jeremy blank

This exhibition highlights the need to develop wider awareness of
first nation cultural practice. Traditional skills are counterpointed
with a contemporary vision. The work lends itself to the
contemplation of materials, experience and process incorporated
in a single piece. Lea Taylor privileges our need to make, store,
carry, decorate or accessorise; for functional or ritualised ways.
Natural materials many of us skate over, never noticing their
intrinsic beauty or symbolic power, are woven intuitively. Each
stitch represents a journey, reference to place, totem or traditional
technique. Art has a power to transcend and educate through
engaging or challenging us to look at what is different to our
own life experience. Lea Taylor’s work provides opportunities for
learning, reflection and wonder from her transformation of humble
materials we are fortunate enough to share.

This paper explores the historical, symbolic and performative elements of David Hockney's 1963 painting 'Play Within a Play' where Hockey celebrates theatrical, performative, illusionistic, symbolic and decorative elements of Painting in his early experimental period of oil painting.

In these times of rapid and seemingly constant change it is difficult to assert or identify key or significant historically relevant cultural material for students to consider and respond to.  Why bother with history in the post digital age?  Why bother with history in a new country?

""This paper introduces issues around the integration of media arts within core visual art education addressing a specific aspect of contemporary cultural production, the YOUTUBE video.
This presentation directly links to contextual presentation of contemporary and historical materials within current teaching programs. ""  For a multimedia & updated version of this paper go to
http://jeremy-blank.blogspot.com.au/2013/02/contact_15.html

This paper introduces links between contemporary indigenous West Australian Art and the film 'Australia' by Baz Luhrmann.  The writing examines the work of stolen generation Nyoongar artist Alan Kelly and young emergent Nyoongar artist Charlie Colbung and was based on the opening show at North Art Gallery, Mindarie, WA Dec 2009 - Jan 2010.

"This paper introduces issues around the integration of media arts within core visual art education. 
Australian art teaching institutions face significant challenges concerning the provision of teaching and learning reflective of actual conditions in professional art practice; the current situation beyond education is witnessing an explosion of photographic, video and media arts within global art markets and online communities.  Academic curriculum research and development has historically been limited and poorly documented.  Recent curriculum development has focused on individual or institutional accountabilities rather than academically driven changes.  There is perceived need to re-evaluate content, delivery, distribution and professionalism for contemporary students, technology is repositioned and focused directly within core aspects of contextual, research, literacy and skill based teaching. 

Media Arts are recent arrivals within many Art Schools or departments, developing from specialised staff interests and expertise.  Often originating from one particular area of practice they have expanded, as operating systems have developed, embracing multi disciplinary experiences.  Often perceived as workshops or service areas supporting other areas of practice beyond academic study Media Art production increasingly challenges previous generational understandings of practice.  Incoming students are no longer simply more adept at using a mouse than a pencil but may also have a far deeper involvement within global networks than their geographically bound institutions

The complexity of integrating technological concerns within core curriculum, specialisms, general teaching, theory and practical areas, teacher training and high school delivery is immense requiring structured and ongoing change.  The focus of this research is at tertiary levels only.
"

Over the last thirty years, art schools or university art departments, have erased or truncated the teaching of basic skills. Traditional perspective or life drawing studies have been perceived as archaic or societally problematic. These studies are from a small lake in the beachside suburb of Abbey in the south west of Western Australia. They were painted from one location, seated in the same position, en plein air. This illustrated paper explores how an image evolves through time, critical self appraisal, acceptance and reflection. It includes reflections on current teaching and learning emphasis, unduly influenced by economic rationalism, non-specialist management and educational streamlining.

The history of media arts stretches beyond the focus of this text. The growth of media arts as an area of study beyond a marginal educational presence from 1990 to 2012, and its subsequent dismantling, is a successful or failed project. It is successful where technology has swept across education, professional exhibition contexts and everyday interactions. It fails where its history is ignored, its contexts viewed as irrelevant and its mode of expression and content reduced to computer and software provision as an educational service area.

Integrating media arts within core visual art curriculum is yet to be fulfilled. Dedicated specialist areas emerging in the early years of the new millennia have been subsumed within generalised undergraduate programs. Technical specialisation has been replaced by research emphasis. Visual art teaching and learning requires revision of emphasis for the digital age.

The replacement of the MA with the PhD as the terminal qualification in visual art has seen a shift in emphasis to research as the basis for higher-level study where technical mastery was privileged in the MA/MFA model. University models of research have now been applied wholesale as the determining factor as how visual art practice is accepted as an academic discipline.