This unit of study introduces you to art practice in the 2 Dimensional (image) and 3 Dimensional (sculpture) realms of creative practice at Sydney College of the Arts. You will engage with a variety of creative learning experiences specific to each field of enquiry and will be provided with project-based content designed to develop your conceptual understanding and problem solving skills within a creative arts studio framework. Each week you will have 2 hours of academic tuition supported by a 1 hour technical workshop. You will undertake two consecutive projects of 6-weeks duration that will encourage you to: explore a wide range of media and processes; develop a participatory, collaborative and cooperative approach; and build on your understanding of the creative scope of Contemporary Art. Each 6-week block will be delivered by a different academic and technical team. You will be encouraged to experiment, experience a range of facilities and equipment, and develop generic technical skills necessary to realise your projects. You will also become aware of Workplace Health and Safety essential to SCA and all current art practices.

This unit of study introduces you to art practice in the 4 Dimensional (screen) realm of creative practice at Sydney College of the Arts. In this first, 6 week project you will engage with a variety of creative learning experiences specific to this field of enquiry and will be provided with project-based content designed to develop your conceptual understanding and problem solving skills within a creative arts studio framework, encouraging you to: explore a wide range of media and processes; develop a participatory, collaborative and cooperative approach; and build on your understanding of the creative scope of Contemporary Art. This will be followed by a second, 6-week long X Dimensional (interdisciplinary) project allowing you to build on the skills and thinking developed throughout the year, while allowing you to deepen your understanding of Contemporary Art practice by merging the disciplines of your choosing. You will be introduced to interdisciplinary principles and relevant theories. You will become familiar with a broad range of concepts and work methods within your merged disciplines so as to develop your own visual language, ideas and mode of expression. In Each week you will have 2 hours of academic tuition supported by a 1 hour technical workshop. Each 6-week block will be delivered by a different academic and technical team. You will be encouraged to experiment, experience a range of facilities and equipment, and develop generic technical skills necessary to realise your projects.

This unit of study introduces you to the conceptual frameworks and technologies that shape the making of screen-based media and contemporary art practices. Through a series of lectures, seminars, tutorials and screenings you will explore the evolution of experimental film, video art and independent filmmaking from the 1960s to the present. You will engage in the production of a self-directed digital film that may be realized in any style or genre. The unit is supported by a technical program that provides you with the applied skills and competencies needed for the use of studio facilities and equipment.

This unit of study approaches sound in the broadest sense as it crosses barriers through physical and cultural space, and exists as a force in the world. In this unit, you will undertake a studio-based approach to the production of sound art works, including sound objects, instruments, sonic sculpture, sound installation, performance and new ways of working with sound. The unit begins with the physicality of sound and music physics. You will listen to sonic phenomena, materials, forms and existing sound works. This unit will be conducted in an open studio framework including a variety of workshops, sound studios and digital labs.

This unit of study introduces the principles of black and white photography via the 35mm camera and the darkroom. You explore alternative documentary photography strategies by challenging the role of the camera to simply observe and capture. You experiment with the genres of reportage, street photography and conventional documentary practices, and are encouraged to take an interventionist approach to the urban environment. You are introduced to the 35 mm manual SLR camera, black and white film processing, dark room printing, film exposure and photographic print enlargement.

From Piet Mondrian to Albert Oehlen, artists have been influenced by music. This has had both direct and sublimated effects on the development of the techniques and styles of painting. From seriality to polyrhythms, synchronicity between painting and music has been a constant for a century now. Abstraction has especially taken its cue from the autonomy of music to create a painting that is free from a direct representational quality and instead focuses on an engagement with its own reality through colour, materials and action. This unit of study investigates the dovetailing of painting and music, from modernism to contemporary art, and examines the current trends of painting, relating these processes to those of contemporary music. You will research and investigate the influences of music on painting, and create a work that has music as its core value.

This unit of study introduces you to the fundamental concepts and skills associated with 2D animation production. The unit provides both a conceptual and technical framework for you to explore the possibilities of animation in relation to your existing practice or as a completely new endeavour. Working in the digital domain, you will explore a range of approaches including frame-by-frame animation and stop motion animation. The technical component of this course provides you with the necessary skills to realise a self-directed project while encouraging exploration and experimentation. Class discussions, seminars and individual tutorials support screenings of historical and contemporary animated works to allow you to situate your own projects within a contemporary context.

This unit of study provides a studio-based approach to the production of creative work in ceramics. You will be introduced to concepts, methodologies and technologies integral to contemporary ceramics. You will also be introduced to historical and contemporary frameworks that underpin the processes and paradigms of ceramics today and provide the foundations of a 3D vocabulary. Thematic approaches accompany technical introductions to handbuilding, wheelwork, surface treatments and kiln firing to encourage exploration with ceramics methodologies. The unit develops and enhances critical skills through group and individual tutorials and critiques. This unit is suitable for those who have no or limited experience with the ceramic material and its technologies.

This unit of study examines the glass vessel in everyday life and its application as a conceptual agent in contemporary art. By nature, the glassblowing process creates a vessel or container from a mass of molten glass. Through research projects you will investigate the psychology of the glass vessel through its function and physical properties. You will develop fundamental hand skills and glassblowing techniques through structured weekly workshops, and combine practical skills with contextual knowledge in the development of conceptually themed projects. You may work exclusively with glass or in conjunction with other media and processes.

This unit of study introduces you to screen printing and its broad application across media. The unit explores the technical basics of this process through various projects. It provides for the development and enhancement of critical skills through group and individual tutorials and critiques and the acquisition of technical knowledge required to independently access and use the Printmedia studio facilities.

From the symbolically charged through to the functionally utilized, the hammer formed metallic object builds upon the dynamic landscape of the body. In this unit of study you investigate the potential for an object to expand the metaphysical self. The malleable and ductile qualities of metal will be examined as a creative catalyst enabling material characteristics to form a transformative element of a work that is made for the body by the body. You will explore silversmithing processes, in alignment with your individual research interests, as a technical and conceptual starting point to negotiate ideas of metamorphosis and growth. The appropriate forming processes, including sinking, raising, hot forging and planishing, will be introduced alongside an examination of the historic foundations and key principles of contemporary metalsmithing, as a means to generate your own individual project.

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Text now is found in a multiplicity of art forms. This open studio interdisciplinary unit investigates text and language in art, from street art to high culture, via self-directed projects that are unbounded by medium and yet use writing as the genesis or as primary material for the production of a work of art. Final works could range from a screenplay or work of fiction, to a body of paintings or sculptures, to artists' books, zines, net art and editions, from video, to sound, and performance art. You will work by way of a self-directed project and on one short in class project. This unit of study is taught by way of tutorials, group critique, workshops, lectures and guest lectures.

This unit of study introduces you to the art and craft of writing for the screen. Through a series of lectures, seminars, tutorials and film screenings you will explore a range of approaches to screenwriting. These include looking at the structure of dialogue and character driven scripts, then moving to an analysis of more experimental approaches to script writing that rely less on character or dialogue and more on mood, situation and atmosphere. You will write an original script for a digital film that can be realized in any style or genre.

This unit of study explores notions of the void and the aperture through the development of hollow formed objects created by hand or the potter's wheel. You will be introduced to the creation of various common forming techniques on the potter's wheel and will be encouraged to use these to create new techniques and develop modular and sculptural assemblages. This unit also examines the philosophical underpinnings associated with the traditional and contemporary practice of this genre of ceramics through group discussion and individual research.

This unit of study examines conceptual and practical applications of up-cycled and found glass through contemporary art and design. The unit develops your understanding of the ubiquity of glass and its reuse in various guises through small research projects and student presentations. Using found and recycled glass, students will explore a variety of processes, including: diamond cutting, polishing, lathe-working, engraving and joining. You will select from a range of sustainably themed projects that combine critical and practical skills to develop and realise creative works. You may work exclusively with glass or in conjunction with other media and processes.

This unit of study introduces and enhances skills in etching. You will follow a project-based curriculum in a broad range of technically based workshops intrinsic to the medium of etching. You will be encouraged to engage in a sustained self-directed project addressing concepts and methodologies central to your creative ideas. This project will be supported by more specialised workshops that expand on conventional etched plate techniques. You will learn innovative methods that enable digital processes to be integrated with traditional print media and offer a greater flexibility in output and presentation. The unit promotes investigation and exploration across media to develop your creative practice.

On Location: Jewellery in the Street and the Gallery focuses on material and significance in the processes of the conception and making of jewellery and how these appear in both contemporary and historical work. Within this you will engage with a range of contexts where jewellery appears including the street, the museum and the gallery. Accordingly, you will be introduced to the most contemporary work as well as historical pieces; will experience a range of means of presentation from formal museum to low-tech and ephemeral exhibitions; will see work by emerging artists and the most respected and established makers. This unit takes an intensive approach to learning where students go into the field in Europe at the beginning of the semester and follow up with tutorial meetings with the lecturer while a final body of work is produced. Learning contexts include artist talks, gallery visits and seminars. Studio outcomes will be based on experience and research developed in the field. You will maintain a record of your experiences, impressions and ideas in the form of a Travelogue which will become the key resource for developing a piece of work (or small series) on your return, culminating in an exhibition. Throughout the duration of the journey you will contribute to a daily blog, including exhibitions reviews, gallery profiles and critical responses.

This unit of study offers you an introduction to lighting and its effects in photography. Considering the lighting studio as a site for experimentation and critical exploration, you will learn the fundamentals of lighting while exploring both how it has been historically used and how contemporary artists use it today both in and out of the studio. Through the nexus of photographic portraiture and still life, lighting is explored as a mechanism for both documenting and transforming its subjects/objects. You are encouraged to work in groups to create original photographic work for two major photo assignments. Please note this unit of study is for students who have had little or no experience in high-end digital photography, software and lighting. The unit of study introduces you to photo editing software, file management and the fundamentals of digital printing.

This unit of study provides you with an introduction to building processes within Sculpture and Installation. You will be introduced to working in the sculpture studio, and in particular, will gain practical experience in plaster and wax and discover key contemporary artists who reinterpret the casting process in innovative ways. You will be invited to consider a range of ideas -including negative forms and anti-monuments - that challenge the preconceptions of what sculpture can be. Initially, you work through a series of material-based workshop activities to learn basic construction techniques as well as to gain confidence in the safe use of machinery and equipment within the studio and workshop. The unit introduces a broad range of traditional and contemporary sculptural practices (including the use of wood, metal, fibre, plastic) and encourages you to develop original and creative solutions. The unit combines studio work, short presentations by the lecturer, student presentations and group discussion/critiques. In consultation with the lecturer, you will develop a studio work proposal and create a finished work that responds to the notion of 'negative sculpture.'

This unit will explore installation as a spatial practice within the expanded terrain of sculpture. You will examine installation as a hybrid form that negotiates and incorporates the boundaries of traditional art practices like painting, sculpture and video. The unit of study provides an overview of contemporary installation art practice and explores methods for producing work in a variety of media to activate and utilise space. Students explore innovative applications of conventional materials, found objects and time-based media such as video, sound and custom technologies in the development of their work. This unit engages with dedicated installations spaces and the adapting of environments and locations. The unit combines studio work, short presentations by the lecturer, student presentations and group discussion/critiques. In consultation with the lecturer, you will develop a studio work proposal and create a finished work.

For Aboriginal people of Australia, the place where saltwater and freshwater meet, is a site of intermingling, mixing and sharing of knowledge. The Yolngu people of north-east Arnhem Land call this place where the river meets the sea: Ganmu and it is usually used as a metaphor for 'two way learning.' This unit of study explores how contact with other cultures through the reciprocal sharing of images, stories, histories, experiences, ideas, skills and culture can activate collaborative practices to create meaningful connections both locally and globally. The investigation of issues such as representation and presentation, protocols and practices, combined with a critical understanding of the cultural complexities of Indigenous culture, will foster greater understanding and enable students to facilitate the development of a collaborative and sustainable practice.

This unit of study approaches video art in the broadest sense as it unites a great variety of practices regarding time based manifestations of abiding artistic concerns. Video has become a pervasive medium in contemporary art and makes an appearance in many different contexts that span from the most experimental exhibition settings all the way through to the museum. In this unit, you will undertake a studio-based approach to the production of video art works, including video installation, single channel and synchronized multichannel artworks, streaming video and video as it appears in other digital forms. The aim of the unit is to produce original artworks that forge new image worlds and innovative production methodologies. This unit will be conducted in an open studio framework including a variety of workshops, studios and digital labs.

How do artists engage with the ebb and flow of daily life and the material conditions of the street, the city, and the home? This unit of study focuses on artists who heighten our awareness of everyday by using ready-mades and found objects, by exploring the exotic in the banal, and by creating domestic worlds and the urban-scapes of gritty realism and great imagination.

This unit of study examines the discourse of memory through the practice of contemporary art and theory. From this perspective, it considers the relationship between memory, the politics of identity, and history through a critical exploration of different forms of remembrance, such as: storytelling and autobiography; collective memory; forgetting and the erasure of time; and trauma and embodiment.

Street art has emerged as a significant cultural phenomenon in the post-globalised world of the 21st century, particularly in the major metropoles of wealthy as well as developing nations. This unit of study contextualises street art theoretically by reference to the politics of urban space, new practices and understandings of collective action, and aesthetics, and considers the institutional location of street art versus contemporary art and graffiti. The unit also contextualises street practices art historically by reference to Surrealism, conceptualism, Fluxus, Situationism, and text-based art. It covers a wide range of practices internationally, with particular emphasis on Latin America, Australia and Europe.

Performance Art had two births, the first during World War I with Dada, the second in the protest era of the 1960s. In both instances it was a revolt against the commodification of art and the monied classes. While it grew out of vaudeville, performance art is characterized by a strong sense of antagonism and ennui. It developed in the late 1960s into a genre of its own, although it has never been entirely discrete. The political neoconservatism at the turn of the millennium reignited interest in performance art, which was made even more popular with the accessibility of moving-image, photographic and image-sharing technologies that can render unique acts accessible to wide audiences. As opposed to other forms of theatre, performance art objectifies the object and suggests its limits, be they physical or psychological. More than a historical survey, this unit of study explores the rudiments of performance, its attributes and rules that can either be adhered to or broken. Key to the unit are the insights of Judith Butler's theory of gender as performance, which offer valuable perspectives on the way in which people perform roles in society, from the dandy to the contemporary art school bohemian.

Our current era of biennales and international galleries compels a wider analysis and a rethinking of basic forms and definitions of contemporary art. This unit of study focuses on how the worldwide production and dissemination of contemporary art interacts with ideas about nationalism, ethnic identity, and cosmopolitanism, and seeks to test the limits of the conceptualization of the global in art.

This unit of study seeks to equip visual arts students with some of the key competencies necessary to make the successful transition from art school to professional practice. The unit comprises primarily of talks by a wide spectrum of art industry professionals on issues including: the art market; the gallery circuit; artist-run spaces; entrepreneurship opportunities; public commissions. Seminars will also address issues such as: proposal-writing; funding opportunities; and up-skilling through postgraduate qualifications.

This unit of study examines the impact of the increasing cultural globalisation of Indigenous art practice within the contemporary art market. Whilst the focus is on contemporary Indigenous art practice as it is positioned within questions of national identity and politics and their effect on postcolonial agency, representation and self-determination, it will also provide a grounding in traditional Indigenous approaches to cultural art practices and protocols. This unit of study will have as part of its examination a commitment to dialogue and cultural exchange between Indigenous and non-Indigenous art practitioners.

This unit of study explores the increasing relationship contemporary artists have developed with the museum/archive invoking distinct methods, discourses and aesthetics. The Interpretation of visual images (photographs, film) and collection of material objects and texts held in repositories, structures historical memory and acts as an active tool for innovative research and the creation of new artworks. By exploring the ethical, aesthetic and emotional relations contemporary artists have with their sources we critically examine the affective implications of drawing upon this material. During this semester, students will have the opportunity to visit The State Library of NSW and the Australia Museum to explore the archives for their group project.

This unit of study explores how photography intersects with sculpture. You research and explore the relationship between objects and photography and how sculptural ideas can stretch the function of an image. You consider what a photograph may be materially when extended to encompass sculptural, performative and interactive dimensions. Projects may utilise and combine image-based practices such as digital photography and analogue photography, projection, print, performance, objects and installation to encourage an expanded approach to photographic practice.

In this unit of study you consider the scientific, cultural and artistic impact of Venetian glassblowing from the Renaissance to present day through research projects. Structured weekly workshops traverse contemporary use of a range of Venetian glassblowing techniques and methods. You will apply learned theoretical knowledge and developed practical skills to a self-directed work that reinterprets the Venetian glassmaking tradition. You may work exclusively with glass or in conjunction with other media and processes.

This unit of study explores key processes and issues related to the production and exhibition of experimental film works. The unit includes discussions, readings and screenings of relevant historical and contemporary film works. It focuses on the creative potential of the physical properties of film. You will produce a short 16mm film project. A Bolex 16mm camera workshop and hand processing of 16mm film will also be an integral part of this unit of study.

This unit of study will focus on the development of an in-depth understanding and application of the ceramic surface. It will explore notions of trace, impression, wound, scar, identification, memory and memento through material layering and surface specificity, and the construction of meaning associated with surface qualities such as depth, absorption and incorporation. You will be introduced to a range of applied ceramic surfaces including ceramic pencil, paint and crayon, glaze, screenprint and decal production, as well as found and mixed media surfaces, and kiln firings. Initial instruction and individual experimentation will form the foundations for the completion of a student-generated studio project. This unit would be of particular interest if you want to develop your investigation into three dimensional form and/or broaden the possibilities of the two dimensional surface.

This unit of study explores the boundary between artwork, publication and portfolio. The unit acquaints you with the principal tools of InDesign, a software program that has become industry standard for designing digital and paper publications. Focusing on experimental magazines and other small scale artist's publications the unit explores the visual language of contemporary publishing from an artist's perspective. You learn about the complex interplay of text, image and sequence involved in producing multipage documents/artworks through the practical experience of creating your own InDesign publication. A series of lectures and in-class digital tutorials will equip you with the technical skills and critical framework to produce intelligent, engaging and innovative output.

This advanced darkroom unit challenges students to rediscover photography in the age of the jpeg. Through two projects, the unit introduces the wet and wonderful world of alternative analogue processes to encourage students to produce experimental images that consider the conceptual, material and alchemical possibilities of the 'outmoded'. The unit also encourages the development of hybrid practices that combine contemporary digital technology with analogue processes.

This unit of study is open only to Distinction average students in their graduating semester. Students undertake an independent research project in the context of peer and academic support offered through regular seminar sessions.

Pop placed visible cracks in what separated the traditional division between high and low, then with the advent of accessible digital and moving-image media, this distinction has all but shattered. The promiscuity and omnipresence of mass media has meant that for those in the developed world (and even elsewhere), taste, style, desire and therefore fashion are at the epicentre of our lives. This unit of study deals not so much with fashionable art (the trends that move styles) but rather the rich crossover between art and fashion that has been desultory but nonetheless active since the birth of couture in the second half of the nineteenth century. This relationship gained complexity and density in the postwar boom of the 1960s with audacious body styling that borrowed from science fiction movies as much as art itself (e.g. Courrèges). It is a little known fact that it was Yves Saint Laurent's Mondrian Dress that launched the artist into the mainstream, hitherto languishing as a master for specialist artists. These cross-pollinations climax with designers such as Margiela and McQueen whose body-as-sculpture attitude is distantly echoed in the tendency of museum architecture also to be like gigantic sculptures. Pop icons like Lady Gaga in her videos make these relationships between art and fashion all the more tenuous. This unit of study explores these crossovers. It is likely to be attractive to a wide range of students from jewellers to film-makers.

This unit explores links between contemporary art and culture, and the concept of realism. As a result of realism's connections with philosophies of 'the real', and with the term 'reality', the concept of realism goes back centuries. However, the most immediate antecdents for contemporary art and culture are modernism and the avantgarde. Therefore in addition to art and culture since 1960, this unit of study addresses historical art dated from 1850 and recognises the nineteenth century art movement called Realism as a cornerstone of contemporary art. In postmodernity, though, the role of mass media and new media in the social construction of the real becomes increasingly important. What, for example, is the relationship of the contemporary blog to documentary realism? Therefore Contemporary Realism is a unit that addresses high art and popular culture, and every artistic medium from painting to fictional film, documentary film, video, and animation. It acknowledges what Carol Martin calls, in the overview of her book Theatre of the Real (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 'the unparalleled construction of reality' across all fields of representation, from the sciences to the humanities, and in every practice of the visual and performing arts. It also acknowledges the view expressed by Julian Stallabrass in the overview of his edited book, Documentary (Whitechapel and MIT Press, 2013), that the current revival of the documentary in recent art is in part the result of 'increasing attention to issues of injustice, violence and trauma' in the twenty-first century.

This unit explores the links between the natural world and human culture, and in particular how these links have been made in art practice. It emphasises contemporary art. It looks at 'nature' as a construct of culture and art, and at art's response to the significant human impact on the natural world in the age of the Anthropocene (the name given by scientists to the new era in geology caused by human intervention). From the nineteenth century through to the contemporary period, natural history - the empirical study of plants and animals - has preoccupied artists seeking greater knowledge of botanical and zoological life, and enrichment through spiritual connection with the otherness of nature. This unit considers artists whose response to the natural world has been mimetic, psychological, ecological, and philosophical. It addresses the intersections of art and science including the impact of Darwin and theories of evolution on artists both historical and contemporary, the prevalence of plant and animal imagery in art, design and popular culture, and the centrality of ecology to art today.

This unit of study serves as a point of articulation between the Honours paper and the studio practice. In this unit students will establish a methodology where members of the cohort will be able to identify philosophies, theories and the dynamics that are central to their art practice. It takes the research proposal as a starting point, to generate critical discussion and develop ideas. Theories discussed can include, but are not limited to, materialism, relational aesthetics and representation. This unit of study also provides a framework within which you will develop an essential understanding of research methodologies to support your individual project. Topics covered will include approaches to researching, the author's voice and its role in the text and organising and structuring documents. You are expected to further develop your critical and analytical skills in readings, discussion and essay writing. You will write a paper identifying the ideas and theories central to your project and present an individual seminar on your developing studio research.

This unit of study serves as a point of articulation between the Honours paper and the studio practice. In this unit students will establish a methodology where members of the cohort will be able to identify philosophies, theories and the dynamics that are central to their art practice. It takes the research proposal as a starting point, to generate critical discussion and develop ideas. Theories discussed can include, but are not limited to, materialism, relational aesthetics and representation. This unit of study also provides a framework within which you will develop an essential understanding of research methodologies to support your individual project. Topics covered will include approaches to researching, the author's voice and its role in the text and organising and structuring documents. You are expected to further develop your critical and analytical skills in readings, discussion and essay writing. You will write a paper identifying the ideas and theories central to your project and present an individual seminar on your developing studio research.