Travel Tapes (Paperback) | Released: 19 Sep 2020

This is the record of a professor's travels around the world in the mid-1980's. He went on a quest to document how artists were responding to technologies such as video and computer graphics. It is his account of a gamble he lost. He bet that the university he worked for would be impressed with what he brought back: A case full of videotaped interviews recorded in fifteen countries. He was sure these would bolster the school's reputation as cutting edge, reflecting the booming technology industry of the Pacific Northwest and global trends in education.After eight months' time and a personal investment of over $50,000, he returned, believing the experience would help develop a new version of his field - printmaking. "Print is the ancestor of all technology," was his claim. With the evidence in his case, would not the art department embrace the new media? Would his experience reinforce his caveat of making printmaking the core of a new curriculum in multimedia arts?He admired Buckminster Fuller who, in a 1962 speech, described his vision of mobile, time-shifted, tele-commuted, on-demand education, he presaged distance learning: "The universities are going to be wonderful places. Scholars will stay there a long time - the rest of their lives - developing more knowledge about the whole experience of man ... going around the world in an everyday routine of search and exploration. The world-experience pattern will be everywhere for all students and scholars all over the world. That is all part of the new pattern that is rushing upon us."The author was a Junior in college when Fuller said those words in Carbondale, Illinois. Never in Bill Ritchie's wildest dreams could he have imagined being one who would go around the world and live Fuller's vision. Now, twenty years after Fuller's speech, Bill was a tenured art professor at the University of Washington teaching printmaking. He also taught video art and computer graphics with a conviction that printmaking is electronic arts' ancestor. He knew that his students needed to be ready for the multimedia of the 21st Century and to think globally - like Fuller.In this book one reads the story about how Bill managed to go around-the-world on his fact-finding mission for the University of Washington. There must have been magic in the air of the 1960's and 80's to cause him take the leap. He felt certain that his quest would pay off in the long run. He was only 39, tenured and had a sabbatical in hand. His family and friends were trusting and loyal; and many agreed with his vision of the future. What did he have to lose?Risking it all, Bill refinanced his family's home mortgage, sold their car and his etching press, and closed out his art studio. He bought a state-of-the-art camcorder and, for eight months, he and his family (and a tutor for their young daughters) jetted around the globe and drove around Europe and the USA.Over the eight-months it took, he and his wife recorded 35 hours of interviews in fifteen countries. Those vintage videotapes are packed in a scarred, black suitcase. The case itself is plastered with stickers showing where they were made. These hint at the sights and sounds on the videotapes inside and that are still playable today. In this book, every minute of these tapes is described and illustrated with screenshots.Bill lost his gamble when he returned from his travels. The university had other plans. However, as Fuller predicted, search and exploration makes professors today who can teach globally. As Bill has shown in his own work, professors can self-publish educational books and eBooks on-demand and they can link their text with Internet videos and references - such as the QR code inside this book linked to a 23-minute YouTube family tape.This book is a report of what is on the videotapes, but it is also a testimony that Bill won in the long term. Was it worth it? Is there more to the story? Read this book and find out.