, to visually mirror ideas found within these pedagogical projects and the work of Bas Jan Ader. The Dutch born romantic conceptualist. My reasoning behind this is that the documentation used in his work performative work suggests an art filled with impossibility, enigma, destruction, occasional optimism and wonder. Themes which I feel are reflected in the texts, projects, and practices which I have researched surrounding ideas of self organisation, interrogating the Institution.
‘You can only change the system from within—participate and have your say, and gradually you can have some impact.’ Or, ‘The system is all-powerful, all-engulfing, and there is no room to manoeuvre.’
Irit Rogoff, Goldmisth’s Free
‘What would we get out it? Why would we do it? – or horrified- How would it finance itself?’
These are the question posed to Rogoff as she proposed an alternative curriculum and art course to her co-workers at Goldsmiths in London. ‘Goldsmiths Free’ was proposed as an art course which would be offered free of charge, offering an adaptable curriculum influenced by areas of interest relevant to the time it is situated within. The course would sit adjacent to the Institution and there would be no degree accreditation for attending and completing the course.The reaction which followed this proposition illustrates the issues with established Institutions, how the concerns of the Institution are no longer ideological but economically charged. It is important to remember that this was a proposal; a hypothetical idea of how an Institution could be shaped and changed from the inside. How the provision of education is surely more important that the potential for monetary enrichment.
This failed proposition much like Bas Jan Ader’s ‘In Search of the Miraculous’ in which the artist sailed into oblivion, ‘ The fact that Ader failed to complete the journey has little bearing on the success of a project that never hinged on making it across the Atlantic, but on trying to make it.’
much like the romanticism found within Aders’ work, one could consider the proposition by Rogoff as a romantic gesture towards an existent potential for a more expansive Institution. An attempt to achieve the impossible, a one man attempt to survive within an oceanic model of education, trying control a body larger than their own.
The response received by her colleagues allowed Rogoff to springboard a strong critical retaliation to the limitations of her own experience of institutional pedagogy. For me the most compelling aspect to this proposal is for a member of the academic staff of a highly regarded Institution attempt to change its structure from within. Irit Rogoff is not anti-institutional in fact she speaks of the ‘Institute’ as a place to enable change, Rogoff’s desire for ‘Goldsmith Free’ was to deliver a curriculum that was far removed from the traditional thematic disciplinary forms of education, but was tailored around an urgent issue. She is interested in the potentiality of knowledge, the difference in knowledge ‘its nature, its status and its affect.’
Joseph Beuys, The Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research
‘A school outside the academic system that admitted all students. It was founded as an "organizational place of research, work, and communication" to ponder the future of society.’
The Free International University for Creativity and Interdisciplinary Research took form in a multitude of different platforms. Founded by Beuys at the Dusseldorf Kunstakademie, in which as a tutor at the art school he accepted all applicants on his course, this later resulted in the termination of his teaching contract at the school. The reasoning behind his termination was due to the schools desire of ‘quality control’ or for being an exclusive Institution, this starkly contrasts art schools today where Institutions are preoccupied with the expansion of the student body, more money, less resources, time and facilities. Students protesting this expansion not because of a desire for ‘exclusivity’ but a desire for the provision of a good education. This brings into focus the ideologies of Institutions, and how these ideologies have shifted over the century.
Beuy’s school ability to exist within numerous Institutions, among many, its participation in one of the biggest Contemporary Art festivals in the world, Documenta 1982. This brings to light Beuys’ reputation as an International artist and how the University was considered an artwork, and presented as a collective for this reputable festival.
How do we judge these experiences? What kind of efficacy experience for them first hand in order to comment on them ? The art critic, art world and the art project, how do these projects situate themselves within the art world?
maybe mention apg as predecessor /they took part in the previous Documenta, artist working with ideas of social change, the inclusion of the artists as a role in everyday society. In context with the FIU ???
/ ‘Artists are isolated from the public by the gallery system, and in the ghetto of the art world are shielded from the mundane realities of industry commerce and government. The idea was that artists, designated Incidental Persons by Latham, would bring completely alternative ways of seeing and thinking to bear on the organisations they were placed in. APG would thus recognise the artist’s outsider status and turn it to positive social advantage.’
‘Paulo Freire, who wisely cautioned against positioning a school as a privileged or an exclusive site of ‘knowledge production’, which only reaffirms existing social inequalities and hierarchies.’
Beuys being at the centre of his teachings, which in ways can be seen as problematic. In relation to Freire’s writing around the student to teacher relationship, and the contradictions which this relationship presents. The teacher is seen to play the role of a hierarchical figure and the student is seen as a vessel to be filled by the knowledge from this ‘educated’ and ‘all knowing being’. Beuys being at the centre of his lectures, classes suggests that Beuys can be considered to be this figure of the ‘all knowing’. Hierarchies existing in ‘his’ Institution.
Roy Ascott, Groundcourse, Ealing School of Design/Ipswich Art School
Roy Ascott and his ‘Groundcourse’ is another example of the artist using the Institute as a place to enact change in the learning environment. Ascott used his interest in cybernetic theories, and used ‘groundcourse’ as an art work to explore these theories. Using experimental models of teaching within an established art school. He viewed his teaching and his studio practice to be interconnected both impacting on one another. Ascott used teachers from different disciplines such as scientist, engineers, and behavioural psychologists to teach on the course, encouraging knowledge from a diverse range of knowledge. Ascott described the course as a ‘microcosm of a total process of art education.’ Groundcourse functioned as the now popular foundation course mostly found in English art schools, a year used to create a portfolio before choosing to specialie into a subject specific department.
A brief description on cybernetic;
‘cybernetic theories, which were concerned with systems of communication and control in animal and machine. These ideas around information, interactive exchange, feedback, participation and systemic relationships were to form the basis of his pedagogical practice and provided a model for the relations between artist, audience and environment, and their positions within a wider social system.’
What I find most compelling about Groundcourse is that in relation to the models of education that exists within art school today there is a stark difference. In relation to the statement which sparked my interest in this subject ‘an art school run by artists for artists’. Looking at the radical implementation of art pedagogy in Ascott’s groundbreaking course, illustrates the real bureaucratisation of Art Institutes today, students jumping through assessment hoops and tutors being restricted to their permitted curriculum structures. The rise in health and safety limitations, and the censorship of artwork. There has clearly been a shift in the ‘permission’ of things, no room to experiment freely with art pedagogy or to develop ones on art pedagogy, in an environment which is ideal for these methodologies to thrive.
‘Ascott described the Groundcourse as a ‘microcosm of a total process of art education’.
Here he met serious resistance to his cybernetic art pedagogy and was sacked within a year, sparking off a large student protest with posters declaring ‘We Want Roy’
How can we think of “education” as circulations of knowledge and not as the top-down or down-up dynamics in which there is always a given, dominant direction for the movement of knowledge
Ahmet Ögüts, The Silent University,
The Silent University is a fascinating project as it sits in-between the Institute and the institute. It dismantles the expectations of an Institution as having to be contained within an architectural physical structure. It behaves as a nomadic structure, utilising the architecture of other established Institutions as hosts, for lectures and presentations by its users. Built of a network of migrants, asylum seekers, and refugees who are highly qualified in their country of origin but are unable to practice their areas of expertise in the places they move to. The Silent University describes itself as an ‘autonomous knowledge exchange platform’. Describing itself as autonomous suggests that it is not affiliated with a particular Institution, it is supported by them, but it has no responsibility or there isn’t a level of accountability towards a particular institution. Allowing it to maintain its strong ideologies intact.
‘Cultural institutions inherently share the advantage to be able to address engage, and integrate a wide range of public and therefor hold the capacity to turn themselves into learning centres that invite everyone to freely meet and exchange knowledge.’
This freedom allows the University to conduct itself independently and collectively around the world. Ögüt creating a structure that can fit anywhere in the world, as it being a global issue, making it a great example for being used internationally. The University also exists as an online resource and platform again accentuating these ideas of inclusivity, accessibility which feel key to the projects ideals.
The Silent University is a demand to policy makers, to change the points of access and become more inclusive for refugees and migrant communities, people who are often escaping political persecution. The University is attempting to illustrate how this model of education can be used to re-integrate migrants into the areas of employment that they are trained and qualified in.
The dismissal on behalf of the West, to those that are highly qualified and skilled people, that are but there degrees have different names. The University gives the platform, the centre stage, to people who otherwise wouldn't be able to share their knowledge and their skills in their new communities.
Unlike Europes’ Bologna declaration there is no global or universal measure of education, because that is impossible, there cannot be a singular curriculum, this would destroy all cultural identity and individuality. The Silent University brings into question these policies that exist in Western Countries which limit refugees and migrants, to either unemployment or a lower standard of living, an often inescapable cycle.
In this section I am discussing the work of Ahmet Ögüt an Amsterdam based artist, lecturer and the initiator of the Silent University. Before discussing the Silent University I would briefly like to mention some of Ögüts other works (works that borrows the aesthetics of pedagogic form and layers it with ideas of espionage), like his 2013 piece ‘The muscles behind my eyes ache from the strain’- performative lecture delivered on top of Galatala Tower, and interpreted by a lip reading specialist through binoculars on an opposing tower.
Manifesta 2006
As Boris Groys points out in an interview included in this volume, artists’ practices are often formed in opposition to their education; methodologies and techniques borrowed from fields seemingly irrelevant to advanced cultural practices can also form the basis for the production of advanced and radical art. Clearly, there is unlimited potential today for the artist pursuing an education.
On Manifesta 2006
Interested in discussing the potential that infiltrating institutions and how you can change things from within – challenges and benefits – to change systems from within.
as well as the complete rejection of established institutions and the opening of something new – challenges and benefits of this, in terms of politic, funding, accessibility etc.
Cultural production must maintain and defend its autonomy as a space where the freedom to experiment, to negotiate ideological positions and to fail are not only accepted, but defining.
This project must be a call for the politicisation of art production,
not for political art.
Art and culture professionals and institutions must become the third voice with their creativity, inspiration and intellect. It is not a romanticism to be shunned by cynics, but a genuine alternative, when we assert an indiscriminate bias to compassion, and choose to become involved.
‘École Temporaire, run by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster, Pierre Huyghe and Philippe Parreno from 1998 to 1999, was a series of workshops conducted at several universities and schools in Europe. In one, the artists rented a cinema for a day and screened a feature film, while narrating potential alternative scenarios before the start of each scene. Another workshop was a seminar held
at the top of a mountain, a location only accessible by dogsled. In yet another, the artists interviewed the participants in the middle of a frozen lake. Each workshop was a situation filmed and edited by participants and addressed directly to the students at the beginning of the next class session, creating a chain of connections and continuity, and in this way constituting a school that stretched over a range
of times, spaces and institutions.
Chapter 2:
Alternative models of education!! Woohoo finally the little ‘i’
On alternative models of education: ‘As sites they have marked the shift from ‘Ivory Towers’ of knowledge to spaces of interlocution, with in between a short phase as ‘laboratories’.
‘..it is here, in these spaces that one can ground the earlier argument that the task at hand in thinking through ‘free’ is not one of liberation from confinement, but rather one of undoing the very possibilities of containment. It is necessary to understand that containment is not censure but rather half acknowledges acts of framing and territorializing.’
‘As sites they have marked the shift from ‘Ivory Towers’ of knowledge to spaces of interlocution, with in between a short phase as ‘laboratories’.
‘..it is here, in these spaces that one can ground the earlier argument that the task at hand in thinking through ‘free’ is not one of liberation from confinement, but rather one of undoing the very possibilities of containment. It is necessary to understand that containment in sot censure but rather half acknowledges acts of framing and territorializing.’
How do we judge these experiences? What kind if efficacy experience for them first hand in order to comment on them ?
Education as having no image – education / pedagogic arts practices – ‘domain to be a production of a dynamic experience for participants rather than the production of complex artistic forms.
‘So, when I speak of a “free” academy, the question has to be posed: if it is to meet all the above requirements, namely, that it not be fee-charging, not produce applied research, not function within given fields of expertise, and not consider itself in terms of applied “outcomes,” how would it be funded?’
How can we think of “education” as circulations of knowledge and not as the top-down or down-up dynamics in which there is always a given, dominant direction for the movement of knowledge?
Conclusion
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