nonsite

I’ve been traveling for the past 10 days. I was at York University in Toronto for a CAFAD- Canadian Association of Fine Arts Deans meeting where we heard Bruce Brown speak on research in Fine Arts. I spent last weekend visiting with friends, then on to Guelph, Ontario where I was giving a talk on my artwork and then doing critiques with their MFA students before traveling on to Kansas City, Missouri on Wednesday to attend the annual meetings of NASAD- National Association of Schools of Art and Design and AICAD- Association of Independent Colleges of Art and Design.

NASAD is primarily an accreditation organization- that is their main focus, AICAD has a great Deans listserv that focuses on a varity of problems that all our art schools are dealing with. It was great to have a chance to meet and talk with people that I only knew via email. They are both American organizations and that is the main focus of their discussions, but it is a great chance to meet a few key educators in the same field. The NASAD meeting was mildly interesting with presentations on “low residency” MFA programs and “breaking down the silos” which I learned referred to barriers between art, media and design. The AICAD meeting was more interesting for me as we had several presentations which I’ll try to summarize in a subsequent blog. It was a great chance to meet presidents, provosts, and deans from most of the big American art schools.

The great thing about travelling is that it helps to put things in perspective. I have had a chance between flights to focus on some of the discussions going on around Digital Arts and the MA Forum- how and what to present to our colleagues. I’m pleased that the MA_DA wiki is now starting to take on a life. It has huge potential as a forum.

I took some time to look at Tim Pickup’s weblog and I’m very interested in his proposed research. I also took some time to look at Susan Mortimer’s research proposal which is also interesting- I like the idea of slow repetitive gestures.

I’ve also continued to read and have almost finished Janet Murray’s Hamlet on the Holodeck- which although it doesn’t relate directly to my research is prescient in many ways. For the past few weeks I’ve been focssung my thoughts on colour around warm spectrum light research- the yellow, ochre, orange and red parts of the light spectrum- I’m thinking a great deal about that colour range- maybe it relates to the warmth of incandescent light, maybe sunset, but I’m really interested in the warm part of the spectrum. What I’m curious about researching further is how to create a work that is interactive- here I’m thinking via mobile phone. I’m not sure exactly how- but I think the idea is right- more to follow on these ideas.