In the months preceding my arrival here in Guangzhou, I put together a tenative curriculum for a term of teaching Interactive Media Art & Public Art here in China. I am greatly indebted to Renée Kool, who was my advisor, mentor, co-developer and crucial sparring partner, in the developement of ideas and methods for teaching these coming months.

Monday the 7th of september, I finally began my long anticipated term of teaching at the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts. The class, with circa 30 4th year bachelor students, is more-or-less evenly made up out of boys and girls, mostly around 23 years of age. All are students of various digital media related disciplines, and I have yet to discover what that entails when I first see their work.

For the kick-off, one of the things we did is take photos of each other, post them on the wall, and add notes to them (like tags), giving information such as name, where originally from, what fields are you interested in, what do you hope to do after graduation, etcetera. (an idea partly inspired by Carolyn Strauss )

For me this is a wonderful way to begin to get to know what their references and interests are. And it’s highly entertaining, and sometimes even touching, to see how some of them made an effort to present a specific persona.
Here are some examples:

Of course it’s only fair that I participate too:

And Hong Rongman,
my associate professor and assistant: