Preface to the World Wide Web version of

Sabbatical!
The travel tapes


When I was awarded a sabbatical leave from the UW Art School in 1982-1983, I was thinking about several developments in the media arts. "Media arts" to me meant print, photography, cinema, video, computer art, and radio. My interest was the artistic uses of the media for creative expression.

At the time, projects I did included offset lithography, artists' access to media studios (such as video and computer graphics) and schools of art and art museums' perspectives on the newest of the media arts--computer graphics and laser optical storage media.

My greatest concern was, and still is--writing in 1998 (fifteen years after returning from my first trip around the world) the blending of the new media with traditional handicrafts such as hand printmaking, book arts, and hand papermaking.

The Sabbatical! notes you may read here served me as a directory of the videotape recordings I made on that round-the-world journey with my family. The notes will inform and entertain other people who now, on the World Wide Web, can now read what was never available before.

Each entry has two parts. First, a technical documentary summary, and second, a summary of how my encounter related to my perspective on media arts, education, technology and international relations.

Now you may wish to return to the index, choose a country and read my notes.


Send e-mail to Professor Ritchie