Contemporary Art and Art in Education - The New, Emancipation and Truth

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Contemporary Art and 5
Art in Education: The New,
Emancipation and Truth
Dennis Atkinson
Abstract
This article assembles some ideas on equality Keywords

and learning in relation to the notions of truth art practice, learning, event, emancipation, truth
and emancipation. It considers learning as a
political act, as defined by Jacques Rancière
and Alain Badiou, rather than, for example, an
incremental process of psychological or socio-
logical development. Practical exemplifications
will be taken from contexts of art practices and
art in education, but the general argument is
directed at learning and equality across all
human endeavours. The article discusses the
idea of the truth of learning as something which
ruptures existing frameworks of practice and
knowledge and ponders the kind of pedagogies
we require to inform effective pedagogic action.
To this end it proposes what might be termed
pedagogies against the state, or pedagogies of
the event, in order to respond to acts of learning
that involve leaps of becoming into a new or
reconfigured world.
This paper is based on Professor Atkinson’s keynote

address at the 2010 iJADE conference in Liverpool.
iJADE 31.1(2012)
© 2012 The Author. iJADE © 2012 NSEAD/Blackwell Publishing Ltd
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6 In this article I want to focus on ideas of the new tonic or frameworks of understanding the exist-
Dennis Atkinson and event in contemporary art and on processes ing notions of artist, artwork and practice as well
of what I call real learning, and I will also consider as aesthetic discourse. Earlier work by Manet
learning in relation to the notions of truth and and the Impressionists or Cezanne and Cubism
emancipation. Many years ago when I was could be cited, but perhaps they did not have the
writing my doctorate my supervisor, Bill Brookes, radical force of Duchamp’s gesture. Later work,
often discussed the idea of disturbance in to select just a few examples, by John Latham,
teaching experiences when a teacher is Joseph Beuys and the Fluxus Movement, the
confronted with something mysterious that Situationist International, Stephen Willats and
disturbs his or her mode of functioning. This Joseph Kossuth, introduced new forms of prac-
could be, for example, a particular piece of work tice so as to extend the notion of art.
produced by a child or student. It’s interesting The notion of identity has almost saturated
that the notion of event which is close to the idea socio-cultural and political fields of enquiry over
of disturbance is now a central concept in recent the last two decades, and many artists, includ-
work in philosophy. I am using the notion of event ing Barbara Kruger, Cindy Sherman, Martha
from the writing of Alain Badiou but modifying it Rosler and Sonia Boyce, have ploughed new
to suit my purpose, whilst aware that different territory to explore identities relating to gender,
approaches to this term can be found, for sexuality, culture and race. This work challenges
example in Gilles Deleuze, A. N. Whitehead, stereotypes as well as socio-cultural bias,
Michel Foucault and Isabelle Stengers. So, for exploitation, social injustice and hegemonies of
me, event relates to a disturbance, a rupture, a vision and knowledge. The work of Yinka Shoni-
puncturing of ways of understanding or acting bare, for example, is part of this movement, and
which has the potential to precipitate real his video Odile and Odette presents a subtle and
learning. I will come back to these ideas. powerful exploration of identity drawing inter-
Truth is also becoming a new buzz word in esting parallels with the Lacanian idea that ‘the
some areas of academic research and philo- other is in you more than yourself’.
sophical writing and I want to use this term to In more recent years we might consider
explore truth in relation to learning. This takes participatory or socially engaged practices as
me on to consider some ideas on emancipation effecting a disturbance in the world of visual art
from Jacques Rancière and the idea of learning such as those instigated by Rirtik Tiravanija, Tino
as a political act rather than an incremental Seghal, Andrea Fraser, Fred Wilson and Rainer
process of psychological or sociological devel- Ganahl. In such work there is often no object, it
opment. Thus the act of learning as I conceive is composed of dialogical social relations
this term involves a leap of becoming and the between participants, though admittedly organ-
potential of a new or reconfigured world. ised by the artist or group.
Having opened up these ideas I will turn to Stephen Wright (2008a) points to the chal-
some thoughts about the kind of pedagogies lenge that many artists are making to more tradi-
we require to embrace them and so inform tional notions of the term ‘art’ in order to counter
pedagogic action. policing tendencies which he believes exist
I will begin with some well-known work from even in the world of contemporary practice:
the world of visual art that illustrates the idea of
the new and the event with which I am Every year, more and more artists are quitting the
concerned. We are all familiar with the interven- artworld frame – or looking for and experimenting
tion or the gesture of Marcel Duchamp during with viable exit strategies – rather than
the second decade of the last century; a gesture broadening it further through predatory
in which he placed his readymade objects into a expeditions into the life-world. And these are
gallery context and in that very act disrupted and some of the most exciting developments in art
subsequently transformed the current architec- today, for to leave the frame means sacrificing
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

one’s coefficient of artistic visibility – but dealing with illegal imprisonment and 7
potentially in exchange for greater corrosiveness disappearance, where the emphasis moves Dennis Atkinson
toward the dominant semiotic order. from performance to competence … a
problematic and taboo term for many who
The term ‘coefficient of visibility’, which I think remember the introduction of ‘teacher
can be traced back to Duchamp, is a useful competencies’ in England during the mid 1990s
critical tool for interrogating social processes of as the initial intervention of today’s burgeoning
identity and subjectivity on a wider social front. audit culture into the world of teacher education,
However Wright argues (2008b) that there is which quickly and depressingly became teacher-
still a predominant framework or consensus training! But Wright is employing the term
that informs how art is perceived, that ‘competence’ in relation to those competences
constructs what he terms art’s coefficient of that artists and designers can use individually or
visibility. This consensus is structured around collectively in contexts that are not framed by the
three key ‘normative assumptions’: ‘art world’, that is to say they employ their
particular competences as artists to ‘non-art’
… that art necessarily and almost naturally situations or contexts. These remarks by Wright
manifests itself in the world in the form of an upon recent developments in the use of artistic
artwork; that art takes place through the competences illustrate a fairly radical
intermediary of an artist, whose bodily presence redistribution of practice and destabilising of the
and creative authority – upheld by the signature term ‘art’ which are also discussed extensively
– guarantee the artistic authenticity of the by Nikolas Bourriaud (2002, 2010, in his work on
proposition, underwritten by authorship; that art relational aesthetics and the radicant), Claire
takes place before homogenised aggregates of Bishop (2006), Grant Kester (2005) and others.
visual consumers that make up the institution of So we know that many artists today are
spectatorship. conducting their work outside of acknowledged
frameworks of art and their respective institu-
He proceeds to ask how it might be possible to tional forces so that their work is sometimes
envisage an art without artwork, authorship or difficult to conceive as art, and this raises some
spectatorship because, by implication, then art pertinent issues relating to recognition, objects
would become invisible as such and if this were and practice. For example, in recent years some
to happen then there would be direct artists (Rainer Ganahl, Tino Seghal, Liam Gillick,
implications for those institutions that impact Irit Rogoff and the projects ACADEMY (2006)
directly upon how art is conceived, made and and Summit (2007)) are engaging directly with
perceived. Wright continues: pedagogical practices such as reading groups
and seminars, alternative learning sites or free
And it may well be for this reason that ever more schools, in their art practice. Their focus, it
artists today are quitting the art world, sacrificing seems, is to reconsider sites of learning such as
their coefficient of artistic visibility in favour of a universities, schools, galleries and museums
more corrosively dissensus-engendering and ask how these sites might be expanded to
capacity in the dominant semiotic order. For to involve new forms of learning, discussion and
see something as art according to the dominant debate and so, we might deduce, new forms of
performative paradigm of the contemporary art competence and new economies of knowledge
world, is to acknowledge something terribly (its history, evolving technology, social organisa-
debilitating: that it is just art – not the dangerous, tion, distribution and management). Such work
litigious, real thing. (ibid) challenges us to imagine both what art can be,
but also what learning can be beyond the param-
He provides an example of an art cooperative eters of reproduction, packaged knowledge,
working outside of the art frame in Buenos Aires traditional skills and the pragmatic and predict-
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

8 able application of knowledge. Thus what this within social and historical locations (in other
Dennis Atkinson work is attempting is a radical intervention into words, they are not fixed entities), it becomes
traditional sites and economies of institutional- possible to interrogate the substance and the
ised knowledge and a redistribution of such framing of these coefficients in order to expose,
economies. It also challenges us to consider the for instance, complacency, cultural bias, social
idea of community, communal knowledge and inequities, the relevance of particular knowl-
communal learning. edge, skills and competences and so on, and
A key factor which may become obscured, then, if necessary, reconfigure a more enlight-
though not necessarily, in these artistic-pedagog- ened, equitable series of performances and
ical initiatives concerns the individual’s spatio- relations. For example, are the practices, skills
temporality of learning. It is not the structural and competences designated by the school art
therefore with which I am concerned (though this curriculum commensurate with the contempo-
is important), nor the notion of core compe- rary world of art practice? Is it important that
tences, or new curricula, however much they may they should be? Why?
dissolve and reform, but the idea of events of In summary, then, the generic concern of
learning and their implicit subjectifications. This much contemporary art is a constant interroga-
requires some unpacking because it is at the tion of established ideas of artist, object, perfor-
heart of what I am trying to say about learning. mance, spectator, skill, technique and media. It is
In a parallel move to Wright’s critique: is there an art that attempts to break new ground and to
a predominant framework or consensus in art push our boundaries of understanding. The chal-
education that persists? Research by Downing lenge to art as we know it means that this term
& Watson (2005) into secondary school art has always been a moveable feast, a signifier
suggests that there is. But can we envisage an with no absolute or final meaning and this has
art education along different lines that may be implications for the term ‘art education’ and its
more appropriate or responsive to learners and coefficients of visibility, knowledge and practice.
the ways in which they learn? Is it possible or We can say then that contemporary art is
desirable to reconsider sites of learning to concerned with the production of the new,
stretch our comprehension of what learning can which in some cases has transformative effects
become? Is it possible to do this in the light of upon practice and understanding. The key point
the power of institutional formatting and norms? to make is that it is through the temporality of
Is it possible or desirable today for educators to the art event and its consequences that new
sacrifice their coefficient of pedagogic visibility directions and reconfigurations begin to appear.
in order to corrode current policing frameworks I now want to make a similar point regarding
and establish more productive, equitable or processes of learning.
emancipatory spaces for learning? After all, not
all policing orders are bad or unproductive. Is it Event and truth
possible or desirable to interrogate the predom- The French philosopher and social activist Alain
inant frameworks in which teaching and learn- Badiou discusses the idea of rupture in his
ing are conceived, which construct their coeffi- extensive and complex work on the event and
cient of visibility or their coefficients of truth. He is concerned with major disruptions –
competences? Is it possible for institutions, events – in the fields of art, science, politics and
such as schools, universities and galleries, to do love. He provides examples such as the Galileo
and be much more than their current function? event in science, the Schoenberg event in music
If we acknowledge that, to use Wright’s and the event of the French revolution in politics.
terminology, the coefficients of visibility of what As for love, it is the earth-shattering process that
it is to be an artist, a teacher, a learner, are always occurs when two people fall in love and see the
determined by a series of constructed relations world as one. For Badiou, an event is a radical
and performances which converge and reform disruption that leads to a subsequent truth
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

procedure which reconfigures the existing patterns of understanding and assimilated 9
knowledge frameworks, practices and values of configurations of knowledge on a local level. It is Dennis Atkinson
a social context. An event occurs within a a process in which there is a firm challenge to
situation or a world but it cannot be understood see beyond current vistas of practice and
within the existing logics or affects of that formulate new ones.
situation – logics and affects which are The idea of truth then is related to the idea of
reconfigured by persevering with the truth of the being truthful to something, and this truth
event, by sticking with its new and process denotes a process of subjectification
transformative potential. I have already which in other terms can be viewed as a
mentioned the gesture of Duchamp and how ‘commitment to’ an idea, an affect, a new prac-
this event, which could not be understood tice, a new way of seeing, a new way of making
within the existing frameworks germane to art sense and so on, which involves a struggle
at the time, radically transformed art practice where we can be carried beyond our normal
over time and our notions of the art object and range of responses.
artist to such an extent that ripples of the Irit Rogoff (2008) clearly expresses this senti-
Duchamp event are still affecting practice today. ment in her discussion of Foucault’s (2001)
In relation to subjectivity, Badiou argues that lectures on parrhesia in his text Fearless Speech:
a subject comes into existence through the I quote:
event and its subsequent truth procedure, that
is to say the subject becomes a subject through I think ‘education’ and the ‘educational turn’ might
persevering with the truth that is precipitated by be just that: the moment when we attend to the
the event. Truth is not concerned with adequa- production and articulation of truths – not truths
tion, veracity or accuracy; it is not what knowl- as correct or provable, as fact, but truth as that
edge produces, on the contrary it is what which collects around its subjectivities that are
exceeds knowledge in a given situation; truth neither gathered nor reflected by other
punctures knowledge. utterances. Stating truths in relation to the great
arguments, issues and great institutions of the
Events and learning day is relatively easy, for these dictate the terms
These ideas on the new, event and truth can, I by which truths are arrived at and articulated.
believe, be applied productively to reflect upon Telling truth in the marginal and barely-formed
processes of learning – not so much upon spaces in which the curious gather – this is
learning structures such as curriculum, another project altogether: one’s personal
assessment, schools, universities, galleries and relation to truth. (Rogoff 2008)
so on (although I do not exclude this possibility)
– but upon events of what I call real learning For me, this quotation advocates what I call
within local learning and teaching contexts. Real processes of real learning and a subjectification
learning involves a movement into a new to a truth of learning. That is to say, it is arguing for
ontological state; it defines a problem of the emergence and perseverance of truths of
existence, in contrast to more normative learning within local or even marginalised or
learning and its ever yday norms and obscure (from the dominant traditions and forms
competences. So the idea of truth allied to real of knowledge) positions; forms of learning that
learning concerns what might be termed local may easily be overlooked by established
epiphanies (or events) of learning that emerge frameworks and norms but which have a
centripetally from the spatio -temporal personal legitimacy and which when allowed to
configuration of the learner and which produces appear expand our comprehension of what
a new alignment of thinking and action. As a learning is. I always remember occasions, too
move into a new ontological state, real learning numerous to mention, being puzzled and then
implies puncturing or modifying established surprised by the logic children deployed in their
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

10 drawings which was not immediately apparent Ends arise as a function within action. They are
Dennis Atkinson but which when revealed expanded my not, as current theories too often imply, things
comprehension of drawing practice. These were lying outside activity at which the latter is
local events if you like which, for me, had directed. They are not ends or termini of action at
transformative effects and affects. The disruption all. They are terminals of deliberation, and so
of established ways of knowing, through learning turning points in activity. … Even the most
events, means that learners need to be able to important among all the consequences of an act
handle states of uncertainty as new knowledge is not necessarily its aim.
and new competences begin to emerge. This
suggests a rather curious, almost contradictory, The key point to emphasise here is the
relation of learning to states of not-knowing and immanence of learning, that it is a process which
the experience of affect and wonder which should remain open to possibilities and potentials
Descartes wrote about a long time ago. that arise within the action and practice of
It is important that Descartes, often the bane learning and not be tied to specified aims except,
of postmodern philosophies, is not viewed of course, becoming a more effective learner.
entirely as a rational philosopher. Though he is Badiou also comments on the purpose of
regarded as the philosopher who propagated education and the pedagogical function of art
the dualism of mind and body and emphasised and states (2005a, 9, 14):
that knowledge is formed through cognitive
process, Descartes placed considerable value Art is pedagogical for the simple reason that it
upon that feeling of wonder we experience produces truths and because ‘education’ (save in
when we are confronted with something we its oppressive or perverted expressions) has
find strange, when we encounter something never meant anything but this: to arrange the
that is inexplicable or surprising. Descartes forms of knowledge in such a way that some truth
writes in The Passions of the Soul (1985, 350): may come to pierce a hole in them … the only
education is an education by truths.
When the first encounter with some object
surprises us, and we judge it to be new or very I have a video of a young child painting, for me it
different from what we formerly knew, or from illustrates processes of learning in action which
what we supposed that it ought to be, that causes contain a number of moments when he does
us to wonder and be surprised; and because that something that causes a sense of wonder, a
may happen before we in any way know whether sense of ‘what if’, a sense of boldness to explore.
this object is agreeable to us or is not so, it appears He moves through a series of ‘stages’ which can
to me that wonder is the first of all the passions. be viewed as mini-events that transfer him into
new ideas and a searching for ways to express
Wonder, then, is the passion accompanying them in painting. He begins with making marks
not-knowing for Descartes, and, for him, we with different colours then moves into a series of
might assume that philosophy begins in wonder narratives; first he describes a windmill and a
because this passionate state is what precipitates storm, then a train going backwards and forwards
a search for understanding. The force of affect in along the same track. This is followed by painting
the work of Deleuze also constitutes a further his finger tip and then making a series of prints.
enquiry into the idea of event. Equally, I want to Next, he sees that he can paint his hand and
argue that this passionate state of wonder is make hand prints, and then he paints around his
fundamental for real learning and that it should be hand to find more possibilities. Finally, almost
at the heart of any pedagogical relation. primevally, he begins to paint his forearm very
This is connected to a key passage written by carefully and precisely. For me this painting
John Dewey in Human Nature and Conduct activity is full of processes of affect, action,
(2001, 223, 227): reflection and invention with little or no
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

intervention from the adults present. It emancipation. Though it may be considered as 11
constitutes a series of local learning events which running ‘against the grain’ of conventional Dennis Atkinson
create potential for further action and enquiry. It pedagogical strategies, I think it has significance
illustrates a series of semiotic practices in which for meditating upon pedagogical relations and
painted and oral signifiers interact to form local learning in relation to the notions of event and
vectors of meaning. truth although Rancière does not use these terms.
These practices for me illustrate the idea of His seminal work on pedagogy and education is
the becoming of learning, what I call local cura- to be found in the book The Ignorant Schoolmaster
tions of learning (see Atkinson 2011); they are (1991) in which he explored the pedagogical
little leaps into the not-known, full of wonder, practice of the French teacher Joseph Jacotot
and they raise the question of what kind of peda- around 1820. Jacotot was banished from France
gogies do we have or require that might support and took a teaching post in Leuven where he was
such learning? Can we, for example, develop required to teach Flemish students French. The
pedagogies of the event? problem was that he did not speak Flemish nor did
Institutional contexts such as schools, his students speak French, but through the help of
colleges or universities and other sites, tend to an interpreter and a bilingual publication of a text
rely upon normalising procedures and systems he proceeded. He asked the interpreter to inform
within which learners (and teachers) become the students that they were to read half the book
pedagogised. That is to say, such contexts rely very carefully comparing the Flemish and French
upon existing distributions of knowledge and texts and to constantly review their learning; then
practice: ways of seeing, doing and speaking to read the second half of the book quickly and to
which, to use a quotation from Judith Butler, write an essay in French expressing their thoughts
‘create the viability of the learner (or teacher) as a about the book. To Jacotot’s amazement the
subject, its ontological and epistemological students were able to write perfectly sound
parameters’. It is when we are disturbed in prac- essays in French. Thus he had been able to teach
tice, when we are confronted, for example, with a these students a foreign language without
strange drawing or other work or when our ‘teaching’ them. The ignorant schoolmaster was
actions as teachers come unstuck or are ineffec- able to facilitate learning amongst his students.
tive, that we might be projected against our Jacotot drew particular implications from this
screens of recognition and begin to question experience that for him turned standard
how we conceive learners or the action of teach- pedagogical practice on its head, and this is what
ing within our existing pedagogical frameworks. Rancière explores in his book.
Through the contingency and unpredictability of For Rancière, following Jacotot, the implica-
such events we might be able to enquire into the tion of this historical event suggested to him
viability of our conceptions of learners and peda- that in the pedagogical relation learning does
gogical strategies in terms of their relevance for not require explication but only the assumption
current socio-cultural contexts and lived realities. of an equality of intelligence; that the task of the
It may be the case that the emerging new second- teacher is not to explicate but to demand that
ary curriculum in England offers the potential and the learner employ his or her intelligence with
opportunity to develop appropriate pedagogical rigour and to support this intellectual engage-
strategies that value and respect differences in ment. Jacotot had railed against traditional
learning and to avoid normalising procedures pedagogical relations because he believed that
doing violence upon difference so as to expand they are based upon a fundamental inequality
our understanding of what learning is. and this is picked up by Rancière. It is inequality
between the teacher who occupies the position
Rancière’s intervention of the one who has knowledge and the learner
I want now to turn to the educational writing of who is lacking and who therefore needs to
Jacques Rancière which deals with equality and acquire knowledge.
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

12 This links with Rancière’s interesting ideas on ures the field of experience for a learner. We
Dennis Atkinson emancipation, which traditionally is viewed as a might detect similar ideas of emancipation in
process whereby those with knowledge are able pedagogical contexts such as Room 13 or in the
to reveal such things as power-relations that work of KOS (Kids of Survival) (see Atkinson &
oppress those ignorant of such knowledge ... Dash 2005, chs 5 and 1, respectively), where
and this informs a particular kind of pedagogy for learners take responsibility as a group or indi-
example, critical pedagogies, which attempt to vidually for their learning and where the teacher
unravel the ideological forces that pertain to offers support and guidance. But it can also be
educational practices and policies such as those found in those schools or other institutions
relating to cultural bias, gender bias and so on. In where strategies are employed to initiate learn-
such processes of emancipation the direction is ing, to challenge learners, but where there is no
teleological, from inequality to equality. predetermined outcome (see, for example, the
In contrast, Rancière argues against this tele- Teachers TV video with Sophie Leach and her
ology and advocates from the very beginning students working with objects and text).
the assumption of equality, an assumption that Rancière develops his idea of emancipation
has to be constantly verified through testing it around the twin notions of the police order and
out in practice. He justifies his idea of equality politics. The police order refers to established
with reference to a capacity that everyone social orders, their knowledge frameworks,
possesses and, I quote: ‘has demonstrated by established practices, values and so on ... ways of
succeeding without a teacher, at the most diffi- doing, seeing and speaking which, for Rancière,
cult of apprenticeships: The apprenticeship of constitute what he terms the distribution of the
that foreign language that is, for every child arriv- sensible. Politics is not how we normally under-
ing in a world, called his or her mother tongue’ stand this term in relation to party politics, but
(Rancière 2010, 3). He is talking about an equal- something which emerges when there is a chal-
ity of intelligence which is assumed from the lenge to the existing order of things in the name
outset in any pedagogical relation. The main of equality. It involves the appearance of a subject
problem for education is therefore to avoid the that did not exist before ... so in pedagogical
myth of pedagogy which is rooted in explication contexts it might refer to the appearance or
and the inequality between a superior and infe- conception of a new learner or teacher. This can
rior intelligence and, instead, to facilitate the occur in local contexts where frameworks of
revealing of an intelligence to itself. This does understanding are ruptured by an event, where
not mean that students should learn without a the logic of the police order that informs a teach-
teacher ... only without a teacher-explicator (see er’s practice is confronted by a learner’s logic of
Bingham & Biesta 2010, 42). practice that is heterogeneous to the police order
Thus, for Rancière, emancipation is about and manages to bring about a reconfiguration of
self-emancipation and this is achieved, he the teacher’s pedagogical framework. In
argues, through processes of learning which in Rancière’s terminology this would designate the
turn involve rigorous strategies of attention and process of equality and emancipation at work as
interrogation. Emancipation is a process of both the teacher’s and the learner’s worlds are
disruption to existing orders; for Rancière you reconfigured. Equally, the learning involved here
cannot have an emancipatory school, emanci- constitutes a political act, the confrontation of
pation can only be achieved by individuals ... two worlds through which that which was previ-
which points to a potential conflict between the ously invisible becomes visible.
school or university as a regime of explication As I have indicated, the key pedagogical
and emancipatory processes of learning. problem according to Rancière is how to reveal
Through the process of emancipation a new an intelligence to itself, not to impose upon it
subject appears, this entails a subjectification to pre-existing forms of intelligence or seduce it
a new order, a coming into being which reconfig- with the power of explication, and, furthermore,
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it is not a case of proving the axiom of the equal- In relation to the caged heart then how might we 13
ity of intelligence but of developing effective comprehend this incident in relation to the Dennis Atkinson
strategies to verify it. With this in mind I will turn notions of event and truth? Well, I think it is
to some thoughts about appropriate pedagogi- possible to see an answer in the pedagogical
cal approaches. relation where a local event precipitated a flow of
energy. The student was clearly in a situation
Pedagogies against the state where she was attempting to break new ground
In order to explore these ideas on emancipation but was ver y uncertain of its validity.
and equality I will return to Badiou and some Encouragement from her teacher projected her
ideas I have been working on in the last couple of into a highly creative flow in which she was able
years or so. These ideas revolve around the idea to pursue and persevere with the truth of her
of pedagogies against the state and interrogatory ideas and her commitment to them. There
strategies along with an ethics of becoming. (A seems to be an important ethical dimension to
more detailed presentation of these ideas is this, whereby the learner and teacher together
contained in Atkinson 2011.) persevere with their local but unpredictable
A few years ago I was interviewing a second- journeys of learning and emerge through a deep
ary school teacher in his art room when one of sense of commitment and perseverance. In
his GCSE students came in and asked to see Rancière’s terminology, there was no explication
him. This was at the time of the BSE crisis when from the teacher but there was support,
thousands of cattle were being slaughtered guidance in the form of an encouragement to
around the United Kingdom and their carcases think and push forward into new territory. I do not
burnt in huge fires. It was an event which trig- think that such episodes are uncommon but they
gered an intensive political and ethical debate. do require an appropriate pedagogical
The student was carrying a cage made from atmosphere in order to breathe.
wooden rails. She was extremely apprehensive.
She said that she had not made the cage but A brief digression
wanted to use it for her examination piece which I think this pedagogical episode illustrates
would be displayed the following week. She Nancy’s conception of being singular-plural
intended to suspend a frozen cow’s heart from (1991). With this notion he proposes an
the cage. The bottom of the cage would be ontological state prior to Being which he terms
covered with straw and a map of England. Then being-with. He argues that throughout the
she asked her teacher if this would be all right history of philosophy being-with has been
and if he thought she might pass the examina- subordinated to Being. The ontology of being-
tion. The teacher and I just looked at each other. with is markedly different from an ontology of
I am using this incident as a means of illus- self or other or, indeed, an ontology of difference.
trating what I want to say about learning as an This ontology would appear to rest upon that
event. This concerns a relation between the which constitutes with and, on one level, this
real of practice and its inscription or percep- must be constituted in and through symbolic
tion by others (in this case a teacher) that processes such as language and visual
precipitates ethical and pedagogical ques- practices, but also through important processes
tions that open up possibilities for expanding of affect. On another level it implies
our comprehension of what learning ‘is’ or can co-emotionality, co-existence, and on yet
become. My direction, then, is to consider an another level it must include a politics of the with
ethics of pedagogy through which learners and an ethics of the with. For Nancy being-with is
and their respective learning practices can also a thinking-with as such (1991, 31).
emerge into existence. It is an ethics of the The notion of with lies at the very heart of
unknown of becoming rather than established being and this implies a co-originality that,
forms of being. when thought about carefully has potent impli-
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14 cations for comprehending social practices, event of learning, a learning encounter or real
Dennis Atkinson such as learning and teaching or, social policies learning, as described above, would involve a
such as multiculturalism or inclusion and their puncturing of these assimilations and their
ensuing practices. So the notion of being-with respective subjectivities and therefore demand a
abandons traditional ideas of individuals or indi- pedagogical practice commensurate with this
vidual subjects. ontological shift in learning. In other words if real
In a nutshell, we cannot think of being with- learning is a problem of existence that involves a
out an already-existing being-with. So that movement into a new ontological state, which
being-with is more originary than individuality, includes a reconfiguring of established subjectivi-
which rests upon a separation of self and other. ties, then pedagogy has to support this encounter
Thus ideas such as original, existence and with the real. Rather than being driven by assimi-
essential are superseded respectively by lated objects or bodies of knowledge it has to try
co-original, co-existence and co-essential, and to accommodate learning encounters that precip-
this leads into thinking about being-together itate new forms of learning. By implication, peda-
and how we might facilitate such co-existences gogy against the state suggests an anti-peda-
within different social contexts. How, for exam- gogy: that pedagogy itself must pass beyond its
ple, might we think the notions of being-with or own assimilated knowledge and practices in
being-together in educational practices? Such order to open up new forms of pedagogy and new
thinking may run contrary to an educational learning communities. We might argue that repre-
system concerned with preparation for sentation controls thought and practice, whereas
economic competition and individual develop- events or encounters open up possibilities for
ment of knowledge and skill. But it does open new ways of conceiving and acting and, in doing
the possibility for reflecting upon the idea of so, may lead to new learning communities. Peda-
learning communities and for exploring in detail gogy cannot afford to become trapped within
what we might call different topologies of learn- particular values and modes of practice, to adopt
ing within pedagogical relations the actual a totalitarian approach to learning, in a world of
spaces and local dynamics of learning. This increasing instability.
ends my brief digression. According to Badiou (2005b, 2009), an event
In order to embrace both the idea of real designates a place of non-being in as much as it
learning as a movement into a new ontological forms a place of impossibiity in relation to estab-
state through following local truth procedures, lished ontological frameworks. And in pedagog-
and the ethical implications for the pedagogic ical relations we can detect the difficulty of
space of trying to support what I call the that- trying to respond to learners who are engaged
which-is-not-yet of learning (those unformed, in real learning in the following quotation from
tentative and uncertain pathways of enquiry and Judith Butler ( 2005, 21–2, my interpolation):
learning), it seems that what is required for
pedagogy are pedagogies against the state. This ... the question of ethics emerges precisely at the
notion requires some elaboration. limits of our schemes of intelligibility, [those sites]
Essentially, ‘pedagogy against the state’ is a where we ask ourselves what it might mean to
term which embraces both states of represen- continue in a dialogue where no common
tation and encounters. ground can be assumed, where one is, as it were,
States of representation affect our everyday at the limits of what one knows yet still under the
lives as teachers or learners, because they refer to demand to offer and receive acknowledgement:
assimilated bodies of knowledge and practice. By to someone else who is there to be addressed
implication, therefore, they refer to specific and whose address is there to be received.
normalised subjectivities that are produced
through these knowledges and practices, these I think the notion of interrogative practices is an
states of representation. On the other hand, an important pedagogical strategy to support and
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

stimulate processes of learning. Such practices, based pedagogies where teachers deliver 15
from simple beginnings such as: ‘What will knowledge and skills to their pupils. This process Dennis Atkinson
happen if I/we do this?’ ‘If I change this will it denotes active teachers and passive learners.
work the way I/we want?’ ‘Can I/we look at this in Pedagogies against the state here signal a resist-
a different way?’ can lead to leaps into new ance to such complacency and failure to mourn
dimensions. Sadly, during the years of a as well as outmoded models of pedagogy.
precribed curriculum and its ensuing And third, as already mentioned, we must
pedagogical frameworks such interrogative also use the idea of a pedagogies against the
practices remained underdeveloped. state on a more overtly political level by interro-
The notion of pedagogies against the state gating the relationship between pedagogy and
must also include the political state within which liberal democratic policies. Here we are
education functions and which largely deter- concerned with pedagogy as a form of resist-
mines educational policies and practices. In this ance to liberal democratic economics as the
context, therefore, pedagogy against the state driving raison d’être for state education. Badi-
advocates a spirit of critique towards the wider ou’s and Rancières’s ideas of politics are helpful
socio-political context that regulates practices here. Both men refuse to use the term ‘politics’
of teaching and learning in schools. to refer to the manoeuvres of political parties
So, in relation to pedagogy against the state but rather to a process of thought-action that
the notions of being, becoming and existence strikes out from normative or dominant ideo-
take on a particular significance to the ambiva- logical forces that perpetuate social injustices in
lence of the term ‘state’ as described above. First, order to create new possibilities for existence.
in relation to the evolution of real learning, peda- And in the case of local processes of real learn-
gogies against the state relate to local ontological ing, learning becomes a political act.
and epistemological states where learning can Here it is important to contemplate a politics
be conceived as a movement out from previous stemming from ‘the excluded element’ or ‘the
modes of understanding into new modes. Thus point of exception’ which serves as a platform
pedagogies against the state demand pedago- for disruption, or, put another way, which high-
gies that attempt to accommodate the unpredict- lights the lie of the system through the truth of
able, from being to becoming, a process that the excluded. I am thinking of those distur-
challenges the learner out of a complacency, a bances in practice which shed light upon the
comfort zone. This is equally applicable to teach- limitations of current comprehensions of learn-
ers and their teaching strategies. ing and precipitate a disruption of existing
Second, ‘state’ also relates to the context of hegemonies that regulate teaching and learning
state curriculum policy where it is all too easy to practices. I am also thinking about the point of
rely upon established traditions of teaching and exception as the absent present, those individu-
learning, that is to say traditional epistemological als who for whatever reason fail to find a place of
frameworks that presuppose specific ontologies existence (apart from a pathologised, marginal-
of learning which may be incommensurable to ised or unfullfilled space) within contexts of
the social realities within which they function. teaching and learning. How many learners are in
This complacency often indicates a failure to reality sold short?
mourn traditions that are obsolete but which are
maintained by reactionary ideological and politi- Conclusion
cal forces. (We might think of the traditional I want to conclude this article with a postscript
subject curriculum in this light, or even the organ- describing a further ‘event’, the Bombing of
isation of the school as an institution.) It can also Poems, performed by the Casagrande art
refer to underpinning pedagogical principles or collective from Chile and led by Cristobal Bianchi,
theories of learning that are embedded within Julio Carrasco and Joaquin Prieto. Casagrande
teaching practices, for instance, transmission- have devoted a number of years to developing a
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

16
Dennis Atkinson
project of bombing cities with poems from a rerouting) for remembrance in our current world,
helicopter, cities that have experienced military linking with recent and current acts of violence
bombings in the past, such as Santiago, Guernica, and destruction, and the need for rethinking an
Dubrovnik and Warsaw. The actual performance ethics of community. The bombing event and its
consists of dropping over a hundred thousand subsequent multiplicity of affects, is close to
bookmarks, containing poems, in the evening Althusser’s theory of the encounter and to
onto city squares where people are gathered Deleuze’s work on the event as a coming
during festival seasons. The poems are written together of forces ... where the central issue is to
by young poets from Chile and the host country explore how such encounters are captured,
and printed in the host language and Spanish. All congeal and endure in new forms of existence.
this is done without any prior warning and the Thus the ‘event’ of the bombing of poems is
performance is recorded by video cameras. not the bombing itself but the multiplicity of
This act of bombing and subsequent experi- unpredictable affects, or to employ a concept
ences for people who witness the event has from Deleuze & Guattari (1988), the new lines of
many dimensions that can be explored in depth. flight that are precipitated amongst members of
The contrast between the initial military action each community and which have the potential
and the rain of poems can be conceived as a from this experiential intensity for new possibili-
re-signification of the act of bombing, a poetic or ties for thought and action: for a becoming new.
art event that produces a multiplicity of effects How might we use this social event as a
amongst those old enough to have experienced metonymy in which to think about local events
the military bombing of their cities as well as of learning and their subsequent truth proce-
those younger members of the community. The dures within educational sites? What kind of
relations between history and memory inter- interventions do facilitators or teachers need to
rupted by this event are complex. The bombing initiate in order for real learning to proceed?
of poems is in a sense an affirmation of survival And finally, returning to our young painter in
but equally provides a form of detournement (a the video I discussed earlier – the practice of this
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

young artist encapsulates the explorations of Dennis Atkinson is Professor of Art in Educa- 17
this article. To repeat the point mentioned earlier tion at Goldsmiths University of London. He is Dennis Atkinson
... as we observe his actions and expressions we the Director of the Research Centre for The Arts
detect a mixture of experimenting, uncertainty, and Learning in the Department of Educational
perseverance, curiosity and contingencies that Studies. Previously he taught art and design in
constitute unpredictable lines of flight and their secondary schools in England for 17 years from
local curation in the struggles and enjoyment of 1971 to1988. He gained his PhD from the Univer-
learning. What kind of pedagogies are required sity of Southampton in 1988. He was course
to facilitate such learning? I can answer this leader for the PGCE Art and Design Secondary
question by taking a quotation from Alain Badiou Course at Goldsmiths for 10 years. He was the
(2003, 41) and then supplementing the term Principal Editor of the International Journal of Art
‘pedagogy’. Badiou is writing about philosophy, & Design Education from 2002 to 2009 and has
and states: published regularly in a number of academic
journals since 1991. He has published five
We do not fundamentally need a philosophy of books: Art in Education: Identity and Practice
the structure of things. We need a philosophy (2002); Social and Critical Practice in Art Educa-
open to the irreducible singularity of what tion (2005, with Dash); Regulatory Practices in
happens, a philosophy that can be fed and Education: A Lacanian Perspective (2006, with
nourished by the surprise of the unexpected. Brown & England); Teaching Through Contem-
Such a philosophy would then be a philosophy of porary Art: A Report on Innovative Practices in
the event the Classroom (2008, with Adams, Worwood,
Dash, Herne & Page) and Equality and Learning:
I think that this can be translated to pedagogy: Pedagogies Against the State (2011). Contact
address: Research Centre for the Arts and
We need pedagogies that are open to the Learning, Goldsmiths University of London,
irreducible singularity of what happens; New Cross, London SE146NW, UK. Email: d.
pedagogies that can be fed and nourished by the atkinson@gold.ac.uk
surprise of the unexpected. Such pedagogies
would then be pedagogies of the event within
their respective functioning contexts. References
Atkinson, D. (2011) Art, Equality and Learning:
Afterword Pedagogies Against the State. Rotterdam:
Since the writing of this article the optimism Sense Publishers
expressed by many for the potential of the new
Atkinson, D. & P. Dash [Eds] (2005) Social and
secondary curriculum in England to promote a
Critical Discourses in Art Education. Stoke-on-
more relevant organ for individual development,
Trent: Trentham Books
social commitment and responsibilty has waned
in the light of the new coalition government’s Badiou, A. (2003) Infinite Thought. London:
decision to terminate its phased introduction Continuum
and to call for yet another review of the school
Badiou, A. (2005a) Handbook of Inaesthetics.
curriculum.
Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press
Badiou, A. (2005b) Being and Event. London:

Continuum
Opposite page:
Badiou, A. (2009) Logics of Worlds. London: Figure 1
Continuum Bombing of poems
in Guernica, courtesy
of Casagrande
iJADE 31.1 (2012)

18 Bingham, C. & Biesta, G. J. J. (2010) Jacques Wright, S. (2008a) Be for real, the usership
Dennis Atkinson Rancière: Education, Truth, Emancipation. challenge to expert culture. Submitted by
London: Continuum Stephen Wright on Thu, 2008-07-24 03:31. PDF
version (online). Available at: .northeastwest
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south.net/be-real-usership-challenge-expert-
Contemporary Art). London: Whitechapel Art
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Butler, J. (2005) Giving an Account of Oneself.
New York: Fordham University Press
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Plateaus. London: Athlone Press
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of Descartes, Vol. 1. Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press
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Conduct. Minola, NY: Dover Publications
Downing, D. & Watson, R. (2005) School Art:

What’s In It? Exploring Visual Arts in Secondary
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Angeles: Semiotexte
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Berkeley: University of California Press
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Rancière, J. (1991) The Ignorant Schoolmaster:

Five Lessons in Intellectual Emancipation.
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iJADE 31.1 (2012)


Contemporary Art and Art in Education - The New, Emancipation and Truth

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14768070, 2012, 1, Downloaded from https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1476-8070.2012.01724.x by Cochrane Portugal, Wiley Online Library on [17/11/2022].

This article assembles some ideas on equality Keywords

This paper is based on Professor Atkinson’s keynote

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Badiou, A. (2005b) Being and Event. London:

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Deleuze, G. & Guattari, F. (1988) A Thousand

Descartes, R. (1985) The Philosophical Writings

Dewey, J. (2001) [1922] Human Nature and

Downing, D. & Watson, R. (2005) School Art:

Foucault, M. (2001) Fearless Speech. Los

Kester, G. (2004) Conversation Pieces.

Nancy, J. L. (1991) Being Singular-Plural.

Rancière, J. (1991) The Ignorant Schoolmaster:

Rancière, J. (2010) On ignorant schoolmasters,

Rogoff, I. (2008) Turning, e-flux electronic

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