Exposing the Camera: How the History of Racial Bias in Media Technologies Impacts Art Education

• In Event: The Past Is Present: Ignored Histories of Art Education

Abstract

This presentation chronicles the history of teaching the camera in art education, employing the lens of critical race theory to focus on various instances of racial-bias that exist in both its technical instruction and the development of camera technologies. As media technologies become more accessible, both in terms of cost and usability, art educators are increasingly incorporating the use of cameras into their curricula (Peppler, 2010). Stop motion animations (Ivashkevich, 2015), short films (Meager, 2017), and photo essays (Roldn, 2010) are just a handful of the different camera-based projects currently being employed in the field. In addition, some art educators have addressed issues of race through media arts projects (Hutzel, Bastos, & Cosier, 2012) while others have responded to media objects about race with mixed media art works (Lee, 2013). However, representation is only one part of the equation to consider in teaching an anti-racist approach to the camera. The goal of this research is to complicate the role of media technologies in the arts classrooms, not as a deterrent from implementing them for art-making purposes, but as a means of understanding and engaging with the camera in radically different ways.
With regards to the history of art education, Ryan Patton and Melanie Buffington (2016) established a chronology for the emergence of digital technologies in the arts classroom, specifically focusing on how the presence of these technologies might shape future policies. My hope is that by focusing on the history of the development of those technologies in conversation with the development of their instructional methods, art education can become a site to challenge the ways that these media technologies, such as the camera, shape and maintain certain ways of seeing. Often when racism is addressed in media arts education (if at all), it is framed as an issue of representation, pointing to the lack of diversity in magazines, TV, or films. However, as discussed by photographer and writer Syreeta McFadden (2014), these issues are more than skin-deep, extending beyond the bodies of those imaged and into the body of the camera itself. By focusing on the issue of race in the development of the camera technology alongside the history of its instruction, I hope to show how the contributions of black and brown photographers, cinematographers and instructors have not only been ignored but are crucial to teaching a more nuanced approach to the camera that considers the images and imaging of people of color as a focal point rather than an exception to the rule. Following the framework established by Deborah Willis (2002), the leading historian of African American photography, this research weaves together the highly fragmented history of media arts education, with respect to race and the camera, drawing as much attention to what is absent in its chronology as to what is present.

Author

• OK Keyes, Virginia Commonwealth University