The relationship between information technology and education depends on a series of ethical principles deriving from the power relationships made up through social context. These principles are specific to each area. For instance, teaching any subject, sexism and violence are avoided. However, either of them is easy to recognise and it is used frequently in the audiovisual discourse (advertising, cinema or television). We are facing a three-pronged relationship (ethics, education and information technology) which should be supportive but, in practice, since it is not synchronized, it turns out to be conflictive. Therefore, the lack of common objectives makes it difficult for the work to be done both in and outside the classroom.

Today, we can easily recognise the interest in what has been called “education in moral values”. Concepts such as pluralism, freedom or equality are expected to be essential references in the education of students. Nevertheless, the term “values” seems to be despised. Sometimes it is used more as a brand to sell certain cultural products (education included) than as an ideological expression of individuals. In post-industrial societies the citizen is not so interesting as a person in the prime of their social and/or affective facets but as the specific ability that places them in the status of a consumer.

Education and the use of information technology definitely influence the configuration of attitudes and ways of thinking. The will of individuals is influenced (even unconsciously) by a set of social conventions and stereotypes which form the system of moral principles that finally prevails in society.

In this article we will analyze the work of two artists (Orlan and Eduardo Kac), whose work mostly collects the will to get over the existing conflict between the ethical commitment, expressed through technology, and its effect in society.

A linked art that barely needs physical, timeless presence, where technology favours meeting different realities and where the spectator participates actively. It is a kind of work that demands their resigning to possession and shopping. It proposes the enjoyment of the ephemeral and the participation as values that must be recovered in a more and more commercial society.

We will study Orlan’s work because it is considered a perfect example of the way in which the manipulation of matter (the flesh in her own body) takes part in building new identities. The French artist adds technology (telematics) to organic hybridation in order to reach a new concept of the human body through which she poses new forms of personal interconnection and ways to overcome feminine stereotypes.

Eduardo Kac uses avant-garde technology and ephemeral materials to create a piece of work whose main interest lies in the concern about the phenomenon of communication. Kac has broadened this concept to include contacts among animals, humans and machines. Since the eighties, he has been working on a series with different resources (computer programs, the Internet, international mail, television or changes in DNA) in order to analyze the cultural and scientific rules governing the current society.