Parallel Media: Strategies of Convergence in the Classroom

Media Artist Gene Gort and Composer/Sound Artist Ken Steen collaborate on projects they coin, "parallel media"; works that challenge conventional form, gallery and performance practice. This mode of production has at its core a single vision realized through multiple, simultaneous iterations. Among these are static and time-based media presented through a combination of gallery installation, performance, web and other types of media distribution systems. These are works that place clear participant/audience focus on the process of creation, at once allowing transparency and designed to embody specificity of both place and time concurrent with the transcendence of place and time. This working model has allowed them to develop a pedagogy that is directly informed by their professional practice. In the classroom, "parallel media" fosters collaboration among students from disparate backgrounds through clear focus on a common art-making goal. Their specific example cites the use of written/spoken word, video production and music composition/performance but suggests it is not limited to these. Primarily, students communicate with each other through production and presentation of work mediated through a website depository as a database. The interactions between students are through the sharing of work in various media. This requires the work itself to be compelling, to initiate the need or desire to respond to other participants through creation in other media. It also creates a more professional attitude since the work produced becomes public immediately. The inclusion of verbal discussion, whether actual or virtual, is kept to a minimum in order to place clear focus on the production of visual images both moving and static, text pieces, sound, noise, music, etc. as the primary means of communication between participants in the unfolding of the larger art-making goal. Gort and Steen will discuss various strategies for implementing challenging collaborative processes in multi-media art-making.