Exploring the Role of Art Education Mediating between Humans and Digital Technology

This study examines the transformed concept of art generated through creative interactions within the entangled relationship between humans and nonhumans (machines) in the era of digital transformation, and explores the expanded role of art education as a mediator between humans and digital technologies. The research addresses the following points. First, the ‘immateriality’ of digital technology calls for a reconfiguration of the conditions of creativity and artistic practice through a renewed perception of sense and being. Second, drawing on Actor-Network Theory (ANT), the study argues that art education spaces should be reconceptualized as complex arenas where sensory, ethical, and social experiences intersect. Third, at a time when digital technology as immateriality raises ontological issues beyond its relation to capital, the study proposes directions for art education that foster organic collaboration between humans and nonhumans, as well as symbiotic cooperation between individuals and society. The findings suggest that art education should redefine its social role by embracing collaborative processes between humans and machines, expanding visual literacy to encompass technology, critique, and aesthetics, and fostering ethical responsibility in digital environments. In doing so, art education can be established as an ontological practice that mediates between humans and digital technologies.