1. New Knowledge and New Technology:
restructuring fine art education
Judith Mottram and George Whale
Abstract
For more than thirty years, conventional art school wisdom has dictated that ‘learning
through practice’ is the best way of accommodating the increasingly diverse
preoccupations of art students. Of all undergraduate courses, fine art courses can be seen
as the least structured, concerned mainly with providing time, studio space, and a
context for self-directed development. In focusing on the individual, the issue of exactly
what constitutes ‘subject knowledge’ in fine art is sidestepped. With important new
developments in disciplines that inform visual understanding, such as perceptual
psychology, imaging science, and computing, and the gradual displacement of
traditional, craft-based studio practices by digital technologies, the limitations of self-
directed learning are likely to become more evident, and the issue of subject knowledge
needs to be addressed. Through a review of existing data relating to course curricula and
graduate employment, a common core of relevant conceptual and technical knowledge
will be identified. The authors will argue that it is possible to establish a teaching context
which promotes the integration of thought and practice. The challenge is to devise a
structure which will enable students to understand, assimilate, and contextualize new
knowledge, and to acquire the transferable skills, both intellectual and technical, which
will enable them to adapt and thrive within a rapidly changing visual culture. It will be
argued that new technologies can catalyse these changes, providing visual ‘points of
entry’ into relevant fields of contemporary knowledge, and enabling meaningful
connections to be made between the history, theory, and practice of art.
Introduction
‘Knowledge’, according to Drucker, ‘is information that changes something or
somebody – either by becoming grounds for action, or by making an individual (or
an institution) capable of different and more effective action.’ (Drucker 1990,
p. 242)
In any domain of practice, subject knowledge, the knowledge which enables
practitioners to act within that domain, and which is characterized by their shared
concerns and practices, combines the three categories of knowledge identified by
Göranzon (1988, pp. 16-17). These are practical knowledge, arising from personal
experience of practice; knowledge of familiarity, derived from examples of the way
that other practitioners work, or have worked; and propositional knowledge, acquired
from the study of facts, concepts, and theories. These categories are mutually
interdependent, since ‘knowledge of experience bestows viability on theoretical
knowledge...[and] theoretical knowledge is essential to provide a direction for
experience’ (Göranzon & Josefson 1988, p. 4). Whereas theoretical knowledge is
generally explicit, much experiential knowledge is implicit.
Most practitioners in higher education would concur that the primary value of
98 JVAP 1 (2) 98–110 © Intellect Ltd 2001

2. education is in the acquisition of appropriate knowledge. Unless we take the view
that any kind of activity is appropriate on a fine art degree course, that intersections
of interest are entirely accidental, then the issue of subject, or domain, knowledge
must be addressed.
An emphasis on learning outcomes, transmission of information, and skills
acquisition is not necessarily in conflict with notions of subject knowledge. If
subject knowledge is manifested in the identification, transmission, and eventual
assimilation of relevant bodies of information, including the development of the
skills with which to generate outcomes, we have a rational basis for introducing
students to a particular domain of cultural knowledge over a three- or four-year
period. However, we might reasonably pose the questions: ‘What are the existing
notions of subject knowledge within this arena, and how do they reflect traditional
notions?‘ And, ‘To what extent does contemporary fine art degree education identify
new parameters of subject knowledge and skills?’
This paper explores these issues through a review of some existing data, and
proposes that the challenges presented by digital technologies can provide a useful
means of clarifying the relationship between academic endeavour and
contemporary relevance.
Subject knowledge in fine art
In considering the education sector, we may ask, ‘How do statements of content, or
indicators of subject knowledge, come into existence?’ We will examine
contemporary expressions of subject knowledge within the domain under
consideration, through scrutiny of a selection of descriptions of programmes of
study and course documents. These give explicit statements of course content,
which are, generally, closely related to Course Validation documentation or the Self
Assessment Documents prepared for the UK Quality Assurance Agency (QAA)
Subject Reviews. Before that, we will look at the development of the domain through
the sector’s internal reflections on the issue of just what topics and skills should be
addressed by the fine art curriculum.
In 1970, Stuart MacDonald published The History and Philosophy of Art Education
(MacDonald 1970). His account of the implementation in the UK of the first
Coldstream Report in 1960 and the subsequent assessments of the Summerson
Report, give some indication of the issues concerning parity with other disciplines,
student choice, and the role of ‘academic’ work within BA or equivalent
programmes, that are still under consideration. He perceived that, ‘Art education
today is becoming increasingly analytical, logical and thematic’, and suggested that
this model derived from the Bauhaus intention to ‘liberate students from second-
hand traditional information, and to make them learn basic principles from direct
analyses and their own direct experience with materials’. MacDonald closes his
book with reference to the many proponents of the value of a visual education, as
less ‘remote from the non-specialist breadth we require’ and as providing an
alternative to an ‘aesthetically-biased’ art education.
Shortly after the publication of MacDonald’s book, symposia were held at the
Institute of Contemporary Arts, London (April/May 1971), addressing two distinct
problems. These were framed by the organizer as ‘the nature and content of art and
design courses’, and ‘the number of student places there should be and how the art
colleges should relate to the rest of the education system’. Morris Kestelman, in
discussing the aim and content of art education, stated that the contribution the art
99New Knowledge and New Technology: restructuring fine art education

3. schools could make was, above all, to ‘encourage audacity and exuberance of
invention – to the utmost’ (Kestelman 1973, p. 52). He believed that in the pursuit of
this end, ‘a student would have the opportunity to define his own identity, discover
some potential of creative energy, bring order to experience. This is surely
education’. As a member of the Fine Art Panel for Dip. A.D. (Diploma in Art and
Design) awards from its inception, his position would have been influential both in
the validation of courses and in the conferment of awards. In ‘Articidal Tendencies’,
MacDonald quoted an art lecturer as follows:
Generally speaking, however, he [the student] is left to work out his own
salvation.... There are also those tutors, particularly common in the field of
painting, who believe, as an article of faith, that students cannot and should not
be taught; instead, they should be left to feel their way and organize their own
experience.
MacDonald 1973, p. 89
MacDonald went on to explore the thoroughly contradictory views on art education
held at the time, as expressed by many of the symposium papers, and also evident
in the 1970 Coldstream Report. At some distance from the privileging of self-
determinism, ‘Between Structure and Content and Beyond’ (Gray 1973, p. 114)
suggested that ‘some attempt ought to be made here by the artists to learn the
concept languages of all the disciplines which might impinge centrally upon their
own fundamental activity. It just won’t do to go on repeating this word “creativity”.’
His exploration of the intentions of art education noted that culture should not
make the ‘cardinal error in assuming that the predictive symbolisations of science
are more important simply because they produce faster or more efficient changes
than the types of symbolic language games that we call art.’ The scope of his
argument provides a reasonably coherent forerunner to the concept of ‘consilience’,
which we return to later in this paper.
In the years following the above discussions, Dip. A.D. courses developed into
the CNAA (Council for National Academic Awards) BA (Hons.) programmes that
were the forerunners of today’s degrees. The CNAA was disbanded with the
incorporation of the former polytechnics into the university system. Formal, nation-
wide structures for consideration of curriculum, or subject knowledge were replaced
by individual university quality-control mechanisms.
This context frames the series of conferences organized by Wimbledon School
of Art at the Tate Gallery, London, in the 1990s. Again we see evidence of
contradiction, with extensive debate about the supposed incommensurability of fine
art practice with articulation of the priorities of the discipline. When considering
artists as teachers, the lack of address to this theme of the first conference was
explained by Colin Painter, as ‘so obvious that it did not need to be articulated...
artists know best about the skills and knowledges associated with being artists’
(Painter 1994, p. 14). The second conference in the series focused upon judgements
of value in art. The acceptance of fine art as a site where ‘little could be assumed to
have the authority of certainty’ was seen to lead to a complex situation when
engaging with the individual aspirations of students. Echoing to some extent
Kestelman’s emphasis on audacity, Painter stated that perhaps ‘the doubt is the
discipline’.
The opportunity provided by the Benchmarking Project led by the QAA could
100 Judith Mottram and George Whale

4. provide a context in which the sector looks again at the issue of subject knowledge.
However, the 1998 GLAD (Group for Learning in Art & Design) and NAFAE
(National Association for Fine Art Education) Conference on Benchmarking
suggested that there is still little consensus. In a workshop session looking at the
common ground shared by all fine art degree programmes, the notion that all our
students were involved in making objects was not agreed. It was suggested that
‘risk-taking’ was the one approach shared by all students enrolled upon such
programmes – not a consensus on knowledge then, but a majority agreement at
that stage of the debate upon one aspect of strategy.
Further draft benchmarking statements are now available but, by and large,
academics within the sector have not yet become actively involved in the
benchmarking debate. The subject associations have been involved in nominations
for panel members for the Benchmarking Project but, within institutions, there was
little evidence in Autumn 2000 that the issue of subject knowledge had yet been
addressed in relation to this project.
The ‘domain map’
The published statements of course content do provide evidence of some attempt
to ‘map’ the domain. The lack of agreement on what constitutes subject knowledge,
or whether it can be identified, is reflected in these descriptions of course content.
Presented under headings such as ‘the fundamental theoretical, historical and
creative issues’, or ‘a basic set of skills for making and understanding painting,
printmaking, drawing, sculpture and art history’ (Ruskin 2000); they suggest a great
degree of openness and flexibility. But they are the nearest we come to easily
available ‘domain maps’ in undergraduate fine art education.
Experience within the sector suggests that domain maps would appear to evolve
by a process of continual modification. Projects which have produced successful
results in the past are lengthened or shortened to fit a new structure, and activities
that ‘traditionally’ happened at a certain point during the academic timetable are
post-justified within module specifications. The remodelling of existing courses into
new organizational frameworks, such as modularization, may entail no more than a
repackaging of existing material. Staff changes bring different specialisms, interests
and competencies to bear on curriculum content, and programmes develop and
accommodate new projects in response to student interest. Whilst institutional
procedures for course review generally call for programme, departmental, and
faculty scrutiny, the extent to which the process includes reconsideration of
fundamental issues of subject knowledge is variable. Moreover, increasing
specialization and the emphasis on research practice leaves less opportunity for
consideration of wider pedagogic issues. Arthur Hughes characterized the
secondary art curriculum as ‘an arbitrary set of practices passed down over the
years and absorbed into the canon of the subject’ (Hughes 1998, p. 45). Whilst good
practice is evident, it is vital that continued reflection within the sector ensures that
the way in which the issue of subject knowledge is resolved for degree-level art
courses relies on a more reasoned approach.
The presentation and development of maps of subject knowledge occurs largely
in the first year of undergraduate study, with subsequent years devoted to the
pursuit of more focused enquiry and practice, within a student-determined area of
study. The creative concerns of the individual artist-student are accommodated by a
primarily tutorial-led programme, with the intention of exposing the student to
101New Knowledge and New Technology: restructuring fine art education

5. pertinent knowledge to enable the development and contextualization of creative
work. This model of knowledge acquisition in fine art education has been called
‘learning though practice’.
The ‘fundamental theoretical, historical and creative issues’ identified in course
literature of two first-year programmes (Appendix) do appear to establish a basis for
self-determined activities, and indicate some degree of consensus on course
content, but it is questionable whether they clearly articulate the parameters of the
domain. However upon scrutiny of the more detailed but not widely available
information provided to students through course handbooks, different models
emerge. Whilst of necessity articulating course content through relatively general
statements, the inclusion of reference material and recommended reading gives
some courses clearly articulated ‘markers’. The density of explicit information within
such documents tends to drop off in relation to modules at later stages of a course,
with statements indicating that reference material will vary according to the
particular concerns of the individual student. At issue is the determination of the
map according to the direction of the studio work of the individual.
The value of any good map is that it enables its bearer to see the relationships
between places, to plan different routes between them as need arises, and to ‘roam
throughout a circumscribed region knowing that there is something there to find...’
(Boden 1990, p. 47). As a student progresses through a programme, the map may
well become more ill-defined, sketchy, or outdated, with the result that important
destinations may remain unvisited, interesting routes unexplored. Chance
discussions, tutorials with visiting lecturers, or broader technological or cultural
change, can all expose the need for revisions of the map.
It could be argued that existing domain maps within contemporary fine art
education suffer from lack of clarity, or omission, as a result of three factors. Firstly,
that novel creation ‘makes it logically impossible to ensure any set of defining
properties’ (Weitz 1970, quoted in Hughes 1998). Secondly, that reworkings of
existing methods of curriculum structuring cannot cope with the volume of
information available and relevant today. Thirdly, that the privileging of student self-
determination – the perception of the student as already an artist – obviates the
imposition of cultural ‘strictures’. But there is a perception that many students are
left to find their own way through uncertain course terrain towards even more
uncertain careers.
Following a brief survey of what is known of the destinations of fine art
graduates, we will examine some of the most important of the uncharted regions of
a possible domain map. We will show how their inclusion in the map might lend a
greater coherence to subject knowledge in fine art, ensuring that areas of new
knowledge – valuable both in creative practice and prospective employment –
become accessible, and remind us of the intimate interconnections between
contemporary and historical knowledge, both scientific and artistic.
Graduate destinations
The concentration of the HESA (Higher Education Statistics Agency) on student
destinations six months after graduation does not generate useful data when
considering UK art and design students. The Destinations & Reflections study
(Harvey & Blackwell 1999, p. 1) attempted to provide a basis for ‘exploring some of
the prevailing myths about art and design education’. Through the involvement of
102 Judith Mottram and George Whale

6. nearly 2000 graduates, the report concluded that students from this sector are well
placed to enter the graduate employment market through their possession of a
core set of interactive skills – communication, teamwork and interpersonal
skills – alongside personal skills, attitudes and abilities including intellect,
willingness to learn, ability to find things out, flexibility and adaptability as well
as self-skills such as self-motivation, self-assurance and self-promotion.
Those within the sector may be discomfited that subject knowledge does not figure
on this list, particularly as the report established that the proportion of graduates
who move away from art and design altogether is low, at twenty per cent. The report
argues that those working outside art and design are often doing so to get a foot in
the labour market and to support themselves while doing commissioned or
freelance work, developing a portfolio, or doing voluntary work designed to help
them improve their contacts, gain experience or improve their job prospects.
While the respondents for the study were seen to demonstrate that they had the
attributes sought by employers, it was noted that ‘often, students were left to
develop these for themselves with little or no help or guidance from within their
programme of study’. This lack of explicit address to skills development was also
noted by the Metier Report Working Out (Collier 1999), which focused on support
mechanisms for work and freelance practice. While there is obviously a significant
gap between the notion of subject knowledge and that of skill development for
employment, linking these nodes within the domain must be regarded as an
important challenge.
In terms of what fine art graduates actually do with the fruits of their
undergraduate programmes, the picture is still unclear, as the data for the two
reports mentioned address all art and design graduates. From the Destinations and
Reflections study, we do learn that fine art graduates are no more likely to have been
unemployed than design graduates, although they do tend to work part-time rather
than full-time, and have the highest take-up of further study. Education, design, and
publishing are noted as the major employment sectors for all art and design
graduates, with a ‘clear migration away from non-art-and-design sectors’ as
graduates begin to establish their careers. The small respondent sample for the
Metier report does not allow for, nor intend, any specific inferences to be made
about the nature of fine art or design graduate employment.
New knowledge
Colin Painter’s assertion, quoted earlier, that ‘artists know best about the skills and
knowledges associated with being artists’ deserves to be challenged, on two counts.
Firstly, growing usage of new and unfamiliar media – especially digital media –
presents new technical and conceptual opportunities. That some art schools have
hardly begun to exploit these opportunities is mainly attributable to the ‘failure of
educators and practices in the arts and crafts...to keep up with the knowledge
revolution’ (Friedman 2000, pp. 15–16). Secondly, as we saw in the previous section,
the patterns of employment of fine art graduates are reasonably diverse. Although
few art students become lifelong artists, many of them become involved in creative
professions, such as design and publishing, in which new technologies play an
increasingly important role, whether in terms of information management or image
creation. Whilst there are positive spin-offs – in terms of self-confidence,
103New Knowledge and New Technology: restructuring fine art education

7. commitment and motivation – of specialist study in fine art (see Collier, 1999), it is
open to question whether Painter’s assertion continues to be valid. As Bob Reeve
notes in his summary of the implications of the Working Out study, ‘NTOs, RDAs,
TECs and UFI are acronyms still largely unfamiliar to academics within mainstream
Higher Education’ (Reeve 1999, p. 58–59).
New kinds of imagery made possible by science and technology are having a
profound impact upon our culture, changing our perception of the world and of
ourselves. At one end of the scale, ‘The evolution of the solar system over billions of
years can be reduced to a sequence of images that can be replayed in seconds’
(Holtzman 1994, p. 197). At the other end, devices such as the scanning tunnelling
microscope are being used to produce pictures of individual atoms. These and
other developments have not only transformed the methods available for making
art but, inevitably, will also affect the way many artists think about the making of art.
Unfortunately, the adoption of new imaging technologies within art schools
often occurs at a superficial level. With little understanding of underlying principles,
processes and structures, and forced to apprehend them in terms of familiar
paradigms, students may struggle to contextualize them, to realize a fraction of
their potential, or to follow implicit connections to important strands of
contemporary knowledge. We now have a population of many thousands of
students in art schools who regularly use computers to make or manipulate images,
but for many of whom the computer is effectively a magic ‘black box’. Yet computers
do have the potential to contribute to the knowledge content of courses, as students
are exposed to complex ideas embedded in software, as well as to the streams of
information available online.
So, in considering the omissions from the maps of subject knowledge examined
earlier, it would be expedient to begin by looking at some of the areas of visual
knowledge arising from computing which might further contextualize existing
knowledge. (For a discussion of artistic applications of computers, see Holtzman
1994 and Mitchell 1994.)
Algorithms, or stepwise procedures, are the basis of computational processing
of all kinds. Applied to the making of art, they can be used not simply as generative
systems – Harold Cohen and Roman Verostko, for example, have succeeded in
embedding certain of their own creative processes in computational procedures.
Fractal geometry, originated by Benoit Mandelbrot, is concerned with structures
possessing properties of self-similarity at different scales, and provides elegant and
concise representations of complex natural structures such as coastlines,
mountains, and plant forms. (The study of fractal geometry only became feasible
with the advent of computers.) An awareness of these visual representations is
referenced in the work of several ‘process’ painters attempting to reconcile the post-
modern with ‘post-painterly abstraction’.
Image database technologies facilitate the organization of large collections of
visual images, indexed by content, appearance, or associated verbal descriptors.
They suggest new ways in which artists might organize, store, and access ‘visual
experience’, for example through the use of ‘semantic nets’, wherein visual concepts
might be meaningfully interlinked in ways analogous to the associative organization
of information in human memory. There are parallels to be explored with the classes
of objects within iconographic lexicons, symbolic form and modernist formalism.
Non-photorealistic rendering (NPR) comprises a range of techniques for
rendering imagery in ‘artistic’ ways. The potential of NPR to enhance our
104 Judith Mottram and George Whale

8. understanding of the surface characteristics of paintings, prints and drawings, of
autographic mark-making ‘vocabularies’, or systems of visual notation has, as yet,
hardly been explored.
Particle systems model spatial interactions between large numbers of tiny
particles whose respective attributes, including colour and velocity, enable the
rendering of amorphous phenomena such as water, fire, mist, spray, and clouds.
Particle systems have been extensively employed in the creation of special effects in
motion pictures, but within the context of art education could be seen to have
potential for increasing understanding of the observed and a contextualization of
the ‘poetics of space’.
Robotic vision technology enables machines to identify spatial structures within
images and to recognize objects in the world, including human forms and faces.
Some of the computational processes employed are analogous to stages of human
visual perception, linking this technology to contemporary research in perceptual
psychology.
Shape grammars, visual implementations of Noam Chomsky’s ‘generative
grammars’, facilitate formal description of spatial relationships. They have been
used in architectural and product design, and could become important tools for the
analysis of painting ‘styles’, the investigation of the relationships between the ‘deep
structures’ and ‘surface structures’ of images, and the creation of new ‘languages of
form’ in two and three dimensions.
Virtual reality (VR) takes the experiencing of imagery beyond passive
observation of plane surfaces, towards interactive engagement with ‘immersive’
virtual spaces. Artists are just beginning to exploit these developments, notably
Char Davies (creator of Osmose), and those working with Loughborough
University’s Gallery of the Future. Nodal connections from this point, particularly in
conjunction with shape grammars, could effectively be made to various aspects of
contemporary cultural theory.
Volumetric modelling, by which three-dimensional images are reconstructed
from PET (positron emission tomography), or CAT (computed axial tomography)
scans. In its ability to depict the internal structures and processes of the living body,
volumetric modelling suggests ways in which the study of anatomy, once a central
component of fine art teaching, might be contemporized.
Taken individually, each of these areas is ripe for creative exploitation, but their
associations with other fields of knowledge are of particular interest in the present
context, suggesting knowledge maps, or networks, in which each piece of
knowledge, or node, connects to others by a number of different kinds of link –
artistic and scientific, contemporary and historical. A means by which relevant new
knowledge might be integrated with old, where interconnections denote meaningful
paths between different areas of knowledge, where the choice of starting point is
less important than the routes leading from it.
Consider, for example, the topic of three-dimensional modelling and rendering,
which might be represented on our map, somewhere between VR, architectural
drawing, and painterly realism. Most renderings of ‘virtual’ scenes involve the
conversion of a 3D geometric model into a 2D image by means of perspective
projection, and the colouration of surfaces according to the laws of physical optics.
As a way of representing the physical world, the monocular perspective view can be
traced back to Brunelleschi in the Renaissance, and has since been embodied in a
range of optical devices, from the camera obscura, first described in the sixteenth
105New Knowledge and New Technology: restructuring fine art education

9. century, to the photographic camera, invented in the nineteenth. Rawson, among
others, has identified a number of artists who almost certainly used ‘peephole’
machines of one kind or another in their work: ‘Holbein the Younger heads a list
which includes Canaletto, Bellotto, and even Constable’ (Rawson 1969, p. 217).
Alternative methods of projection, including orthographic, axonometric, and
oblique, some of which predate classical Western perspective (but are still employed
in various kinds of technical drawing) are relatively easy to implement
computationally, as are the different ways of depicting solids – for example in terms
of lines, surface facets (a method favoured by Uccello, among others), aggregations
of Platonic solids or regular volumetric elements. And the physical realization of
virtual models is made possible by solid object manufacturing technologies (e.g.
stereolithography), which means that 3D modelling is likely to become increasingly
important in the context of sculpture.
Even from this brief account it is clear that 3D modelling, far from being an
isolated, scientific phenomenon divorced from artistic practice, is enmeshed in the
history of ideas and technologies which have played a key role in the development of
art. As well as being a powerful creative tool in its own right, computational
modelling facilitates comparison of the various systems of representation used by
different artists in different cultures. It offers a practical means whereby lighting,
surface texture, shading, viewpoint, and other components of representational
images might be isolated, analysed, and experimented with. At the same time, it
links to contemporary knowledge in perception, visualization, and manufacturing.
Notions of the essential interconnectedness of knowledge, for which Edward O.
Wilson (1998) has coined the term ‘consilience’, are in keeping with the changing
status and multiple roles of imagery in the digital age:
It [digital imaging] electronically accelerates the mechanisms of the visual
record, enables the weaving of complex networks of interconnection between
images to establish multiple and perhaps incommensurable layers of meaning,
allows heterarchical association and access patterns to develop, and transforms
the museum without walls into the even less spatialized virtual museum.
Mitchell 1994, p. 85
Any fundamental reappraisal of what might constitute ‘core’ subject knowledge in
fine art can proceed from the uncontentious premise that fine art is still primarily
concerned with the visual, and that key areas of contemporary visual knowledge
should be located at, or near, the centre of the domain map. In positioning these
within a broader context of relevant contemporary and historical knowledge, and
making the connecting pathways explicit, the map, instead of constraining students’
options, facilitates development in different directions but crucially the theoretical
and practical knowledge they acquire is always contextualized.
Conclusion
The existence of a ‘traditional’ conception of subject knowledge within fine art has
been uncertain since the 1960s. We have seen that degree level programmes do
address some notion of core subject knowledge, at least in the early stages of study,
and it is evident that graduates are in possession of a range of transferable skills
and competencies. But the advent of new imaging technology gives us an
opportunity to reassess the boundaries of subject knowledge. Csikszentmihalyi
106 Judith Mottram and George Whale

10. asserts that the possession of thorough knowledge of a domain has been shown to
be a vital component of creativity (Csikszentmihalyi 1996, p. 90), and, if our
ambition is to educate artists (‘creatives’ by default), the challenge of providing a
map of the domain is ours.
That the current emphasis upon exploration within a self-determined
programme of study generates successful outcomes is not in dispute, but students
could be being deprived of the opportunity to achieve a sufficiently thorough
knowledge of the boundaries of the domain, impacting ultimately on their potential
for increased creativity. For those graduates who move into other professions, more
thorough domain knowledge would also be advantageous.
The proliferation of visual and textual information available via the Internet has
contributed to the volume of information that might be accessible to students for
negotiating their own domain maps, but there is awareness of the distracting effect
of irrelevant links, unstructured, ill-considered content, and the poor quality of
much ‘educational’ material. ‘Subject Gateways’ are not effective for this task, and
the student, unless in possession of an extremely well-developed critical facility, will
be overwhelmed with unstructured data. The academic guidance of the tutor has
been cited as an enabling factor for self-directed studio development. However, the
increasing focus upon the outcomes of ‘research’ activity brings us back,
particularly in respect of those academics educated since the 1970s, to the
possibility of restraints on the breadth of knowledge imposed by the system under
scrutiny. It could be perceived that the QAA Benchmarking Project will make a clear
contribution to the determination of subject knowledge for undergraduate
education, but it remains to be seen whether the level of detail will provide an
effective operational tool. But there is the potential of available electronic systems
to present ‘subject knowledge’ within a full domain map via the Internet – a
significant opportunity to explore the potential for curriculum development and
innovations in teaching and learning.
The introduction of the domain map as a tool to locate ‘the fundamental
theoretical, historical and creative issues’ during the early stages of degree
programmes could precede more self-determined exploration of the map as
students develop the focus of their concerns. Any such electronic implementation
of a fine art domain map would need to make explicit and meaningful connections
between ‘packets’ of subject knowledge, and the material itself would have to be the
product of close collaborations between domain experts (artists, educators, gallery
curators, researchers, historians, psychologists, technologists, scientists, etc.). The
entry points might consist of links to those areas of subject knowledge considered
central to the particular programme of study, with the choice of first-level links
reflecting the particular emphases of the course. And any domain map would need
to establish a navigation system that ensured exposure to contextualized enquiry at
appropriate levels. The extent to which experiential (or practical) knowledge is
transmissible by these means is uncertain, but interactive virtual environments may
eventually make it possible for familiarity with some of the practical skills associated
with art practice to be conveyed electronically. Issues of how much time should be
spent on the development of studio practice, the learning of core material, of the
integration of electronic and conventional modes of delivery, of how, on what, or
whether, students should be formally tested and appraised, are more problematic.
Also to be resolved would be the issue of collaborative working which, while now
less unusual within the studio, is a significant factor in much contemporary, web-
107New Knowledge and New Technology: restructuring fine art education

11. based art, and also the most common pattern of working in many creative
enterprises.
We have suggested how a domain map might be derived from a re-evaluation of
what constitutes subject knowledge in fine art, a map in which contemporary
knowledge relating to visual perception, representation, and production lies at the
centre of a spreading network of meaningful connections between the arts and
sciences. Used as the basis for structuring the content of undergraduate courses,
such a map might better enable students and graduates of fine art to proceed with
confidence along any one of many possible creative paths, some as yet unexplored.
We anticipate that our proposal might meet with resistance on two counts: that
there is sufficient evidence that current models are having significant success within
the world art market, and that the authority of certainty through inclusion is
misguided and constraining.
However, it is our view that degree course structures could benefit from a
knowledge model that extends into the current, ‘self-determined’ phase. By being
explicit about the kinds of theoretical and practical knowledge a course seeks to
convey, astute in its exploitation of digital technologies, and more demanding of
students, there would be exposure to a broader range of visual ideas and techniques
than might happen at present. By placing these ideas and techniques in a coherent
context, there is the opportunity to provide a more open-ended situation than
established approaches to fine art education, where students are too often left to fall
back on their own (undeveloped) resources, to ‘feel their own way’.
Most UK art schools are now integrated into the broader context of the
universities, which should facilitate this more consilient approach. Given new
opportunities for identifying and resolving artistic problems, using modern tools to
explore process and product, students of fine art could, we believe, become better
equipped to adapt to rapid technological change, to avail themselves of new forms
of employment in the creative industries, and to attune themselves to scientific
developments, which increasingly shape and influence visual culture – in short, to
undertake ‘different and more effective action’ in a range of creative contexts.
Appendix
Programme 1 – Topics identified in course documentation for Semester 1
of a BA Fine Art Painting programme (Loughborough University, 2000)
Materials, techniques and processes
• the use of perspective and proportion
• pigments and the perception of colour
• drawing and digital and photographic imaging
• the role of source material
• the intentionality of the artist
Understanding of critical perspectives
• contemporary debates around the interpretation and production of meaning in
fine art
• the historical development of and critical and material frameworks for
contemporary issues in fine art
108 Judith Mottram and George Whale

12. Transferable skills
• strategies for creativity
• visual and verbal communication
• critical engagement with the outcomes of practice
• research skills and sources for verbal, visual and written work
• organizational and presentation skills
Programme 2 – Topics identified in course information for Year 1 of a BA
Fine Art programme (Surrey Institute of Art & Design, 2000)
Materials, techniques and processes
• technical workshops
• how to use materials and processes
• a range of module options in photography, film and video, animation and
journalism
• electronic imaging
• working with computers
• drawing
Understanding of critical perspectives
• the investigation and understanding of sources
• visual history
• how theory underpins twentieth century practice
• the objective and the subjective
• painting projects – Investigation, imagination and invention
• printmaking projects – Exploring images through processes
• sculpture projects – Deconstruction, reinvention and transformation
• alternative Media – Non-Media Specific Specialism
• transferable skills
• learning strategies
• collecting, analysing and organizing information
• research methodology
• languages
• european language options
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110 Judith Mottram and George Whale

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