Technology

One of the factors that increased the diversity of practices in the art schools was the development of what we now refer to collectively as the media.  Back in the mid-1960s there was a vogue for technical experiment in the art schools - for vacuum forming, spray painting and photographic silkscreen printing.  It was even suggested that painting and sculpture might take a step back in favour of the creative experimentation with light, sound, film, computing, etc.  In the following decade Peter Fuller argued passionately that art is impoverished when the artist is distanced from the artefact by technology.  Art and technology nevertheless became firmly wedded in most of the art schools, where new technologies continue to be introduced alongside those of painting and sculpture.

At the beginning of the new century we began to gain perspective on the development of some of the newer media within the art and art educational worlds (e.g. video at Dundee), but there will continue to be a challenge to find effective ways of building the growing range of conceptual, telematic and interactive modes of art practice.