What does the learning experience feel like? Amy
The learning experience is almost like gaining extra parts of a machine. I Imagine a complex engine managed by tiny workers who endlessly maintain and update the works. The machine is composed of cogs, springs, switches, chains and so forth, but so extensive and complex that some sections aren’t connected to the whole. Maybe the workers don’t know how to operate those parts, or maybe they have no conception of how those sections should look or what they might do. Indeed, sometimes the workers may not realise that certain things are part of the machine and have functionality. When the learning experience occurs it is as though the connections happen between these disparate parts. Sections that formerly worked independently, come together and in addition to their former tasks, they now do something else too and further, they inspire those tiny workers to remember or know, how to set another part of the machine that was previously baffling, into motion. When one encounters something new, engaging, but challenging (in a learning context), it is as though a new section of the machine appears. The new equipment is unfamiliar to the workers, they are initially unsure that they will ever be able to operate and integrate it. So a positive learning experience feels like an expansion and layering made up of multiple additions, an accumulation which continually generates new connections within itself. Does what you have described above suggest any particular materials? Iron and polished steel Does what you have described above suggest any particular objects? Lathe turned metal cogs wheels conveyor belts springs weights Mechanical parts that have to move. What does the learning experience feel like in terms of a temperature – tone – feel – weight – noise? It depends, sometimes its like running effortlessly in a good outside place with fresh smells, a pleasant breeze, springy ground and bright sun. There’s a sense of weight, but one that gives momentum. Occasionally it is much more akin to skidding, still not to heavy, but momentum without control or direction. And when learning is particularly difficult, it becomes the sense one has having fallen over. As you sit up and begin to stand, you are aware of pain and the effort required of having to lift to heavy a weight. If I return to my machine analogy there is smoothness and order, parts move relatively and responsively to each other, there’s sound rather than noise, not loud and without a regularity, discordant, but not unpleasant.
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Kimberley FosterKimberley's practice as an artist is pedagogical, it doesn’t just reference learning, it plays with, embodies and encourages learning at its core. The objects consider ideas of collaboration and authorship, discussions about touch and encounter, and bring into active consideration issues of learning within social and participatory practices. Archives
October 2018
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