On the eve of starting a MOOC titled Video Games and Learning, from the University of Wisconsin I think, "We could'a been a contender!"

Missing in Seattle

An opportunity lost?

I first became aware of the University of Wisconsin in the 1970s when I was a professor of art at the UW. By someone’s ranking system, the UW-Seattle and the UW-Madison were somewhat alike in terms of scale and reputation as research universities. It was natural, then, to focus on the printmaking department of the art school at Madison and then to compare it to our printmaking department. 

When the chairman of our department retired, one of the potential replacements that was interviewed was a professor at Madison, over-qualified and out of the range of the salary that was going to be available, but he was flown out and interviewed, anyway.

It became obvious, later, that the hiring committee here had already chosen Kurt Labitsky to whom to offer the position of the new chairman of printmaking. The other two candidates were window dressing; they were brought here to legalize Kurt’s hiring as per the requirements of affirmative action.

It seems to me that the UW-Madison was perhaps above the UW-Seattle in one matter—the matter of ethical practices. In Seattle, the administration of the UW School of Art was having its way with the printmaking department, bending the rules and manipulating the outcome.

The reason they did this was because I was pressing for a fundamental change in the way printmaking was being taught. While the majority of the faculty saw printmaking as a mere extension of painting and drawing and as a kind of craft with little significance to art.

My view, that printmaking is part of a larger topic—media arts—and as such, therefore, printmaking should be taught in the context of new technologies which were emerging on campus and all around the Seattle area. Today, these find their finest expression in video games, and they all date back to printing. Today, too, a MOOC for printmaking is imminent and would—if it were to happen at the UW—would put Labitsky out of a job.

It is likely that the printmaking department at the UW-Madison is still being taught as an extension of painting and drawing. A visit to the Website might show the studios with large-scale presses, sophisticated toxic chemical safety facilities, and great spaces for printmaking.

In other words, the training was to continue the position of printmaking as a second-rate art form—something not quite as grand as painting and sculpture, installation and performance arts. After their initial grounding in the rules of 2-D composition, graphic design, reflective color laws, etc., printmakers could aspire to make huge, multi-color prints and expend their resources emulating painters. They might compete for space in art galleries and museums; but they will be wasting their resources in the process, in my opinion.

“Bigger is better is the rule” at universities like the two institutions, UW/Seattle and UW/Madison. It is the result of political and economic plays carried on by art school faculties backed up the National Association of Schools of Art and Design and other major accreditation boards.

I wonder, what could have happened if I had not lost the battle for change at the UW-Seattle? It is possible that—today—there would be an effort like that which is behind the current MOOC coming out of the UW-Madison (which I am starting in a couple hours).

If it had happened my way, then the Seattle version would not only be a course which on the value of video games for learning, my course would connect antiquity with today’s games in general because printmaking is the ancestor of games. It is the ancestor not only of games, but all technologies which depended on exactly reproduced words and pictures in time and space.

What is missing in Seattle is a company that produces games for learning with printmaking as one center of focus. Games for learning is a huge topic, and printmaking is only a small part of this; but it is one which exemplifies the social value of games and technology in an age when hands-on learning has been diminished by a perceived lack of resources.

It doesn’t have to be that way. We can change this by means of which I have made a beginning—with the help of a handful of friends and hundreds of people who think the mini press is worth having. The mini press can be a console for learning, not only about printmaking techniques, but also about the social value of the art. The most important thing about it is that kids can do printmaking—in groups—given the mini presses our company makes.

Therefore, I reach out to people to join me in forming the company that will produce all kinds of learning opportunities in ways similar to what is happening all over the world—using old printmaking and new technologies to restore education.