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Fearology Of Technology
A Phenomenology Of “Educational” Weapons Of Mass Destruction
Barbara Bickel
University of British Columbia
This is the second incarnation of this intertextual and
intervisual exhibition. The first took place at The University
of British Columbia, Faculty of Education Edibles Gallery,
where education students, preservice teachers, teachers,
faculty and graduate students interacted with the exhibition
hanging traditionally, on the walls of a rather noisy and
mundane gallery space. In that setting the 25 magazine-sized
individual ‘blackboards’ surrounded those seated
at tables in the gallery undeniably reflecting the “kosmology
of the blackboard” that Fisher refers to in his statement.
Transferring the exhibition into a digital environment
interrupts the physical embodied presence of the art and
at the same time adds new dimensions to the work. The ‘Fear’ Education
Lesson Cards, that accompany each art ‘blackboard,’ take
on an equal presence with the art images—becoming
expressive, reflexive layerings, of a ‘fear’ educator’s
semi-autobiographical a/r/tographical inquiry into schooling
and the perpetuation of ‘fear’ in the classroom.
In his own desire to educate beyond the confines of a hidden ‘fear’ curriculum
in our school systems, Fisher exposes a visual and textual
imaginary that questions our unquestioned understandings
of ‘fear’ and implicates the meshing of manufactured ‘fear’ with
educational technologies. As we press the computer keys
that take us back and forth between the art images and
the text we become active players in a dialogue, sometimes
overt, often messy, expressing many ‘voices’ through
visual and textual metaphors. Within this dialogue we find
ourselves grappling with our own notions of the relationship
between ‘fear’ and education.
Fisher’s art is a Canadian perspective on the impact
of the American generated “culture of fear,” that
is experienced daily and at an early age. The digital world
of the internet has made physical geographic boundaries
even more permeable. Offering this exhibition on line potentially
increases the awareness of ‘fear’ and education
extending the dialogue across the borders. Fisher’s
art, in particular image 11 and 17, depict benign art tools
unwittingly poised as missiles ready to be deployed to
mark a territory in the kosmology of schooling. We are
left with a disturbing question: Are we unknowingly as
artists and educators using art, visuals, and art materials
as weapons of mass destruction in the education of our
children?
Barbara Bickel
March 28, 2007
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About
the Curator
Barbara
Bickel is currently working on her M.A. in
Education at the University of British Columbia where
her research focus is in Arts-based Inquiry. She holds
a B.F.A. in Painting from the University of Calgary
and a B.A. in Sociology and Art History from the University
of Alberta. She has exhibited her art in Canada since
1991. Her art is currently represented by the Fran
Willis Gallery in Victoria B.C. and Kensington Fine
Art Gallery in Calgary, Alberta. She co-founded The
Centre Gallery, a non-profit women's focused gallery
in Calgary and is an independent curator. A long-time
collaborative artist, her art can be found in poetry
books as well as on book and CD covers.
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