I am extremely wary of new-fangled social interface technologies like Twitter and Skype, but recently had an awesome experience that allowed for a tad bit of reform on my technological paranoia.
Our senior drawing class had originally arranged a meeting back in September to meet and listen to a visiting artist, Julia Jacquette. Her lecture and our meeting was cancelled as was her flight to Knoxville due to inclement weather. Our professor, Marcia Goldenstein, decided to schedule a Skype session with Julia to make up for our lack of interaction.
I wasn't thrilled.
Not that I didn't want to meet and greet with Julia, I just wasn't interested in Skype and the inevitable video/sound lag times and the awkwardness of speaking to a computer screen that it would most likely bring with it.
I was pleasantly mistaken.
Crowded into a dark conference room in the Art & Architecture building with a digital projector displaying "Julia Jacquette" on the blank white wall, our class of 13 or so Drawing majors waited anxiously for the strange encounter to begin. Marcia called Julia on her cell phone, acknowledged that we were ready to begin, and launched the Skype session on her laptop.
Suddenly the room fell hushed and the smiling New York artist popped into view on Marcia's computer screen. She spoke "Hi Everyone!" and was easily decipherable through the speakers connected to the laptop. There was no lag time. There was no horrible video resolution. Eventually, there was no awkwardness.
The computer's web cam from which Julia was able to see us through was aimed at the projector wall, and after a brief introduction, she began a lecture about herself and her artworks. During the short pauses in her speech, Marcia advanced the slide show of images that Julia had emailed her and she described to us her process, inspiration, influences, and motivation behind each artwork displayed on the wall. It was basically like a traditional artist lecture that one could attend in room AA109 on any given Thursday night, only we weren't in a crowded lecture hall wishing we were at home watching "The Office" on NBC. We were seated comfortably among a few peers, listening to the artist speak and asking her questions. The potential awkwardness of shouting inquiries in a crowded room was eliminated by this warm, intimate conversation with an amazing artist living hundreds of miles away.
Skype is my new best friend.
It's free for download at the main webpage, and if you want to upgrade to get more features than just the video calls you can sign up for monthly payments.
This experience opened my eyes to the potential that Skype introduces in an art classroom. Instead of doing a PowerPoint presentation about an artist and researching hours of information to be able to convey their work and processes to my students, I can simply contact an artist by email and attempt to arrange a Skype session. Many artists like Julia Jacquette have their own websites and are surprisingly eager to share their work with students. A lecture from me about an artist's work is transformed into an interactive art lesson with a practicing artist that students can actually ask questions and get feedback and advice from in real time.
Exciting stuff.
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