Art Education

ISSN: 0004-3125 (Print) 2325-5161 (Online) Journal homepage: http://www.tandfonline.com/loi/uare20

Swarm Intelligence and Collaboration

James Haywood Rolling Jr.

To cite this article: James Haywood Rolling Jr. (2016) Swarm Intelligence and Collaboration, Art
Education, 69:5, 4-6

To link to this article: https://doi.org/10.1080/00043125.2016.1201400

Published online: 15 Aug 2016.

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 S wa r m
E D I TORI AL

Intelligence
AND
Collaboration

A photograph of the public sculpture Stroll (1995), by

William King, located on the South Street walkway at

W
Penn’s Landing in Philadelphia, serves as a metaphor
for the simple dynamics of all swarm behavior: follow
E CREATE FROM WHAT WE PARTAKE OF. the trail of the individual in front of you, and keep
Every art teacher knows from personal pace with the individual alongside you. Photo by
James Haywood Rolling Jr.
experience that as a result, art makes us
smarter—artists routinely immerse themselves
in the processes, resources, artifacts, and vast fields of play left behind by all the artists,
designers, and inventors that practiced before us. In making art, we dive into humanity’s
collective genius and see our individual reflections shimmering brightly upon the
water’s surface. As art and museum educators, we document and display the evidence of
hands-on learning as each student explores some of civilization’s best ideas made visible,
each student working to make personal sense of the cultural architecture they dwell in
while arriving at new understandings through projects all their own.

4 Art Education
 Every one of us carries multiple motivating
stories in our heads at the same time.
Yet, conveying the value of shared resources,
collaboration, and divergent outcomes
emerging from contemporary art studio models
and project-based classroom pedagogies
can be daunting in a schooling paradigm
fixated on standardized tests for individual
achievement. In order to address this dilemma,
the September 2016 issue of Art Education on
swarm intelligence and collaboration has been
assembled to help tell a story of how art makes
us smarter, providing simple principles for
behaving together in varying clusters of socially
responsible creative activity that can channel
the benefits of humanity’s creative genius into
any classroom, any workplace, and any nation.
While a negative reaction to the term
“swarm” typically stems from a triggering
association with “mindless” insect colonies,
the reality is that all social creatures exhibit
swarm behavior, from animal herds, to
apes, to humans (Rolling, 2013). The more
sophisticated the brain, the more sophisticated
the swarm behavior—hence, while a swarm
of ants is capable of building an extensive
underground colony and a swarm of
mammals (e.g., wolves, elephants, dolphins,
or chimpanzees) can build a thriving pack or
herd living harmoniously within their local
ecologies, a swarm of humans can build a
civilization that lasts for centuries (Fisher, 2009;
Miller, 2010). A human swarm is a social network of individuals
behaving for a time like-mindedly or self-similarly. While behaving
together as a local swarm can at times lead to an unthinking “mob
mentality” or ill-reasoned “crowd hysteria,” for the most part
human swarm intelligence contributes to the ongoing development
of distinct cultural practices, belief systems, and patterns of
mutually beneficial social actions—our general altruistic intent to
perpetuate our species and transmit “from one generation to the
next, via teaching and imitation… knowledge, values, and other
factors that influence behavior” (Boyd & Richerson, 1985, p. 2).
What triggers a swarm of creative activity? Most often, a swarm
of mutually advantageous human thought and action is instigated
by a common story, whether the collaborators are a small crowd
of three or a nation of millions (Rolling, 2013). Ultimately, it
does not matter whether that story is fictional, mythical, familial,
scientific, cultural, political, or economic because the truth is that
every one of us carries multiple motivating stories in our heads
at the same time. In this September 2016 issue of Art Education,
Aaron D. Knochel explores the multimodal participatory
cultures of art + design education through the motivating story of
preservice university students remixing and developing a variety
of solutions for do-it-yourself (DIY) prosthetics intended to enable
artmaking. Jessica Baker Kee, Cayla Bailey, Shabreia Horton,
Katrice Kelly, James McClue, and Lionell Thomas instigate
swarm intelligence and collaborative learning through the studio
arts practice of assemblage, unpacking K–12 student cultural
identities in the process of developing installations during a class
offered at the Ashé Cultural Arts Center in central New Orleans.
Canadian art + design educators Ehsan Akbari, Juan Carlos
Castro, Martin Lalonde, Lina Moreno, and David Pariser
explore the value of collective learning in the art classroom by
presenting a lesson from MonCoin, their mobile media visual art
curriculum. A key objective of their curriculum is to amplify the
conditions for an aspect of swarm intelligence wherein individuals
with a shared affinity for a particular story construct, self-organize
to participate in autonomous activities as that story deems apt and
without the need for outside direction, ultimately distributing the
benefits of their problem solving between one another through
multiple interactions over a period of time within a peer learning
network (Rolling, 2013).
Also in this issue, Lisa Kay offers her perspective on why
collaborations between art educators and art therapists are needed,
providing readers with an example of an effective partnership
program designed for adolescent girls who have experienced
adverse childhoods. Jorge Lucero has organized a collaborative
writing effort with Anna Nichols, Dawn Stienecker, Janet E.
Nisbett, Lillian Lewis, Joana Hyatt, Kristen McCarthy, Lee
Tyler Darter, Linda White Kieling, Jessica Green, Deborah
S. Peters, Robin E. Brooks, Stephanie Brooks, Frank Juarez,
Sue Ellen Jacobs, Laura K. Reeder, and James Haywood
Rolling Jr. that utilizes a crowd-sourcing or swarming method
of accumulative writing as an accessible publication model for
busy practitioners. Kevin Slivka shares narrative vignettes
that examine sovereign and traditional ecological practices of
the Indigenous peoples of the Upper Great Lakes region for
harvesting, cooking, and preserving blueberries as a means not
only for enriching cultural pedagogies and literacies through
visual ethnography, but also to entice Western thinkers and doers
to mimic such sustainable practices until a much needed social
adaptation for greater environmental responsibility emerges.
Finally, Syracuse University graduate student Brianna Prisco
presents an Instructional Resource featuring several interactive art
installations, each one inviting swarms of participants to engage in
and create new iterations of the public art.
September 2016 5
 As social creatures, we must learn to see our multitudinous art
+ design practices as an “adaptive, dynamic, goal-seeking, self-
preserving, and sometimes evolutionary” system for perpetuating
the human species (Meadows, 2008, p. 12). Likewise, as artists
we must learn to see our works of art, design, and architecture
as the storytelling exercises they essentially are. We use symbols
and constructed materials to describe our experience of the world
immediately surrounding us… to communicate our relationship
with the people, places, practices, and events we hold dear and
want to be remembered long after we are gone… and to interrogate
the problems that won’t go away. Story inventions are shared in
order for our best ideas and solutions to spread (Johnson, 2010),
allowing humans to move from one swarm of creative activity to
the next, gathering advantages along the way. n
—James Haywood Rolling Jr., Editor
References
Boyd, R., & Richerson, P. J. (1985). Culture and the evolutionary process. Chicago,
IL: University of Chicago Press.
Fisher, L. (2009). The perfect swarm: The science of complexity in everyday life.
New York, NY: Basic Books.
Johnson, S. (2010). Where good ideas come from: The natural history of
innovation. New York, NY: Riverhead Books.
Meadows, D. H. (2008). Thinking in systems: A primer. White River Junction,
VT: Chelsea Green Publishing Company.
Miller, P. (2010). The smart swarm: How understanding flocks, schools, and
colonies can make us better at communicating, decision making, and getting
things done. New York, NY: Avery.
Rolling, J. H. (2013). Swarm intelligence: What nature teaches us about shaping
creative leadership. New York, NY: Palgrave Macmillan.
James Haywood Rolling Jr. is Dual Professor and Chair
of Art Education in the School of Art/College of Visual
and Performing Arts, and the Department of Teaching
and Leadership/School of Education, Syracuse University,
New York. E-mail: jrolling@syr.edu

Call for Nominations for the 2017 USSEA Edwin Ziegfeld Awards
USSEA’s Annual Edwin Ziegfeld Awards
honor distinguished leaders who have
made significant contributions to the
national and international fields of art
education. Two Ziegfeld Awards will
be presented during the 2017 NAEA
National Convention in New York City:
one national award to honor an art
educator from within the United States
and one international award to honor
a colleague from outside the United
States, who has made contributions
of INTERNATIONAL significance to art
education.
SUBMISSIONS: Nominees should be
members of USSEA or InSEA and have
brought distinction to international aspects
of art education through an exceptional and
continuous record of achievement in scholarly
writing, research, professional leadership,
teaching, professional service, or community
service bearing on international education in
the visual arts.*
OTHER USSEA AWARDS:
The USSEA Award for Excellence in PK-12 Art Education is presented to a pK-12
art educator who has demonstrated leadership in and commitment to multicultural,
cross-cultural educational strategies in their school/s and communities.
This art educator actively implements an approach that builds respect for human
dignity and diversity through art. The teacher must be a member of NAEA and
USSEA to be recognized, and their work must be confluent with the mission of
USSEA, which is to foster “teamwork, collaboration, and communication among
diverse constituencies in order to achieve greater understanding of the social and
cultural aspects of art and visual culture in education.”
USSEA Award for Outstanding Master’s Thesis is presented to a master’s
graduate whose thesis or creative component reflects the mission of USSEA
(see above).
The topic investigated in the master’s work promotes pluralistic perspectives,
deepens human and cultural understanding, and/or builds respect for diverse
learners.
NOMINATIONS: May be submitted by any member of USSEA, InSEA, or NAEA.
Forms available at http://ussea.net. Mail or e-mail nominations to: Angela LaPorte,
Department of Art, 306 Fine Arts Center, Fayetteville, AR 72701.
E-mail: alaporte@uark.edu
DEADLINE: Nomination materials (nomination form, vitae, letter of nomination,
and one letter of support) due by November 1, 2016. Letters of nomination,
acceptance, and support must be written in English.
*Past awardees are listed at http://ussea.net/awards. Please consider nominating
a member of USSEA or InSEA who has not yet been recognized.

6 Art Education