New Literacies & Art Literacy: Annotated Bibliographies

  In art, there are so many ways to apply different skills, ideas, techniques, and concepts creatively. The freedom to explore and make is seemingly endless, especially when there are opportunities to create artworks in various or multi-medias. I love the concept of digital art as it connects to traditional art. Teaching students how digital medias were developed to mimic traditional materials and methods is fascinating and helps students to make broader connections and understandings related to art making. Also, how artists' abilities extend far into visual literacies, apt handling of techniques, tools, and professional digital programs. However, one of the issues I face is connecting students to thinking about how art and digital art are more than just making something without intention or just making in an app; there is thought, concept, and process behind what artists do. Additionally, keeping students occupied and engaged while making digital artworks over a range of themes, visual outcomes, and designs. Many students may feel that digital art is constraining, or they have only experienced one format. I want to engage them in the ways that art, digital or not, can be used simultaneously and cohesively to create artistic solutions to any problem an artist may have. I would like to focus my research on methods of engagement and creative approaches to critical, visual, and digital literacies as they relate to learning about and creating art, including artistic process, presentation, and reflection/responses. 

The following annotated bibliographies offer a range of information regarding the topics of digital literacy, visual literacy, critical literacy, art making, design, fashion design, trend forecasting and Artificial Intelligence in art.

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Albers, P., Vasques, V. M., Harste, C., & Janks. H. (2019). Art as a Critical Response to Social

    Issues. Journal of Literacy and Technology Special Edition, 20(1), 46-80. 

    This article details the pedagogical connections between art making and critical

    literacy through a range of linguistic, cultural, communication, and technological

    perspectives focused through the lens of the relationship between maker, materials

    and process. Maker experiences at a 2017 Summer Institute associate the relationship

    between redesign as a methodology for critical literacy that opens makers to

    expansive creative opportunities. Utilizing creative play and process-based

    workshops, educators explored visual and critical literacies to converse and convey

    social issues. Goals of the Summer Institute include expanding critical literacy

    through making to inspire abductive thinking, redesign, and empathy in literacy

    curriculum. This article relates critical literacy pedagogy to creative art making 

    processes as each focuses on dynamic engagement with materials and topics,

    asserting that final projects or ideas are formulated after rigorous and intentional

    engagement with the materials.

Ballmer, A., & Tobias, J. (2017). Trend forecasting: Collecting the history of the future. Art

    Libraries Journal, 42(1), 19–25. doi:10.1017/alj.2016.40

    This article synthesizes the field of trend forecasting, plainly stated as the

    'archaeology of the future', in the context of fashion design, art, and media. Historical

    backgrounds of trend forecasting outline the consumerist and globalist diffusion of 

    marketing, manufacturing, and communications design trends. Specialized print

    and digital libraries collect and organize forecasting data used by designers to

    analyze. This article describes the literacy of the future and how artists and designers

    use data-driven analysis to influence and control cultural trends, fashion, art, and 

    products. Understanding how to read, manipulate, influence, and control outputs

    in this field is a rare and expansive literacy for designers in both art fields and beyond.

    Designers, in essence, have their own language of the future.

Boyd, V. (2012). “Whatever it means, you should have it”: Exploring digital literacies in

    arts education. Art, Design & Communication in Higher Education, 11(2), 111–125.

    https://doi-org.sunyempire.idm.oclc.org/10.1386/adch.11.2.111_1

    This article focuses on a study coordinated by Vic Boyd at a specialized art institution

    in the United Kingdom. This study assesses the constructs of 'digital natives' versus

    'digital immigrants' and the more ubiquitous transient digital user. Boyd's study

    comprises data collected from web-based surveys and focus groups assessing

    students understanding and use of digital literacies in art. Outcomes both align with

    and divert from preconceived notions regarding young individuals and technology

    uses in creative fields, noting that young individuals are not unanimously digital

    connaisseurs.  This study articulates the navigation between digital literacies

    and how technology should be used alongside traditional methods for creative

    learning in non-linear ways.

Dixon, N. (2023). Teaching Digital Literacy in the Context of Ai Text-To-Art Generators.

    Computers in Libraries, 43(1), 19–22.

    This article presents a two-part lesson on AI text-to-art generators and the impact of

    this technology on art and artists. This lesson example details the impact of AI

    technologies and how artists are both affected by and can use AI in art making.

    Elements of the lesson focus on idea generation, ownership, and creative application

    of AI. Participants' responses from the discussion and applied research are

    summarized into communication data points within the categories of evaluating

    outputs, role in the digital world, and limitations and capabilities. The author

    acknowledges the homogeneous tendencies of students in small study pools, while

    cementing the impact of AI as a positive learning tool. This article provides interesting

    applications of AI in education and the art world, and provokes discussion of art

    theory and digital literacy crossovers.

Jung, D.; Suh, S. Enhancing Soft Skills through Generative AI in Sustainable Fashion

    Textile Design Education. Sustainability 2024, 16, 6973.

    https://doi.org/10.3390/su16166973

    This article compiles research and data from a South Korean university study

    analyzing the use of AI in fashion design as a methodology for developing soft skills.

    The study formulated experiences meant to assess how soft skills are developed, their

    utilization in the workplace, how AI can develop and hone soft skills, and how AI is

    used as a collaborative design tool in fashion design. Design Sprint processes are

    utilized with collaborative design teams with a variety of fashion, design, and/or AI

    experiences to determine enhancement of process, human equivalency, and 

    collaboration of soft skills practice through AI prompts. Findings offer insight into 

    career development, the necessity of baseline technology and direct content

    knowledge, as well as that AI cannot replace the human creativity of fashion design. 

    The article addresses unique opportunities and examples of how to address AI in 

    educational design environments and how to facilitate group design processes for 

    textile designs in a modern digital industry.