New creative spaces are opening up in all fields. Beyond the arts, expression takes channels that are enriched by successive layers; the abundance of productions provides the material that will be sublimated in another channel into an original work.
The most confusing is the contribution of artificial intelligence that feeds on the creativity of millions of people and becomes capable of producing synthetic works. These works match the intentions of the creator and a learning model from the accessible material. Success is guaranteed, but it challenges our processes of creation and appreciation. When 100,000 people enjoy the same thing, what is it a manifestation of? Creators have always been inspired by what came before them and take advantage of technical developments, but this time we are inspired on a different scale.
The marketing intent can no longer be ignored by artists; a music will be launched with its video accompaniment, graphic signature, social campaign, media tour and keywords. Any show or public event will have its website and a teaser on the networks, designed for its targets. Almost all cultural productions, and education is one of them, are drained by broadcasting and "monetization" platforms that each take their share of revenues and attention. The impresario is called SEO. Cultural snobbery consists in ignoring this industry but it will in any case feed on marginal productions, the "weak signals", as long as they are significant.
In school, speech, writing, drawing and music are digital and take place in podcasts, videos, webdocumentaries, 3D virtual worlds, etc. Math problems are solved and music or languages are still learned but in virtual contexts. Faced with the abundance of content, our approach to knowledge is necessarily changing and so is its expression. It is no longer so much the quantity of knowledge that counts as what we connect it to, what we relate it to.
It can be insignificant or brilliant, pedagogical or simply pleasant, but everywhere we learn to explore these spaces, groping around, cautiously, most often starting from what we know, but the more confidently we become, the more boldly we venture into them. At the beginning, one knows nothing about it, one makes his classes. Students and teachers are on the same starting line but don't necessarily start in the same direction or at the same speed; all learn to express themselves.
Good discoveries
Denys Lamontagne - [email protected]
Illustration: A Classroom on Minecraft
