Technology and Process in the Arts

Digital technology has shifted our attention away from the the object to focus on the process. As we discover process in creating new artistic works, we find that there is considerable overlap in generating new media. Now we have tools for investigating and interrogating our personal artistic processes. The many different applications provide the means for creating new materials, copying and pasting materials (repetition), and altering the copied materials into something new through applying "filters" or direct manipulation (variation). These same processes apply to images, sound, moving images, text, etc.

The distinctions that separate the arts are dissolving as we intensify the application of process. Digital technology makes it possible for us to preserve and study process itself. In a sense this transforms process into a new kind of object that morphs through time and space.

The implications of this new technology in leading the way for educational reform are quite clear. Technology places every student at the center of the process and empowers the student to be in full control. The dynamics of artistic expression becomes the motivating energy to inspire students to create their own worlds and expressive ideas, built on the ideas of each other through collaborative exchanges.