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Teaching

A flavour of some of my Teaching & Learning experiences:

MediaLab Arts

Before the World Wide Web, MLA saw Zip Drives, Laser Disks, CD ROM’s, DVD’s and dot-com bubble come and go, it has seen resolution, RAM and the Cloud expand infinitely, always rehearsing the future as a dynamic predictive algorithm (see below and in the i-DAT Archive)

Telematic Performance

Working in groups, devise a system for transferring an image from one location to another. Each person will mark a stage in the transfer which will require the image to be coded and decoded. Each stage will be different from any other stage in the process. Upgraded for MLA XXX 2024…

MEDIASPACE

MEDIASPACE explored the implications of new media forms and emergent fields of digital practice in art and design. MEDIASPACE an an experimental publishing project that explores the integration of print, WWW and interactive satellite transmissions.

Digital Futures

“The core of the On-Line component of the Digital Futures Programme is the ‘Panopticon’ multi-user VRML environment. The Panopticon is ‘A Dream Building: a Diagram of a Mechanism of Learning‘. A multi-user collaborative VRML learning environment that integrates a variety of internet technologies…” (see below and in the i-DAT Archive)

Interaction Design

“the module provides unique access to a community of thinkers and makers who have contributed to shaping a fuzzy overlap between technology and culture, that goes under a variety of pseudonyms, such as Computational Media, New Media Art, Telematic Art, Ludic Design, Art & Science, SciArt and Transdisciplinary Arts…”

Ludic Architectures

“Ludic-Architectures is a speculative design space that allows the collaborative building of a shared digital environment that can function in VR platforms, web browsers and Fulldome environments. This will be a playful space for making and exhibiting new digital work.”

Future History: rewind…:

Mike Phillips began his teaching and learning activities back in 1984 at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA, when he took over the Narrative and Documentary Video Module (MA/BA) from Jerry Kearns, operating as a Teaching Assistant for a semester…
and would have got away with it if he hadn’t destroyed a brand new Sony Trinicon HVC-2400 Professional Camcorder Video Camera.
Post Slade School of Art I was appointed a Fellow and P/T Lecturer (1987) on the MA Publishing and BA Fine Art (4D) at Exeter College of Art & Design (ECAD), evolving to a Lecturer (New Technology) at ECAD as it was swallowed by Polytechnic South West. This was mostly work with studio of Mac Plus machines running Page Maker, Hypercard and networking projects with Roy Ascott and Robert Pepperell.
(Image: Thom Yorke Hypercard Stack, 1991)
Between 1990-91 I had the pleasure of supporting final year students of Chris Crickmay‘s Art and Social Context’ at Dartington College of Arts. During this time, working with Lesley Kerman (Head of Department of Arts Communications) and Pat Pearce (Head of the School of Computing) and her team, I dreamt up BSc (Hons) MediaLab Arts (MLA) and moved relocated from Exeter to Plymouth to lead the programme (1992-97) in the School of Computing in the Faculty of Technology. MLA evolved over the years into BA/BSc Digital Art & Technology and BA Digital Media Design, before being retired in 2025.
In 1999 we launched the uniquely online and low residency MSc Digital Futures (later to become an MA, MRes and ResM), Masters Programme, running of a Darwin macOS Server using streaming media and VRML environments. Remnants of the programme remain in the MA Experience  Design course. Digital Futures had syncretic relationships with the MEDIASPACE Programme, the SPECTACTOR project and the Virtual Advisor with support from Brian Eno. Some old MSc/MS Digital Futures weblectures, circa 2000, can be found here: web5/web6/web7/web8/web9/web10

In 2000 I was a P/T Visiting Lecturer, in the legendary CRD Department (Computer Related Design), working with Gillian Crampton Smith at the Royal College of Art.

BSc MediaLab Arts

BSc (Hons) MediaLab Arts (09/1992), School of Computing, Faculty of Technology, dreamt up by Lesley Kerman (HoS Media & Communications, Exeter Faculty of Art & Design) and Pat Pearce (HoS Computing) following the convergence of Exeter College of Art & Design and Polytechnic South West, to form the University of Plymouth.

MACROMEDIA:

BA/BSc MediaLab Arts secured significant sponsorship from Macromedia which continued until shortly after Adobe acquired the company in 2005.

We are eternally grateful to Tony Tucker for his support during this time. Tony seen here in the first Mediaspace satellite broadcast.

BRIAN ENO:

Brian Eno collaborated with BSc MediaLab Arts during these early years as a Virtual Advisor, contributing to the experimental pedagogy and Mediaspace satellite broadcasts.

Brian can be seen here receiving his Honourary Doctorate in Technology from the University of Plymouth, 1993.

MEDIASPACE:

Roy Ascott, Brian Eno, et al participate in a series of satellite TV productions and Journal publications. A networked telematic comic.

The intent of ‘MEDIASPACE’ [1994-98] was to explore the implications of new media forms and emergent fields of digital practice.