Finding a "There" there: reflections on art school

Image courtsey of A Constructed World; https://www.printedmatter.org/catalog/16098  

As a conclusion of our final semester in art theory, our tutor showed us the final edition of a publication by the art group 'A Constructed World' that ran in Melbourne during the 1990s. At the time there were changes going on to TAFE studies, not dissimilar to those happening in tertiary studies at present. So as final farewell some of the contributors, including a former lecturer of mine, wrote entries for a section dedicated on the experience of being in art school. For my first entry in this blog I want to share a response I made, at the suggestion of my tutor, with my own personal experience in the Bachelor of Fine Art at the University of Melbourne; or better known as the VCA (Victorian College of the Arts). 

Some time ago I came across a concept I think is known as the ‘hyper-object’, which describes an all-encompassing entity that can’t necessarily be touched. Climate change is the example given by Timothy Morton who coined the term.

It’s something that really resonated for me as a constant even in the previous courses I took before coming to the VCA. I sat in lecture halls haunted by the spectre of great lectures past (and future) the places where the world gets changed…but surely not at 9:00 AM on a Monday?

I remember how ecstatic I was after receiving the call that I was to be offered a place at Melbourne’s most prestigious art school.  It was that “life was just beginning” moment. Fast forward to now and two years out since studio practice and I recall the time spent there; the loitering in the studios, what we looked at in a particular class, what was discussed in a one-on-one tute, that idea I obsessively mulled over but never eventuated into anything… it was a constant, my ‘normal’. All the while expecting to work up to an amazing body of work. And now they’re but a snapshot. To quote John Cleese’s Basil Fawlty saying to himself, “Zoom! …What was that? ...That was your life mate…Oh that was quick, do I get another? ...”   

This isn’t a cynical take though. In hindsight it was a kind of “wax-on-wax-off” lesson. The many hours sitting in my cubicle tapping my fingers were punctuated by bursts inspiration (little did I know at the time I have ADHD). When I was running up against the clock with a project, I’d still see it through with what my friend and colleague dubs that “last minute John genius”. But I don’t mean to gloat, I’m not necessarily proud of it. The outcomes tended to fall short of my vision, although I could argue I didn’t even know my own vision well. This may sound like a kind of indoctrination echoing the concerns of my peers about conforming to ‘the institution’. This is something I understood but never bought into. Not that I didn’t have my share of resistance against the advice of my professors. I came in with my own ideals, as I’m sure just about everyone else did. I’d go as far as to suggest, albeit solipsistically, that I had more expectations than the average student having coming out of TAFE visual art. Given my experience there and a presupposed trajectory for my art practice, I think I inadvertently placed some blinkers up. I remember my first ever group crit and a suggestion by the supervising tutor that I dismissed at the time is now all of a sudden “right up my alley” It’s as though accepting what was essentially the same advice but from someone who “said it better”, but that someone was you and you eventually came to it your way.

I’ve always rebutted the anti-authoritarian reasons against going to art school in favour of her expertise. I also decided to do it because, facilities (duh)… oh and insulation from the ‘real world’ (guilty). Hey, maybe I was primed for the initiation ceremony?  But it never really signalled if it came. Perhaps that’s the benefit of (ADHD induced) dissonance; I was stubborn in my ideals, but by the same token I believed in the professionals.

I don’t subscribe to the notion that there’s a “VCA style” any more than there is an RMIT nor a Monash one. It only feels that way depending on where you’re coming from at any one time. Even between departments, it always felt like the others produced different (perhaps better) work, but that was just because we got used to our own. It’s natural to see uniformity amongst an ‘other’, like “all hipsters look alike”…or “modern art” to a lay person. And even in it I was on my own; there was me, and there was the rest of the painting department. We were in a hyperobject within a hyperobject.

It eventually registered that the staff body is not at all uniform. When assuming that, I faintly recall attempts at reconciling contradictory information. And of course looking back I forget that what went on in my mind, was often far away from the tangible results, bar expressing to different tutors different sides of the same coin.

The limit of the institution at the end of the day is her lack of flexibility. She can only cater to each student’s idiosyncrasies so much, whilst being a centralised body. I won’t go into that, but I’ve experienced both sides of the grievance over art curriculum; the restriction of too many contact hours vs the daunting freedom of so much studio time. There’s no synchronicity with what’s going on in your head and what’s presented to you in real-time. That said it’s possible I’m just speaking on my neurology.

I beginning to think the purpose of art school really is to unlearn. This newspeak maybe only gaining traction in recent times, but on closer inspection I’d say it’s fundamental and has been there all along. I came in with a preconception, which is like a limited vocabulary. Then, like spending a lot of time cleaning for Mr. Miyagi, the permeability of art-process suddenly and seamlessly clicked.