My final burning issue was to figure out what my school should call itself. We are officially called “The Srishti School of Art, Design & Technology”. The current title doesn’t work. Here are the problems.
FINE ARTS as an undergraduate major was canceled sometime in the last couple of years. Not sure how or why this went down, but it makes sense as far as I can see. Fine Arts, if it is understood as the production of art objects for display in large boxes, mostly be viewed by the rich and famous as a means of generating cultural novelty is Western Modernist process that should have been shed long ago. Additionally, there is little financial infrastructure and institutions to support Indian FINE ARTISTS, although that is changing rapidly as a voracious global art market moves on from China, looking for its next big kill in the emerging economy. Regardless, Fine Art with a capital “A” is not something that happens here at Srishti. I tend to think what happens is better, which is I work here.
DESIGN is a word that no longer fits in Srishti. Design (especially in the “Graphic” and “Industrial” senses) is largely a product of the industrial revolution which we know is unsustainable for the planet, and unfeasible for India. Perhaps our students can design service ecologies or peer production networks, but this isn’t really “DESIGN”. Maybe we are asking our students to become design ecologists?
My impression is that “Technology” is in the title because it gives air of legitimacy especially in Bangalore, India, where science, engineering and applied technology (i.e. technology that generates capital) are substantially privileged in comparison to the humanities and especially the arts and other hybrid spaces. Marshall Mcluhan reminds us “Technology is the Most Human Thing About Us”. TECHNOLOGY is simply language, and coins and wheels and all humans have some of that. It might be useful to distinguish between software, hardware and wetware or material technologies and social technologies, but that has not been done as of yet.
All this to say that I asked the Leonardo Network to help us rename our school to something that accurately describes the scene on the ground and identifies future goals and directions. This seems like a useful conversation for the Leonardo network that has worked to create a 3rd (or more space) between science and the arts. If our institution also shares the goal of producing young art/science/technologist/humanists it seems we don’t have appropriate language to describe that condition yet.
So, although we would get no funding and lose (only) a few of our less adventurous students I would propose a name change such as:
“The Srishti school of Information Ecology, Network Entrepreneurship, and Planetary Healing Wellness”
But that is a little long winded.
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