Eighteenth International Conference on the Arts in Society

Abstract

Design Arts curriculum for the 21st Century requires a forward-looking approach to emerging technology as well as a robust exploration of existing pedagogical models. The Bauhaus is widely regarded as the single-most influential school for innovative art and design education in the 20th Century particularly in its embrace of new technologies such as photography, kinetic sculpture, and time-based media. Drawing on this legacy, the [Named University]+Bauhaus Workshop is an investigation of the Bauhaus pedagogy with a particular focus on design thinking using emerging technologies such as computer animation, 3d modeling, and 3d printing. It is an interdisciplinary summer semester travel/study program, designed to tests classic Bauhaus lessons with contemporary design tools for students studying art, architecture, landscape architecture, and interior design. It includes a sequence of lectures and workshops that introduce foundational design principles and exercises central to the Bauhaus educational model followed by a short residency at the Bauhaus in Dessau. The curriculum includes lessons in color theory, materiality, tectonics, graphic composition, spatial composition, and time-based composition with exercises in collage, computer drawing, animation, weaving, dance, computer and kinetic modeling. By engaging in quick exercises using various media and software students are able to build design skills in these areas while learning about the impact of the Bauhaus on modern and contemporary design aesthetics and praxis. This paper considers the curriculum and the pedagogical models used in this experimental travel/study program with a focus on the role of interdisciplinarity and emerging technologies in design education.