The Power and Potential of Laser Videodisc Technology for Art Education in the 90's

Abstract

You want to enrich an art lesson by showing your class three or four artworks. You select these from among a possible 108,000 artworks which are included on your laser videodisc. Originals of these artworks can be found in the world's great museums and among private collections. This disk costs your school under $100, but which normally would cost several hundred thousand dollars if the artworks contained were to be purchased as the typical commercially produced 35 mm color slides. After you discuss these selections, the equipment, consisting of a TV and a laser player, is moved to a corner of the artroom where a small group of students examine other related artworks in the fully lighted room, while the remainder of the class continues with their studio activities. In the afternoon individual students will use the published catalogue accompanying this disc to retrieve their own choices of artworks from the disc in order to prepare a written report and audiovisual presentation to their class. Later in the week you will hook-up a computer to this equipment to present to your entire class an episode (that you have created by programming various resources with a simple computer authoring system) consisting of still images of art works, filmclips, narration, text, and music. A number of students who are away on a fieldtrip will be able to view and interact with this episode at their own pace upon returning to your class. No. This is not a fantasy. Rather, this is a description of what is now taking place in only a few North American art classrooms made possible by the technology currently available to education. The decade of the 90's will find a great many more art classrooms similar to the one described. The late Buckminster Fuller claimed videodisc technology would have more impact on our society than the computer has had to date. John Naisbitt, author of the best seller Megatrends, has offered his predictions for major trends during the 90's in his latest book Megatrends 2000: Ten New Directions for the 1990's. He predicts high-tech will not rule supreme but there will be a renaissance in the arts, in literature, and in spirituality. Apparently the increasing tempo and complexity of modern life is disrupting our equilibrium. Through the arts we will seek to regain a sense of meaning by reexamining our humanity. If these respected futurists are accurate, and if we synthesize both of their predictions, we might feel confident in envisioning an increased interest and participation in the visual arts during the 90's of people of all ages and backgrounds which will be made a reality through advanced communications technology, one

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