ART ON THE NET

New Audiences Programme - Regional Challenge
INTERIM REPORT
August 1999

PROJECT PLANNING

Initially, each school was visited by the project co-ordinator and the artist allocated to that school, to introduce the artists and teachers and for general familiarisation with the particular school context. This was followed by a one day workshop for the artists and teachers held at Lighthouse. During this day the artists made presentations of their own work and work facilitated within educational contexts; Avril Loveless spoke about her role in the evaluation process; time was also allocated for the artists and teachers to jointly discuss possibilities and ideas for the project and begin initial planning.
Two dominant issues became evident even at this early stage.

1. The implications of negotiating the innovative possibilities of a project of this calibre within a restricted timetable designed to deliver considerable curriculum demands.
2. The limitation to widespread, cross curricula project delivery by the variable and inconsistent technical facilities available in each of the schools.
It was agreed that the artists would have to spend several allocated days in the school to work with the teachers to find realisable project aims and to negotiate their delivery within the school context. This implied less days would be available for pupil contact , and that some of the initial aspirations of the project would have to be adapted but in all four schools this was unavoidable.
Before going into the schools again the artists met to discuss their individual working practices and look for common areas and interests.

PROJECT SET-UP
Artists spent allocated days as negotiated with their particular school developing plans with the teachers and setting up a workable technical platform including the appropriate purchase of new equipment within the allocated project budget. The challenges of specific school contexts and individual artists preferred working practice resulted in the particular, negotiated and amended project objectives.
Some factors, and experiences were common to all. (Listing not prioritised)

1. Teachers had little available free time to negotiate planning.
2. The teachers were concerned about the relevance of project work to the required delivery of the curriculum syllabus.
3. Taking into account the technical platform available project aims were affected with specific reference to:

i) Administered school networks and the need to involve an already overworked school IT administrator
ii) The impact of either limited or no internet connection on cross-school communication and web based work.
iii) Archiving and storage of potentially large image files on limited school systems.

4. The restraints on project parameters by timetable restrictions i.e. the limited access to pupils for a sustained period of time due to tight timetabling schedules.
5. Difficulties with negotiating cross curricula involvement due to the afore-mentioned challenges being duplicated with every school department involved in the project.

NEGOTIATED PROJECT OBJECTIVES

Ifield Community College
Artist: Malcolm Buchanan-Dick
Teacher: Tony Carol

It was planned that Malcolm would work mainly with three different groups of pupils. Image manipulation, digital animation skills and learning to use the internet were common aims for all groups. Ten pupils studying Art A level were to use an historical art image as a starting point, employing the possibilities of juxtaposition and animation to deconstruct meanings and communicate interpretations. Four pupils with special learning difficulties would investigate notions of 'self image' starting with the use of stills photography. In addition to the processes already mentioned, these pupils would also investigate the use of sound. Twelve, year ten drama pupils were to be given the opportunity to investigate the potential of digital technology for theatre with a focus on the use of digital projection with live performance. In addition, five pupils studying Graphics Design would be able to work with Malcolm in the latter part of the project using the image manipulation software, 'Adobe Photoshop' to develop their course work.

Artists own work: Malcolm planned to make an interactive sculptural work that investigated a relationship between sound and text. His starting points were to wire an old mechanical typewriter and a pedal-powered harmonium to a computer.

Swadelands School
Artists: Judy Gordan and David Barnet
Teacher: Sue Pritchard

The artists were asked to work with a Year 10 Art group using their multi-disciplinary approach to investigate the theme of 'Environment'. At the request of the art teacher the project was planned to fulfil part of the GCSE syllabus requiring pupils to develop individual and independent pieces. Judy and David's approach was to offer skills and brainstorming workshops in the initial stages to enable the pupils to develop a vocabulary and then to support them individually to develop personal pieces that would include movement, live performance, digital multimedia and traditional techniques.
Artists own work: Judy and David planned to develop a live multimedia performance based on the same theme as the pupils project, 'The Environment'.

Chailey Secondary School
Teacher: Chris Bell
Artist: Terry Taylor

A year ten GCSE art group were selected to take part in the project. The class teacher requested that the whole group (30 pupils) be involved. The project materials budget restricted the number of software site licences (Adobe Photoshop) to ten so it was agreed that ten pupils would begin the project and the rest of the class would become involved at a later stage. The theme for the term, 'A sense of Place' was set by the teacher and Terry decided to work within this framework to introduce digital media as creative tools alongside traditional media. It was planned that the pupils would use a scanner, digital camera and images downloaded from the internet as source material, using Photoshop to manipulate and construct images that could be printed as wall based pieces. It was also planned that the interactivity of the computer screen would be explored for its potential as a digital sketchbook. It was intended that negotiations with representatives from Music, English, and IT departments would result in some cross curricula involvement as the project progressed.

Artists own work: Terry planned to explore the set theme alongside the pupils, 'A Sense of Place'. The intention was to produce screen based, animated sequences and some large scale wall based pieces as a counterpoint to the computer screen. These would reflect responses to particular areas found through exploration of the school campus, the local village and landscape.

Beacon Community College
Teachers: Miles Jefcoate and Keith Perera
Artist: Shona Illingworth

Two groups of year twelve pupils were selected to take part in the project initially with other groups to become involved at a later stage. One group of pupils selected to begin the project were studying Art/Graphics and the other group were studying Media. The work would be facilitated by group and individual tutorials and seminars to create a critical forum for work produced. The Art/Graphics group were to produce work based on film styles and 'Youth'; the Media group, 'Britishness and Youth'. Pupils would incorporate image, sound, text and animation in the production of work.

Artists own work: Shona decided to work with one of the pupils and her friend to be part of a video piece responding to ideas about femininity and English landscape.

PROJECT OUTCOMES AND EXHIBITIONS

In all schools project objectives were achieved after continuous re-negotiation due to unforeseen developments with these exceptions:

1. Internet communication between schools due to limited availability of internet access and timetabled hours dedicated to the project .

2. Artists producing their own work on site due to un-availability of workspace, fragmentation of artists allocated time spent in schools required to accommodate school timetables.

3. Cross curricula involvement was initiated but undeveloped due to restricted technical platforms, teacher workloads and curriculum delivery implications.

The re-negotiations included:

1. Issues concerning class sizes (Swadelands).
2. Changes to timetable (all schools).
3. Changes to pupil groups to be included (all schools)
4. Re-determining realistic technical possibilities taking into account pupil numbers, available machines and software.(all schools)
5. Issues concerning need for schools to deliver rigid curriculum (Chailey, Swadelands)
6. Available time for teacher involvement due to their workloads (all schools)

Ifield Community College, Ifield
One day was set aside for staff and students to see all the work created throughout the project. Posters were made and distributed in the school to publicise the event. Images, sound, animations and multimedia pieces were made by the pupils.

Swadelands Secondary School, Lenham
Dissemination of the pupils work was planned to coincide with the annual school concert giving the opportunity for staff, parents and pupils to see the work. In the Sports Hall a slide show of images made by pupils during the project was transferred to video and projected onto the walls and pupils gave performances that incorporated live digital projections. David and Judy had also made a video, in their own time, of a performance created in the response to the 'Environment' theme and projected this also.

Chailey Secondary School
An exhibition of prints produced by pupils was exhibited in the school's main foyer for ten days at the end of term.

Beacon Community College, Crowborough
An exhibition of pupil's work was mounted in the school's main hall for one afternoon. The work included laser prints, projected digital slide shows and web site work shown on computer screen.