Feedback from the Students...

After our cutting and sticking session last week, students were tasked to find artefacts, articles, videos or similar that in some way made reference to the Walter Benjamin text.  We reconvened this morning and I was really impressed to see how much research activity had taken place since last week. Students had evidenced their research on their blogs, and found so many different interpretations. We discussed these openly - students were keen to share what they had found, and what they thought these findings meant in relation to the original text.

Discussion was honest and open, and focused around a few key themes;
1) Discussion of the aura of the original - whether experience is key to experiencing the aura of a work - do we need to somehow "bear witness" to a work of art?
2) Film does not have an "original" - even analogue film is not the artefact itself. The 'thing' is the watching of the film - the experience of it - and therefore might the aura of a work of film lie within the audience rather than the "artefact" itself?
3) Is technology something to be feared as a destructive force? Or might it free the work of art from the confines of a hierarchical system?
4) Copies of copies of copies - allow for broad distribution of art rather than limited access to it - from a political point of view this acts as a democratisation of art.
5) Film is illusionary compared to other art forms, as is all time-based media, including game and animation.

Discussion was varied, interesting and all students were involved.

Following this, the table groups spent some time discussing the ideas that had been raised, and decided on particular key words / phrases that they could use to describe what TWOAAMR is about. The photo below shows the results of this activity.

1. It is "ahead of it's time" - one student changed this to read "timeless".

2. Benjamin is "scared of new technology replacing older technologies". There was not complete agreement on this - and it was suggested that perhaps there was a feeling of angst coming though the work, about the increased reliance on technology in society. Also, in opposition to this, it was seen as a "celebration" of technology.

3. Focus on the "effect of technology on society". It was noted how Benjamin's Marxist sentiment would encourage the notion of technology's potential to emancipate the worker.

4. The work was "catalytic"; It "questions the value of art"; It discusses "originality"; and the effect that these issues have on us.

5. It is "elitist" - written for a particular audience.

6. It "analyses art" and needs to be understood in the "context" of it's production. ie: 1936 Europe.

7. It is "contemplative" - both retrospective and future-spective.

8. And lastly, it is "penetrating" a particular idea. The use of this word directly references Benjamin's use of it throughout the section of his text that we analysed.

I was absolutely amazed at the level of understanding that was reached with just these two sessions - the first one literally cutting up the text, and beginning to try to make sense of it - and the second session (following some individual research where the ideas needed to be applied to an example) which was based on discussion, sharing ideas and working together to come up with a solution. The students have definitely gained a good understanding of this text, and I'm hopeful that this will give them the confidence to engage with academic texts throughout the year.

Feedback from students was generally very positive, with some noting how great it was to work on something with their hands, and all agreeing that the discursive element of the actual cutting / sticking activity helped them to gain an understanding of the meaning of the text simply by talking it through with each other.

I'm really keen to try more ways (especially practical and applied techniques) of interrogating academic texts with students so please do share any ideas / experiences / thoughts that might be useful. Thanks.

Deconstructing Benjamin with Students!

So, having done my homework and clued up on why this might be a useful activity for students, as well as having had a go at it myself, I decided to deconstruct Walter Benjamin's The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction (TWOAAMR) with my second year group.  This group of students is a combination of 15 Foundation Degree Film and Media Production, and 20 BA (Hons) Film students, so is a fairly large student group to workshop with. The majority of these students make films, and their time at college does not ever involve drawing, cutting and sticking of paper! However, they were keen to have a go!

Firstly I gave them all a copy of an excerpt of Benjamin's work. They have met his work in previous sessions but never fully interrogated it. The section I gave them consisted of the introduction by Paul Valery, and section X, which deals directly with film. There were 6 tables in the room, each with 6 copies of the text, various magazines and newspapers, coloured tissue, scissors and glue sticks stacked up in the middle. Having discussed the context of TWOAAMR, and that of Benjamin himself, I deliberately asked the students to read through the excerpt and to discuss with their table how they found the experience. They were then asked to decide on two words per table to describe the text.

These were the words they came up with. Only 3 of these were considered to be positive - illuminating, metaphorical, high class (although we did discuss why 'high class' could be considered positive and agreed that it might actually be negative). (Those of you with an eye for detail will notice that there are 13 words rather than 12 - illuminating was added by a student who felt that the overall response to this fantastic piece of writing was too negative.)

Using some of the ideas that I pinched from http://tactileacademia.com/ I explained to the students that they should look for parts of the text, either words or sentences, that interested them, and to start to cut these out. They were also to make use of the other magaziness, newspapers etc on the tables to illustrate, expand, think through, the points they had chosen. I have to admit that I was expecting some resistance to this activity but on the whole, this group really engaged with the task, and gained a greater understanding of the text as a result. More about that later...

We had only two hours for this session, and I think an extra one would have been useful. As we cleared up we started to think about how this activity might have helped them to gain a greater understanding of the text. To try to make sense of the experience of 'crafting' in this way, I asked the students to repeat the task of working in their table groups to find a word (or two) to describe how they felt about the text now that they had had the experience of cutting it up in this way. The results were surprisingly positive, as shown in the image below:

Students noted how they could discuss the text whilst selecting / cutting / pasting, and that they could find images and words that were relevant to their understanding of the text. They found the text more approachable, and acknowledged that the activity gave them the time to interrogate the meaning, and to interpret it in a sociable and interactive way. Interestingly a number of students suggested that they  felt that the activity was irreverent, because it felt "wrong" to cut up someone's work to the point where it might be considered unrecognisable. Some students became very precious about what they had made, and others wanted to continue (or even to start again) after the session was finished.

Students have been tasked to find some work on the internet that references TWOAAMR, and to share this with the group next week. I have also challenged them to try to make something that responds to the text in some way, although have not made this a compulsory but an optional task. It will be interesting to see what happens with that!

All in all this was an interesting morning, and from a teaching point of view I found this to be an excellent way to encourage varied readings of a text. 

 I never expected this to work for everyone, and I think it's important to be mindful of how this kind of crafting is, for some students, reminiscent of primary school (it must be the glue sticks!) It worked for this particular Year 2 group because we had already gone through some pretty intense, risk-taking, experimental seminars and discussions in Year 1, and I think there was an element of trust there that allowed them to just go with it. Students were really keen to talk about why they had chosen particular words / images, and we had some excellent discussion about the meaning of Benjamin's work, and how it might be though of in today's context. On the whole, they demonstrated a real understanding of the piece.

Below are some of the beautifully crafted responses to Benjamin's TWOAAMR that they made today.