Digital technology use after coronavirus will increase.
Whether it is temporary or voluntary, will the increased use of digital technology remain a long parenthesis - that imposed to respond to two months of confinement - or will it serve as an experience, an example for building the next phase? The question arises for many cultural and economic activities, from museums to cinema, from exposure to the art market.
It also concerns art schools, which will not reopen before the fall and which have been forced for a long time to operate such a technological change, affecting the young generation, that of future artists as well.
This year, for the first time, almost unanimously, the candidates for public art and design schools will be selected only based on an artistic file transmitted by the Internet and a remote interview. File created by the candidate from his choice of previous personal work then dematerialized in a few files, JPG image. Because of the Covid-19, the immigrants will not be able to undergo the usual tests, those said on the table: artistic analysis, of general culture, of language, material tests, carried out in a limited time from an imposed subject, and under surveillance. As for the oral exams, which allowed the juries to assess more finely, face to face, the candidate's knowledge, and potential concerning the tests and personal file, they had to be deleted or proposed by videoconference. The unprecedented situation, making the question of the principle of equal opportunity in a competition even more thorny: do the candidates all have suitable equipment, the same Internet connection? No, of course. It will, therefore, raise questions, for other reasons still, about the composition of this 2020-2021 promotion.
To ensure the continuity of their lessons since their closure on March 13, the schools have also developed distance courses, follow-up of students by telephone, e-mail, Skype. Teachers and students have experienced the "charms" and constraints of virtual classes, distance workshops. This use of videoconferencing becoming the panacea for so many other professions in the world, their platforms are the big beneficiaries of confinement. The number of users has increased more than tenfold, the value of their shares soared on the stock market before the negligence of some appears: a flaw in the security of private data, the transmission of information to social networks, the possibility of intruders to interfere with exchanges.
Be careful.
Le Journal des Arts
