Seeing AI in the Art & Design Classroom: Exploring the Material Conditions for Critical Visual Literacy
TL;DR
Advocating a ground‐up and materialist approach to render the operations of images visible and knowable, the paper explores current possibilities for, as well as limitations placed upon, critical and creative engagement with Generative AI in art education.
Abstract
Drawing on an ongoing research project that has brought together teachers and artists as co‐researchers, this paper considers the implications of image‐based Generative AI for teaching and learning in the UK art and design classroom. We explore some of the challenges posed by AI to art and design education in 2026, following a period in which the subject has been marginalised in favour of STEM subjects. We are interested in what art and design brings to this discussion, particularly in relation to images produced by Generative AI, and in establishing correspondence with earlier pedagogical responses to visual culture and new media. We are interested in placing artistic and critical approaches at the centre of this discussion and adopting a hands‐on approach that is ‘unplugged’ from digital systems. John Berger's 1972 Ways of Seeing is our key influence, reminding us of the continued importance of issues concerning the reproduction of bias and forms of privilege through visual culture, and the changing relation between seeing and knowledge production. Advocating a ground‐up and materialist approach to render the operations of images visible and knowable, the paper explores current possibilities for, as well as limitations placed upon, critical and creative engagement with Generative AI in art education.