A PROPOSED $75 million creative academy to be built in Hobart will utilise the NBN and enable Tasmanian students from the North, North-West and South to study simultaneously.
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The state government has committed $15 million in funds to the University of Tasmania's proposal which includes a $2.3 million parcel of land in Hobart's central business district near the Theatre Royal.
But the project relies on a $37 million federal government regional education grant before it will get the green light.
Inveresk School of Visual and Performing Arts head Marie Sierra said the Northern school and its students would not be disadvantaged by the Hobart-based proposal.
Professor Sierra said that while students could initially be drawn to study at the new state-of-the-art building in Hobart, the benefits of the project would be spread across the state.
She said this was not limited to performing arts students and would include music, architecture and design students, and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra.
``For artists of all kinds, whether they are visual artists, musicians or theatre people or architects . . . having this building is very important and having access to the big pipe that NBN provides for us gives us the fidelity we need to be able to do our research and our training, and share that and be part of the global conversation,'' Professor Sierra said.
The benefits enabled by the NBN will allow students in classes around the state to interact in real-time.
Professor Sierra said this would be done by a big screen connected to video link.
She said students would also be able to connect with personal online devices.
``We could deliver a subject simultaneously taught here in Launceston and in Hobart. Particularly a studio-based subject that has the physical presence and fidelity of images and sound,'' she said.
``We could have, for example, a band or orchestra, which could be partly here or partly there.
``Another example is if interior design students were developing a project for a new shopping mall, they could explain their ideas and receive a critique of their work simultaneously in two places.''
Premier Lara Giddings said 255 jobs would be created in the planning and construction period, and the project would pump $660 million in direct and indirect economic benefits over the next seven years.
``The development will allow closer collaboration with nearby cultural institutions like the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery and the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra,'' Ms Giddings said.
``It will create innovative links with the university's campuses statewide, including the Inveresk arts precinct and the creative industries of the North-West Coast.''
