This case study from workshop 1 stood out to me as it directly related to my role as the Digital Fabrication Technician at CCW Foundation. It asks what do art and design technicians do? And follows four technicians across UAL who were asked to produce three images relating to their learning and teaching aspect of their technical role.
A few points stood out to me, a highlight being the fact that ‘the majority of technicians who took part in this survey were also active arts practitioners.’ (Sams, 2016) who find that research is critical to their roles at UAL but is severely undervalued. As a practicing artist myself I resonate with this. The research and development I spend improving and refining my own practice directly influences my role at UAL, however this is all done in my own time. I find my identity is as a practicing artist who works at UAL, rather than a Technician who is also a practicing artist. ‘Many technicians working in art and design HE choose the technical pathway as a means to support and develop their practice.’ (Smith et al, 2004) Although I wouldn’t say I chose my role at UAL for this specific reason I do find both my role and practice feed into each other, kind of like the shape of a Möbius strip, however I find as a practicing artist is a core part of my identity it’s something I would do in my free time regardless of my professional role, something I believe is under-appreciated and potentially even taken for granted.
Another highlight from this case-study is the uniqueness of a technicians role in a pedagogic sense. As technician B describes: ‘all student work is a one off creation.’ (Sams, 2016) I find a challenge of my role is the multi-faceted approach to developing projects. Although myself and my colleagues have developed tools to simplify processes, with each outcome being unique my role requires one on one conversations with students to help understand and develop their ideas and this creates a lot of unique problem solving challenges. Our approach is dependent on students ability, understanding of technology and processes, time constraints, material familiarity, etc. Because of this, research and development is key to continually developing my skills – especially in the realm of digital creation as things are constantly updating and changing at a rapid pace. Again, a lot of this research is done either outside of my role or during the development of a students projects, for example a student proposing an idea I don’t instinctively know how to solve.
This makes me think of the pedagogy of not-knowing, as Rebecca Fortnum puts in ‘Creative Accounting, Not Knowing in Talking and Making: ‘within education (at all levels) the prevailing culture requires one to be able to articulate, at the point of experience, what one ‘knows.’ (Fortnum, 2013) However I find it’s just as important to explain what you don’t know as it creates an interesting dialogue which removes the barrier between student and teacher and helps me stress the importance of learning how to learn. I believe in my role it’s important to show that not every problem is instinctively solvable but a solution can be found through independent research and working together. Perhaps the expertise of a technician working in an ever-changing digital environment is the expertise of not knowing.
Bibliography
Fortnum, R (2013) Not knowing in talking and making, Black Dog Publishing
Sams, C (2016) How do art and design technicians conceive of their role in higher education? Spark: UAL Creative Teaching and Learning Journal
Smith, D.N., Adams, J., Mount, D., Reeve, N. and Wilkinson, D. (2004) Highly skilled technicians in higher education: a report to HEFCE. Leeds: Evidence Ltd.