Do you think art students should learn more about programming?
Replies16
- I think it would be more useful if art students were taught business and how art/design is used commercially.Understanding your skills are a product and being able to market them to the right audience, learn how to speak to them and command a fair price is more relevant that being able to write code.Unless you wish to work in some form of digital medium, in which case having additional technical insight would of course be useful.
- Do you remember my mentioning Delia Derbyshire? I'm sure you know this already, but in case you missed out this was on BBC4 a few weeks ago.https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m000w6tr/arena-delia-derbyshire-the-myths-and-the-legendary-tapesAnd there's this:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7r-3hlzpV7MIt's all happening! Bells and whistles! Cats and dogs! S'marvellous!
- Well, it wouldn’t hurt. But… when I studied graphic design & typography all those many moons ago (back when programming was the provision of nerds in glasses beavering away in darkened basements - not cool kids like now) the one thing I wish I’d been taught was how to sell yourself and deal with rejection. Coding is so accessible now I kind of think there are other, more stabilising, things that could be wedged into art education. Especially if you’re going down a more ‘fine-art’ route.But, if I’d have known how important a web/digital presence was going to be in the mid-point of my ‘career’ I’d have jumped at the chance to learn how to use it. (We were taught digital design 1 day a week using Photoshop 2 so that gives you an idea of how little it meant back then.)
- @Ariel Nicole Collier of course, I’d be honoured- thank you so much for asking :-)
- @Pip Jamieson Hi Pip, would it be okay if my co-foounder and I use your response in our first magazine issue? We're developing a collumn called mentors corner and we love the advice you gave here.
- @Pip Jamieson Hello! I saw this pretty late but I'm watching the recording now. Thank you so much :)
- As an artist, if you think it may have an impact on your art or the way you perceive the world, surely. A designers and artists I know that learned that code did so looking at it simply as other means to express themselves. I've also seen the opposite movement, engineer people learning art a way to expand the ways of expression.If you're planning to work with product design or in the tech industry, you may not need to code daily but surely understanding how code works will be a great advantage.
- Hi Ariel,I would say on top of what already said that most of designers / artists are visual people and so don't have a good relationship with words. My ex boss defined it as word blind. Code is by end of the day is a language and so quite about words that is why I think most of people has no skills in both. However there are masters like Refik Anadol who understands both but that is incredibly rare. Hope it helps.Feel free to check out my work on https://www.instagram.com/annadoralascsik/
- Hi @Ariel Nicole Collier - What a brilliant question. Short answer is based on the Japanese philosophy Ikigai, which says caree happiness comes when you combine; What you love + What you are good at + What you get paid for + What the world needs.Programers get paid well, so if you think you'd be good at it and would enjoy it - then absolultely learn. If not, I'd evolve your skills around your stregths and passions.I hope that helps, oh and you might also find this recording of our recent webinar on the 'Skills of the future' useful: https://the-dots.com/projects/webinar-recording-skills-of-the-future-using-the-dots-to-identify-your-skills-upskill-reskill-with-founder-pip-jamieson-464880 :-)
- It occurred to me that music is where arts and technology commonly meet. (I mentioned Cage and didn't follow through.) Over the last few years there've been many radio and telly shows on the BBC Radiophonics Workshop, which was essentially run by the legendary Delia Derbyshire.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXnmSgaeGAIThere's so much on her right now. Interesting that many of the pioneers of electronic music -- the crossroads to tech and art -- were women. Daphne Oram preceded Derbyshire.These also might interest you:https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03bfdkjhttps://www.bfi.org.uk/london-film-festival/screenings/delia-derbyshire-myths-legendary-tapes?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=20201007-player-lff-programme-highlights&utm_content=20201007-player-lff-programme-highlights+CID_00c9991094c01d352328e8c62aa7e6f1&utm_source=cm&utm_term=BOOK%20NOWAnd this certainly isn't restricted to the West:https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000j969Barely scratching the surface here. I'd also recommend Mark Prendergast's The Ambient Century: From Mahler to Moby, a great book, hours o'fun.
- Seek and ye shall find.Good luck. Let me know what happens. It sounds like a fascinating project.
- @george crisp Thank you, these are great reads! They actually might help me with a project I'm doing for uni. I have to ocreate an onoline exhibit and I want the narrative to be about self sustaining communities through museum practices and technooloogy can bridge those two together.
- Not sure but it has been done before. Back in the early 1960s, Robert Rauschenberg and John Cage collaborated with Bell Labs on a series of 'Happenings', whereby artists and musicians worked together on various communications projects. The idea was the get scientists to think more like artists, to be more 'creative', intuitive, and artists more like scientists, more deductive, more 'scientific' if you will. I've pasted a few links.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Experiments_in_Art_and_Technologyhttps://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/08/arts/design/the-big-bang-of-art-and-tech-in-new-york.htmlUltimately the idea is to develop and appreciation for what the other is doing, to demystify what might appear daunting or incomprehensible.
- @george crisp How can we bring the two together?
- On the contrary: techies could learn quite a lot from artists.
- Check out the latest The Dots webinar for some tips with this!
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