System designs for arts pedagogy

Art and design education continue to resonate with modernist and avant-gardist ideas of artwork and author. However, during the transition from modernism to post-modernism in the 1960s, art forms such as happenings, intermedia and participatory arts established evidence that cybernetic and system-theoretical approaches to art and design education as well as artistic practices provided valid avenues for the realisation of collective art forms. Emphasis on processes does not necessitate discipline-specific definitions of an expected final outcome, but relies on the synergetic impact of the combination of diverse expertise and experiences of the participating members of the team. Results are created and defined as a consequence of constant communication and feedback between team members. For realisation and evaluation of such an approach the determination of a set of rules on which such a system is based is critical. This paper evaluates process-oriented pedagogy within a tertiary arts education organisation with a selection of case studies from LASALLE College of the Arts (LASALLE) in Singapore. These interdisciplinary pedagogical arts practices range from structured improvisation as a creative laboratory, use of technology to inform practice, playing with spatial geometries, through to creating templates to shape or codes to sequence performance and durational arts practice. The paper proposes a system design for arts pedagogy based on the potentialities of collective collaboration rather than the individual artist and on the multiplicity of outcomes made possible by focusing on process rather than product or object.