History of the OU

TAD292 Art and environment (1976-85) was a distinctive course chaired by Simon Nicholson (1934-1990) who had studied at the Royal College of Art, London, and the University of Cambridge and between 1964 and 1971 taught at the University of Berkeley, California. It sought to develop ‘strategies for creative work’ and it dealt with

the processes and attitudes of art not so much as these were evidenced in products of art but as they underlie the very act of doing art. This can be seen already from the titles which were given to some of the units in the course: ‘Boundary Shifting’, ‘Imagery and Visual Thinking’, ‘Having Ideas by Handling Materials’.

TAD292 students were offered a range of projects on this 30-point course. These included the suggestion that the student stop activity and engage in listening. Another was to compose a score for sounds made from differently textured papers and a third was to enumerate the household’s activities and categorise these in terms of role and sex stereotyping. The aims of the course were attitudional, sensory and subjective rather than cognitive, relating to feeling rather than knowledge. They were ‘more phenomenological than conceptual in nature’. Assessment involved a student not only submitting the product, such as a self-portrait photograph, but also notes describing the process and rationale. The criteria were not specific but involved formulations including enthusiasm, imagination and authenticity. See Philippe C. Duchastel, ‘TAD292 – and its challenge to Educational Technology’, Programmed Learning & Educational Technology, 13, 4, October 1976, pp. 61-66. The course received considerable publicity. In 1976 The World  At One, a BBC radio news programme, reported on TAD292 at one summer school:

Bizarre games and happenings formed a part of experimental residential course for a group of students at Sussex University. They were encouraged to make prints of various parts of their bodies. Some made bare bottom prints, other dragged rubbish through the streets and one group appeared to be aimlessly kicking a giant rugby ball about.

This was used as part of a report on the TAD292 Summer School at Sussex on Open Forum, 31, 1976. Recording made available through The Open University Archive. Others took up this matter. The Times Higher Education Supplement headline was ‘OU students get behind on project’. Students on the course were so enthusiastic about it they formed a society, Tadpoles, to ‘share skills, experiences, ideas and knowledge of creativity and personal growth’.  It is still going strong. They organised a camp at which they developed the learning and activities associated with the OU summer schools. Soon an annual camp was instituted and the Tadpoles arranged a system of offering accommodation to one another, held weekend events at their own homes and travelled abroad together. There is an account here. One Tadpole who is still involved said, in recent interview, that

it was just being in another reality for a weekend when you went away.  We’d all go and meet in each other’s houses and it was like so much of ordinary life was suspended… There was always an element of creativity

Now there is a further spin off from this course. Artist Olivia Plender (born 1977) has become interested in the TAD292 TV programmes. They are being reshown as part of her installation, Rise Early, Be Industrious in the Long Gallery, Milton Keynes Gallery, 900 Midsummer Blvd, Milton Keynes MK9 3QA. This is very near to the theatre. The television can be seen in the middle of the image used on this posting. The gallery is open six days a week (details here) and the exhibition will be there until 17 June 2012. It will then be travelling to the Arnolfini Gallery Bristol and the Centre for Contemporary Art, Glasgow. An interview with Olivia Plender filmed at the Gallery is to be archived on the Open Arts Archive.

The exhibition is supported by Milton Keynes Museum with help from The Open University. Olivia Plender has received support from the National Lottery through Arts Council England. The interview with a former TAD292 student is one of a number for a project about them which has been funded by the Society for Research into Higher Education.

For another recollection of TAD292 see here

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 3rd, 2012 at 12:05 pm by Daniel Weinbren and is filed under Events, Methods, Pedagogy, Residential schools. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.