When Seeing Matters: An International Virtual Studio Project

The International Virtual Studio Project is a global collaborative project between undergraduate sculpture students from RMIT University School of Art, Melbourne, Australia and Chelsea School of Art, London, UK. The project involves the installation by students of actual work at twin sites in Melbourne and London and virtually on the Internet where a URL site frames and broadcasts real-time webcam activities as a unified outcome. This paper discusses the implications for students and institutions of the use of virtual technologies that imply a public audience. The project is described across two iterations in 2005&2006. A third iteration in 2007 involved an exchange of video works using the Youtube website. We examine how collaborative creative activity between spatially disparate student groups encourages learning through selfreflexivity and expands the notion of a global arts community. A pedagogical model is sketched based upon cognitive models of collaborative learning and film theory is used to suggest an active role for the public viewer in art education.