Invisible Learning

Last week the media were gleefully reporting the forthcoming conceptual art show at the Hayward Gallery, entitled ‘Invisible: Art about the unseen 1957 – 2012‘. The exhibition features works that contain content that essentially does not exist, such as an invisible ink drawing, and a police report of a stolen work of invisible sculpture.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/2012/may/18/hayward-gallery-invisible-show

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/art/news/blank-canvas-london-gallery-unveils-invisible-art-exhibition-7767057.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/9275545/Invisible-art-exhibition-to-set-imaginations-alight.html

So, what else could All Change Please! do but to proudly curate its own imaginary show mischievously entitled: ‘Invisible Learning: A nostalgic look at the current state of formal education and the unseen absence of learning 1950s to 2012′.

The first work that greets the visitor to Invisible Learning – a triptych – convincingly illustrates the concept of obliterated learning. It begins with a blackboard with the chalk erased with a blackboard duster, effectively turning it into a whiteboard. Adjacent is another piece in which an electronic whiteboard is completely covered in black marker pen, effectively turning it into a blackboard. This is followed by the iconoclastic ‘Essay obliterated by red ink‘.

On display at the Hayward is Tom Friedman’s ‘1000 hours of staring‘ – a blank piece of paper the artist stared at for five years. In response, Invisible Learning presents us with a blank OCR Multiple Choice Question answer sheet which a pupil has spent five years staring at. This is followed by a reference to Yoko Ono’s set of instructions telling viewers to imagine they are looking at a work of art, presented in the form of the current National Curriculum documents and exam specifications telling teachers what their students should imagine they are learning.

While the Hayward exhibition contains ‘Invisible sculpture‘ – a plinth that Andy Warhol once briefly stood on, the next section of Invisible Learning includes a series of items of educational technologies that were once used briefly by famous people while at school.

So here is Bill Gates’ actual BBC micro that he first learnt to program on, the slide projector used to show art-history film-strips to the young David Hockney, and a piece of chalk originally thrown at Richard Branson when he wasn’t paying attention in a lesson.

Meanwhile, instead of Jeppe Heine’s ‘Invisible Labyrinth‘ on show at the Hayward – an invisible maze though which visitors ‘negotiate their way through a maze wearing digital headphones activated by infra-red beams’,  Invisible Learning visitors will experience the ‘Labyrinth of Learning‘ in which they negotiate their way through a maze of irrelevant subjects and examinations activated by the current government.

Based on John Cage’s famous 4′ 33″ ‘silent music’ piece, the Invisible Learning exhibition continues with 35’00″ of ‘silent reading’, in which a bell is rung to denote the beginning and end of the piece.

Then, in contrast to Yves Klein’s 1961 ‘In the Void Room‘ which featured an immersive walk-in installation painted entirely white and lit by a series of neon lamps, Invisible Learning is proud to present a special immersive gallery in which visitors can wander through empty learning spaces and corridors.

In this disturbing space a single chair is provided for visitors to sit and recall the endless sense of isolation experienced day after day sitting in the classroom.

And in this special installation two lone teachers still drone on endlessly, even though their classes went home years ago.

The final work in this section contains another sculptural piece, provocatively entitled ‘Chairs on tables‘, ritualistically created in every learning space across the country at the end of every school day. One is forced to wonder in what aspects of later life this creative learning experience will prove invaluable.

The last gallery contains perhaps the most evocative work. At the Hayward, Teresa Margolles takes water that has been used to wash the bodies of murder victims in Mexico City’s morgue and uses it in a humidifier: ‘Visitors walk through a room just aware of this superfine mist and its relationship to people mainly killed by drug cartels…You feel it on your skin.”

In Invisible Learning, odours extracted from deserted school sports halls, cloakrooms, assembly halls and chemistry labs are similarly used in a series of humidifiers that create a superfine nauseous mist for visitors to walk through and become more intimately aware of the learning victims of formal educational institutions and teacher cartels.

Just as the Hayward exhibition prompts one to ask: ‘But is it Art?‘, so Invisible Learning forces us to question the current provision of formal schooling: `But is it Education?’

And while one-off entry to the Hayward Exhibition costs just £8, a season pass to the entire Invisible Learning experience costs up to £9,000 a year.

Meanwhile, to read an invisible article about Invisible Art, click on the invisible link below:

http:// www.                               .html

Photo credits: Flickr Commons: Pareeerica, Jeremy Gordon, Steve Berry, Stuart Pillbrow, Emily Bean, Naraoekim0801, gish700, Calm Drew, Shaylor, True British Metal.

The bleak tale of Oliver’s great expectations, twisted

Please, sir,  I want some more lessons in the Creative Arts

Further to the suggestion in Getting high on Classic FM that, in response to the recent Henley Report into Cultural Education in England, nice Mr Gove had ambitions to play the role of a Victorian philanthropist, All Change Please! is proud to present its own somewhat twisted version of that  literary classic Oliver Twist. So, with apologies to the great Mr Dickens, and without further ado…

The Henley Report rose from the table; and advancing to the junior education minister, paintbrush and sketch-pad in hand, said: somewhat alarmed at his own temerity:

‘Please, sir, I want some more lessons in the Creative Arts.’

The junior education minister was a fat, healthy man; but he turned very pale. He gazed in stupified astonishment on the small rebel for some seconds, and then clung for support to the copper. The subject associations were paralysed with wonder; the teachers with fear.

‘What!’ said the junior education minister at length, in a faint voice.

‘Please, sir,’ replied the Henley report, ‘I want some more lessons in the Creative Arts.’

The junior education minister aimed a blow at the report’s cover with the ladle; pinioned it in his arm; and shrieked aloud.

The Secretary of State for Education was sitting in solemn conclave, when the junior education minister rushed into the room in great excitement, and addressing the gentleman in the high chair, said,

‘Mr. BumbleGove, I beg your pardon, sir! The Henley Report has asked for more!’

There was a general start. Horror was depicted on every countenance.

‘For MORE!’ said Mr BumbleGove. ‘Compose yourself, and answer me distinctly. Do I understand that it asked for more, after it had attended the single lesson a week allotted by the eBacc?’

‘It did, sir,’ replied junior education minister.

‘That report will be re-spun,’ said the gentleman in the white waistcoat. ‘I know that report will be re-spun.’

Nobody controverted BumbleGove’s opinion. An animated discussion took place. The report was ordered into instant confinement; and a bill was next morning pasted on the outside of the gate, offering a reward of five pounds to anybody who would take the report off the hands of the parish. In other words, five pounds and the report were offered to any man or woman who wanted an apprentice to any creative trade, business, or calling…

All characters appearing in this work are sadly far from fictitious. Any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is purely intentional.

The original, remarkably similar text can be read here:

http://charlesdickenspage.com/twist_more.html

“La La La La La, I can’t hear you”

It seems that the chattering teachers are starting to realise that there is a National Curriculum review taking place, and that subjects such as Art&Design, D&T and other so called ‘soft’ subjects might be left out. And just for once, instead of competing with each other for superiority, such subjects appear to be united in their fear of being marginalised. Sadly it’s all come a bit late, as Mr Gove has his fingers stuck firmly in his ears and is singing loudly “La La La La La, I can’t hear you”.

First though, there’s the issue of the EBac and all the media-hyped reports of schools cutting courses in the creative arts. Surely any sensible headteacher is not going to risk entering all students for the EBac subjects at the expense of reducing the number of overall GCSE A*-C passes – an ‘A’ in Art must be better than a ‘F’ in a MFL? And anyway, the EBac only consists of five subjects, so, as most students take between 8 and 10 subjects, there’s still plenty of scope for other ‘non-EBac’ subjects to flourish?

Meanwhile, controversially as ever, I suggest we should be celebrating the ‘de-acadimisation’ of subjects that are more accessible to the vast majority of students. Outside of the constraints of the National Curriculum Attainment Targets and totally ill-conceived Level Statements, teachers will once again become free to cover what is most appropriate for their students and circumstances. Then, when they’ve remembered, or come to realise, what it was like before the National Curriculum, start to take risks again and develop new more creative approaches to education in the Arts without fear of an Ofsted inspector telling them they should be following the rules all the time.

So, while it’s a shame that students who have the misfortune to be academically able will continue to be denied access to more creative, technical and vocationally-oriented courses, at least the rest will be able to gain proper credit for their talents and abilities without the need to sit and often fail the obligatory ‘written-paper’.

While I don’t want to go back to the 1950s, the 1980′s surely was a more progressive and optimistic time? Back there maybe we can at least start to pick up again where we left off…

But is it education?

For the past five or so years I’ve been making regular visits to Goldsmiths, walking past both the shiny new Art block and the Victorian Baths converted for use as a Fine Art gallery, but with no idea of what was going on behind those walls. So it was interesting to view the recent ‘Goldsmiths – but is it art?‘ BBC2 programme in order to get a glimpse inside.

In case you missed it, this review provides an excellent account of the programme:
http://www.theartsdesk.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=1312:goldsmiths-but-is-it-art-tv-review&Itemid=27

As so often happens, the programme did little to present contemporary art in a favourable light, and even less to convince us that what the world needs now is more MA Fine Art students. TV by its nature demands a story, controversy, photogenic personalities, and that meant that the focus was on the three or four students most likely to stir up and confirm our suspicions that art, and art students, are a complete waste of time and space. Which is a pity, because I suspect that there were many other students on the course producing work of quality, and whose intellectual capacity and professionalism had more clearly been developed during their time at Goldsmiths. But of course they would not have produced enough post-broadcast reviews and commentary to produce the requisite subsequent ‘water-cooler’ moment, which, I have to say, on my visit to Goldsmiths during the week, it certainly did.