Asked to give a statement about my thoughts on education and design philosophy, I submitted the following.
I HAVE TAUGHT for many years. Recently in my spare time I have been a volunteer teacher for classes of Spanish speakers and Montagnard refugees. If I need to communicate a concept I often will quickly draw it on the white board. Sometimes it enhances or reinforces the concept, sometimes it explains it. If a diagram most succinctly makes the point, I make a diagram. If the concept is best understood by including spatial clues then I draw these. If texture or contrast are required, I can add these, too. What I use at the moment is based on whatever we're hung up on, because a complex process like learning is easily disrupted. Much of the work of a skilled teacher is about focusing students' attention by eliminating obstacles. Inevitably, my most articulate, talented, and skillful art or design student and most humble sheet rocker or roofer grasp the idea that learning is a process he can control once he gets the basics, sees the patterns, understands the fundamentals, figures out the rule set.
For the technologist, technology is the answer. For the artist, it is process. In the 90s my program at Alamance Community College was ahead of Triangle universities because we were prepared to embrace and teach both technology and concepts — both the how tos and whys. We were early adapters of not only Aldus, Adobe, and Mac products, but also Macromind's Director. But I could not convince artists or art organizations of the advantages of digital imaging or simple timesaving measures offered by office computerization. When technology disguises or hides its processes it becomes, for all intents and purposes, magic, entertainment, befuddling mystery, or because everyone had experienced life-changing crashes, an appliance far less trustworthy than one's television. No wonder many artists were suspicious! Yet what it could do in combination with economic trends already afoot was confirmed by what we saw every day: the disappearance of very skilled typesetters, layout artists, press operators, and textile designers. When you don’t understand how something works, pretend it’s a trend, or start evoking magic to explain it, it becomes impossible to rationally weigh the costs and benefits of change. For many Piedmont businesses that finally sent us their employees to retrain, it was too late. The inherent caution and conservatism shared by workers and employers alike worked against their collective future in the worse possible way.
The best design work is timely in its intervention. It changes behavior and essentially persuades by the power of its utility. But unlike the teacher in the room, it is mute. As technology seeks to become more accessible, more effortless, invisible and fail-safe, it seeks to remove itself from the user’s consciousness. For anyone who has sought to explain email to the elderly, such ease would be a blessing. In consumerist terms, such technology anticipates needs and then fulfills them, seemingly without effort and at minimal cost. But increasing leisure time does not answer or even address questions about how that time should be spent or what makes the good life. One school of thought would employ artists and creative types in order to accelerate the integration of technology with daily life. Another would recognize them for what they have always done best as social critics, observers of the everyday, noisemakers and creative oddballs who challenge the status quo or who simply point out the obvious limits of any technology. When artists turn technology on its head it can be delightful when we agree with its results and enraging and subversive when it appears to insult or betray our values.
As a studio artist my interests remain fixed on empirical observation, the process of perception, the nature of light, form and color, the craft of making pictures and the limits of that craft. Making serious art is more often than not about doubt and uncertainty. As a designer my games have been about creating clear rule sets and narratives through which players can problem-solve. As a minor technologist, I've advocated simple and direct approaches and solutions over ones that are costly and complicated. I prefer to expose users to the pros and cons of any process. As a teacher, my approach is less about theory and more about practical results. In all my pursuits, I've found my ability to draw and tendency to understand things visually, as well as my appreciation for history and the history of ideas, images and art, have informed my sense of the world.
—September 2008
