Digital art labs for schools begin today. Artists and students will jointly develop works to showcase at the Maxxi for the Media Art Festival (May 17-19, 2018).

Today, Artist Jacopo Nocentini will work with students at IIS Caterina Da Siena in Milan, the school directed by Antonella Maria Benedetta Cutro. The project will involve 26 students from Class 3B, studying “Advertising and Sales Promotion,” coordinated by Professor Simone Massafra. The idea is to produce an “artist’s book.”

Tomorrow, March 9, also in Milan, Artist Daniela Di Maro will be at the Liceo Artistico Statale di Brera, directed by Emilia Ametrano. Class 3 EHA from the “Audiovisuals and Multimedia” Programme, coordinated by Prof. Michael Rotondi, will produce a video-art work concerning environmental emergencies.

Education is one of the fundamental aspects of the Media Art Festival, as media art stimulates what is known as a “whole-brain” approach to Life Education as opposed to “left-hemisphere” traditional education. Quoting this efficient metaphor by Linda Williams (Teaching for the Two-sided Mind, 1986), “we can compare the left hemisphere of our brain to a digital computer and the right hemisphere to a kaleidoscope. The left hemisphere works on “parts,” while the right works on “wholes.”

In media art, we can imagine an association between digital dimensions and the left hemisphere, or between arts and the right hemisphere. And this virtuous dynamic process drives us to learn through a “whole-brain” approach. In fact, the Phyrtual Innovation Gym also hosts a Media Art Lab, where schools can experience “whole-brain” learning.