The teaching of Art History requires ready access to a range of good quality images, as taking classes of 20 or more to the actual art gallery and hoping that what you are teaching is actually on display is not practical on a week-by-week basis.
Unfortunately, the days of the physical slide and slide projector are behind us but the age of digital archives of Australian art has not yet arrived!
Many art historians have their own database of digital images - some they've imported and some they've photographed themselves. I remember accompanying one famous name through the NGV furiously copying labels while he systematically photographed their collection.
Unfortunately, this state of affairs does not build a living resource that allows student access.
I think I read or heard somewhere that there is a digital database being created for indigenous art from the central desert. Is there no one in the art scene at the uni's who are creating a database from the slide bank. If there isn't, is it just a matter of funding? It is the year 2011, we are living in the digital age. I have family members who have digitised all their photographs. It is a fairly easy process, I wonder why it hasn't been done. Embrace the technology or be left behind.
ReplyDeleteWhy can the students not acess these resources?
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