ART of the MOOC | free online course

ART of the MOOC: Merging Public Art and Experimental Education: Join thousands around the world in this free, six-week online course on socially engaged public art, a MOOC that is also a work of public art. The MOOC runs October 19 - December 6, in English and expects 4-6 hours study per week from enrolled students.

Designed by artist and Duke University professor Pedro Lasch, and co-taught by Creative Time chief curator Nato Thompson, the course includes creative exercises and dozens of presentations by key figures from around the world in the field of art and social politics.

Can a MOOC be a work of art? New York’s public art organization, Creative Time, and Duke University believe it can. Designed by artist and Duke professor, Pedro Lasch, and co-taught with Creative Time chief curator, Nato Thompson, ART of the MOOC functions simultaneously as a socially-engaged public art form and a survey course on that very subject. Taking full advantage of the global scale yet intimate environment that only a MOOC can offer, this course merges traditional classroom practices with new technology and aesthetic experimentation. Video lectures, complementary materials, and presentations by cross-national artists, curators, critics, and activists provide a formal and theoretical overview of the fundamental themes within socially-engaged public art. Interspersed with these lessons, students will contribute to the field by completing creative assignments and participating in collective art projects. Online forums and opportunities to assemble outside of class will allow students to share their activities while developing critical thinking and discussion skills. Through this hands-on, participatory approach, ART of the MOOC welcomes students as collaborators in an unprecedented expression of public art and education.

Some of the guest presenters are from Asia and Europe, and include:

• Claire Doherty is a curator, writer, and educator interested in temporary, place-based art and unconventional curatorial practices. She is the founding director of Situations in the U.K., and author of Public Art (Now).
• Future Farmers is a group of artists, researchers, designers, farmers, scientists, engineers, and illustrators, all working together to challenge current social, political, and economic systems.
• Hans Haacke is an artist whose concept-based work critiques political and social systems. His public commissions include a piece for the Fourth Plinth in London, and the German Parliament.
• Leonidas Martin Saura is an artist, activist, expert joke teller, and member of Enmedio and other collectives like Las Agencias, Yomango, Prêt à Revolter, New Kids on the Black Block. His is also a professor of new media and political art at Barcelona University.
• ruangrupa (represented by farid rakun) is an artist initiated nonprofit organization based in Indonesia that strives to support artistic ideas within the urban context. Their work has included repurposing homes in Jakarta, and transforming them into cultural spaces.
• Joshua Wong is a student activist at the Open University of Hong Kong, leader of the Scholarism group and the Umbrella Revolution. At age 18 he was nominated as ‘Person of the Year’ by Time Magazine, also appearing on its cover.
• Caroline Woolard is an artist and organizer who operates at the intersection of art, urbanism, architecture, and political economy. She has co-founded various resource sharing networks, also focusing on the impact of debt systems in education and real estate.