Victorian College of the Arts Looks to the Future with Vista

	Victorian College of the Arts in Melbourne with the Jands Vista 13

Joseph Mercurio, lecturer in performance technology at the Victorian College of the Arts (VCA) in Melbourne, Australia, is on a mission to ensure that his students have access to the latest in lighting technology -- and he insisted on having a Jands Vista console.

"Part of my purpose here is to teach people how to learn and Vista offers a very different way of approaching lighting control," began Mercurio. "With most consoles you type in numbers on a keyboard but Vista has a totally different mentality with which younger people are familiar. They are used to a visual, touch screen, interactive method. Older people have learned to be digital natives but our students were born and raised this way. You don't need to know numbers; you're talking holistically around the design and getting lights to work."

"Vista offers a totally different paradigm and breaks new ground. It certainly shows the future of lighting control."

The VCA purchased the Vista I3, a mid-range lighting console that provides all the features of the full-size T2/L5 consoles in a smaller, more economical package. Featuring the software, processor, and control elements of the stand-alone consoles, users can connect a pen-tablet, touch screen, or standard monitor, keyboard, and mouse to the console, and it becomes a fully operational Vista. According to Mercurio, it has performed as expected without any problem.

"As well as learning current technologies, I try to ensure that the students are pushing the boundaries as to where new technology is going," stated Mercurio. "The Vista shows so many exciting ways of going forward that no other console is showing at the moment."

The students have found the Vista I3 very easy to use due to the hands-on graphic interface which they are accustomed to from using other software.

Chris Payne, a second year student at the VCA, recently used the Vista I3 for some dance performances all lit very differently.

"It's a very different console but I really loved using it," he said. "It was great for the three different dance performances that I operated. The layout was really helpful because it meant that I could keep all the specials for each piece organized and that in turn meant I could manage each show as if I had three different consoles."

"The visual aspect really helped with programming and operating. I particularly liked having the flexibility of using the command line; I found the command line functions very simply laid out. It was a lot of fun to use and it certainly made my life easier."