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CHAPTER TWO
Experimental Material-Digital Art Education by Vague Research Studios
LENA T.H. BERGLIN AND KAJSA G. ERIKSSON
In an increasingly digital society, there is not only a shift from analog to digital, but also a shift to a culture performed through embedded technology. Digital technology alters an object and makes it intelligent and these objects have more to do with information exchange than with form, material, body, and the environment (Manzini, 1986). Instead of taking these challenges into consideration, the expressive and interactive qualities of digital technology simply packs technology into cycles of consumption rather than capturing the complex aesthetic dynamics that digital technologies offer (Dunne, 2008). Conversely, the deconstruction of digital technology, its history of production, and the performative use of it can be a way of developing experimental methods in art, design, and education (Crutzen, 2006). There is a general need of experimentation, beyond the borders of digital technology as it is presented to us in everyday situations and as novelty. Simultaneously, there is a specific need for experimentation with creative and critical perspectives in the digitalization of education, especially in art education. In a European context, there are steering documents presented to support the development of digital education. For example, the EU publication from 2017 Digital Education Policies in Europe and Beyond: Key Design Principles for More Effective Policies presents eight core-guiding principles. Three of them are of interest to the development of material-digital art education. The principles of interest here are to follow a holistic approach targeting systemic change, embracing experimentation, risk-taking and failure, and building up teaching competence (Conrads ←35 | 36→et al., 2017). Within these core principals, we would like to put emphasis on the deconstruction and artistic experimentation of subjects, objects, selves, histories, and cultures. The aim is to experiment with ways of making, writing, and visualizing difference in a performed material-digital scenario as part of self and group representation. Our art-based research explores the potential of performed relations of the digital and the material through sound in a less electrified environment of the outdoors.
In this exploratory investigation, the primary reference to theory and methodology is the physicist and feminist theoretician Karen Barad’s (2007) agential realism and our deep reading of Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of matter and meaning. The theory of agential realism questions a traditional world view where humans are positioned in and surrounded by an environment, and instead puts forth that “practices of knowing are specific material engagements that participate in (re)configuring the world” (Barad, 2007, p. 91). This theory has implications within knowledge production and the traditional division of research subject and research object (Barad, 2007; Snaza & Weaver, 2016; Lenz Taguchi, 2009).
MATERIAL-DIGITAL SOUND
Sound has great significance as a dynamic material involving art, people, material, and society. “Every sound exists in time and space, and since time and space are building blocks of human activity and struggle, sound is the venue where perception meets action. Sound is where the body politic encounters the material” (Ultra-Red, 2014, p. 23). Listening does not only engage the sense of hearing, but the entire body acts as a listener, and the body is also constantly making sounds. The materiality of sound has proven to be of value as it allows for the inclusion of the phenomenon of technology, environment, and the body as a whole.
Material-Digital sound is a relational sound that extends to the movement of air pressure and to the material world as friction and tactile feeling. Such everyday experiences of sound have become hidden in conventional product design and routine sound consumption. For example, the act of swiping the screen of a smartphone with your fingertip can result in us being connected, but the connection is based on just a few parts of the body—eyes, ears, and hands—and confined to digital technology design. This sensory reduction deprives us of making deep connections with materials, environments, and ourselves. We claim that when technology, as well as art, are presented as only systems of representation and form leaving the sensory experiences
