DEGREES UNEDITED

Richard Taylor looks at how to use Degrees unedited as a window in to the professional world

Look through the window and see who's gazing back

Did you know that double the amount of virtual exposure is gained by using your username alongside Degrees unedited to add user-generated content to the site? Contributed content generates longevity on your behalf, looking past graduation and in to the beginnings of a creative based career, whether this be visual practice, art writing, curating, community based projects, or all rolled in to one.

By using Degrees unedited your work is reflected in to a-n's other unedited features, where professional artists and writers get to see your ideas and formulation of criticality, with respect to theirs. This constructs a traversable virtual path of artistic production and reflection, establishing new ways of working.

All you need to do is register as a free user at the homepage and start utilising Degrees unedited as your window in to the professional world. So whilst a-n deals with double the workload, its time to get your ideas out there, increasing your self-promotion and critical applause.

After all a 'window' works in two ways and at times is kaleidoscopic.

Where ideas will permeate and promotion prevails

As a student user of Degrees unedited the professional activity of a-n's unedited environment is something you get prescribed access to and in turn people get increased access to you. By registering and contributing you get 'double exposure' delivering your specific ideas, criticality and projects to the wider artist community through Artists talking and Interface.

What does this cover?

Artists talking is an exciting aspect of a-n's online service, allowing artists and professionals to negotiate ideas, from personal to technical concerns through to periods of thought provoking residency and part time practice.

Any blog that you start on Degrees unedited gets replicated in Artists talking's 'Project blogs'. By filtering your valuable ideas in the run up to degree show season into the professional realm, blogging through Degrees unedited readily delivers fresh student perspective to places beyond any Fine Art department. Therein your ideas are permeated across the UK, surpassing the limitations of your institution, towards actual working practitioners. Go to Artists talking

Interface relates to a tool, allowing two or more separate functioning bodies to communicate and confront at ease; generating space for perspective and the capacity for learned experiences to be gained. You instantly become a part of this by contributing ideas through critical review on Degrees unedited as any review for a show that you upload will be included in Interface's 'Reviews unedited'.

The reviews are chronological and searchable by city. So if someone is looking for art criticism in a certain place or at a particular time, your degree show or contributed review, will appear just as valid and as exciting. Your content is published next to that of professional artists and organisers, promoting the degree show season and your criticism with equal importance as to any other on the art world calendar.

What's more is that Interface works as a two-way mirror: by searching for reviewers in you area through the 'Reviewer index', you can approach writers and invite them to give your show critical applause. Go to Interface

A blind, some curtains or to be an exhibitionist

A 'window' then, as either an engaged or passive viewing platform, is multifaceted just like the possibilities in your practice beyond the limitations of a two-way tutorial.

But what happens this time next year, when your window has changed its form and the view has distorted itself? Perhaps it will be smaller with less space, larger and expansive, less rectangular (more spherical, multi-dimensional), or equal to the dimensions of your computer screen.

Whether you stand fully exposed with the lights on as its dark outside or you're hidden in dimly lit observation, biding your time clarifying the world in full daylight: by being involved with Degrees unedited now, you're shaping your practice and forming a highly developed self-reflection.

But next year Artists talking and Interface will still have their place, being ever more relevant in offering and extending lucent observations and diversifying perspectives. So you could be on to a good thing already, port-holing your workload into more definite forms of longevity.

So whether you choose a blind to cut yourself off form the world, curtains to occasionally peek through or decide to leave yourself fully on view: Degrees unedited is here to help you deliberate, shake, experiment and perhaps begin to decide by 'putting you in the right place at the right time'.

Some healthy linking devices

• See how to make the most of Degrees unedited: Find out more »
• Go to the Degrees unedited homepage:Degrees unedited home

• Interface: providing 'unedited' critical commentary and reviews on shows, publications and other topics in the creative sector: make the most of a-n's pit stop for putting contemporary practice in context. Read on »

• A selection of reviews chosen for the variety of projects they document as well as their entertaining and insightful writing: Degree Show Review the year on Interface.
  Read on »

Some blogs, from Degrees unedited, already filtrated to Artists talking:

• David Riley - Swindon College School of Art
  B.A. (Hons) FINE ART DRAWING All about the use of drawing within a fine art practice. Read on…
• Marion Piper - Buckinghamshire New University
  BA (Hons) Fine Art Read on…
• Jung-Hua Liu - University of Leeds
  Fine art PhD student in the School of Fine Art, History of Art & Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. I am interested in visualising invisible existence in colourful way. Read on…

• Get your free Student subscription - To see you through final stage of your degree and into professional life, the a-n Student subscription provides Read on »

First published: a-n.co.uk April 2009