MOKITA: a discussion

Illustration as a mode of cultural production is an exponentially expanding phenomenon. Illustration students form a significant and substantial constituency within the Art and Design education sector. The future of Illustration disciplinarians is assured, or so it may seem. It is conceivable that the volume of Illustration graduates entering the ÔÇÿjob (less) marketÔÇÖ exceeds real demand for conventional, transactional, freelance, commercial Illustration work. This constitutes an existential threat for the discipline and increased precarity for Illustration graduates. Add to this the imminence of wide scale Automation (Chui et al), the deployment of Artificial Intelligence in to the creative sector and the normalization of Self-Entrepreneurship (https://vimeo.com/46254409) and we have a (potentially) destabilizing ÔÇÿmixÔÇÖ that poses serious ethical and operational questions to educators, institutions and the industry at large. 2 MOKITA proposes to run a panel and/or short series of discussions during the ICON10 Educators Symposium composed of invited US delegates to discuss the theme ofÔǪfuture shock. The aim of the panel discussions will be twofold; to create a space for open, energetic, informed and speculative discussion around the causal factors impacting Illustration practice/education/lifestyle over the next (x amount) of years. To invite a mixed economy of practitioners, academics and students to use this space for the cooperative construction of an open and flexible framework enabling immediate and potentially sustained knowledge fabrication through critical dialogue