VIRTUAL REDEMPTION: THE ROLE OF INTERACTIVE ART
Paul O'Brien

When we sit in front of a charcoal drawing, each of us has to work to learn how to see it, each in his or her own way. It is a democratic art form which requires the viewer's involvement: the sense we make is partly what the artists meant and partly what we bring. But when we watch a Hollywood spectacular on our Surround-Sound, flat-screen television, we and forty million other viewers make the same, passive sense of what big brother shows us.

Dr O'Brien has been investigating the relationship of technology to the arts and cultural theory for some time, in particular in articles in CIRCA and Education Arts Research International (EARI). Here, in "Virtual Redemption", he argues that while technological media have been paternalistic and undemocratic until now, it is just possible that interactive and virtual reality systems might become a tool in the democratisation of cultures.

DIGITAL ARTS GLOSSARY
Roy Ascott

THREE STATEMENTS: BEING AND MEANING
BACKWARDS, FORWARDS AND SIDEWAYS
NOTES ON RECENT PICTURES
John Hilliard

John Hilliard has always considered his practice as an artist to be a form of research activity. In these three statements he reflects on relationships between perceptions of photographs as art, their status as representations and their connection to our notions of reality.

If research is associated with the acquisition of new knowledge, the way in which knowledge is shared is as necessary a subject for analysis as the way in which it is acquired - since the language always conditions the information.

Since the early 70s, Hilliard's work has been a systematic exploration of the way in which photography - popularly accepted as a simple window onto reality - manipulates and constructs meaning.

FROM MUTE GENIUS TO AGILE MANIPULATOR
Tom Fisher

This paper examines the factors that have contributed to the traditional schism between practice and theory in design education.

Postulating that a new approach is necessary in order to prepare design students for a transient world of professional practice, Fisher advocated a blurring of boundaries between the fields of Design History, Design Studies, Design Theory and Design Practice.

Questions remain about the precise role of the theoretical aspects of a design programme. To what extent should such an input support, challenge, or even subvert the whole concept of professionalism?

In academic terms it cannot be healthy that many of the critical and contextual issues generated by design practice are dominated by theorists.

It is essential that a better understanding is established between theory and practice thus ensuring that professional designers and lecturers in design Studies/Design Practice are enabled to benefit from the opportunities generated by the current emphasis on research.

THE CULTURE AND STYLE OF BRITISH ART SCHOOL BUILDINGS: PART ONE
THE VICTORIAN AND EDWARDIAN LEGACY
David Jeremiah

We have been encouraged to think of Art Schools as being something invented by non-conformists sometime during the 1960's. Towards the end of that decade we convinced ourselves that being part of large polytechnics was the best thing that could happen to these delicate creatures and we began to fashion them as Faculties of Art and Design. Most of them now sit conspicuously in the new university structure.

But these institutions were not created as parts of larger wholes, and there is nothing new about them. The 1960's is not a landmark of significance. Many art schools were far from new in the 1860's, giving them a head start of decades on virtually all of the old universities.

In this article, the first of two, David Jeremiah explores the early history of the art schools, giving special attention to the architectural language that gave visual meaning to the cultural commitment of nineteenth century educationalists.

FRUIT AND VEG: OR GROW YOUR OWN INK
Phil Shaw

Since the introduction of 'water-based inks' in screenprinting, doubts about the true nature of their basis prompted research into the possibility of producing inks from vegetable sources. History suggests that not only is this possible but that it might even be viable as an industrial process. The research reported on here concentrates primarily on the development of a range of 'process' or 'trichromatic' colours. Complementing this work, the establishment of an 'Ink Garden' capable of supplying quantities of plant material for further research, is also described. Initial results show considerable cause for optimism though some problems remain.

ROOM WITH A VIEW - WHITENESS
Malcolm Miles

Education in art and design (like any cultural activity) reflects and perhaps perpetuates the framework of attitudes out of which it has developed; in effect this means the cultural climate of Modernism and an enduring legacy of the 'romantic artist'. Whilst the transferability of skills and adaptability of art and design graduates are frequently celebrated, and discussion focuses often on student-centred learning, modularity and the details of programme design and delivery, or the imperatives of resource constraints and income generation, the underpinning assumptions of art and design education receive less scrutiny. Do these assumptions still include a privileging of innovation and individualism, and the isolationism of the artist in society? Do changes in the practice of art and the development of new theories of value after post-modernism now necessitate a re-visioning of content and method in art and design education?