INTRODUCTION

Casey Reas

Media Literacy: twenty-first century arts education

Published online: 31 March 2006� Springer-Verlag London Limited 2006

Printing with lead movable type was developed in fifteenth century Europe, butit was not until subsequent technical innovations and shifts in social emphasisthat literacy became more widespread hundreds of years later. The camera wasfirst developed in the nineteenth century, but it was not until the twentiethcentury that it emerged from the domain of specialists and found its way into thehands of the population. Digital computing technologies emerged in the wake ofWorld War II, but did not find their place into the home until the 1980s. Whilesome early prototypes for these early personal computers supported visions ofthe computer as a new media, in practice they became tools limited by theirowners’ inability to modify the existing hardware and software. Subsequentinnovations have drastically reduced the size and cost of these machines whileincreasing their speed and ability to network to the point where by 1995 therewere as many microprocessors as people on the planet (McCullough p. 6). Whilethese devices continue to proliferate, only a relative minority of the populationcontrol their development. Just as the full potential of written language andprinting was not felt until there was widespread literacy (both reading andwriting), it’s possible society will not experience the potential of computingtechnologies while the majority of the public lacks the ability to not only usethese technologies, but to write them as well.

At the beginning of the twenty-first century, many students at art and designschools are becoming more media literate—they are acquiring the concepts andskills to develop their own software and hardware to support their needs andcommunicate their ideas. Their work presents new technologies from differentpoints of view, often emphasizing the body, psychology, and social perspectivesthat offer refreshing alternatives to commercial technical development. Thisedition of AI & Society focuses on the contemporary efforts of educators to raisedigital literacy within the domain of the arts. Under their guidance, students arelearning more about constructing physical interfaces, computer vision, theinfrastructure of the Internet, the relations between video games and culture,and fundamental concepts of software as a medium. Joanna Berzowska dis-cusses her research into soft wearables computers and explains her approach to

C. ReasUniversity of California Los Angeles, Design/Media Arts,UCLA Design/Media Arts, 11000 Kinross Avenue, Suite 245,P.O. Box 951456, Los Angeles, CA 90095-1456, USAE-mail: reas@ucla.edu

AI & Soc (2006) 20: 444–445DOI 10.1007/s00146-006-0035-8

teaching classes about alternative interfaces. Golan Levin provides an overviewof computer vision within the arts, explains basic principles of the technique,and outlines ways in which it can be used in diverse applications. AlexanderGalloway presents the Carnivore project, a public domain software initiativeinspired by data surveillance issues with software by the same name created theUnited States FBI. Mary Flanagan writes about her experience developingalternative video games for middle school girls, with a focus in their social valuefor both the producers and players. Katherine Moriwaki and Jonah Brucker-Cohen describe their Scrapyard Challenges, workshops for providing theexperience of building electronic objects through focused and playful experi-mentation. Casey Reas and Ben Fry outline their views on software as anexpressive medium and discuss Processing, their software for teaching conceptsof programming to art and design students. Each of these educators excels inmore than one discipline and makes connections between computer technologyand the related disciplines of design, art, theory, and fashion.

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