15 March 1999

First Professor of Media Art

The UK's first Professor of Media Art, at the University of Dundee, will be inaugurated with a major exhibition of his work which opens to the public from 20 March to 15 May.

Professor Stephen Partridge, who has made an international reputation for taking the creative potential of video and new media to new horizons, will be the first to exhibit in the University's new Visual Research Centre within the splendid £9 million Dundee Contemporary Arts opening this weekend (20 March). His work will also be on display in the Cooper Gallery at Duncan of Jordanstone Faculty.

Partridge's work uses sound, language and movement to challenge the viewer's perceptions through video, multi-media, internet, projection and installation works and includes pieces for Channel 4 television.

Sponsored by McMillan UK, the exhibition will tour venues in Glasgow, Aberdeen and Kilmarnock as well as further locations in the UK and abroad.

Head of the University's School of Television and Imaging, whose facilities are among the best in the world, Professor Partridge established within it the Television Workshop, a production agency for film-makers and media artists wishing to produce work in video, television, animation, computer graphics, and installation.

He was in the 'landmark' shows of the 1970s including the Video Show at the Serpentine in 1975, the Installation Show at the Tate gallery in 1976, The Paris Biennial in 1977 and The Kitchen in New York in 1979. During the eighties he exhibited widely and also created and produced works for television. He was commissioned by Channel 4 television to produce Dialogue for Two Players in 1984.

With Jane Rigby, he formed Fields and Frames - an arts projects and television production company - which produced the innovative Television Interventions project for Channel 4 in 1990, with 19 works by artists for television. He also co-produced a short series of student and artists work Not Necessarily with BBC Scotland for BBC2 network television in 1991.

He has curated a number of influential video shows: Video Art 78 in Coventry; UK TV New York; National Review of Live Art 1988-90; 19:4:90 Television Interventions; and the touring tape packages Made in Scotland I, II, Semblances, Passages./ends

See website:
http://imaging.tvi.dundee.ac.uk/partridge/www/steve_pages_sun/stevep.htm