Within the program, Studio Practice is complemented by studies in Art History and Theory. In year one, students study a core survey of twentieth century Western Art as a foundation for electing from a range of options offered in years two and three.

The program is further complemented by studies in professional practice and forums featuring artists and art industry professionals.

Ceramics

The Ceramics studio provides a supportive learning environment and promotes individual creative growth through investigating traditional and contemporary ceramic processes and aesthetics. Personal and creative development is emphasised within a framework of imaginative experimentation and structured learning. The development of disciplined independence and self motivation is encouraged through the acquisition of a broad range of technical and creative skills, encouraging the achievement of a confidence and personal integrity associated with the best artistic practitioners.

Drawing

This is a student-centred discipline based on studio practice. The Drawing area has been designed to establish strong perceptual, analytical and conceptual awareness within the many applications of drawing in international contemporary art. The discipline includes a program of analytical drawing from the human subject, classes in digital imaging, applications of new technologies and workshops with conventional materials and processes. A significant aspect of the program emphasises the development of a personal imagery and ideas within a broad interpretation of drawing activity. This is supported by an ongoing program of group and individual tutorials within a philosophical context.

Fine Art Photography

Fine Art Photography teaches across multiple degrees within the School of Art, including undergraduate, postgraduate and international programs.

This studio area celebrates three centuries of photography. Students engage in a broad range of photographic training, complemented by theoretical research. Extensive high-end digital production facilities co-exist with mechanical photographic hardware. Electronic imaging processes, including fine art printing and advanced colour management practices, encourage and support the development of sophisticated production skills and artistic approaches. Constantly updated new imaging technology is critically engaged and evaluated in the investigation of the conceptual, technical and ideological foundations of contemporary photographic art.

Gold and Silversmithing

Gold and Silversmithing is a specialist area comprising two concurrent streams of study in Jewellery and Silversmithing. It is based on a sequential development to a high level of technology and understanding of aesthetics in contemporary jewellery.

There is an intellectual challenge to make objects of jewellery and silversmithing that have a contemporary aesthetic. Current issues are examined, questioned and interpreted to provide a range of distinctive personal statements.

The fusion of historic and contemporary processes combined with a diversity of materials is a basis for making objects. The encounter with contemporary issues and meaning of an object and its location with the person are another basis of working.

Conceptual, technical and artistic accomplishments are the endeavour of the gold and silversmith students at RMIT.

Media Arts

The Media Arts studio area instructs students in the history, theory, and practical demands of working with the moving image in contemporary art practice. Courses offer students a range of activities and outcomes including: traditional and non-traditional animation techniques; video art; narrative and the moving image; experimental inter-media practice; web art; and media installation. Courses emphasise a critical approach to relationships between technique, form, and content to instill in students an expansive and flexible approach to their art practice. Courses involve an extensive lecture program with screenings, discussions and student reviews that run concurrently with detailed technical workshops.

Painting

The painting studio equips you with the appropriate technical and conceptual skills, encourages critical and analytical thinking and provides experience in a diverse range of creative visual expression. The introductory stages of the program are project based and focus on observational innovation and experimentation with media and concepts. Advanced courses in painting focus on new media and its relationship to contemporary painting practice, transformative use of collage, assemblage and installation and the contextualising of an artist's practice through an understanding of contemporary concepts. In advanced stages of the program, you are encouraged to develop an individual work methodology that focuses on personal, formal and conceptual development. Emphasis is placed on research and documentation within the creative process. Individual and group tutorials, seminars, lectures, gallery visits, health and safety and professional practice complement the teaching by practising artists.

Printmaking

Printmaking is a studio-based practice, which provides extensive studies of traditional and contemporary techniques combining the acquisition of skills with conceptual development. Strong emphasis is placed on the inventive manipulation of technical aspects and their potential to enhance the creative development of individual concepts and imagery. Studios and workshops are well equipped and provide for all methods of Printmaking including all intaglio techniques, wood, lino and relief printing, stone and plate lithography and water-based screen printing. Digital imaging and techniques are encouraged and computers are housed within the Printmaking studios. Printmaking offers a rich array of approaches to art production, which includes two- and three-dimensional prints and use of alternative materials. Installation practice, architectural interventions and large-scale works are explored within the discipline. The Printmaking program also offers specialist courses by renowned practitioners in Artist Books, Screen-printing and Lithography while providing ongoing support in studio theory via individual and group-based tuition. All staff are practising artists who exhibit on a regular basis in Australia and overseas.

Graduating students continue to practise as artists. In addition many find employment with print publishers in Melbourne and overseas or set up their own print publishing businesses. Some find employment in educational institutions as tutors or lecturers.

Sculpture

Sculpture students are encouraged to investigate a wide range of materials and processes to develop the direction of their work within a framework of contemporary art practice. In addition to the traditional methods of sculpture, the studio encourages art that might position itself between sculpture and painting, time-based sculpture, installation art, performance, sound and video, or art that draws on the wider possibilities of digital imagery.

Full studio facilities and well equipped specialised workshops are provided for clay/plaster modelling, woodworking and metal fabrication. A modern foundry for bronze and aluminium casting, as well as a small computer lab with video equipment, a small specialist library and forum programs are also provided.

This studio has exchange associations with: Utrecht School of the Arts, Utrecht (Netherlands); Chelsea School of Art, London (UK); Glasgow School of Art, Glasgow (UK).

Sound

Courses (subjects) offered in the Sound area include: Audio Technology, Sound Culture, Immersive Environments, Sound Design, Technology Composition and Perception, Studio Recording, and Studio Production. Each provides a specific historical and theoretical overview that helps define key aspects of the studio stream. This is supported by technical demonstrations focussed on the creative application of technology across a full range of contemporary sonic arts practices. Whatever their specific musical interests, discussions around formal and conceptual approaches to composition and presentation provide students with a diverse range of options in developing works that successfully operate within the broader realm of sound culture. Collaborations are encouraged (both within and across disciplines) and public presentations are fostered so students can showcase their works. In addition to the opportunities naturally presented by Melbourne's rich musical underground, the Sound department also organises more mainstream public outcomes (with student compositions for a number of multispeaker diffusion systems across town, a yearly program of new works for the Federation Bells, as well as international partnerships with Sound departments in Italy, Denmark, and Japan).

Additionally, the Sound area is associated with numerous national and international initiatives that actively promote the diverse range of activities and philosophies informing the sonic arts. These include the annual Liquid Architecture Festival of Sound Art, the biennial Immersion Festival (devoted to the theory and practice of surround sound) and Variable Resistance, an ongoing series of international sound art events.

Duration

Three years full-time. An honours program is available.

Pathways

Graduates of the Advanced Diploma of Fine Arts, Advanced Diploma of Professional Screen Writing, Advanced Diploma of Multimedia or Diploma of Visual Arts programs who have been successful in gaining a place in Bachelor of Arts (Fine Art) will be eligible to apply for exemptions. Foundation studies and Visual Art students with distinction may articulate directly into the degree.

An honours program is available following the successful completion of the Bachelor of Fine Art. Honours is a pathway to postgraduate research. Eligibility is based on your level of academic achievement during the degree.

Gaining credit for previous study or experience
Recognition of Prior Learning (RPL) and credit transfer are ways that RMIT recognises applicants’ skills and knowledge gained through formal and informal education and training, work experience, and/or life experience (including volunteer work; committee responsibilities; family duties, hobbies).

Further information about gaining credit for previous study or experience

Further information about pathways

Career Prospects

Graduates are multiskilled and employed in many areas including: studio-based art in the areas of ceramics, drawing, fine art photography, gold and silversmithing, media arts, painting, printmaking, sculpture, sound, online art, video art, public art, installation/performance art and animation; teaching and lecturing; museum and gallery direction and curation; production design, website design; sound recording, music arrangement, special effects art, video editing, project management; community cultural development, festival curation, cultural diplomacy; and writing about the fine arts.

Entrance Requirements

Current Year 12 prerequisite units 3 & 4—English (any).

Non-Year 12 applicants are encouraged to apply and may be required to have relevant employment or evidence of experience and/or ability to meet the demands of the program.

Equity admissions schemes
RMIT understands that people’s backgrounds and circumstances can affect their access to education and training. RMIT’s equity admissions schemes allow applicants to explain the circumstances that have adversely affected their education, and demonstrate their capacity for future academic success.

Further information is available at equity admissions schemes

Click here for further information.

Application Procedures

Semester one

Full-time applicants—VTAC application

VTAC application
Applicants must apply through Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC) and are advised to check detailed information on entrance requirements, application procedures and closing dates. Applicants must meet all extra requirements and selection procedures listed through VTAC.

Application closing date: Late September
Further information:
Victorian Tertiary Admissions Centre (VTAC)
40 Park Street, South Melbourne
Tel. 1300 364 133
www.vtac.edu.au
Note: RMIT program codes listed on this page should not be used when applying through VTAC.

Extra requirements

Selection mode all applicants: Pre-selection kit, folio (75%), interview (25%).

Selection procedures (Semester 1 2009 VTAC applicants)

Pre-selection kit: All applicants must obtain a Fine Art pre-selection kit or request by telephone 03 9925 1988 between 2 pm and 4.30 pm, or request at Open Day. Applicants must submit a completed kit by 10 October.

Interview and folio presentation (short-listed applicants only): Details will be provided by mail by early November to the applicants required to attend. These applicants must attend in late November.

Advisory letters will be sent in early December.

Semester two (midyear intake)

RMIT University has places available for the midyear intake in many TAFE and degree (bachelor and postgraduate) programs. From 1 May check to see if this program offers a midyear intake
Note: Applicants must confirm availability of program offered at midyear prior to applying. All applicants must comply with any extra requirements listed.

RMIT direct application
Applicants must apply directly to RMIT University using an RMIT direct application form.

Application closing date: 31 May
Further Information:
Info Corner
330 Swanston Street, Melbourne
Tel. 03 9925 2260
Email: study@rmit.edu.au
www.rmit.edu.au/programs/enquiries

Click here for further information.

Fees

Degree

Commonwealth Supported Place (CSP)
A CSP is jointly funded by the Commonwealth Government and the student. In 2009, the fees ranged between $4,162 and $8,677 per year for a standard full-time program. The exact cost varies according to each course.

Changes to fee paying undergraduate places in 2009
The Australian Government has announced that it will phase out fee paying domestic undergraduate places from 1 January 2009 in public universities. However, the Government has announced that it will replace fee paying places with up to 11,000 new Commonwealth Supported Places (CSP) by 2011. Therefore, expectations are that there will be more HECS (Higher Education Contribution Scheme) places on offer at RMIT University in 2009.

There will be no full-fee places at RMIT University offered through VTAC (Victorian Tertiary Admission Centre) for new domestic students in undergraduate programs in 2009. There are some exceptions to the Government’s prohibition on new full-fee undergraduate places which will affect a very small number of students.

Further information is available at: www.rmit.edu.au/programs/fees/highered

Or you can go to the Federal Government’s Going To Uni web site www.goingtouni.gov.au or phone the hotline: 1800 020 108.

Scholarships

Record spend on RMIT scholarships
RMIT University will spend more than $60 million on student scholarships over the next five years. RMIT has many scholarships and funding opportunities to offer students.

Further information is available at RMIT Scholarships

Click here for further information.

Additional Expenses

Students will be required to purchase materials for use in the production of their practical work.

Program Structure

The following program structure(s) are linked to this program.

Contact Details

Administration
School of Art
Tel. +61 3 9925 1988
Fax: +61 3 9925 3755
Email: artschool@rmit.edu.au

Download this information as a pdf brochure (Requires Acrobat Reader)

Owning School

Art

Disclaimer

Although RMIT endeavours to ensure the accuracy of this information, there is no guarantee it will remain accurate all year. Applicants are advised to confirm program details with the appropriate school before making an application.