«ART of the MOOC: Public Art and Pedagogy» was promoted by the Duke University in Coursera platform and started on the 20th November 2017 - https://www.coursera.org/learn/public-art-pedagogy

https://www.facebook.com/artofthemooc/

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Structure of the MOOC:

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Weeks 1-2: Public Art and Spatial Politics

This lesson will lay out some basic definitions and examples of public practice and socially engaged art, especially as they relate to spatial politics. We will examine the critical role that such practices have had in relation to various forms of urbanism and social planning and consider the physical and symbolic mechanisms that separate the global and the local, the urban and the rural, the visible and the invisible, citizens and immigrants, settlers and refugees. The lecture and guest presentations will provide foundation and inspiration for students’ own experiments with spatial politics.

Guest presenters: Claire Doherty, Tom Finkelpearl, Rick Lowe, Enrique Peñalosa

Project Options

1. Social Method: Displace an Object or Daily Action

2. Worldwide Flashmob: Movement at a Site of Tension

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Weeks 3-4: Fictions, Alternative Structures, and Mock-Institutions

By definition, social art is a collective endeavor. It might seek to transform larger social structures and economies. Perhaps more modestly, it might offer some alternatives or simply confront immediate challenges. The production of an unusual, creative, or engaged collective body can be its final goal. In this lesson we will learn how socially engaged artists have used the guise or actual form of organizations and institutions such as churches, corporations, banks, government offices, and other social units as the very media of their work. This lesson’s practical components will ask students to invent their own alternative social structures or fictional interventions.

Guest presenters: Fran Ilich, Cesare Pietroiusti, Ruangrupa, Greg Sholette, Caroline Woolard

Project Options

1. Social Method: Invent a Country, Church, or Corporation

2. Worldwide Flashmob: Transform an Institution

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Week 5-6: Experimental Pedagogy

Many socially engaged artists are invested in the communication of ideas through education or educational projects. From Freire and Boal to Judy Chicago and Miriam Shapiro’s Womanhouse and the CalArts Feminist Art Program a brief review of experimental or radical pedagogy and its influence on art is hence the focus of this lesson. Using various technologies and social forms, some of these works set out to transform education from within. Others intentionally position themselves as self-organized platforms outside of institutions. Our focus will be on how the production of alternative communities of learning can challenge the hierarchies, professionalization, homogenization, and economy of current education systems. This week’s practical components will invite students to rethink their relationship to education as they chose between small-scale socialization and massive collaboration.

Guest presenters: Tania Bruguera, Sean Dockray, Suzanne Lacy, Cesare Pietroiusti

Project Options

1. Social Method: The Anti-Lecture

2. Worldwide Flashmob: Mass Drawing Experiment

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WIKI

The ART of the MOOC Wiki includes a thorough bibliography, a glossary, and information on all topics covered in the lectures. It is also the main tool outside the Coursera platform for keeping our growing community together and sharing learner-generating content for public use and viewing. Learners can post their own projects here, create entries on topics they think matter, present open calls and invitations for collaborations beyond the MOOC, and much more. The wiki is minimally administered to allow learner control. It is easy and simple to use and all we ask is that contributors are respectful and take care of it as their own.