The notion that we view the future through a rear view mirror is one which was expressed by Marshall Macluan in the sixties. It has its limitations as a basis for a world view but it is an intriguing metaphor for culture and society. In the Fifties I worked at Sellafield/Calder Hall/Windscales when the perception of nuclear power was clean, cheap and plentiful. Electricity too fast and cheap to meter. The place was built primarily to produce weapons grade plutonium but that wasn't mentioned. Many of my family and my friends I believe died because of the place but the notion that we see the future in the past and that objects are sometimes closer sometimes further off than they appear is fascinating.l became an artist I think because I couldn't see anything and the attempt to see clearly in the present is an obsessive pursuit. But it sometimes seems art practice today is the scar tissue of civilisation not the cosmetic.

ADVERTISING ART: THE ENDURING IMAGES OF THE 20TH CENTURY
Roger Brown

This paper argues that the enduring images of the 20th Century are likely to substantially emanate from the advertising industry. Advertising commands the services of perhaps the largest body of artists and writers who, with their attendant managers and advisers, produce images and messages which permeate human consciousness throughout the whole of western industrial society and beyond. In a particular postmodern context it is largely through advertising that art and popular media have transcended the traditional boundaries of 'high' and 'low' culture, and now increasingly share the same frames of well, reference and language. Furthermore it appears that, as popular media seem to exceed art, they also increasingly advertise art itself, as well as a wide range of associated commercial and of cultural products. Art and advertising images appear to have become an inseparable part of commerce and not, commodity culture, a result of which is that art is being significantly redefined.

INTERCULTURAL DRAWING PRACTICE
Jagjit Chunan

RELEVANCE, PURITY AND THE MEDIUM OF EXHIBITION
David Sweet

WHAT DOES A FINE ART STUDENT NEED TO KNOW
Geoff Teasdale

This paper, pertinently, in view of the pending benchrnarking of the subject, considers the question as a means of determining the possibility or otherwise of a fine art curriculum. It does so by reviewing the period since higher education studies in fine art were accorded degree equvalent status and by postulating that the apparent reuctance or inability for an answer to have been provided so far resides in the consequences of art schools ernbracing the tradition of the avant-garde.

INDIVIDUALS IN FOREIGN LANDS: RESEARCHING INTO SOMEONE ELSE'S RESEARCH
Susan Brind

To enter someone else's intellectual discourse is a researching into someone formidable task. In speaking, the one risks being revealed as ignorant, naive or a dilettante to the other. Certainly, as an artist, a legitimate and convincing reason or excuse to speak to an expert is needed, Particularly if one cannot say clearly to what use the knowledge will ultimately be put.

N
Lloyd Gibson

In 1942 and 1943 a series of experiments took place on Gruinard Island off the north west coast of Scotland as part of the trials evaluating the potential of biological warfare. This involved the detonation of several devices containing anthrax spores. This experiment was code-named N. The island was so contaminated that it was closed to the public and agricultural use. After many different schemes for decontamination had been considered a programme involving the spraying of the topsoil with a mixture of formaldehyde, bleach and seawater was finally approved. In 1988 the Ministry of Defence declared it safe for limited grazing.

n a life size figure of a child which has been manufactured from silicone rubbers and shape memory alloys (SMAs). The SMAs are used to drive a series of 'muscles' beneath the silicone skin of the sculpture. These alloys expand and contract at different temperatures producing pulses and movements across the sculptures surface in response to the ambient conditions of the island. As the sculpture is largely inaccessible to the public these transformations have been filmed with a time-lapse camera over an extended period.

TO PUNCTUATE THE PICTURE: WORDS UOPN WORDS IN THE VISUAL ARTS
Peter Suchin

FOUND PAINTING 2000
Ben Cook

Ben Cook's Found Paintings is an ongoing body of work investigating the visual language, history and associated cultures of modern' abstract painting. Flawed textiles are reappropriated as Found Paintings. These spawn other works in a variety of different media, advocating an approach to painting as an expanded practice.

MONOPOLIS
Lynda Morris

Statistics based on the archive of the open exhibition EAST show the way in which artists drift from the regions to London. In the last 12 months, with the Millenium, devolution seems to have slipped off the political agenda. yBa's have matured into jingoism with Hirst's Jerusalem. The radical agenda has moved to demonstrators Reclaiming the Streets through the considered appropriation of Churchill as a war-monger. London prolongs its role as the great Imperial city, with the idea of being the New York of Europe, while the reality is that London now only rules the English regions. How can the drift of artists to London be halted and even reversed ? I argue that public funding of the private sector through the purchase grants of national institutions should be devolved alongside subsidies to public organisations. A model exists in the French FRACs. There could be 10 regionally based collections all competing with each other and buying at an earlier stage in artists careers.