Commons in art & design (Working title)

Commons—freely accessible resources of all kinds on the Internet—are an integral part of net culture, and are also important for the intersection between technology and art/design. In addition to open source tools, which are increasingly being used by artists and designer, knowledge sources that are freely accessible on the Internet, such as YouTube tutorials, play an important role. In the (art) university context, these came into focus due to the diversification of teaching methods (e.g., inverted classroom, asynchronous learning, digital/hybrid formats) during the Covid 19 pandemic. Teachers thus found themselves in the role of digital content creators or content curators. As a result, there was an increase in the creation of instructional materials that no longer functioned in a solely location-based and synchronous manner, but rather in the tradition of seemingly locationless and on-demand YouTube tutorials. At the same time, freely available sources of knowledge have also been increasingly incorporated into teaching - the teacher has become the curator of the commons.

This project explores the possibilities of these resources: how can digital instructional content be shared to maximize long-term utility? Can a culture of commons in art & design universities help students to overcome their inhibitions towards technologies? How can these materials be created as accessible, sustainable and effective as possible?

Department

Visual Communication

Time Period

2022–2024

Format

Research

Lead

Julian Netzer

Text

Julian Netzer