Falmouth welcomes two Visiting Professors to Tremough

University College Falmouth has welcomed two of its recently appointed Visiting Professors to the Tremough Campus in recent weeks to share their creativity and industry insight with staff, students and the general public.

Process: crafts meet technology by leading designer, Edward Barber and How to make art from life (with the help of a few ghosts) by sound artist, Robin Rimbaud (aka Scanner), were the latest in a series of high profile Professorial Lectures at University College Falmouth that combines distinguished names from the creative industries and in-house academic experts.

Edward and his partner, Jay Osgerby, were recently named Royal Designers for Industry by the Royal Society of Arts. Since forming their company in 1996, Barber and Osgerby have collaborated on designing products and furniture as BarberOsgerby and architectural projects for clients such as Stella McCartney as Universal Design Studio.

The importance of sketching, model-making and experimentation, and being involved in all aspects of the manufacturing process from prototyping and designing a family of related products to packaging, promotion and distribution were just some of the themes covered by Edward in his description of the successful marriage between traditional craft-based production and advances in digital technology that characterises Barber Osgerby's output - melding ancient glass-blowing techniques with laser cutting, for example, and the engineering capabilities of the computer with the incredible expertise of skilled craftsmen.

Robin Rimbaud presented a history of his work that blurs the boundaries of performance, installation, music and art, from scanning mobile phone networks and stealing snatches of conversation to composing a new National Anthem for Europe by creating a sound collage of the anthems of all its member states, mosquito sounds for the Natural History Museum, and an ambient soundscape for a French morgue. Sharing his creative processes and passion for imbuing electronic music with emotional warmth, Robin peppered his lecture with examples of how his work populates and expresses ‘the space in between' - the space within conversations, the space between life and death, the space between what's public and what's private - and celebrates the controversial and the commonplace, the exploratory and the commercial.

"Our aim is to produce an engaging and challenging public programme that stimulates the intellectual curiosity of our staff, students and alumni; our research collaborators; our industry partners; our local communities and other supporters," explains University College Falmouth's Deputy Rector, Professor Geoff Smith. "We are delighted to be welcoming such luminaries to share their insights, provoke debate and redefine creative excellence in the process."

The autumn term programme will include lectures by the award-winning Artistic Director of the Donmar Warehouse, Michael Grandage and interactive media pioneer and Managing Director of Illumina Digital, Andrew Chitty, as well as inaugural lectures by two of UCF's resident professors, Jason Whittaker and Alan Male, on dates to be confirmed.

For further information about University College Falmouth's Professorial Lecture Series, visit www.falmouth.ac.uk/visitingprofessors

University College Falmouth is the only independent Higher Education institution in Cornwall with the powers to award degrees in its own name. It has two campuses in Cornwall - at Woodlane in Falmouth and Tremough in Penryn (which it owns, and jointly manages with the University of Exeter) - and a third campus at Totnes in Devon, following its merger with Dartington College of Arts in 2008.

This merger created a new institution focusing on the expansion of Falmouth's expertise in Art, Design and Media and Dartington's expertise in Choreography, Music, Theatre, Art and Writing. The Devon-based courses will relocate to a new, high-specification Performance Centre at Tremough in 2010, paving the way for a new specialist Arts University in Cornwall by 2012/2013 that will be unique to the South West.

The College is a founding partner in the Combined Universities in Cornwall (CUC), a unique initiative to promote regional economic regeneration through Higher Education, funded mainly by the European Union (Objective One), the South West Regional Development Agency, and the Higher Education Funding Council for England, with support from Cornwall Council.

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For further information about University College Falmouth, please contact Jilly Easterby MCIPR, Head of Public Affairs, Telephone: 01326 213792; or email: jilly.easterby@falmouth.ac.uk

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