ELIA Academy 2019: What’s going on Here?

Decoding Digitality in Higher Arts Education

This year’ s ELIA (European League of Institutes of the Arts) conference took place for the first time in Germany from 25 to 27 September. On the three days with lectures,
presentations, discussions, performances and talks were also attended by numerous professors of the Merz Akademie. The theme of the 9th ELIA Academy is digitalisation. Many students (and teachers) are embracing new forms of digital arts and digital practices — these new, blended practices stretch our conceptions of creativity.

Prof. Dr. David Quigley, head of the Master’s program, presented in his lecture “Teaching and Learning as Performing Arts (towards the expanded classroom)” a series of projects/lectures involving the use of different digital and analogue media within varying institutional settings. The intermedia choreography of the digital classroom creates new situations for teaching and learning that share similarities with many late 20th century artistic practices.

With 250 member institutions, ELIA – The European League of Institutes of the Arts – is one of the largest international networks for design colleges, art academies and universities. ELIA represents a total of about 300,000 students in 47 countries. Prorector Maren Schmohl has been a member of ELIA’s Representative Board since November 2018.