Media Facilities

The Slade maintains several computer suites equipped with high powered Mac and PC workstations. All workstations are equipped with HDR, colour-balanced monitors.

Software includes

• Full Adobe CC Suite (Photoshop, Illustrator InDesign, et al.)
• Video editing software such as Premiere Pro, Final Cut, DaVinci Resolve
• 3D and VFX software such as After Effects, Cinema 4D, ZBrush, Blender
• Audio software such as Logic Pro and Ableton
• Open source software including micro-controller support and Maker workflows e.g Arduino IDE, Raspberry Pi
• CAD and 3D Printing software including Autodesk and UltimakerCura
• Interactive environment software such as Unreal Engine, Godot, Unity

Software requirements are regularly reviewed and students have opportunities to feedback to technical and teaching staff through a dedicated ‘Media Users Group’

Studio peripherals include

• A3 and A4 flatbed scanners
• Wacom touch-screen workstations
• Dedicated stills film scanners for 35mm, Medium Format and Large Format
• Animation stand equipped with Dragonframe software
• DV/miniDV system for digitising legacy tape media including VHS

Camera and AV Equipment
A dedicated loan store facility allows booking of cameras and A/V equipment during term time. This includes:

• Digital stills & video cameras (Canon, Blackmagic, Sony) with a range of Sigma and Canon EF lenses
• 35mm, Medium Format and Large Format stills film photography cameras (Pentax, Mamiya, Horseman)
• 16mm and Super 8 analogue film cameras (Bolex, Arriflex, Braun Nizo)
• Projectors and monitors
• Sound equipment including portable recorders and contact, induction coil & hydrophone microphones
• Other relevant peripherals such as tripods, camera tracking systems, lighting and more.

Inductions and workshops are regularly run by technicians and academic staff, sometimes with external partners. The Photo and Media Technicians maintain specialisms in the use of this equipment, and actively support both digital and analogue workflows.

Specialised Media and Photo facilities
The Slade maintains several rooms and facilities dedicated to specific Media workflows.

Photographic Studio

• Equipped with profoto flash units and accessories, backdrops, product table, cubelite and large studio tripod

Photographic darkrooms

• Black and white darkrooms that cater for 35mm up to large format, with prints up to 20” x 24” in size
• Colour darkrooms that similarly cater for 35mm up to large format, with prints up to 20” in width

Flat Copy

• Professional documentation of 2D works (typically prints, drawings and paintings) up to 90cm x 70cm in sizeusing flashlights and computer camera control.

Artwork mounting

• Cold press mounting for laminating artwork up to 140cm in width onto card, mountboard, foam board, foamex, aluminium dibond, sheet metal, sheet timbre

Stills film scanning
We have a professional Hasselblad FlextightX5 scanner capable of scanning up to 5x4” large format film at very high quality.

Sound Studio
With a sound isolated recording booth and wide range of software and plug-ins/VSTs including Waves, Native Instruments etc. Keyboards and synthesiser equipment including a Make Noise eurorack system. Full 5.1 Surround speaker set up.

Video/Green Screen Studio
With pull-down and portable systems for green screen and other colour backrops. Equipped with a set-in-place, live-operable camera and microphone set-up. Capable of livestreaming.

Laser Cutter
Capable of cutting and etching acrylic, paper and wood materials.

3D Printing
Dedicated FFM 3D printers capable of printing PLA material. Great for fabricating and prototyping 3D objects and designing small parts.

Film Edit Suite
Equipped with a 16mm and a Super 8 Steenbeck editing desk for manual editing and preparation of analogue films. 

Print

Printmaking
The Slade’s printmaking workshop has facilities for most forms of printmaking and bookbinding. Inductions and workshops are run regularly by technical and academic staff, and there is a full-time technician in the area for day-to-day support and advice.

Intaglio
The studio is equipped for all forms of intaglio printmaking including:

• traditional hard & soft ground etching, aquatint and photo-etching on copper and aluminium plates
• three etching presses, up to a maximum plate size of 700 x 1000 mm

Screen Printing

• 3 vacuum tables for printing up to A0 in scale, and bench top printing units for small scale (up to A3) printing and garment printing.
• UV-LED exposure unit and backlit stencil processing / washout unit.
• Water-based ink system

Screens can be booked for individual use and range in size from A3 up to A0 in a variety of mesh types.

Relief Print

• Albion Press
• Proofing press with mechanical inking system.

The area is equipped with rollers and glass surfaces for inking wood or linocuts as well as various forms of monoprinting with both oil-based and water-based inks.

Lithography

• Motorised direct press for printing from stone or plate.
• Facility for grinding and graining of stones.
• A stock of litho stones in a variety of sizes.

Bookbinding
The Slade has a bindery which is equipped for most forms of book and publication production, with nipping presses, finishing presses and associated hand tools.

• Perfect binder for hot-glue paperback bindings
• Power guillotine for trimming books and paper
• Foiling press
• Creasing machine
• Board cutter

Risograph

• Riso MZ-770 for high speed, low cost printing up to A3 in scale
• Printing from digital files or directly scanned originals
• 5 colour drums available

Digital Print

• Epson large format inkjet printer for high quality pigment prints up to 44” / 1118mm in width
• Epson inkjet for smaller formats up to 17” / 432mm width rolls or A2 sheets
• Colorwave printer for economical colour printing on uncoated papers up to 42” in width, and an integrated scanner for originals up to 914 mm in width
• Colour managed workflow for printing on stock papers
• X-Rite i1 spectrophotometer for custom profiling

SCULPTURE

The workshop has an extensive range of metal-working facilities including:

• forging and welding equipment
• bending and rolling machinery
• a foundry for casting bronze and low melting alloy metals
• one Colchester lathe

Wood-working facilities include:

• a band saw
• planer
• face sander
• pillar drill
• table saw

In addition, specialist tools and a range of hand power tools are available.

The metal and wood workshops are supplemented with small facilities for mould-making, wax preparation. A ceramics kiln is also available for a limited range of earthenware firings.

• there is a transfer facility between video formats (VHS, Hi-8, Mini-DV and DVD)
• a film/video/green screen production studio with continuous lighting.

UCL Art Museum

UCL Art Museum is an experimental space for interdisciplinary interrogation of the image. Located at the heart of UCL’s main Bloomsbury campus in a traditional print room, the Museum is uniquely positioned to support interdisciplinary research and teaching. The collections consist of many unique groups of material of international importance dating from the 1490s to the present day. A selection of these is on permanent display in the public and semi-public rooms in the college, including paintings, sculptures and murals. Works in the reserve collections are available for viewing by appointment. These include prize-winning student work from the Slade School of Fine Art, prints and drawings by old master artists such as Dürer, Rembrandt, Turner and Constable, and sculpture models by the renowned Neo-Classical artist John Flaxman – the largest group of works by this sculptor in any collection. 

UCL Information Systems

UCL Information Systems provides central IT facilities, cluster rooms and network, together with a wide range of IT support activities and training. All students are issued with their own computer account including email when they enrol.

UCL Library

Slade students have access to all UCL libraries and study spaces, but the principal print collection for Fine Art and History of Art is in the Main Library, just a few seconds walk from the Slade. It has a dedicated Art Subject Librarian, Liz Lawes. The Art collection comprises books, exhibition catalogues, magazines and audio-visual material relating to the history and theory of Fine Art practice, art criticism, film theory, performance, and photography. Take an online tour of the Main Library to see the Art reading room and find information on Getting Started with UCL Library Services.

The Library also has extensive online collections of ebooks and ejournals, as well as numerous bibliographic databases in all arts, humanities and social science subjects. Databases also include those that stream film, including arthouse cinema, TV and radio broadcasts. The Art Subject Guide lists all the most relevant resources and gives links to training materials on literature searching and reference management. The Library’s print and electronic collections can be searched using Explore, the online catalogue. LibrarySkills@UCL offers an extensive collection of quides and training courses to develop your library and information literacy skills and help you make the best use of UCL’s libraries and resources.

The Library’s Special Collections also holds the Small Press Collections, consisting of Little Magazines (self-published experimental literature), the Poetry Store (small edition pamphlets and ephemeral items featuring avant-garde writing and visual work), the Alternative Presses (underground newspapers with a political/countercultural emphasis), and a collection of reference material relating to the history of small press activity in the twentieth century.