[iDC] "New Media" Programs

[Trebor Scholz]

Dear all,

The titles of programs that emerged over the past ten years vary from
"Digital Humanities," "New Media," "Media & Communications," "Media
Study," and "Digital Arts" to "Experimental Media." When people ask me
which "new media" program I think is best, I usually say that the
educational new media landscape varies too much to point fingers. There
are, of course, programs that are very good at what they are good at.
But the local histories of these programs and networks differ
enormously. This makes it hard to move any program into my top 8.   

Art and technology programs often grew out of Film departments but they
also emerged out of Engineering and Art programs. The specific
institutional history, faculty strengths, and funding opportunities lead
to the variety of programs that I summed up below. Currently, these are
the relevant departments that are on my radar screen. 

Can guidelines for new media education meaningfully speak to the
diversity of these existing programs? In particular, I'd like to hear
how departments, programs and networks respond to the challenges of
participatory cultures.       

Best,
Trebor

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The Humanities Faculty, University of Bergen

Humanistic Informatics is the study of the relationship between human
culture and technology. Our focus at the University of Bergen is digital
arts and culture, as well as a belief that theoretical, historical and
analytical approaches to understanding digital culture must be
accompanied by a practical understanding of the technology.

The Department of Humanistic Informatics was established in 1995, when
it became obvious that digital technology was becoming more than a
simple tool that humanists might want to master, but that it was a
research area in its own right. The name "humanistic informatics" is
common on the continent and in Scandinavia, but in the US and Britain
equivalent programs are usually either framed as "Digital Humanities" or
as "New Media."

<http://huminf.uib.no/?page_id=69>

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Media & Communications PhD, Goldsmiths College, London

<http://tinyurl.com/yju42w>

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New Media and Digital Culture at University Utrecht, NL
-in Dutch only-

<http://www.let.uu.nl/tftv/nieuwemedia/weblog.php>

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The Department of Culture and Communication, New York University

The Department of Culture and Communication is committed to the
proposition that society is a form of communication. Our core pursuit is
advancement of research, scholarship, and teaching in the various ways
that human beings make, disseminate and share meaningful symbols as
individuals and social groups. To us, communication is the foundational
practice of human experience and culture is the shared, lived realities
of particular groups. We investigate the ways in which the technologies
of communication record, transmit and shape what we know and do.

<http://steinhardt.nyu.edu/dcc/Home/>

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Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS)
University of Washington

Practice-based Ph.D. program

The goal of doctoral education in Digital Arts and Experimental Media is
to create opportunities for artists to discover and document new
knowledge and expertise at the most advanced levels higher education can
offer. While creating new art is at the center of all activities in the
program, the DXARTS PhD is a research-oriented degree requiring a
substantial commitment to graduate-level study and reflection. The Ph.D.
degree prepares artists to pursue original creative and technical
research in Digital Arts and Experimental Media and pioneer lasting
innovations on which future artists and scholars can build. 

<http://www.washington.edu/dxarts/index.php>

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Digital Arts and New Media, UC Santa Cruz

New Technologies have profoundly changed contemporary culture and
inevitably altered the role of the arts in society. The Digital Arts and
New Media MFA Program serves as a center for the development and study
of digital media and the cultures they have helped create. Faculty and
students are drawn from a variety of backgrounds such as the arts,
computer engineering, humanities, the sciences, and social sciences to
pursue interdisciplinary artistic and scholarly research and production,
in the context of a broad examination of digital arts and cultures.
...

Digital Arts and New Media is a phrase attempting to illustrate the
multifaceted and complex interdisciplinary arena that culminates in the
manifestation of creative projects ... exploring these projects leads to
a greater understanding of what DANM is than any standard textual
explanation can provide...

<http://danm.ucsc.edu/web/HomePage>

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The Media Lab, Helsinki 

Practice-based Doctorate

The Media Lab is the school of digital design at the University of Art
and Design Helsinki. The lab provides education and research frameworks
for studying digital media contents and technologies, their design,
development and the effect they have on society. Our work is
characterised by the collaboration of people from a wide variety of
disciplines and cultures.

<http://mlab.uiah.fi/www/>

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The Chicago School of Media Theory

The Chicago School of Media Theory intends to update and extend the
major theoretical strains raised in W. J. T. Mitchell's 2003 and 2004
sessions of Theories of Media, adapting extant theoretical models to
examinations of new media. Of course, the CSMT will also
in(ter)dependently theorize new media and the ways in which emerging and
developing media technologies alter the function (or functionality) of
'old' media. For instance, how does obsolescence transform an object or
a technology?

<http://www.chicagoschoolmediatheory.net/home.htm>

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The Annenberg Research Network on International Communication

The Annenberg Research Network on International Communication studies
the emergence of new communication infrastructures, examines the
attendant transformation of government policies and communication
patterns, and analyzes the social and economic consequences. The project
is multi-disciplinary - including communication, sociology, economics,
and political science approaches - and follows an international
comparative perspective - spanning North America and Latin America,
Asia, Africa, the Middle East, the Pacific, Western  and Eastern Europe.

<http://arnic.info/>

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Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University

The Graduate Field of Science & Technology Studies (S&TS) at Cornell
University is devoted to training students to conduct advanced research
in one of the most exciting of contemporary academic disciplines. S&TS
research treats science and technology as historical and cultural
productions. Research in this field therefore requires the ability to
uncover how scientific knowledge, authority, and expertise operate in
different social contexts, and to understand their changing historical
meanings. Possible topics of investigation range from transformations in
early-modern natural philosophy to the dynamics of contemporary
environmental, biological, and technological change. The field
transcends the boundaries of pre-existing disciplinary specialties. Such
categories as "historian" or "sociologist," are still relevant for
guiding research design, but they fail increasingly to capture the
transdisciplinary character of S&TS investigations.

<http://www.sts.cornell.edu/>

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Center for Information and Technology, UC Santa Barbara

CITS is dedicated to research and education about the cultural
transitions and social innovations associated with technology. The
Center comprises a diverse team of more than a dozen scholars in the
social sciences, engineering, and the humanities. We conduct research,
organize public forums, provide multi-disciplinary doctoral education on
technology and society, and facilitate partnerships with industry and
the public sector.

Our research examines many aspects of the social and cultural
transitions under way at present around the globe, but we have a
particular focus on technological change and three topics:

Social Collaboration and Dynamic Communities
Global Cultures in Transition
Technology in Education

<http://www.cits.ucsb.edu/>

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Integrated Media Arts 

The Hunter College Integrated Media Arts (IMA) MFA program focuses on
the creative production of media with a social orientation.

<http://fm.hunter.cuny.edu/grad_home.shtml>

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The Oxford Internet Institute

The Oxford Internet Institute is a department within the Social Sciences
Division of the University of Oxford. We are "one of the world's leading
independent centres of excellence in academic research on the impact of
the Internet on society, and in informing policy and generating debate."

<http://www.oii.ox.ac.uk/>

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Intermedia Program, University of Oslo

InterMedia is an interdisiplinary research centre which investigates the
intersections between design, communication and learning in digital
environments. InterMedia participates in research networks, and has a
research lab for development and experiments in our research fields.

<http://www.intermedia.uio.no/>

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Center for New Media, UC Berkeley

OUR GOAL
To understand the full philosophical, aesthetic, practical and
historical significance of the information-age transformations in which
we are now immersed, and to place our institution of liberal education
at the center of this cultural and technological revolution so we can
inform and help direct the design of future media.

WHAT?       
New Media are technologies of representation that are shaking the
foundations of human culture and experience. In ancient Mesopotamia, New
Media was the invention of writing. In 15th century Europe, it was the
invention of the movable type printing press by Johan Gutenberg. Today
New Media encompass a number of converging technologies for creation,
representation, and communication of information, based on the paradigm
of computation.

WHY?    
The digital information-processing revolution, which started in the
mid-20th century, has already had profound effects on our culture, our
perceptions, our environment, and our very being. Powerful computers
embedded in small cheap devices now make digitization ubiquitous. Email,
cell phones, the Internet, instant messaging, digital photography,
digital cinema, computer-generated animation, computer games,
computer-aided design, and the contradictory and much-debated concept of
"virtual reality" are products of digital information processing that
reveal new ways for representing and manipulating human knowledge and
experience.

HOW?    
The Center fosters an open dialogue that crosses three major
disciplinary boundaries:

From a humanities perspective, it probes the motivations for developing
new media and the ways in which new media affect its producers and its
consumers.

From a technological perspective, it analyzes how new media are being
created and communicated.

From an arts perspective, it explores the aesthetic and performative 
limits at which new media interact with users.

<http://cnm.berkeley.edu/>

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Media Architecture at the Bauhaus, Weimar
-in German-

<http://www.uni-weimar.de/mediaarchitecture/>

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THE ART|SCI CENTER, UC Los Angeles

To pursue, facilitate and promote research and programs that demonstrate
the potential of media arts and science collaborations. Media artists
and scientists from the home campus, UCLA, from the UC system, the
national and international communities will approach the center's
intention to address ethical, social and environmental issues of
contemporary scientific innovations and artistic projects that respond
to cutting-edge inventions and research. 

<http://artsci.ucla.edu/mission.html>

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Department of Film, Video, & New Media
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

Media--whether film, video, or newer digital technologies-- are not
simply techniques, but, more broadly, the defining elements of our
culture and society. In recognition of this, the Department of Film,
Video, and New Media was created from two previously separate
departments, film and video. For over three decades, the two departments
have remained centers of formal experimentation and critical
investigation in film and video. These distinguished histories are the
foundations on which the Department of Film, Video, and New Media was
built as an interdisciplinary media production and studies program

<http://filmvideoandnewmedia.info/>

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Media Art at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig

Media Art at the Academy of Visual Arts Leipzig is an art form still in
its infancy, and as such finds itself placed in a field undergoing
dynamic changes, the development and outcome of which remain largely
unpredictable. Contrary to traditional courses of study at the HGB such
as Painting and Photography, which move within a clearly defined medium,
Media Art cannot rely on an extensive, well-established vocabulary.
During study, image selection, media formats and presentations should be
examined anew and developed to cater to the students' needs. The
following skills are therefore fostered during the course: the testing
and development of artistic and technical competence, the acquisition of
communicative and organisational skills, as well as consideration of the
correspondence of one's work to current artistic, social and political
questions. Through group and project work students not only have the
chance to discover their strengths and recognise their preferences, but
are also confronted with the organisational demands of displaying works
from their conception right through to their realisation and
presentation in an exhibition. In addition to teacher supervision in
foundation and core studies, students can also call upon the expertise
of academic colleagues. For example, it is possible to make use of a
professionally supervised audiovisual lab or to ask for supervision with
the programming of more complex applications.

<http://www.hgb-leipzig.de/index.php?a=studgang&b=mk&>

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The Program in Technocultural Studies, UC Davis

The Program in Technocultural Studies (TCS), a new addition to the
University of California at Davis, is based among the fine and
performing arts, literature and cultural studies in the Division of
Humanities, Arts and Cultural Studies, and is designed to be open to a
diverse range of interests from across the campus.

We concentrate on transdisciplinary approaches to artistic, cultural and
scholarly production in contemporary media and digital arts, community
media, and mutual concerns of the arts with the scientific and
technological disciplines. In contrast to programs which see technology
as the primary driving force, we place questions of poetics, aesthetics,
history, politics and the environment at the core of our mission. In
other words, we emphasize the "culture" in Technoculture.

<http://technoculture.ucdavis.edu/>

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Laboratory for Media Cultures and Communication
Lomonosov Moscow State University, Moscow

<http://z333.ru/>

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Academy of Media Arts, Cologne, Germany

Academic Art and Technology programs in Europe tend to be rigorous,
intensely ideological, and driven by strong-willed directors responsible
for getting funds from their governments. For example, the Academy of
Media Arts opened in Cologne in 1990, under the direction of Siegfried
Zielinski, as Germany's first institution exclusively dedicated to
audiovisual media. Initially conceived as a 4-year undergraduate
program, in 1994 a 2-year postgraduate program was added. In addition to
basic skills, the program emphasizes the "joint development of a
media/cultural identity, one conscious of its own social, political,
aesthetic and ethical obligations." Students are expected to do
"collaborative work with museums, art galleries, production companies,
television broadcasters, etc."

<http://www.khm.de>

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Art Center College of Design's Media Design Program

Art Center College of Design's Media Design Program, in Pasadena, is a
unique mix of art and design. Its President Richard Koshalek, the former
Director of the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, wishes to make
Art Center into a new Bauhaus. The Media Design Program is a unique mix
of popular culture, largely due to its current Chair Brenda Laurel, and
critical theory, due to its former Chair Peter Lunenfeld. The two-year
MFA program "remixes the concerns of experience, interactive, and
graphic design as transmedia design strategy and practice."

<http://www.artcenter.edu>

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Arts and Media Centre (ZKM), Karlsruhe

As a cultural institution, the Center for Art and Media (ZKM) in
Karlsruhe holds a unique position in the world. It responds to the rapid
developments in information technology and today's changing social
structures. Its work combines production and research, exhibitions and
events, coordination and documentation.

<http://www.zkm.de>

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CalArts Integrated Media Program, Los Angeles

The California Institute of the Arts, one of the largest art schools in
the US, offers an Integrated Media (IM) Program in the School of Art.
Graduate students from any of CalArtsÅf six schools can enroll "in
order to integrate multiple media and disciplines into new forms of
expression." Hence, it is largely self-motivated. The program supports
"a wide range of projects involving performative and environmental
installations, video, sound, music, robotics, gaming, programming,
interactivity, computer graphics and the Internet." 

<http://tinyurl.com/yevumm>

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California Institute of Telecommunications & Information Technology

<http://www.calit2.net>

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Carnegie Mellon University: Studio for Creative Inquiry, Pittsburgh

The STUDIO's mission is to support creation and exploration in the arts,
especially interdisciplinary projects that bring together the arts,
sciences, technology, and the humanities, and impact local and global
communities. 

<http://www.cmu.edu/studio>

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Center for Culture and Communication (C3), Budapest

The aims of the C3: Center for Culture & Communication Foundation are
the cultural application and creative employment of new scientific and
technological discoveries, the research, development and support of
innovative artistic potentials, and the initiation and realisation of
art, science, communications, educational and cultural programmes.

<http://www.c3.hu/>

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Concordia University Computation Arts program, Montreal

The Computation Arts programmes facilitate a hybrid learning environment
for the integration of fine arts and computer science. The core
curriculum incorporates conceptual and technical aspects of dynamic
imagery, sound and virtual dimension. Teaching emphasises
non-traditional applications of digital technologies while also
developing awareness of the cultural and political implications of new
technologies in networked and information societies. Areas of interest
in the programme include interaction design, physical computing,
immersive environments, and experimental sound. In the Major program
students take an equal number of courses between computation arts and
computer science.

<http://digital.concordia.ca> 

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The Department of MediaStudy, The State University of New York at
Buffalo

The Department of Media Study is an experimental media arts program
committed to providing both graduate and undergraduate students a
community in which they can develop their own voice as artists. We have
research groups in Independent Film and Video (including Documentary),
Robotics, Digital Art, Sociable Media, and Digital Poetics, and Virtual
Reality/Interactive Fiction  and we give students the flexibility both
to work in these areas and to combine them in unexpected ways. We are
also guided by Marshall McLuhan's observation that `media' comes from
the Latin word for `public' and that media are inherently social. We
believe that media making should be aware of its cultural and
theoretical assumptions and be prepared to challenge these assumptions.
This department is strongly linked to artistic practices and
conversations in the departments of Anthropology, Architecture, Art,
Comparative Literature, English, Music, Theatre and Dance and the Center
for the Americas. In addition, we participate in an interdisciplinary
program in Film Studies. We encourage our students to combine their work
in this department with study in other disciplines.

<http://mediastudy.buffalo.edu/>

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Art and Technology Studies 
The School of the Art Institute of Chicago

The MFA graduate program is an intense two-year course of study
emphasizing interdisciplinary approaches to art making. Students
concentrate on studio work in the areas of computer imaging, digital
video, digital sound, interactive media, computer animation,
three-dimensional modeling, computer holography, computer-controlled
kinetic sculpture, interactive installations, neon, computer-aided and
algorithmic composition, and telecommunication arts.

The program includes formal studio courses, graduate seminars in theory
and criticism, studio critique, and independent study. The program
focuses on the personal growth of students in their pursuit of careers
as dedicated, professional artists.

Graduate students in art and technology studies should have a strong
background in technology, electronics, computers, and technical
experimentation and should be prepared to integrate these skills into
the creative process. The art and technology studies department enhances
this process by providing an innovative forum for interdisciplinary
research in the arts.

<http://www.artic.edu/webspaces/ats_mfa/>

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Danube University Krems 

Media History MA

The MediaArtHistories masters program conveys the most important
developments of contemporary art through a network of renowned
international theorists, artists and curators like Steve Dietz, Erkki
Huhtamo, Lev Manovich, Christiane Paul, Paul Sermon, Oliver Grau and
many others. Historical derivations that go far back into art and media
history are tied in intriguing ways to digital art. Using online
databases and other modern aids, knowledge of computer animation, net
art, interactive, telematic and genetic art as well as the most recent
reflections on nano art, CAVE installations, augmented reality and
wearables are introduced. Artists and programmers give new insights into
the latest software and interface developments.

<http://www.donau-uni.ac.at/mediaarthistories>

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MIT Program in Media Arts and Sciences (MAS)

<http://www.media.mit.edu/mas>

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NYU Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP), New York University

NYU's Interactive Telecommunications Program (ITP) is a "pioneering
graduate department in the study and design of new media, computational
media and embedded computing under the umbrella of interactivity,"
whose goal is "to train a new kind of professional - one whose
understanding of technology is informed by a strong sense of aesthetics
and ethics."

<http://www.itp.nyu.edu>

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Design and Technology Program
Parsons

Parsons Design and Technology Program, in New York, offers a 2 year
MFA degree connecting students with the design community. It
"integrates critical discourse, theory, experimentation and hands-on
production, with an emphasis on the critique." The program is centered
on "the required critique environment known as the "Major
Studio." Technical competence in web development, programming and
scripting, and interactive design is a pre-requisite. 

<http://dt.parsons.edu >

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Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) Arts Department (iEAR Studio)

The Department of the Arts at Rensselaer was founded in 1972. It is
built around a world class faculty and is dedicated to interdisciplinary
creative research in electronic arts. We offer a unique environment in
which to develop and realize innovative art within a technological
university.

The studios and the program have historically been referred to as iEAR
(Integrated Electronic Arts at Rensselaer). The studios provide
specialized facilities for students, faculty and visiting artists to
engage in individual and collaborative research projects.

<http://www.arts.rpi.edu/>

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Royal College of Art Department of Interaction Design, London

Designers often refer to people as users, or sometimes as consumers. In
Design Interactions, we prefer to think of both users and designers as,
first and foremost, people. That is, we see ourselves as complex
individuals moving through an equally complex, technologically mediated,
consumer landscape. Interaction may be our medium in this department,
but people are our primary subject, and people cannot be neatly defined
and labelled. We are contradictory, volatile, always surprising. To
remember this is to engage fully with the complexities and of both
people and the field of interaction design.

<http://www.rca.ac.uk/pages/study/ma_interaction_design_171.html>

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San Francisco Art Institute Digital Studies Program, San Francisco

The Digital Media program at SFAI promotes technology not as an end in
itself, but as a powerful tool for solving creative problems. Our focus
is on how digital media allow the artist to realize their creative
ideas-in the same ways other disciplines do. As quickly as a student's
skills permit, the emphasis becomes on creating work in which the
platform and software become transparent.

<http://www.sfai.edu/database/cdm.asp>

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San Francisco State University Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA) Program

What is Conceptual/Information Arts?   Conceptual/Information Arts (CIA)
is the experimental program within the Art Department at San Francisco
State University dedicated to preparing artists and media experimentors
to work at the cutting edge of technology.   Students learn contemporary
digital production skills while questioning the cultural context of
technology and  experimenting with newly emerging technologies.

<http://userwww.sfsu.edu/~infoarts/>

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San Jose State University CADRE Laboratory for New Media

The CADRE Laboratory for New Media is an interdisciplinary academic and
research program dedicated to the experimental use of information
technology and art. A theoretical and critical orientation provides a
conceptual context in which artistic activities are defined. Faculty and
students have participated in the evolution of media technology for over
20 years.

<http://cadre.sjsu.edu>

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School of the Visual Arts (SVA) Computer Art Department

For over 50 years the School of Visual Arts has earned a unique and
distinguished reputation as a premiere college for the visual arts.
Unlike any other college, the School of Visual Arts exclusively hires
working professionals as instructors. Our faculty members are working
professionals who enjoy teaching, not full-time or tenured teachers. The
Computer Art department offers extensive instruction in 3D Computer
Animation, Motion Graphics, Compositing and Visual Effects. Electives
are offered each year in computer programming and scripting, game
design, interactive media and installation art. Computer Art majors are
also required to take non-computer art studio electives from the many
outstanding programs at SVA.

<http://www.svacomputerart.com/>

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Transart Institute MFA in New Media, Linz 

Transart Institute, in cooperation with Danube University Krems, offers
an international low residency graduate art program leading to a Master
of Fine Arts (MFA) in New Media. Students pursue work in media
art-related genres and create their own course of study. For two years,
students work independently on art and research projects off-site with
the support of faculty and self-chosen artist mentors. Lectures,
critiques, performances, exhibitions, seminars and workshops take place
in three intensive summer residencies on-site. The low-residency format
permits students to continue with their professional life while
participating in the program.

<http://transartinstitute.org>

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UC Irvine Arts, Program in Computation and Engineering (ACE)

ACE addresses emerging practices and career paths that combine skills
and sensibilities of technical and scientific disciplines with arts and
humanities. ACE exists at the intersection of Arts, Humanities, Social
Sciences, Computer Sciences, Engineering and other disciplines. ACE is
rigorously interdisciplinary. The ACE program is oriented towards
informed production. ACE students make things that work, and they
understand the technical, historical and socio-cultural locations of
their work.  ACE favors originators of novel techno-cultural formations,
makers of machines, responsive environments, socio-politically situated 
action and non-standard technological systems

<http://www.ace.uci.edu/index.php/ACE/program/C22/>

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UC San Diego, Visual Arts Department

Solidly grounded in an interdisciplinary approach, the visual arts at
UCSD are deeply rooted in the concepts of research and development. The
Visual Arts Department, one of the most highly ranked art programs
within a university in the country, offers Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) and
Master of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) across painting, drawing, sculpture,
performance, computing in the arts, film, video, photography and
criticism; as well as a Bachelor of Arts (B.A.) in art history and a
Ph.D./M.A. degree in art and media history, theory and criticism. The
Visual Arts program is uniquely situated within one of the greatest
research institutions in the country. Its interdisciplinary ethos and
tradition of innovation and risk-taking underlie the educational
environment at UCSD. While students may choose to focus within one
particular area, they are encouraged to push the boundaries of their
chosen medium and to reach across media-specific boundaries into new
forms of art making.

<http://visarts.ucsd.edu>

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Slade Centre for Electronic Media, The Slade School of Fine Art

The Slade Centre for Electronic Media in Fine Art (SCEMFA) opened in
1995 and has provided the opportunity to focus on research into
Electronic Media and Fine Art, contributing to debate on a national and
international level. In 1997 SCEMFA presented Collision, a public
lecture series by artists, writers and curators working with
interactivity, telematics and digital works, followed by Spontaneous
Reaction, an Arts Council funded week-long seminar which took a critical
look at interactivity with participants drawn from a variety of
disciplines including psychology, architecture and computer science.
Throughout 1998 SCEMFA collaborated with Channel to organise a monthly
event called Cached which was held at the Institute of Contemporary Art,
London. Funded by the Arts Council, this series investigated the
conceptual and practical issues of making work for the Internet through
a series of artists presentations.

<http://www.scemfa.org/>

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The Department of Design | Media Arts, UC Los Angeles

The Department of Design | Media Arts is committed to educating
responsible designers and artists for the information age by teaching
the fundamentals of Design, Media, and the Arts, and encouraging
experimentation and innovation. Providing an extensive education in
Design and Media Arts practice, history and criticism, the department
fosters a critical and creative exploration of emerging forms of visual
communication, typographies, interaction and interface design,
ubiquitous computing, virtual environments, information spaces,
networked agents and all other pertinent areas of research.

<http://dma.ucla.edu/info/overview.php>

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Georgia Tech Digital Media Ph.D., 
School of Literature Communication and Culture
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta

The Georgia Tech Digital Media Ph.D. provides both the theoretical and
the practical foundation for careers as digital media researchers in
academia and industry.The advent of a new medium of human communication
and representation is a significant event in human social and cultural
history, and introduces the possibility of new genres of artistic
expression as well as new forms of information and knowledge
transmission. The study of these new forms - from the point of view of
the creators and the analysts - is an emerging field, one that requires
a convergence of the methodologies of several traditional disciplines,
and one that is also defining its own methodologies of research and
practice.

<http://idt.lcc.gatech.edu/phd/index.php>

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iCinema     
University of New South Wales, Sydney

The iCinema Centre for Interactive Cinema Research, established in 2002,
brings together researchers and postgraduate students in digital media,
aesthetics, sociology of art, cinematic theory, multimedia design,
computer science, cognitive science and software/hardware engineering.

The iCinema research program focuses on experimental and theoretical
research into immersive digital interactivity for benchmark applications
across the arts, culture, science and industry. This comprises all modes
of interactive communication - voice, video, music, text, images and
animation - where people can actively participate in creating their own
experience. It also encompasses all forms of immersive realization,
where there are no longer any barriers between the digital and the
physical, and which are constituted by emergent forms of narrative.
The Centre has four principal research domains:

Interactive Narrative Systems, Immersive Visualisation Systems,
Distributed Interface Systems, Theories of Interactive Narrative Systems

<http://www.icinema.unsw.edu.au/index.html>

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Rhode Island School of Design Program in Digital Media, Providence

Digital Media, RISD's newest graduate department, explores innovative
approaches to digital media and cutting-edge contemporary theory and
practice. Expanding on a media art focus, the vision of the program is
to provide a diverse environment for interdisciplinary and
transdisciplinary exploration of digital media. The program includes a
central curriculum and facilitates bridges to other existing departments
at RISD, enabling individual inquiry, high-level collaboration and
team-based media production. The program unfolds over a highly engaging
two-year course of study.

The goal of the department is to provide a resonant environment for
cutting-edge artistic research and practice, focusing on the creative,
expressive potentials of digital media. The program has an emergent
focus - hybridizing, redefining and re-articulating the digital arts as
an ongoing pursuit. It fosters exploratory work which seeks to exhibit a
high degree of innovative visual, sonic, and/or textual expression,
conceptual clarity, and technological skill. The continuum between
physical space and digital space is also examined and explored.

<http://digitalmedia.risd.edu>