The Artistic Process of Producing

Artist David Hockney, known for his iPhone and iPad paintings, on getting his first iPad...”I thought the iPhone was great, but this takes it to a new level - simply because it's eight times the size of the iPhone, as big as a reasonably-sized sketchbook... Anyone who likes drawing and mark-making will like to explore new media…“Picasso would have gone mad with this. So would Van Gogh. I don’t know an artist who wouldn’t, actually.”

My first exposure to David Hockney’s iPad paintings was several years ago at the Guggenheim Museum Bilbao during a SchoolArts’ trip to Barcelona and Northern Spain. His exhibition filled the Museum with both painted and digital art. What I particularly liked about his iPad drawings was that they were displayed on iPads and were animated so that you could see his entire process of painting each image. (He calls this “watching himself draw.”)

David Hockney is certainly not the first artist to embrace new technologies but he has a long history of enthusiastically experimented with new media. Our students now also have engaging and exciting opportunities in this constantly-evolving field of media arts that encompasses CGI (computer-generated imagery), video, film, television, digital graphics, interactive design, augmented reality, sound design, and unknown forms still to come.

The significance of new media to art educators is strikingly evident in the inclusion and emphasis on the media arts by the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards (NCCAS) in the Next Generation Standards. Recognizing the diversity of media arts as a new mode of expression within arts education, NCCAS has supported the writing of national media arts standards as part of the Next Generation Core Arts Standards Project, the first revision of art standards since 1994.

The Media Arts writing team is creating “a set of standards that will be equal in rigor, breadth, and depth to those of dance, music, theatre and visual arts, while simultaneously acknowledging that some aspects of media arts can be embedded within each of the traditional forms as an enrichment for knowing and understanding.” 

In the Media Arts standards, the artistic process is expressed as producing as a way of realizing and presenting artistic ideas and work. Producing in the media arts corresponds to creating/performing/presenting in the other core arts standards. Our articles this month feature the process of producing through augmented reality, digital photography, painting with light, image manipulation, animation, digital fabrication, and more.

SchoolArts is eagerly anticipating the upcoming release of all the Next Generation Standards. What we teach is worth teaching and worth teaching well. The Next Generation Standards will provide tangible support for quality art education programs taught by qualified art specialists, further making the case for more learning in and through the Arts.

Purposes for Developing Media Arts Standards

·            Academic achievement

·            Artistic expression

·            Arts and content integration

·            Convergence literacy: media, information, technological, digital, virtual, emerging

·            Creativity and imagination

·            Making meaning; relevance

·            Pedagogical integrity

·            Social relevance and vitality

·            Technological mastery; inter-media fluency

·            Vocational/entrepreneurial proficiency

I'll be attending the NAEA San Diego pre conference on the Next Generation Standards. Maybe I'll see you there!