Ninth International Conference on The Image

Abstract

That humans are inseparable from the world around them will not surprise anyone, but this only makes it more remarkable that humans are frequently isolated from their surroundings in human-oriented research and development. The result is invariably that knowledge and products are produced that do not correspond to the reality in which they are used or applied. Fortunately, in many disciplines, so-called ‘situated’ approaches have emerged, which take as their central premise that humans can only be understood in relation to their environment. Although the notion of “situatedness” has had major impact on many disciplines that perform human-centered research and development, it has not gained much ground within the fields of art and design. This paper will claim that a situated turn in art and design is immanent and discuss its consequences for the production and presentation of art and design. Finally, the paper will go more deeply into the consequences of the situated turn for art and design education and will conclude with six practical recommendations regarding art and design pedagogies after the situated turn. These recommendations include: The build-up of expertise on the dynamic relationships that humans hold with environmental, social and cultural factors; a focus on how humans are situated through technology; providing familiarity with the reality of practices in other disciplines; advocating creation on the basis of instructions for a process; offering experience with post-studio and post-venue practices; and teaching the appreciation of other human actors in the process of creation and presentation.