System Designs for Arts Pedagogy

Art and design education continue to resonate with modernist and
avant-gardist ideas of artwork and author. However, during the
transition from modernism to post-modernism in the 1960s, art
forms such as happenings, intermedia and participatory arts established evidence that cybernetic and system-theoretical approaches
to art and design education as well as artistic practices provided
valid avenues for the realisation of collective art forms. Emphasis
on processes does not necessitate discipline-specific definitions
of an expected final outcome, but relies on the synergetic impact of
the combination of diverse expertise and experiences of the participating members of the team. Results are created and defined as
a consequence of constant communication and feedback between
team members. For realisation and evaluation of such an approach
the determination of a set of rules on which such a system is based is
critical. This paper evaluates process-oriented pedagogy within
a tertiary arts education organisation with a selection of case studies
from LASALLE College of the Arts (LASALLE) in Singapore. These
interdisciplinary pedagogical arts practices range from structured
improvisation as a creative laboratory, use of technology to inform
practice, playing with spatial geometries, through to creating templates to shape or codes to sequence performance and durational
arts practice. The paper proposes a system design for arts pedagogy
based on the potentialities of collective collaboration rather than the
individual artist and on the multiplicity of outcomes made possible
by focusing on process rather than product or object.