March 2003 (Full text)
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 Kevin Volans, artist-in-residence.
March 2003
The celebrated composer Kevin Volans is also a WSOA artist-in-residence for the first half of 2003. He has been providing providing master classes and seminars on composition for music students in the School.
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 The new Digital Media division.
March 2003
The new Digital Media division started the year with exciting new MA courses in 3D Animation and Interactive Media Design. The courses can be taken as "concentrations" within the MA Fine Art or MA Dramatic Art programmes. The students have already started working in the new purpose-built computer laboratories in the Digital Convent, home to the Digital Media division at WSOA.
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 The big move is underway!
March 2003
Finally, after a year of preparation, and an agonizing last two months of delays and construction blues, the legacy departments of the Wits School of Arts have been able to start moving into their new offices and studios in the newly renovated WSOA buildings.
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 Brett Bailey, artist-in-residence.
March 2003
Artist-in-residence, Brett Bailey launches the new WSOA theatre laboratory with Mediea. In March we are launching our new theatre laboratory, the Sub-Station, which is a pressure cooker for avant-garde theatre. The wild-child of South African theatre, Brett Bailey (director of celebrated and controversial works such as IpiZombi and ImumboJumbo) will be directing a thrilling new Dutch interpretation of the Medea saga.
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May 2003 (Full text)
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 squaredH sponsor advanced Flash workshops for Digital Arts students
May 2003
Preston Thomas, an award-winning Flash designer gave a series of intensive Flash workshops to the Interactive Media Design class. His workshops gave the students insight and practical tech-niques in the use of Flash as a 2D animation tool. The cost of the workshops was sponsored by his company squaredH.
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 Motion Capture Workshops in Digital Arts
May 2003
The Delapse motion capture rig which is housed in WSOA Digital Arts was brought to life with a week of workshops led by ex-Tube art director, Vincent Truter assisted by Delapse engineer, Pieter Kruger, and animator Ferdie Greyling. Physical theatre actor Rob van Vuuren was strapped into the suit and demonstrated the operating the of rig. Vincent s workshops gave a complete introduction to the technology and performance possibilities of Motion Capture.
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 WSOA student director wins Cannes film award
May 2003
Their 12-minute fictional film, The Sky in Her Eyes, shows the heart-rending struggle of a 7-year old girl in KwaZulu-Natal who has been orphaned by HIV/Aids. The prize money of R28000 will allow the film-makers to travel and to earn support for the making of their next film.
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June 2003 (Full text)
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 MNET EDIT competition scooped by WSOA TV students
June 2003
Sifisile Ngwenya and Lungi Dolamo were given the prize for Best Scriptwriting; Lungi Dolamo shared his prize with a student from the Durban Institute for Technology as Best Director. In addi-tion, 6 Numbers received the big prize of R75,000 as the Best Overall Programme. The money will go to Wits TV and will be used for equipment and towards teaching support.
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July 2003 (Full text)
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 Winners of the 2003 Martienssen Prize announced
July 2003
WSOA Fine Arts students Lester Adams and Reshma Chhiba (left) are the joint winners of this year?s Martienssen Prize. They received their awards from Professor Loyiso Nongxa, the Vice-chancellor and principal of Wits University, at the opening of the Martienssen Prize Exhibition on 24 July.
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 Musicology and Popular Music Congress
July 2003
The Musicological Society of Southern Africa & the Wits School of Arts invite you to the 30th An-nual Congress of the Musicological Society of Southern Africa at the Wits School of Arts, University of the Witwatersrand, August 28-29, 2003. The theme of the congress is MUSICOLOGY AND POPULAR MUSIC. Prof. David Coplan (Social Anthropology, Wits) will present the Keynote Address titled ?Anthropology: Musics?, a review of the current state of the study of music within Anthropology.
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 Shuttleworth Foundation fund linux server in Digital Convent
July 2003
A Linux based file exchange server has been purchased with dedicated funding from the Shuttle-worth Foundation for use in the Digital Convent. The machine chosen for the work is an XW6000 dual Xeon processor from Hewlett-Packard. Although primarily for the Feedback animation project the server will be used for file exchange by all the laboratories in the Digital Convent.
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 Digital Arts launches postgraduate internship programme
July 2003
A number of Digital Arts postgraduates began month long internships with a range of media com-panies this June-July vacation. Animation students took up places at Depth; Luma; Nine Degrees East; and Delapse. All six mem-bers of the animation class have chosen to do internships during this vac. From the interactive class, four students chose to do internships this vac at Learnthings; Blink; and Delapse Interactive.
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 Fundraising performance of Feedback on 7 August
July 2003
At 8pm on the 7th of August 2003, acclaimed artists Andrew Buckland and Lionel Newton will be at the Wits Theatre in Br mfontein, Johannesburg for a one-night only performance of their interna-tionally award-winning play, Feedback. Written by Andrew Buckland, the play earned a Scotsman Fringe First award at the Edinburgh Festival and was commissioned for a season at the South Bank Centre in London.
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August 2003 (Full text)
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 Renowned artist gives series of public lectures
August 2003
William Kentridge, the internationally acclaimed visual artist, will deliver a series of three public lec-tures on his artistic practice this month. The lectures, co-hosted by WSOA and the Wits Institute for Social & Economic Research, are a unique opportunity for Kentridge to reflect on his artistic practice and to present work in progress.
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September 2003 (Full text)
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 Feedback 3D animation project gets NFVF funding
September 2003
The Feedback 3D Animation project in WSOA Digital Arts has gained significant funding from the National Film and Video Foundation.The funding has been granted to cover the staff costs of the full-time project director and an anima-tion production management trainee. The NFVF money has made it possible to employ Phil Boltt as an animation lecturer/project director and Thulani Yose-Simantov on full-time contracts until 31 January 2004 when the first part of the project is due to be completed.
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 CDP/WSOA Artists in Schools and Community Art Centres certificate of competence course is launched
September 2003
On 29 July2003 the Curriculum Development Project(CDP)/ Wits School of Arts (WSOA)partnership launched its second programme for the training of arts and culture educators in Gauteng schools and community art centres. The partnership includes both the national De-partment of Arts and Culture and the major funder, the Flemish government.
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 Staff and students from WSOA Fine Arts have won an impressive range of awards this year
September 2003
Amongst the awards garnered in 2003 were: Ekurhuleni Fine Arts Award, ABSA L Atelier Merit Prize, Tollman Award, MTN New Contemporaries Award, and the South African leg of the HP Invision Digital Photography Awards for 2003.
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October 2003 ( Full text )
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 Public seminar on the politics of digital games
October 2003
Digital technology is arguably the most important recent development in contemporary art, generat-ing new forms of artistic practice. One of the most popular forms of entertainment in contemporary culture is the computer game. Honor Harger and Adam Hyde have just curated an exhibition of digital games in Cape Town called and their seminar gave a Wits audience a chance to look at the games and hear the kind of thinking behind their development.
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October 2003 (Launch of WSOA Full text)
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 Ar[t]c[h] : The Official Launch of the Wits School of the Arts
October 2003
October 10th sees the official launch of the Wits School of Arts (WSOA).
The celebrations include exhibitions, performances, walkabouts of the new School Buildings, and will culminate with a formal opening ceremony followed by a concert and a public party. The Wits School of Arts brings together Fine Art, Music, Dramatic Art, History of Art, Television and Film Studies, and Heritage and Tourism Studies into one multi-disciplinary environment that celebrates creativity and innovation. For further information, please contact the launch coordinator, Hanli Becker.
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November 2003 (Full text)
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 Digital animation class attend African Eye Animation Festival
November 2003
The Digital Animation Class packed into a mini-bus and made the sixteen hour journey to Cape Town so they could attend the African Eye Animation Festival and Workshops at the 8th Sithengi Film market from the 12th to the 14th November.
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 WSOA seminar on Suspending the Cultured Body: Contemporary "Ritual"? Contemporary Spectacle?
November 2003
As a follow up to the controversial suspension piece performed by Fine Art student Nikolai Muiz-nieks at the WSOA launch, Anitra Nettleton, Head of History of Art will lead a panel discussion on Wednesday 12 November on the implications of body art in contemporary culture. Panel Discussants: David Bunn, Stephan Erasmus, Ruth Lipschitz, Nikolai Muiznieks, Nicole Ridgway, James Sey.
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