Kingston School of Art

As is common in art schools, courses at Kingston School of Art develop students' creativity and technical skills through the experience of making. We are additionally, sensitive to the technological capture that can occur when students use the tools they select to tackle their project briefs. Scholars of technology and socio-materialism have warned that the 'rules of use' embedded in particular technologies can enrol the user in a system and set of principles that can limit outcomes and determine the scope of the solution (Heidegger 1954; Latour 2005). The result, when this observation is applied to creative projects involving digital, can often be well-executed performances of digital technology rather than products or experiences that delight, surprise and meet the needs of the target user. In these cases, the tool has become the actor and not the student or user.