Methods and Mediums in Art Pedagogies: Pluriversal Approach

This presentation examines historical as well as contemporary methods and mediums rooted in art pedagogies that I came across in writing my doctoral research in art history. My dissertation titled, Systems and Cybernetic Art, 1945-Present, centralizes systems theory and cybernetics as an extension of environmental humanism. Even while the Information Age has accelerated a rapid specialization and hence a division of knowledge, I examine and expand the continued and reflexive relationship between the disciplines of cybernetics and arts by creating three parallel investigations based on three artists: Gordon Pask, Agnes Denes, and Nina Sobell. While writing about these three artists, an expanded view of pedagogy emerged such as Roy Ascott’s Groundcourse, Denes’ ecological artworks and community building projects of Wheatfield, Rice/Tree/Burial, Tree Mountain, Edwin Schlossberg’s Learning Environment at the Brooklyn Children’s Museum, Gregory Bateson’s Laboratory Sciences at San Francisco Art Institute, Sobell’s ParkBench, Aziz Nesin’s Nesin Mathematics Village in Turkey, and recently Metabolism workshop at Texas A&M by Meredith Tromble, Charissa Terranova, and Laura Kim. Thinking with Arturo Escobar’s concept of pluriverse, which is borrowed from his book, Designs for the Pluriverse, I argue that these examples cultivate autonomous zones of inquiry where art generates understanding that is in fact epistemology. By revisiting these examples, the presentation invites a discussion and criticality for reimagining art education in ways that are responsive to today’s social and environmental shifts. I ask whether it is possible to imagine a course that simultaneously exists outside, alongside, or even against institutional models?