Building on the Radical Potential of Conceptual Indeterminacy in Studious Drift

Abstract

I n Studious Drift: Movements and Protocols for Postdigital Education, Tyson E. Lewis and Peter B. Hyland introduce a process of studioing, which revives a relationship between the art studio and the act of study with the writing of experimental protocols. They describe the process as an indeterminate ritualistic practice and experience of moving with thought, play, and experimentation without predetermined functions, outcomes, or disciplinary boundaries. Studious Drift emerged from a series of in-person and online events, where participants critically experimented with contemporary education’s neoliberal logics, which the authors explain have been exacerbated by the expansion of digital learning platforms, e-learning, and online education. In March 2020, Lewis and Hyland opened the Studio-D Project, Education as Experimentation: Possibilities Beyond Outcomes-Based Learning, which was an online project that paired teams of artists, scholars, and educators to design experimental protocols that became accessible for public activation. The book and larger project contribute to a movement of international scholars, artists, educators, and activists using creative, conceptual, experimental, and experiential approaches to disrupt habituated institutional and educational norms through collective action (Harney & Moten, 2013; Illich, 1972; Madoff, 2009; Ouwens et al., 2020; Stein & Miller, 1970/2016; Thorne, 2016). The current movement builds on a history of artists engaged in radical pedagogy and institutional critique (i.e., Critical Art Ensemble, Fluxus, Global Tools, Group Material, Situationist International).