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< > (Click on arrows or image above to navigate.) Artist: Dick Averns (Above) Title: Illuminating Language Date: 2001 Media: Neon, brite aluminum checker plate, steel: 24" x 243" x 12" (Above) Title: Seats of Power. Date: 2003 Media: Video clip from performative event, dimensions vary. Notes: Dick Averns plans to do the following Art School Anatomies project: 1) The creation of a series of performative lectures produced as DVD's from live events, interviews and exhibitions that will bring institutional critiques to areas such as: academic and studio methodologies for foundation level art school education - the role of the sketch book in the twenty-first century - interdisciplinarity - performative pedagogies - writing for publication - the globalised artworld. These productions will feature not the just the artist as author with invited guests and featured artworks, but will also incorporate the performative alter ego Armchair Terrorist. This mobile, visual and literary soul is deployed for creative research purposes in environments where language requires new vehicles for representation. 2) The creation of a series of sculptural and architectural containers for supporting performative and interdisciplinary pedagogical practices. Utilising aircraft food/beverage carts, as mobile modules for housing creative material, the idea of the instructor as host and navigator will be researched, to place emphasis upon students as pilots from the earliest approach. 3) Book research. Averns has a medium-long term research plan for a book, that he has been intermittently working on for the last year or two, that will be built into the Art School Anatomies project. Prolix Soup: a.k.a. The Terms of Art are Endless, is my (working title) plan for compiling a critical theory anthology and glossary for understanding higher education in art and design. Averns would not necessarily expect the book to be completed within the project timeframe but he would like to be able to build symbiosis between this book research and the work of the Art School Anatomies team. Biographical: Dick Averns is an interdisciplinary artist and academic who has trained in New York, the UK and Canada. He holds a full-time position teaching senior Liberal Studies, studio Fine Art and First Year Studies at the Alberta College of Art and Design. Research interests are focussed towards the com modification of space: creative, pedagogical, political, geographic and socioeconomic interstices have been manifested through sculpture, photo-based works, performativity and published writings. Prior to establishing a career in art, Averns built a substantive record working in both private and public business administration; acumen that brings professional rigour to academic and artistic research projects that span galleries, centres of learning, publications and the public domain.