After using my first digital camera, I immediately realized that it wouldn’t negate the need to learn how to plan and execute an aesthetically pleasing image. It certainly couldn’t create intrigue, balance, and personal style. My job was to tell it what to do and how to do it. Learning to be adaptive is one of the greatest lessons I can share with my students.
Last spring, I received a panicked text from a colleague who expressed great trepidation about the release of a generative AI model whose mission is to create custom images and text effects for marketing graphics. The app was designed to make content creation accessible for users without professional design experience. Both release statements sent lightning bolts through my system. Why was I concerned when I’ve built a thirty-year career around fearless insertions of digital technology into art?
Only minutes after receiving my colleague’s text, I giggled, remembering how defiant I was when I received my first digital camera as a studio photographer. I went on ad nauseam about how digital cameras would kill the art of photography. After test-driving that nearly eight-pound camera, I discovered some advantages I hadn’t foreseen. I didn’t have to use harmful chemicals, there was no wasted film, and I could quickly view image results.
My tale might not alleviate concerns that autonomous entities posing as talented artists could undermine our function in the classroom. I’m guessing the fear comes from the notion that if students can make images by typing words into an AI platform, why should they bother to learn art history and how to make art? Here’s why. Despite the technological developments that seem to happen daily, photography classes are still necessary. There is a place for AI within the art universe. Our job is to teach our students the right time and place to use it and how to use it responsibly.
After using my first digital camera, I immediately realized that it wouldn’t negate the need to learn how to plan and execute an aesthetically pleasing image. It certainly couldn’t create intrigue, balance, and personal style. My job was to tell it what to do and how to do it. Learning to be adaptive is one of the greatest lessons I can share with my students.
Digital Ideas
If you and your students experience digital drain or need to reflect on digital art’s meaning, benefits, or consequences, here are a few suggestions.
Create balance in your digital and media art curriculum by practicing moderation. We’ve all gotten starry-eyed over a new technique or app, but this can overshadow the underlying function of any art class. Include projects that mix traditional and digital media, like my “Paint and Pixels” project (SchoolArts, March 2020).
Look for unique ways to output digital art beyond a flat print. Try digital works that can be assembled, such as “Paper Microbes,” featured in this issue (p. 36).
Let your students experiment and take risks. Try “Frankenstein Design” (SchoolArts, March 2019). I’ve done this project on and off over the years, but last year was different because there have been so many more conversations focusing on the practical implications of AI-generated art. After critiquing each other’s designs using Padlet, students watched “ARTificial Intelligence,” a news story produced by CBS Sunday Morning (bit.ly/ARTificialAI), then used any AI image-making platform to try and replicate the artwork they produced, using the concepts and skills taught to them. I was genuinely surprised when all but one student preferred what they had accomplished independently. There were various reasons, but most students felt the AI platforms failed to come up with an innovative design solution that was aesthetically pleasing in a meaningful way.
My final piece of advice is to avoid leaning into an opinion of artistic technology being either good or bad. Take a footnote from history; the invention of the paint tube was the catalyst for the Impressionist art movement, which changed the art world in a significant manner. What was perceived as hack art then is now beloved. Embrace the shiny and new with one foot grounded in the past.
Kasmira Mohanty is a digital arts teacher at Huntington High School in Huntington, New York. KasmiraMohanty@Gmail.com
View this article in the digital edition.
External Links Disclaimer: The content in SchoolArts magazine represents the views of individual authors and artists, selected for publication by the editorial team. The resources provided are to support the teaching of art in a variety of contexts, and therefore links to external sources are included. As such, any linked content is not monitored by SchoolArts and should be previewed by a professional before sharing with students.
Art teachers provide engaging opportunities for students to explore the world of media arts. Elementary students contribute 3D-printed prototypes and mini robots to a collaborative CAD sculpture garden, middle-school students apply the elements and principles while designing donuts in Microsoft Paint 3D, high-school students combine digitally altered photographs of hands to create a powerful narrative, and more.
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