Media Remix
Experiment
Jack Watson, Visual Art & Art History Teacher, Chapel Hill High School; ART21 Educator — Chapel Hill, NC
Mark Bradford, Artist — Los Angeles, CA
In Media Remix, groups created their own Snapchat movies investigating the prompt, “Does contemporary art matter?” By connecting words, images and short videos together, each group created an ephemeral visual document exploring all the ways art is interpreted and absorbed in contemporary society.
“Mark and I went into this experiment knowing virtually nothing about Snapchat. We chose this medium because, in talking about what we could do, we realized that we both work closely with teenagers, and we both marvel at the way methods of communication have changed. Snapchat, the messaging app that allows people to send videos and images that disappear after a short time, seemed mysterious and even illicit from our side of the generation gap. But in talking to the teens we knew who used Snapchat frequently, they described it as a creative medium, and a more ‘authentic’ (their word) means of communication than texting or email. We realized this was a chance to learn from our learners, and to explore new means of making, sharing and remixing.
In this experiment, we asked groups of participants to create short Snapchat movies on their smartphones by stringing images and videos together, which could be shared with the rest of the group. The prompt, ‘Does contemporary art matter?’ would be interpreted in other ‘disposable’ forms like sitcoms, reality shows, telenovelas, or news chat shows.
These ad hoc groups created roles for each other, and quickly bypassed social boundaries and pleasantries to interact in a fluid way and create their mini epics. It was exciting to see this medium, which we’d previously misunderstood, lead to the fun, ‘authentic’ interactions our students had promised. And as Mark pointed out in the reflection that followed, it was a completely ephemeral experience – there was nothing to clean up or pack away at the end of the day. After we watched the movies, they were gone.”
— Jack Watson
Our team’s @Snapchat story for #creativechem is a telenovella about whether contemporary art matters. Spoiler: yes! pic.twitter.com/nUmmz7ecip
— Rebecca Mir (@mirseum) February 21, 2015
Saturday, February 21st 2015
2:45 p.m.
It was exciting to see this medium, which we’d previously misunderstood, lead to the fun, ‘authentic’ interactions our students had promised.
And as Mark pointed out in the reflection that followed, it was a completely ephemeral experience – there was nothing to clean up or pack away at the end of the day. After we watched the movies, they were gone.
— Jack Watson
