Representing Pasts – Visioning Futures
Abstract
As rapidly as new technologies emerge, questions surround their application, use, and value within individual fields of study. Specific curiosities about the ways in which these new technologies are used challenge us to test their potential as “tools to imagine.” With this aim, new technologies can be used as prompts for provocation, improving the ways we teach, understand, and discuss visual literacy within ‘classical’ fields, such as art education.
This presentation examines the use of digital imaging software and time-based media as “tools to imagine” to generate new visualizations of classical paintings. By exploring Thomas Cole’s “The Course of Empire” paintings, this research investigates how complex relationships in time and space are unraveled when digital tools are employed to both observe the paintings in an unconventional way and to create a presentable digital artifact, a short film. The use of new technologies as tools for learning-by-making prompts undiscovered questions about the original artwork, such as opacity and isolating cropped visuals. This demonstrates how investigating art with an array of digital software can prompt new discoveries, as well as provoke new lines of dialogue inspired by the resulting artifacts. Further, this application of technology offers itself as “tools to imagine” art education in a contemporary context.
Zach Winegardner is a Lecturer for the Department of Design at Ohio State University as well as a practicing interactive media designer. His research seeks news ways of exploring art history by employing digital methods to generate inquiry. Professionally he has contributed to interactive installations with Roto LLC, AR apps for archaeological and art education, and a VR application for first responder triage training in mass casualty incidents with the Wexner Medical Center and the Advanced Computing Center for the Arts and Design. zachwinegardner.design