ANAT’s 1990 National Summer School in Computer Aided Art, Design and Manufacture, held at and supported by the Advanced Technology Education Centre (ATEC), Regency College of TAFE in Adelaide, attracted the participation of 19 artists from around Australia, an increase of the twelve who attended the inaugural school in 1989.
Participants were:
- Tanya Court (NSW)
- Paula Dawson (NSW)
- Phillip George (NSW)
- Richard Guthrie (NSW)
- Lynne Roberts-Goodwin (NSW)
- Sandra Shaw (NSW)
- Phillip Bannigan (SA)
- Symrin Gill (SA)
- Rodney Harris (SA)
- Sue Harris (SA)
- Stefan Kahn (SA)
- Rose Martin Szuic (SA)
- Wendy Mills (QLD)
- Bernadette Will (QLD)
- David Cranswick (VIC)
- Deborah Huff-Johnson (VIC)
- Stelarc (VIC)
- Martin Anda (WA)
- Nic Beames (WA)
ANAT applied to various sources of the funding of the ATEC tuition fees, facilities hire, participants travelling expenses, and tuition fees and travelling costs for the specialist workshop tutors. Funding was sought from state arts, cultural, employment, education and training departments. ANAT received funds from the South Australian Department for the Arts ($2,000), the Western Australian Department for the Arts ($2,000), and the Department of Employment, Training, Technical & Further Education ($2,900). City Art Institute and the Canberra Institute of Art, the Queensland Arts Division and the Tasmanian Arts Advisory Board all provided substantial funds to individual artists to participate in the school. There was a general increase in funding and support for the Second Summer School, which we expect to increase each year.
Our ongoing communication with the artists demonstrates that projects and activities instigated as a result of their participation in the Summer Schools are varied, and include artistic projects and accomplishments, as well as increased employment and further education opportunities. Forms sent to the artists requesting information on projects and activities instigated as a result of their participation in the Summer Schools revealed the following results:
63% of the participants have undertaken further education and/or training in areas including computer graphics, CADCAM, video animation, 2D/3D/4D design and application systems, graphic design, fabric design, textiles, new media, television production, computer generated holographic imagery and graphic art.
36% of the artists were also educators, and are actively introducing more students to the use of computers in an artistic context. To this end, they are encouraging and informing their host institutions with regard to the acquisition of appropriate hardware and software.
The schools have prompted 15% of the participants to undergo further research into such areas as the effects o new technology on design and art practice, the application of numerically controlled machines to art forms such as holography, and video/image input and output devices.
42% of the artists have secured employment opportunities as a result of skills, training and knowledge gained at the Summer Schools, including several commissions for sculptures utilising laser-cut patterns, production and design of furniture and value added goods, agents for design systems, studio craftsperson responsible for establishing a new hardware and software system for the textile department of a university, commission for promotional video for a resource seminar on the uses of multimedia tools in education, and starting a business as consultants on programming, graphics, electronic networking and video production and post-production.
Many individuals have exhibited creative works produced on high technology systems following their time at the Schools. An exhibition of 1990 Summer School work has been displayed at Adelaide University’s Union Gallery. Several of the Artists have presented major exhibitions of works generated entirely by the computer systems they were introduced to at the schools. During AUSGRAPH in September, ANAT will present an exhibition of works at the Linden Gallery in Melbourne created by past Summer School students, and again, generated entirely by high technology systems.
All of the participating artists have stated that the Summer Schools have informed their artistic practice and many have described the knowledge, techniques, skills and networks developed through their participation as invaluable and revolutionary. Participation in the Summer Schools and the acquisition of skills and knowledge has in many cases empowered them in such a way as to have increased their ability to affect the economic mainstream, as artists.
The 1989 and 1990 Summer Schools have effectively served as a catalyst for action.
Tags: intensive masterclass, interdisciplinary collaborations, Research, technology
