EDITORS LETTER
Media Arts
Nancy Walkup, digital portrait created with BeFunky.
Although the COVID school closures and related experiences have affected every facet of your students’ lives as well as your own, there are some hopeful rays of light that have shone through the dark clouds of that time when practically everyone stayed at home.
One benefit from that experience is the increased accessibility to digital technology that became necessary for schooling to continue from a distance. Home internet access has increased, more students have access to digital devices, and both students and teachers have learned how to use software programs and other web-based technology to develop work in the media arts.
Personally, I’m intrigued by media arts. They’re engaging to students and don’t necessarily require them to be able to draw well to be successful. Media arts offer other paths to artistic success that are equally satisfying.
What Are the Media Arts?
The National Core Arts Standards have specifically developed standards for media arts. The New York State Learning Standards for the Arts also provides the following useful list of the art forms that fall under that general category:
- Lens-based—photography, film, and video-generated imagery and sound.
- App-Based—created with specific software application(s) on computers, mobile devices, and/or other digital platforms.
- Virtual/Time-based—unfolds virtually and/or in real-time.
- Web-based—is developed and produced on and/or for the internet using imagery and sometimes sound.
Further Support for Teachers
The Media Arts Committee of the National Coalition for Core Arts Standards has launched a National Media Arts Education Initiative to support quality, standards-based media arts education for all learners in all learning venues throughout the United States. You can learn more about this at mediaartsedu.org.
In Why Media Arts Education Matters, Dain Olsen, co-chair of the Media Arts Committee, National Coalition for Core Arts Standards, explains how media arts promote interdisciplinary learning, build communities, develop comprehensive skill sets, and foster new approaches to teaching and learning.
In This Issue
In “Hashimoto-Inspired Hexagons,” Jane Montero’s elementary students use Chromebooks to design digital hexagon compositions inspired by the work of contemporary artist Jacob Hashimoto.
At the middle-school level, in “We Are Nature,” Michael Sacco’s middle-school students combine multiple exposure portrait-style images with images of nature, inspired by the work of Finnish photographer Christoffer Relander.
In “Paper Microbes,” guest co-editor Kasmira Mohanty shares how her students collaboratively explored the worlds of microbiology and digital technology through the work of artist Rogan Brown to create a permanent installation for her school.
What engaging experiences can you provide for your students to explore the media arts?
Many thanks to Kasmira Mohanty, digital arts wizard and one of our contributing editors, for co-editing this issue of SchoolArts.
Nancy Walkup, Editor-in-Chief