Manila Bulletin Featured AUP TRADigital FineArts

http://www3.mb.com.ph/articles/215159/here-s-what-s-hot-and-it-s-called-tradigital-fine-arts
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Here’s what’s hot and it’s called Tradigital Fine Arts
Learn from the masters but learn to use technology too, this is what this course is all about
By INA HERNANDO-MALIPOT

While only humans could produce artwork in the past, using their distinctive styles, personal techniques, and individual temperaments, computers can actually do the same –and maybe so much more – today.

Believing that the arts and sciences can be fused to cater to the demands of the changing times, the Adventist University of the Philippines (AUP) in Silang, Cavite opened up a new world for artists to explore. That new dimension is called Tradigital Fine Arts.

A new technique that exploits the best in the fusion of art and technology, Tradigital Fine Arts aims to present the arts in a way that people have never seen it before.

“The fine arts you know is the not the kind we have,” says AUP digitalFine Arts chair Reuben Abaya Pagaduan. “Ours is not just another course, it is an innovative fine arts program which combines both the traditional method of art composition and the creative application of latest digital computer technology.”

The Tradigital Fine Arts is a four-year degree program offered under the AUP College of Arts, Sciences, and Technology (CAST). It emphasizes learning both the techniques of the masters and the new digital artists, upgrading the notion that the fine arts deals only with hand brushes, oils, and canvases.

It uses a curriculum that is based on the premise that art evolves and therefore, should keep abreast of the changing times, where traditional and digital methods synergize, where artistry and creativity are not dependent on any programmed software and technical designs but on original concepts and actual application by the artist.

The course syllabus highlights the use of programs such as Adobe Illustrator, Adobe Pagemaker, Macromedia Freehand, Adobe InDesign, QuarkXpress, Adobe Photoshop, Macromedia Flash, Corel Painter, and Macromedia Dremaweaver for digital drawing, page designing, photo imaging, web animation, web designing, and digital painting. Aside from digital fine arts, other highlights of the course include photography, aesthetics, and art history.

ART SHOULD NOT BE LEFT BEHIND

AUP’s Tradigital Fine Arts began as a course that taught the basic skills in drawing and painting. In 1997, they started to offer a two-year course in advertising, painting, and digital imaging. Today, the four-year bachelor degree in Digital Fine Arts is in full swing.

Although taking the modern route, AUP believes that students will first have to master the foundation of the arts. “Although we teach computer art, the computer won’t teach you how to draw,” Pagaduan stresses. Hhe adds that while some young people think that they can already be great artists if they know a computer program, Pagaduan corrects this. “They are wrong to assume that because nothing beats having the basic foundation skills in drawing and painting,” he says.

Furthermore, AUP’s digitalFine Arts department provides its students with an avenue to exhibit their works. At InArt Gallery, students may showcase their latest digital and hard copy artworks.

Knowing how the demand for professionals with computer know-how has greatly increased throughout the world, the department also updates its students with the latest trends and developments by giving art seminars by professional artists.

Pagaduan underscores the tremendous prospects that a career in digital fine arts offers. “This is especially true in the art scene because digital art/computer graphics experts are never jobless,” he says.

Graduates of Tradigital Fine Arts can be digital artists, book/magazine designers, layout artists, package designers, textile designers, creative photographers, photojournalists, web designers, art consultants, gallery curators, art instructors or teachers, art lecturers, art directors or visualizers.