Perpetual Teaching Across Temporary Places: Conditions, Motivations, and Practices of Media Artists Teaching Computing Workshops

Abstract

Why and how do new media artists teach computing? Over the past decade, computing has become a part of the standard curriculum in university art and design departments, along with the advent of influential informal learning communities and self-organized schools. This paper is the first systematic attempt to map the diverse conditions, motivations, and practices of new media artists teaching computing. Interviews with 18 new media artists from 5 countries and 17 different sites revealed that teaching computing is closely integrated with their art practice, with a shared aim to cultivate new cultures in computing rather than only to transfer knowledge. We gathered new media artists’ accounts of precarious work, lack of time and place for their practices, and unrealistic expectations for instant results they face in their teaching. Within these precarious conditions, they developed a unique set of practices for “perpetual teaching,” which promotes self-reflective, critical, and situated learning. Our findings from this study are a call for further investigation of educators’ roles in creating cultures in computing, especially incorporating practices outside of conventional computing education settings.

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