Day out:

So, we have basically reached the end of what Bob and I can offer the students. This final week of us in charge ended with Bob presenting on East/West and some specific generative material focused on processing. Today we circled back to the destruction stuff via Metzger’s essay. The conversation today was a way of shaping the pieces a bit more – starting with the arbitrary Life/Art rift that dominates most traditional art forms. The point of the discussion was to acknowledge the shift with Generative Art away from the divide and dissolving or at least pushing on the slash. We then engaged in a conversation about the world today and how that can be reflected in generative and/or destructive process based art. The idea of “art,” of course, merely one of many possible forms of expression to wrestle with the question of society and the world around us. A good discussion in both sections.

We briefly reflected back on the class while cleaning up and I do feel we articulated this process much better this time than the first time we taught the class. As the ground zero for my development of project-based courses it was nice to revisit this model. I think I have learned a great deal about this process in the past 7-8 years. It is a sound one, one that allows students freedom to engage in answering the questions that play to their strengths, but also grounds those strengths in a common set of experiences and vocabulary. We ended up with quite an impressive list of terms and ideas generated over the semester. This then functions as the content of the course. The final project and final exam questions are a way for students to reflect on these ideas while also shaping them in the project. Can’t wait to see what they come up with.