Author of Images and Sounds Audiovisual Language
Carol Lorac M.Phil. AGSM studied at the London Guildhall School of Music and Drama in the early 1960’s then worked in television and education. Employing audiovisual composing in television and exclusively written composing in teaching, led to a decision to focus on enabling children and students to use audiovisual composing alongside written composing, within education.
In 1976, the Communication and Social Skills project, funded by the UK Department of Education, Schools Council for Curriculum Development, enabled the beginning of using audiovisual composing, across the curriculum, followed in the early 1980’s with a European Project that explored modern language learning and cultural understanding using video letters exchanged between students in the UK, Germany and Italy. In 1988, at Sussex University, audiovisual composing in adult education resulted in the development of students producing video portraiture and video poetry.
In 1989, Carol joined Royal Holloway University of London, Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, teaching the theory and practice of television drama. Three years later she founded the Department of Media Arts. Audiovisual language underpinned an innovative degree programme divided equally between the study of a body of published film and television works, with a practice that included both generic and commercial audiovisual composing.
In 2001, while Head of the Media Arts Department at Royal Holloway, Carol founded with Patrick Humphreys, Head of the Social Psychology Department at the London School of Economics, the London Multimedia Lab for Audiovisual Composition and Communication. Within the London Multimedia Lab, Carol led research on the project Creative Partnerships in London Schools: Pathways to Value, for Arts Council England. She enhanced development through participatory multimedia in Peruvian communities, for the UK Department for International Development, SaRA (Salud Reproductiva para Adolescentes) project, and contributed to the Positive Futures: Young Peoples Views project, for the UK Government’s Home Office.
Carol’s latest educational book Images & Sounds Audiovisual Language is about how audiovisual and written composing parallel and complement each other, describing all the educational projects, identified above. Images & Sounds Audiovisual Language is not a formal academic book or traditional textbook. It offers teachers and learners a way to engage with audiovisual composing revealing the communicative process. It shows children, students and adults, from different parts of the world, using audiovisual composing for a range of diverse, formal and informal educational purposes.
