Digital Mythologies - Mythological Digitalities

<< Background >>The project Digital Mythologies – Mythical Digitalities (DIMYMYDI) had two starting points:1.Covid-19 situation forced all educational institutions to take a leap into the deep end of online teaching, and2.Cultural, social, and political environment was and still is churning with mythological ideas and images used for different political and cultural purposes. We wanted to test various new and older digital tools for planning, producing, and exhibiting artistic and design work online. Both teachers and students were the target audience for learning about new, more sophisticated tools they can use in their design or artistic work and in their teaching. Mythology has been used and abused in the current cultural, social, and political discussion and its interpretations have been shallow, divisive, and often nationalistically motivated. However, mythologies reflect our shared experiences and ideas on a less complicated level and can also be used to build understanding and sense of wider communality. We used the mythologies of each partner country to produce works growing from the ideas and images presented in them. We were eventually able to carry out the activities on-site, but everything could also have been done online << Objectives >>The objectives of the project were: 1.To introduce students and teachers to tools teachers at different partner organisations had found useful in design and artistic work both offline and online in the field of visual communication design.2.To package those tools for wider audiences – including other universities but also secondary education and any professionals in the visual communication design and media arts. 3.To Introduce different mythologies to students and teachers to be used as material of their design and artistic work and improve their media literacy vis-à-vis mythology-related issues.4.To package the mythological material gathered during the project for wider audiences. 5.Present the principles of the project, materials gathered for the LTTA’s and the student work done in them through exhibitions and in a publication. << Implementation >>The project consisted of intertwined LTTA’s and Project Results and multiplication events. Implementation of LTTA’s:•Each partner organised one student workshop, altogether five, (LTTAs) concentrating on local mythology and introducing digital tools they use in their teaching. Students produced design projects that were discussed and exhibited in the Project Results, Multiplier Events and other exhibitions and events during (and after) the project period. •There were also four teacher LTTAs each organised by a different partner institution to give teachers understanding of tools to be used and mythologies to be studied in the student LTTA’s.Implementation of Project Results•Two of the Project Results (Curated Exhibition Series (PR03) and Project Publication (multimedia) (PR04)) are directly connected to the work done in the student LTTAs as they analyse and present their results to general audiences. The publication also contains articles written by teachers involved in the workshops and Multiplier Events. •The other two Toolkit (PR01), Mythology compendium (PR02) compiled the mythological materials and tools into collections available for wider audiences giving ideas for their own projects. Implementation of Multi<< Results >>All the outputs are available (or linked to) on the project web page: https://www.dimymydi.eu/ (from 2026 onwards on https://www.dimymydi.aalto.fi).1.TOOLKIT to support drafting, realizing, sharing, and exhibiting rich visual content. It contains a set of 18 ideas (art assignments guided by our values) and 17 tools (examples of software to complement these assignments), now available in DIDAE’s rich database for free. With these resources, we aim to inspire and equip the next wave of digital arts education, sparking innovation and encouraging a thoughtful integration of technology into artistic practice. [DIDAE (Digital Didactics in Art Education; also an EU supported project), a repository of open resources for art education .]2.MYTHOLOGY COMPENDIUM (MythCloud) is a digital compendium exploring the traditional and contemporary dimensions of shared mythologies and their enduring significance. It explores mythology through the intertwined perspectives of history, culture, and everyday life. MythCloud seeks to illuminate how collective narratives continue to shape and mirror the complexities of the human experience.3.PUBLICATION The digital publication contains critical texts and artwork reflecting the workshops or recordings