[ISEA2011] Paper: Ricardo Dal Farra – About interdisciplinary team-teaching and new media arts

Abstract

In 1992, a technical high school in Buenos Aires decided to create a special program joining music with sciences and new technology studies. This was fitting in such a natural way for the students that they were going from their “sound-oriented” biology classes (focusing on the human hearing system and our phonatory capabilities) to their mathematics classes (where logarithms were used to explain musical scales) to their history classes (including both a broad human history approach as well as specific links with music in different periods) to the music and multimedia lab (with specially designed workstations where students were learning, discussing, analyzing  and creating).

In 1996, the Multimedia Communication national program started to be developed at the National Ministry of Education of Argentina, an it was applied in schools around the country, as part of a new educational system. The Multimedia Communication program, with over 1500 hours of specific study through three years, is a competencies-based modular structure, using several intertwined streams with multiple deliveries. It created the teaching/learning basic standards to approach image synthesis, video, new media, and sound art/music production and creation with a new level of freedom in terms of creativity, use of resources and knowledge, unthinkable only a short time ago. In 2000, the National University of Tres de Febrero (UNTreF) started offering a five-year long Electronic Arts program, including two streams, one focusing on electronic image, the other focusing on sound production/music creation using new technologies. The same University also created the Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Centre (CEIArtE) whose focus is on new media arts research, and creation and dissemination projects. This Centre is a pioneer in media arts research in the region.

Interdisciplinary team-teaching has been in the core of these projects where artists, engineers and scientists worked together to get a rich variety of results. New media arts learning have been a goal in itself, but also a way to help in educating young generations about new teaching approaches, research paradigms and job models able to open a different, creative, appealing and productive world.

  • Dr. Ricardo Dal Farra has been conducting activities in the merging fields of arts, sciences and new technologies as a composer and multimedia artist, researcher, educator, performer and curator focusing mainly on electroacoustic music and new media arts for more than 25 years. Dr. Dal Farra holds a PhD in Etudes et pratiques des arts from Université du Québec à Montréal. He is Associate Professor at the Music Department of Concordia University in Montreal, Canada; Founding Director of Centro de Experimentación e Investigación en Artes Electrónicas – CEIArtE (Electronic Arts Experimenting and Research Centre) at National University of Tres de Febrero, Argentina; and Associated Researcher at the Music, Technology and Innovation Research Centre, De Montfort Univerisity, United Kingdom. Dal Farra has been national Coordinator of the Multimedia Communication program at the National Ministry of Education and Director of the Estudio de Música Electroacústica (Electroacoustic Music Lab) in Argentina; Senior Consultant for the Amauta – Andean Media Arts Centre in Cusco, Peru; Research/Creation Coordinator of the Hexagram interuniversity consortium and Coordinator of the Documentation and Conservation of the Media Arts Heritage (DOCAM) international research alliance in Canada. He also has been consultant for organizations such as: The MIT Press in the US, the interuniversity project No2s in Chile; and consultant and researcher at The Daniel Langlois Foundation in Canada and UNESCO (Digi-Arts), France. Dal Farra has presented his music, new media works, research and educational developments at institutions such as Stanford University’s Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, New York University, Dartmouth College, The Julliard School of Music and Brooklyn College in the United States; the University of Brasilia and Itaú Cultural in Brazil; the National Conservatory of Music of La Paz in Bolivia; the University of Puerto Rico; the University of Manchester and De Montfort University in the United Kingdom; Festival Internacional de la Imagen iand Museo Nacional in Colombia; International Festival of Modern Art in Ukraine; Festival Latinoamericano de Música in Venezuela; International Audio Visueel Experimenteel Festival in The Netherlands; International Festival of Contemporary Music in Turkey; Symposium on Music and Computers in Greece; Colloquio di Informatica Musicale in Italy; Computer Music Festival in Korea; Colegio de Compositores Latinoamericanos de Música de Arte in Mexico; National Museum of Contemporary Art in Norway; Universidad Católica, UNIACC University and ARCIS University in Chile; NYYD in Estonia; University of Sydney in Australia; Stockholmsfestivalen För ElektroAkustisk Musik in Sweden; Teatro Colón, Espacio Fundación Telefónica and National Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Argentina; Ontario College of Art & Design and The Banff Centre in Canada; and UNESCO and IRCAM in France. His work has been distinguished with grants and commissions by the International Computer Music Association, the International Arts Biennial of San Pablo, Brazil, the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Rostrum of Composers from Argentina, the Concours International de Musique Electroacoustique de Bourges, France, and the Centro di Sonologia Computazionale from the University of Padua in Italy, among others. Dr. Dal Farra’s recent research projects have been focused on documentation and preservation of the electroacoustic music heritage; multimedia communication and educational resources; digital arts resources and virtual communities; as well as composition and media arts creation.  concordia.ca/finearts/music/faculty.html?fpid=ricardo-dal-farra                fondation-langlois.org/html/e/page.php?NumPage=1601