About art teaching — Thoughts & Feelings

Domenico Barra
4 min readAug 19, 2019

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The best experience in 10+ years working in the mesmerizing world of art it must be teaching. I love it. But I always believed this. It is not just about teaching art, neither art making, art is well bigger than just theories and technics. And there is a part in art, that makes art what it is, that can not be taught but only introduced and lead to.

The most important part is introducing students to ways of thinking, ways of seeing, the possibilities, the dynamics from a personal point of view. Sharing a story. This is what I do. I share with them my experiences and how I delt with them, my approaches to technics, concepts and networks of people. I depict them my art picture. Why? Because students online can find all sorts of infomations about art history, tutorials, photos of artworks, they can go to museums, art galleries and art fairs, festivals, there are hundreds of art groups just on Facebook. What students need is a true story, a personal story, a real story, so then they will become more comfortable in writing their own story, their art making.

Especially stories of failures, because that’s what students are scared the most, they are scared of failures because failure is seen as a tragedy, do not fail is the imperative, failure is terrible, a failure can cost you too much time and efforts. Instead I want to teach them to embrace failures, learn from mistakes, create problems. Glitch Art has taught me that. Making glitch art I learnt to understand the opportunities that can rise from failures, creating problems, solving problems, fail through them, learn from different perspectives, create alternative solutions, your own solutions. There is not only one way. There are many ways, there is your own way. That’s the best approach to conceptualize art learning, thinking, making through glitch art, beyond new media through life experiences, through problems towardsa understaning and solutions. I always state this. Do not be afraid of errors. Do not be afraid to break the rules, never follow standards, always create your own path. Explore. Unleash the creative child withing you!

Image from one of the slide I use for teaching glitch art methodologies

This is another important value I aquired working within the perspective of dirty new media. Never accustom to standards because there are always hidden paths hidden behind the guidelines that will help students to come up with their own visions and style. Art is something personal based on own perceptions, feelings, cultural background and sometimes students just need to be led towards those ways and they will learn to walk by themselves.

I believe this approach is more real, more authentic, it is a better approach to work together, teacher and students, and also gain their trust and make them more confident in what they want to create, without losing courage and being afraid of standards and failures.

Photo from a lecture in Glitch Art at Museo Macro in Rome, Italy, part of New Media Festival Fotonica (2018)

I like my lessons to be held this way. Not hierarchies is very important, I am nobody master, I do not like students to believe that teacher is some kind of authority. I want to build discipline within practice of mutual respect. I learnt something through my experience and I share it with them but they must be comfortable to discuss and doubt about what I tell them, correct me when is due and confront me freely with their point of view. The teacher word is not sacred. I lead the conversation, I suggest topics but the lesson must not be a one way talk, everyone must partecipate actively in it. Contaminations, influences, collaborations. Students are smart, they are just too worried about failing and judgements. Art and especially art teaching is a journey, not just a lesson and must be approached like that, we walk together. They must feel confident to take this journey, not fear failures, move on to make their own art, their art making will be there art practive, I can not teach them that. It’s their art. It’s their experience. They just need to be adviced to become confident about it.

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Domenico Barra

Digital atypical. Glitch Art + AI. Imperfectionist investigating a new sense of beauty. If you see a glitch, think of me. Firestarter at WhitePageGallery/s.