What a day, getting to grips with the benefits of using technology within contemporary art teaching practice.
As an aspiring art teacher I believe it is a given that computer technology has great benefits for an artists in general, as the need to get yourself out there, to get yourself seen is paramount.
The expression "cast your bread out onto the water, and see what comes back" comes to mind, the idea is that you will only be seen if you make yourself seen. Technology has great benefits in this area, it provides artist with great opportunities to promote their art and profiles from the comfort of their hot chocolate, slipper ridden armchairs.
But I think a word of caution is necessary, technology can be a two edged sword, we cannot have high expectations of what it can achieve for us as artist. We cannot expect gallery owners and art collectors to now be stumbling all over us just because we are out there in cyber world, "they are simply not out there looking for us". We must look for them and show them the way.
There is no substitute for backing up what we put out on the www, experience reveals that after a personal visit to a gallery in an effort to promote ourselves, it is more likely that a gallery owner or art collector will look at our profile (website, blog, social media) after we have left the gallery.
Technology can enlighten the road ahead for us as artist, but we can also get lost in all that it has to offer, maybe more to the point, we can get lost in what we think it has to offer.
A gallery owner can glean very little about us from technology alone (website, blog) as to what you are like as a person or what you are like to work with long term.
It is like going for a job interview, the CV is only part of the process, it is the interview that is the clincher, this is where decisions are made.
Technology kind of pads us out, it helps build and add more information as to who and what we are, but it cannot be used to substitute what is real.
Direct relationships, personal interactions and communications go along way in supporting and enhancing an artist profile.
No comments:
Post a Comment