[iDC] sharing "new media" curricula/potentials

[Jennifer Kornder]

Tiffany,

I just wanted to thank you for these excellent questions and  
encourage as many as possible to answer them!  I have a personal  
interest at stake--I am a young (23) artist interested in applying  
to  an MFA program, yet I am exploring the question of whether I  
should pursue a new media  or more traditional fine arts program, as  
I am interested in assimilating my practice so that it includes new  
technologies, conceptual rigor, but also fidelity to my love of  
drawing and printmaking.  When  visiting schools it can be so hard to  
get a grasp of  each program's goals, culture and  vitality of  
interdepartmental collaborations.

I'm usually only casually lurking on this list, but this topic has me  
glued to every new post!
Thank you all for your dedication to these issues, and your  
insightful remarks.
Jennifer


On Jan 20, 2007, at 10:58 PM, Tiffany Holmes wrote:

> Dear all,
>
> Trebor has invited me to moderate a discussion related to new media  
> and education.
>
> I'd like to try to pick up on some of the exciting conversation  
> that Margaret Morse and others generated about the relevance of  
> practice-based PhDs in the new media field.  The topic I hope to  
> explore is the potential of the nebulous arena of "new media" to  
> generate a truly interdisciplinary undergraduate or MFA-level  
> curriculum---one that promotes community and participation across  
> campus.
>
> New media is a nomadic discipline that has invaded communication  
> departments, trickled into photography departments, swirled through  
> film and video curriculums, and has now begun a slow infiltration  
> of the sculpture, fiber, painting, and design areas too, as well as  
> many other disciplines.   As Grant Kester recently pointed out, new  
> media is "the most intensively capitalized art movement in the  
> history of modernism."  That said, given the rapid expansion of new  
> media departments what standards, or criteria are there among  
> faculty to define the guiding curricula and community focus?
>
> For incoming MFA students, a "Department of New Media," is often  
> advertised as an interdisciplinary arena.  Yet, once those  
> prospective students arrive on campus to study in the "Department  
> of New Media", those individuals feel isolated and potentially  
> disconnected from the group of students pursuing more established  
> practices in fine arts or those pursuing professional degrees in  
> engineering and the like.  Margaret Morse actually alluded to this  
> earlier: "Contemporary grad students of new media 'working on the  
> cusp of leisure/pleasure' spend hours and hours in pursuits that  
> have few concrete outcomes suggests that there is something about  
> the subject of new media itself that may be more fragmentizing and  
> elusively virtual."
>
> I'm curious share ideas with IDC listers who have built or  
> participated in new media degree programs recently.  Here are just  
> a few questions to start out with:
>
> How do your new media programs relate to the campus at large---at  
> universities, art schools, smaller institutions?
>
> Are there isolationist tendencies in the new media programs?  Are  
> IDC listers enrolled or teaching in "new media-related" programs  
> that have defined goals to create community/interdisciplinary  
> collaboration---as well as teach programming and all the "software"  
> skills?
>
> What should students studying "new media" be learning?  Is there a  
> "literacy" in the field that could be identified?  Would it help  
> the discipline of "new media" to have defined competencies at the  
> undergraduate and graduate level?
>
> I look forward to sharing conversation and ideas over the next week.
>
> Best, Tiff
> ____________________________________
> Tiffany Holmes, Associate Professor
> Chair, Department of Art and Technology Studies
> The School of the Art Institute of Chicago
> 112 S. Michigan Ave., Chicago IL 60603
> Phone: 312-345-3760,  Fax: 312-345-3565
> Mobile: 312-493-0302
> http://www.tiffanyholmes.com
> http://ecoviz.org
>
>
>
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