I had an interesting morning looking at everyone in REN's blogs. They range from just started to quite extensive thoughts and images about the audiences issue.
At some point I will have to mark the evidence, whether it is in the form of a blog or not.
There are always two aspects for me when I come to assess work, one is the apparently simple task of responding to the brief outcomes and the module descriptor.
So what is this easy bit?
The module descriptor indicates that as this is a 10 credit module I should initially be looking for evidence of 70 hours work on the part of each individual student. OK so how? Well, the writing itself evidences time spent thinking and reflecting. Images can reflect time spent going places, fiddling with the technology in order to download etc. What people talk about evidences where they have been, visits to the Yorkshire sculpture park, openings etc. walks around the city looking for suitable sites for art work/audience interventions, visits to London Galleries etc etc. On top of this there is evidence of actual art stuff, tryouts in terms of collages or photographs of pieces of work in situ etc. In some cases the blog itself has been constructed as part of the communication system that surrounds an art work and is integral to it. Lots of stuff there that I can use to evidence time spent.

But what about the aims of the module?

The Audiences module runs parallel with the students’ core practice based ‘materials’ module. The aim of this module is to raise students’ awareness of how considerations of audience can on the one hand effect how they present and site their own work and on the other hand become an important driver as to content and context.

It is important for them to consider how this growing awareness opens out opportunities for extending their own existing practice as well as them becoming more theoretically aware. In particular students will be given an opportunity to exhibit at St James Hospital and they need to reflect on this opportunity not only in how they present but how an audience might receive their work.

So I will need to reflect how this is evidenced too. This brings me to the other issue I bring to bear on these things. As an artist as well as an educator I’m always looking for that insight or involvement that suggests that this business means something to the people involved. I strongly believe in the power of art to engage with the human condition. It has a unique role to play in how we can communicate to others. It doesn’t give answers, it doesn’t provide solutions to problems but what it can do is open a door for insight or reflection in unpredictable and complex ways. It most importantly is not straightforward. It can act directly through the senses, in this case I am a firm believer in a phenomenological approach to thinking about this stuff and use the embodied mind as a starting point for thinking about metaphor. I.e. I am as subjective as the next person and this will affect how I mark the module.

But back to the criteria. I did publish those a couple of weeks ago but as always I’m out of time, but will return to reflect on this topic another day.