. t e a c h i n g p h i l o s o p h y
My dedication to teaching, scholarly research and service is guided by the premise of achieving a sustainable creative praxis. My use of the term praxis here refers to a recurring cycle of experiential learning and knowledge realization that sustains the essential need to practice one’s role as an artist and educator. Introducing the need for sustainable creativity into this dialogue is often disquieting – perhaps because this implies that imagination and the possibilities for creative solution could be finite. In exchanging perspectives upon this question, it is important that we have a conscious regard for the vulnerabilities of the underlying contexts that support a creative praxis with respect to the biological, psychological, social and cultural. A regard for the sustenance of these contexts is crucial to the continued embodiment of imagination as it becomes enchained to learning, knowledge and culture creation for a tangible future.
My engagement in the interwoven lifecycles of creativity, scholarly endeavor, pedagogy and professional service is fed by a knowledge train that brings forward new hopeful imaginations for the sustenance and generation of the idea ecologies of the future. These idea ecologies are fragile ones, but I believe they can be brought into balance, recognition and sustainable praxis through the cross linking of the passion of teaching, the propagation of creative vision and cooperative service to a community of dedicated colleagues in pursuit of excellence.
My passion for teaching, mentoring and pedagogy is rooted in a desire to foster and sustain the future of creative expression and experience. This practice is bordered within a collaborative space for the seeding and harvesting of the imaginations of emerging generations of artists, designers and creative practitioners. My role in the exchange and explorations conducted within this space is adaptive in nature, as I assist in building positive intent and amplifying a forceful trajectory for the development of sustainable creative momentum for a diversity of students.
As a mentor and educator my primary responsibility is to underwrite the artistic and creative survival for my students’ future endeavors. In meeting my mentoring responsibilities, I collaboratively establish an educational environment with my students that lays out an open-ended spectrum in the theoretical and applied language of new media. As a foundation to this spectrum, I mediate a diverse range of historical and experimental materials, techniques, and approaches to aesthetic solution with a proficiency of execution and professionalism in their work. As a testimonial platform to this approach I rely on my scholarly investigations as an internationally-recognized new media artist in combination with my past professional experience as a software/new media developer, art director and a research scientist in biotechnology.
As groundwork for artistic and creative survival, I also necessitate that my students become proficient researchers and communicators in the arenas critical to the continuation of their creative endeavors and ongoing elevation of media literacy in their domain. This includes participatory access to evolving funding, networking, venue development and professional project proposal and presentation skills as well as a continuing dialogue with professional new media artists, designers and developers. By reaching forward through theoretical vision and an awareness of history and issue that is rooted in an applied foundation of identity and technique, I enable my students to grow from a point of departure to expand their latitude of experimental expression on a firm footing of sustainable creativity and learning.
In building a long-term communicative relationship with my students I share an awareness of social context, personal and collective identity and the wide-open potential that a creative life style and its’ endeavors have for discovery and contribution to the world. In this exchange I give support to the emulation of a global network for exploration, residence and sustenance of their creative futures.
From my collective background as an artist and scientist, I am in the unique position of being able to develop, establish, and mediate project investigations aimed at the cross-fertilization of creative thought between artistic and technical disciplines for the development of new media-based and emerging art forms. This experiential background has put me in the position as a professional and academic liaison to bridge ideas and opportunities that draw from diverse perspectives and disciplines. My strengths for scholarly and pedagogical contributions to my institution, department and students is drawn from these multidisciplinary and international perspectives for the future of creative evolutions and expressions.