In this paper we reflect on our collective efforts to co-create Wayne State University’s first student-led dance company dedicated to digital media creation – the Virtual Dance Collaboratory (VDC). VDC was created in Fall 2020 when the dance program learned it would conduct most of the academic year remotely. Despite institutional pressures to build VDC as a techno-centric solution to student retention, we designed VDC as a provocation toward ethical approaches to digital media training that prioritises student well-being, student-led leadership, and collective learning. Our co-created learning environment evades techno-neoliberal ideology and instead prioritises student-led, artist collective pedagogical models in which technology expands artistic potential based primarily on student needs and desires. Our pedagogical approach accounts for technology’s role in the classroom but is not techno-centric. Similarly, our reflective process used for this paper considers how technology functions within systemic, neoliberal and neocolonial institutional practices that coerce students into producing on behalf of the institution. To discuss, we review the course’s design and structure and then spend the remainder of the paper reflecting on course activities using three pedagogical themes: (1) acknowledging technology as a cultural object, (2) questioning relational and transactional roles in/as industry professionalization, and (3) cultivating security and relational trust. Our writing process reflects the structural ethos of VDC by adopting a collective writing praxis, allowing each author to enter into the writing on their own terms. As such, this essay is intended to provoke further inquiry into ethical practices, rather than provide simple solutions.

在本文中，我们回顾了我们共同创建韦恩州立大学第一个致力于数字媒体创作的学生主导的舞蹈公司——虚拟舞蹈合作实验室 (VDC) 的集体努力。VDC 成立于 2020 年秋季，当时舞蹈项目了解到它将在整个学年的大部分时间里远程进行。尽管有机构压力将 VDC 打造为以技术为中心的学生保留解决方案，但我们将 VDC 设计为对数字媒体培训的道德方法的挑衅，该方法优先考虑学生的福祉、学生主导的领导力和集体学习。我们共同创造的学习环境避开了技术新自由主义意识形态，而是优先考虑学生主导的艺术家集体教学模式，在这种模式中，技术主要根据学生的需求和愿望来扩展艺术潜力。我们的教学方法考虑了技术在课堂中的作用，但不是以技术为中心的。同样，我们用于本文的反思过程考虑了技术如何在系统性、新自由主义和新殖民主义制度实践中发挥作用，这些实践迫使学生代表机构进行生产。为了讨论，我们回顾了课程的设计和结构，然后在论文的其余部分使用三个教学主题来反思课程活动：（1）承认技术是一种文化对象，（2）质疑在/作为行业专业化中的关系和交易角色，以及（3）培养安全感和关系信任。我们的写作过程通过采用集体写作实践来反映 VDC 的结构精神，允许每个作者按照自己的方式进行写作。像这样，