(1980) Volume 3, Number 1

              vol 3 no 1 january 1980 change & exchange the generative systems workshop columbia college chicago editor's note peter thompson presented this talk at the recent electroworks symposium at the george eastman house in rochester on 11 november 1979 thompson teaches book making to his students through the use of copying machines earlier this year i worked with a woman who was doing a series of haloid xerox prints of feet they were unlikely but incredible i suggested that she might want to protect them by making a portfolio case in hie shape of a modified shoe box she tried to make it but was unable to move past the design state she then pulled everyone die could into her project i thought her inability was due to laziness and there fore asked people not to help her so that she could have the satisfaction of doing it totally on her own no better finally she went over it with me step by step and t was then that i realized that she did not know how to read a ruler this kind of educational disability is not unknown at co lumbia college chicago where i direct the generative sys tems workshop columbia college is a strange and marvelous place it's an open admission four-year liberal arts college specializing in the communications arts over fifty percent of its students are minority the educational range at columbia is enormous within one workshop it is possible to have a person who is functionally illiterate and a person who is a student of the talmud at the university of chicago the eco nomic range is equally broad last winter within one work shop a woman lost her mittens in december and was unable to buy another pair until february within the same work shop was the wife of the condo king of chicago she flew to israel or aspen every third weekend for a three-day vacation columbia college is one of the only places i know in chicago where this kind of merging of classes and diversity can take place the generative systems workshop of course reflects this one quarter of the workshops are advanced three quarters are beginning the workshop has been supported by colum bia's president mirron alexandroff and by the photography and art departments and their past two chairman charles traub and john mulvany we know that generative systems is an effective linking arena for advanced students we are now most interested in finding out whether generative sys tems can work as a mental can-opener for people who have learning disabilities if the workshop does indeed function in the latter capacity it could conceivably contribute its ser vices as a part of a core program for incoming freshmen i am therefore engaged in thinking about generative sys tems in order to apply its strengths to beginning level stu dents such thinking deals with attributes of generative sys tems which tend to be overlooked by continually talking about it as we have throughout this weekend within the context of museum art my questions about the uses of generative systems are therefore couched within the realities of the basic educational disabilities i experience in teaching of generative systems at columbia coeege fear of teachers the first and most basic disability is fear of teachers to many students teachers represent half of a polar pair tea cher/student exploiter/exploited powerful/powerless mas ter/slave age/youth active/passive the teacher-student re lationship is fundamentally narrative—that is words actions techniques and purpose travel from the giving one to the re ceptive other while i strongly believe in the benefits of the discipline of apprenticeship the narrative quality can easily become oppressive unless it is balanced by a vulnerability on the part of the teacher perhaps the most important way to evidence that vulnerability in the effort to break down the polarity is to engage overtly in an activity which generative systems tools encoura|e to show omprocess of work from first faltering feeble frustrating efforts . . to final faltering feeble frustrating efforts to show that a work is not an im maculate conception that it is conceived birthed raised braces put on its teeth argued with and humbly followed until it reaches its own highest level of maturity and can be let out into the world i do not know of any place except within the context of an educational environment where this kind of knowledge-of-process can be shared the trans parency of this process is one of the strengths of the genera tive systems tools passivity the second major educational disability is passivity many students tend to be present in body only and then attempt to shuck-and-jive their way verbally out of the consequences of not working many tend to have difficulty engaging on all levels they require that their work yield immediately en couraging results or interest is lost and they retreat to zero or to known formulae in a letter they can be characterized by the prefix a they tend to be a-sexual a-moral a-po litical which suggests that for now they effectively reside outside the boundaries of a social life which requires a con sciousness of otherness and the willingness to attempt dis course with that other how can generative systems tools be used a healing agents issn 0160-0699