Recommended Study Sequence

This unit examines selected historical, philosophical and critical writings that have influenced the writing of art history. The unit provides a relevant background to aesthetic and cultural theory, based on visual arts practices, texts, and models. While covering many of the issues and debates raised in literary theory, its emphasis is on the visual arts.

Through lectures students develop an understanding of fundamental concepts and processes inherent in designing for on online environment. Students also develop fundamental computer software skills and design understandings appropriate to that medium using the major web software packages and develop a working understanding of production literacies for online design. Students will engage in practical studies of web authoring using HTML, Dreamweaver, image optimisation using Fireworks or Imageready. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the roles, functions and features of each software package in the design production context of online delivery, integrated use, and a working understanding of the responsibilities inherent in the digital production process.

This unit introduces students to the principles of screen and sound media in theory and practice. It has a strong emphasis on digital video and new media, yet it also aims to create an awareness of screen language and its role in the construction of meaning, culture and history by looking at key examples from classic films, to contemporary films, videos, documentaries, animation and video art. It introduces students to the main concepts in media production, filmmaking and sound, such as camera coverage, visual storytelling, genre, narrative, montage, or sound design. It also introduces students to basic editing software.

This unit examines the multifaceted nature of photographic practice and introduces students to a range of methods of Photographic image design, for the purpose of Visual Communication. It explores the relationship between photographic technique, genre and the reception of photographic imagery. Students will be introduced to Photographic studio practice as the means of controlling image reception.

This unit explores various theories of representation and visual analysis. It considers a variety of historical methodologies pertaining to the nature of visual representation and issues regarding visual depiction.

Introduction to principles of editing for non-linear digital video editing systems including editing purpose, editing functions, aesthetics of continuity, complexity post-production, offline and on-line editing.

This is an intensive project based unit in which the main piece of assessment is a piece of applied Multimedia. Students are introduced to advanced functionality of Multimedia software, including basic programming, functions and variables, image manipulation and compression.

Introduction to postproduction sound for applications to video and multi-media production.

This unit focuses on design methodology for the development and delivery of contemporary interactive media applications. Particular concepts addressed will also include conceptual integration and convergence of various media forms, screen design, navigational hierarchy and structures, and designing engaging interactive interfaces. General principles of interface, interaction design and information architecture will be introduced, alongside basic principles of digital media production.

This unit examines the role of digital technologies in contemporary cultural production, exploring the impact digital technologies have had on the design and construction of images, spaces and bodies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The unit traces the development of technologies from analogue, to electronic, to digital, and analyses key topics in media studies including the cyborg, virtual reality, artificial life and simulation. The unit contextualizes conceptual issues with reference to design, film, art and new media works.

This unit investigates the major aesthetic and theoretical events of Australian art in the Twentieth century. Beginning with post First World War art, significant themes surrounding modernism, parochialism, internationalism, conceptualism and contemporary artistic concerns are explored together with aspects of the international art market, museology and indigenous art making.

The workshop is conducted as a forum for technical demonstrations, workshops, special guest lectures, screenings and group discussions. Students will focus on specific advanced camera/sound/editing problems.

This unit is open only to students enrolled in a degree in Fine Arts, Electronic Arts,Music or Performance. This unit gives each student the opportunity to participate in an artistic collaborative project that may or may not entail collaboration beyond one specific discipline. The work undertaken may cover a range of creative possibilities or disciplines and work from a theme or project proposal towards a significant creative outcome. It is expected that work will be innovative and reflect a response to the challenges inherent in the issue of collaborative or project work. It will be project based and involve studio, workshop and/or field based activities.

This unit focuses on interactive design from an experience design perspective. Approaches utilising current digital technologies for advanced interactive design are explored. Students will design and produce interactive products and examine and critique current content and trends within these technologies. The focus of the unit is communication and experience design, rather than technical implementation. Interactive design examples are examined from the context of shifting production languages, convergent technologies and design professional context.

This unit explores visual thinking in communications and design contexts, including the persuasive and expressive uses of visual design and media images. It draws upon design theory and media analysis to explore visualisation and to build a multimodal view of mediated communications in the light of new converged visual forms of digital media. The unit explores the move for communications from critique to design, from critical scrutiny of media texts to the design tasks of setting future aims and uncovering the means and resources for achieving them. The unit will foster an applied understanding of how multiple representational forms can be combined and remade to generate new forms of meaning.

The major philosophies of art will be examined. The Western tradition will be surveyed from the Ancient Greeks through medieval and Renaissance theories of art to modern and postmodern aesthetics beginning with Kant. Marxist and feminist aesthetics will be especially emphasised. The artistic material will primarily come from the visual arts.

This unit is an intensive and extended study that provides students with the opportunity to create and present a major work that reflects learning delivered through their specific discipline studies. It enables students to bring together skills and knowledge developed in previous years and, under the guidance of staff and/or professional practitioners, create a major work suitable for public viewing. This unit is designed to offer students significant insight into the practical realities of arts practice post tertiary education.

Video Project will involve students intensively in the application of digital video techniques within a collective major project as your final assignment. Video Project is the culmination of prior learning in DV Camera techniques, non-linear editing and sound.

This unit introduces students to the principles of screen and sound media in theory and practice. It has a strong emphasis on digital video and new media, yet it also aims to create an awareness of screen language and its role in the construction of meaning, culture and history by looking at key examples from classic films, to contemporary films, videos, documentaries, animation and video art. It introduces students to the main concepts in media production, filmmaking and sound, such as camera coverage, visual storytelling, genre, narrative, montage, or sound design. It also introduces students to basic editing software.

Introduction to principles of editing for non-linear digital video editing systems including editing purpose, editing functions, aesthetics of continuity, complexity post-production, offline and on-line editing.

Introduction to postproduction sound for applications to video and multi-media production.

The workshop is conducted as a forum for technical demonstrations, workshops, special guest lectures, screenings and group discussions. Students will focus on specific advanced camera/sound/editing problems.

Video Project will involve students intensively in the application of digital video techniques within a collective major project as your final assignment. Video Project is the culmination of prior learning in DV Camera techniques, non-linear editing and sound.

This unit explores visual thinking in communications and design contexts, including the persuasive and expressive uses of visual design and media images. It draws upon design theory and media analysis to explore visualisation and to build a multimodal view of mediated communications in the light of new converged visual forms of digital media. The unit explores the move for communications from critique to design, from critical scrutiny of media texts to the design tasks of setting future aims and uncovering the means and resources for achieving them. The unit will foster an applied understanding of how multiple representational forms can be combined and remade to generate new forms of meaning.

Through lectures students develop an understanding of fundamental concepts and processes inherent in designing for on online environment. Students also develop fundamental computer software skills and design understandings appropriate to that medium using the major web software packages and develop a working understanding of production literacies for online design. Students will engage in practical studies of web authoring using HTML, Dreamweaver, image optimisation using Fireworks or Imageready. Emphasis will be placed on understanding the roles, functions and features of each software package in the design production context of online delivery, integrated use, and a working understanding of the responsibilities inherent in the digital production process.

This unit examines the multifaceted nature of photographic practice and introduces students to a range of methods of Photographic image design, for the purpose of Visual Communication. It explores the relationship between photographic technique, genre and the reception of photographic imagery. Student will be introducted to Photographic studio practice as the means of controlling image reception.

This unit focuses on design methodology for the development and delivery of contemporary interactive media applications. Particular concepts addressed will also include conceptual integration and convergence of various media forms, screen design, navigational hierarchy and structures, and designing engaging interactive interfaces. General principles of interface, interaction design and information architecture will be introduced, alongside basic principles of digital media production.

This unit focuses on interactive design from an experience design perspective. Approaches utilising current digital technologies for advanced interactive design are explored. Students will design and produce interactive products and examine and critique current content and trends within these technologies. The focus of the unit is communication and experience design, rather than technical implementation. Interactive design examples are examined from the context of shifting production languages, convergent technologies and the design professional contexts.

Contemporary Society introduces students to central issues in social analysis and a range of perspectives that have been used to understand the social world. It provides them with a theoretical grounding in the contral concepts and methods of social theory through an encounter with problems raised when social theory directly engages with practical problems such as racism, environmentalism, inequality etc.

This unit is designed as an introduction to Art History. It outlines some of the principal terminologies and methods employed within the discipline of art history through a chronological introduction to important periods, movements, and figures in European art from the Renaissance to the late nineteenth century. In particular, the unit encourages students to think about the practice of art history with reference to the questions asked by art historians and the interpretive techniques they employ. Theoretical and methodological aspects of the discipline are examined, while specific emphasis is given to developing skills in visual analysis and interpretation.

Image and representation are integral elements of the contemporary world. Increasingly knowledge is produced, disseminated and interpreted through visual media. Individuals often use visual images to understand themselves and their society. This unit will introduce students to a range of genres as well as methodologies and theories related to visual analysis. Media considered include art (painting, drawing, and sculpture), photography, film, television and digital media.

This unit examines the role of digital technologies in contemporary cultural production, exploring the impact digital technologies have had on the design and construction of images, spaces and bodies in the late 20th and early 21st centuries. The unit traces the development of technologies from analogue, to electronic, to digital, and analyses key topics in media studies including the cyborg, virtual reality, artificial life and simulation. The unit contextualizes conceptual issues with reference to design, film, art and new media works.

This is an intensive project based unit in which the main piece of assessment is a piece of applied Multimedia. Students are introduced to advanced functionality of Multimedia software, including basic programming, functions and variables, image manipulation and compression.

This unit investigates the major aesthetic and theoretical events of Australian art in the Twentieth century. Beginning with post First World War art, significant themes surrounding modernism, parochialism, internationalism, conceptualism and contemporary artistic concerns are explored together with aspects of the international art market, museology and indigenous art making.

This unit replaces 100394 - Contemporary Arts 1: The Past in the Present. This unit maps a rich panorama of musical works, styles, genres and composers from the Medieval period to the beginning of the twentieth century. It shows how music evolved through the centuries and suggests that stylistic changes are linked to creative, musical minds, manifesting as innovative music on the one hand and as conformity to established practices on the other. Out of the abundance of new and old possibilities, the unit asks why composers choose to replicate some patterns to the neglect of others. What is meant by innovation and creativity? How do different genres and styles in different periods in music history come to the foreground while others recede into the background? The unit offers an appreciation of Western art music while considering the popular and folk traditions of the day. It explores how music gives rise to flights of the imagination as it connects with composers, performers and listeners.

This unit replaced 100395 - Contemporary Arts 2: Exploring the Topography. This unit explores music in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. It considers how the overarching paradigms of modernism and postmodernism shape our understanding of music. Performer and composer case studies will be used to illuminate philosophies and practices that underpin the music studied. The unit provides an historical, sociological and philosophical context for music and investigates the ways in which music signifies meaning according to its context. It explores the ways in which technological developments have given rise to a bewildering array of music in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. The unit introduces some rudimentary music analysis and key terminologies and music vocabularies.

This unit replaces 101134 - Contemporary Arts: Music (Histories). This unit builds a critical theoretical foundation for music which informs the studio/practical studies, as well as preparing students for more advanced theoretical and critical studies. It is non-linear in approach, examining paradigmatic shifts and cultural theories, and their relationship to music. It includes the study of theories of authorship, corporeality, aesthetics, and power. It examines the field of musical production and the intersection of music with technology. It considers how musical taste is formed and explores the role of institutional practices in shaping music, musicians and musical taste. It situates music within the cultural paradigms of humanism and neo-liberalism, and modernism and postmodernism. It provides students with a broadly informed view of current issues informing contemporary music practice.

This unit replaces 101083 - Contemporary Arts: Music (Meaning and Identity). Music has the capacity to move the emotions, to transport people to a higher plane of existence while at the same time anchoring them to the present moment and to each other. Against the backdrop of the ‘music and meaning’ debate, this unit explores the ways in which music creates meaning and affect. It shows how music asserts borders around nations, groups and cultures, becoming strongly identified with these. Yet, it also shows that these boundaries are constantly subverted, that meanings change when music spills over its categories of genre and style, and cultural group. The unit explores the processes of meaning-making in music, showing how these come to be experienced and understood, and changed.

This unit replaces 101084 - Contemporary Arts 3: Politics and Communities. The unit explores the impact of globalisation on codes, practices and modes of music production. It examines debates in music about the personal and the political, and the cultural and the economic. Adorno’s theories of standardisation and Attali’s idea that industrialisation gives rise to music becoming silenced through the mechanism of repetition (mass production, stockpiling and control by the music industry) will serve as the starting point for the unit. The unit will look at how music is positioned within global and local contexts. It will include topics on the operations of ideology and constructions of identity, including that of musical identity. How does the concept of genre have relevance to politics and aesthetics in music? How do technology and the digital revolution subvert the genre categories which have taken shape in music over the 20th century and beyond? The unit will uncover the multiple ways in which listeners, composers, operators, and producers give rise to an infinite array of possibilities in ‘music’.

This unit replaces 101085 - Contemporary Arts 4: Futures. The unit introduces a range of approaches to research used by musicologists and music practitioners. It includes methods which are empirical and theoretical, qualitative and quantitative, ethnographic and analytical, and those emergent in practice-based research, including the idea that practice is research. Students will delineate their own research topics and work on research papers which may involve a creative practical component. Students will propose and report on their research in progress, including its theoretical underpinnings, retrieve and critically evaluate an appropriate literature for their project, and discuss the methods they intend to use for their data collection and analysis. The tutorial will give students an opportunity to present work for feedback and critique.