I’ve been busy redesigning the Thesis Project component of our Visual Art Education MA degree here at NYU. We’ve moved to a practice-based model that includes art making as a key element of student research. Students now have the opportunity to identify an issue/question that has particular significance to their art making and/or pedagogical practice and to investigate it using art as a primary research vehicle. They do this during their final semester of the program.
Along with producing a body of work, students also write a thesis paper (approx. 20 pages), and create a thesis artifact (can be digital or analog) which serves as a historical record of the research project.
I’ve included info about two recent MA projects below to give you a small taste of what our students have been up to this year.
PROJECT 1: Finally, I’m being reCognized
by Tara Finneran (aka citizenFinneran)
After being required to provide biometric data (a thumb print) before writing one of the State mandated tests for Teacher Certification, Tara began trying to uncover what the private company that administered the test did with her personal biometric information (still to be determined).
Tara began to question who “owned” this information, where it was stored, and who could gain access to it. This search eventually introduced her to a burgeoning surveillance industry–one that is attempting to use technology to strike a balance between security and privacy.
She responded by building an “invisibility suit” and using the suit to interact with CCTV cameras in a number of public settings. These performances became a form/site of “public pedagogy” in their own right.
Tara writes:
The invisibility suit is a physical manifestation of this technology and ways in which our bodies can be measured as data. Increasingly, biometrical developments encroaching upon the public sphere are at the focus of vast ethical debates.
It also allows us to regain control of scopic impositions, in a sense this suit allows the wearer to assert his or her power of keeping his/her bodily representation objective. It rejects the viewer’s power to judge, interpret, and apply any values to the person being filmed. The proverbial playing field is leveled and the wearer has sent a semaphoric message to the video viewers- “How can I trust you if you don’t trust me?”
Tara’s Thesis Artifact took the form of an Instructable (Instructables.com is a free web-based platform where people can share detailed DIY instructions or “HOWTOs”). You can view Tara’s Instructable here.
Update: You can read more about Tara’s Thesis project over at CT4CT.com (my newest site) and also view some interesting video footage related to her work.
PROJECT 2: The Dream Project: An archive of dreams, aspirations, and fantastical notions for the future
by Chris Haske
Chris completed his student teaching at an International High School (a public school designed specifically for new immigrants) here in NYC. He became interested in the “American Dream” as seen through the eyes of recent immigrants to the United States. He audio recorded a series of interviews with seniors from the school and then designed an interactive website as a way of collecting, organizing and “visualizing” this “data.”
He describes his research as a “sound project made accessible through a visual interface.” He’s named it: “The Dreamfield.” You can experience the Dreamfield and learn more about the project here.
