Interpreting Francis Bacon's Work through Contemporary Digital Media: Pedagogical Practices in University Contexts

Abstract

This paper describes two pedagogical practices based on Francis Bacon’s graphic Works. One in a curricular context, held at Escola Superior Artística do Porto, and the other in an extracurricular context held at Universidade Lusófona do Porto (both in Portugal), which aimed to stimulate students towards a critical analysis and interpretation of Francis Bacon's work and its recreation using contemporary digital media. This initiative was integrated in the Graphic Works of Francis Bacon exhibition at the World of Wine Museum in Vila Nova de Gaia and was the result of a collaboration between this Museum, the Academy and the Renschdael Art Foundation, a collaboration that aimed to give voice and life to a debate emerging from the exhibition of the work of art and its multimedia translation. Hence, it was intended to complement the exhibition of the artist's works with a multimedia language, through multiple interpretations and digital animations of the Painter's work made by the students and targeted at digital natives as one stream of the exhibition was to target local primary and secondary schools.The participants involved in this project came from various BAs, including Communication Design, Fine Arts and Intermediate, Visual Arts - Photography, Cinema and Audiovisual, Audiovisual Communication and Multimedia, Video Games and Multimedia Applications. This allowed to bring together multidisciplinary groups of students with different profiles and backgrounds, contributing to a myriad of results both in visual terms and technological resources, which included approaches such as: the use of techniques close to rotoscoping in which students created drawings frame by frame over the original images; the exploration of cut-out animation techniques; the recreation of Francis Bacon's work in 3D; explorations of image manipulation, editing, and video effects.In an academic context, these practices resulted in an in-depth knowledge of the work of an artist from a generation different from that of the students; an opportunity for them to work with a real client, applying in a project the knowledge obtained in various curricular units of the BAs they are attending; and the possibility of seeing their work integrated in an international exhibition. As regards to the Graphic Works of Francis Bacon exhibition, this academic project brought a new dynamic to the space combining graphic works by the Painter with multiple interpretations of a generation to whom digital media are omnipresent.In this paper, the pedagogical practices adopted in both Universities are described, projects by students are analyzed as well as the contribution that these projects brought to the exhibition through information gathered from visitors, from articles published on the event and through an interview conducted with the exhibition curator.The exhibition, according to the commissioner, Charlotte Crapts, had an "impressive" turnover bearing in mind that the country was going through Covid restrictions. In the commissioner’s view, the multimedia interventions created a bridge with the educational sector and following this, the exhibition interacted with a great number of youngsters. This was a pioneer exercise in the exhibition space that will be followed in future exhibitions.

– The European Conference on Arts, Design and Education 2022 Official Conference Proceedings

“…As aforementioned, the methodology was informed by prior pedagogical practices carried out in the context of the project/exhibition Graphic Works of Francis Bacon (Lima et al, 2021(Lima et al, , 2022, where we hypothesize that reinterpreting the artworks of artists from earlier generations using modern digital media would stimulate young people's interest and result in a deeper understanding of art (Lima et al, 2022). We also based the workshop methodology on strategies developed within the Wisdom Transfer 5 project, which aimed to enhance knowledge transfer between current art and design students and retired artists and designers who graduated from the School of Fine Arts in Porto (Barreto et al, 2021).…”

“…The first session was dedicated to the project overview, an introduction to the museum's history and its collection, the presentation of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, the viewing of the outcomes from the previous project Graphic Works of Francis Bacon (Lima et al, 2021(Lima et al, , 2022, as well as references by other artists using the same approach of recreating the past with digital tools. At the end of the session, students were tasked to analyze and reflect on the selection of artists and paintings from the museum collection as well as on the Sustainable Development Goals that they were interested in working on.…”

“…The project presented in this paper follows up on a previous one, carried out in a similar pedagogical context and led by the same researchers, where the focus was on the artworks of Francis Bacon (Lima et al, 2021(Lima et al, , 2022. In this project held in the framework of the exhibition Graphic Works of Francis Bacon, at the World of Wine Museum in Vila Nova de Gaia, Portugal (from April to September 2021), students were invited to create reinterpretations of Bacon's graphic artworks with modern digital tools.…”

“…Their works were later presented at the exhibition on two display screens in a dedicated space at the end of the exhibition route. This way visitors started by exploring Francis Bacon's graphic work and ended the visit with the students' digital re-interpretations of his work (Lima et al, 2022). Based on the same principles and methodologies, the current project had as one of the main references the advertisement campaign made by Prado Museum & World Wide Fund for Nature named +1,5ºC Lo Cambia Todo (which translates to +1.5ºC changes everything) 1 .…”