The S@ndcastle – a workshop on “Big Data, ChatGPT and Social Media”
Project-based learning (PBL), resonance pedagogy, big data, ChatGPT, artificial intelligence (AI), complexity, social media, information scarcity/abundance, sustainable development, individual & collective identity, digital age, artistic-interdisciplinary techniques of storytelling.
The S@ndcastle is a workshop of artistic narration which allows an interdisciplinary and transversal work on the universe of “big data, ChatGPT and social media”. For students, who are increasingly exposed to digital tools, it aims to promote the construction of a “protective balm” and “warning radars” reinforcing their psychological equilibrium. Addressing this challenge through manual art work is in line with Marshall McLuhan, one of the founders of contemporary media studies: As a counter-medium to the technological world, (classical) art can be a powerful antidote to the narcotic effects of electronic media, and thus more than ever a means of shaping perception and judgment. The pedagogical concept of the workshop addresses a challenge faced by every human being in the digital age, especially by students who are in the midst of a moral construction phase: how not to drown but to master, filter, make useful this infinite ocean of information that is at our disposal via various tools (ChatGPT, …).
Through the creation of an experimental and collective art sculpture, participants explore and debate the following topics:
- the interplay between human nature (fragile, slow and imperfect) and the ‘omnipotence’ of digital memory;
- the meaning of effort, of thinking, of wasting time, of rehashing, of being wrong;
- the sources/role of (1) immediate pleasure, (lasting) satisfaction, well-being/happiness; (2) exhaustion, frustration, unhappiness;
- the impact of big data on the distribution of political and societal power as well as on the environment (sustainable development).
Approaching this subject through a manual artwork aims to generate concrete anchor points of experience for these topics during the process of creation (going through moments of effort, frustration, satisfaction etc.). This concept also aims to perceive the “real” world and the digital world less as antipodes, but rather two universes which may enrich each other.
In a first step, the participants explore the metaphors of the “network”, the “sand”, the “repetition” and the “ocean” on the basis of philosophical and literary texts, objects and photos. These analyses are based, among others, on the story The Book of Sand (1975) by the Argentinian writer Jorge Luis Borges (1899-1986). In his story, the “book of sand” is a book with infinite pages, with no beginning and no end, which becomes an obsession and gradually consumes its owner; Borges is often described as having foretold the internet. In a second step, the participants develop their artworks set in our present or future (utopias/distopias) weaving narrative strands on the topic of “Big Data” into their scenario.
As a conceptual counter-model to this world of (information) abundance, the workshop introduces the the concept of the surrealist literary group OuLiPo. According to this, it is precisely through the conscious restriction of options and the introduction of limitations that people are stimulated to find original solutions, to uncover hitherto unused creative potential.