Industrial Revolution 4.0 and Its Influence on Visual Arts Education

Abstract

This article presents the challenges Industrial Revolution 4.0 (IR 4.0) pose to visual art educators, specifically, and the impacts of IR 4.0 on visual arts education, generally. The industrial sector has experienced countless changes through the first three phases of industrial revolutions. The impacts of the IR 4.0, however, are unlike any of its previous predecessors. The IR 4.0 marks significant influence on every facet of life, going beyond industrial sector to all other industries and agencies as well as defining the way people go about their everyday lives. Sparked by smart technology, as explained by Schwab (2017), the burst of IR 4.0 was generated by the invention of supercomputers, smart robots, driverless vehicles, genetics transformation, virtual reality, augmented reality and neuro-technology. The field of visual arts education is also, directly and indirectly, continuously shaped by these technological advancements. Hence, the article details each phase of industrial revolutions and illustrates how the IR 4.0's surgence is different; the manner it revolutionizes and affects visual arts education; as well as the positive and negative effects that it has on the field.