ART 4.0 : Robot

This text is a translation from a scientific journal titled "Art Education in the Digital Era: Revolution, Intrusion, and Disruption Chapter: Disruption in Art and Education" by Prof. Dr. Yasraf A. Piliang MA and has been approved by the author.

In the realm of scholarship, it seems there is a disruption caused by technology, not only for the benefits it brings but also for the disturbances it introduces. The disruption is not limited to visible aspects such as infrastructure, tools, or facilities; it extends to something intangible like thoughts and emotions. In this context, the author discusses technological disruption in the context of art, inseparable from the creative ability to produce art, referring to it as the power of creative destruction.

This disruption begins with art's ability to generate radical ideas, termed as disruptive innovations. In other words, these radical ideas or innovations serve as the catalyst for disruptions in art. Disruptive innovations can have surprising effects on social realms. According to Paetz, these innovations arise due to four prerequisites:

1. Market scarcity

2. A unique solution to address the scarcity

3. The ability to lower market prices or provide added value to similar products already in existence (specialization, answering the question "what makes your product different from others?")

4. Effective execution of an artistic or design work

The ability to explore and innovate is crucial for competing in today's market, even though it comes with the risk of destruction.

One of the fundamental disruptions significantly affecting art and art education in Indonesian society today is information disruption. Such disruption occurs when everyday objects, like umbrellas, chairs, freezers, or vacuum cleaners, become connected to the Internet, enabling them to receive, process, send, and store information. This capability can disrupt previous social functions. For example, an Internet-connected umbrella can provide weather information, or an autopilot-equipped umbrella eliminates the need for human intervention. Another example is a freezer that informs us about the remaining number of eggs and reminds us if the freezer door is not closed. Now, imagine the disruptions that could arise if similar capabilities were applied to education-based objects like pens, school bags, desks, whiteboards, and all objects connected to the Internet. This would enable them to process information, collect data, send messages, generate signals, and even remind us of today's agenda.

One of the significant disruptions that has emerged is the disturbance in the industry, particularly in the realms of production and consumption. The evolution of three social technologies—mobile, cloud, and big data—has dramatically transformed the production systems and consumption models of various products. The advent of radical technologies such as the Internet of Things (IoT), where objects are integrated with the internet, has not only altered the social context of art or products but has also reshaped the social systems they operate within. For instance, the revolutionary development of Go-Food, a product from the Indonesian startup Unicorn Go-jek, has drastically changed the social aspect of food consumption. Initially involving face-to-face social interactions, it has now become a technologically mediated social consumption relationship, illustrating the disruptive power of technology.

In the context of creative processes, disruption is discussed here within the scope of the creative idea itself. This refers to how radically new ideas can disrupt and completely replace previously emerged ones, akin to avant-garde radicalism. The term "creative destruction" is used to depict this situation—a scenario where novelty dramatically alters the behavior of everyone and market players in this process. Once creative destruction occurs, there is no reverting to the original characteristics as before the creative destruction took place. Here, destruction is the effect of innovation, i.e., innovation capable of surprising the market due to its function, service, style, utility, or convenience. For example, cassette tapes disrupted the existence of vinyl records, CDs dominantly replaced cassettes, and now online music players like Spotify, JOOX, and Deezer have emerged. The destruction produced does not stem from the product itself but from the 'radical' ideas embedded in the product.

"Innovative disruption" is defined as an innovation with the capacity to disrupt established ideas, systems, or products (status quo). Creative destruction is a continuous development of ideas that seeks to replace long-standing ideas. Destructive effects in the context of art are generated through their ability to promote devices with different utilities.

The development of digital technology and the emergence of the virtual world are the two main sources of disruption in recent art practices and art education. The evolution of social networks has radically transformed the process, form, and works of art. Art creation is no longer solely the product of a genius-individual artist producing new and fresh artistic ideas. Instead, it is the result of collaborative work in a digital network. In a networked society, an idea is no longer the product of a genius creator but the 'effect' of a network. In the digital production model, art is no longer understood as a 'thing' in the sense of a physical or material object but as a virtual object in the network. We may recall the news where Christie's auction house sold a painting created by Artificial Intelligence (AI) for 6 billion rupiah (read: https://www.dezeen.com/2018/10/29/christies-ai-artwork-obvious-portrait-edmond-de-belamy-design/amp/).

The disruptive development of technology has dramatically altered social interactions, communication methods, creative processes, learning models, production models, consumption, and the appreciation of art. Discussions about art education today are inseparable from discussions about the role of digital information technology and digital network systems in Indonesia shaping the models, methods, and philosophies of art education. In this regard, disruption, namely technology, not only triggers social disruption but also influences art education. This essentially means that technological disruption has initiated what we can call "educational disruption," where the old model of conventional art education and learning processes has been replaced by a new model, namely, a "network-based digital education system."