The titles of programs that emerged over the past ten years vary from "Digital Humanities," "New Media," "Media & Communications," "Media Study," "Cyberstudies," "Multimedia," "Intermedia," "Computer Art" 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

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. Thanks very much for the many private comments I received in my inbox. This made it possible to offer fairly up to date links and descriptions. If you have experience with any of the listed programs please add them as comment.  

If you miss your program on this list, please add it in the comments.

Bowling Green University
Digital Arts

The Digital Arts program focuses on creative expression using digital technology. Students are encouraged to investigate aesthetic and perceptual possibilities as they engage in alternative art discourses. Digital Arts courses investigate theoretical, aesthetic, and technical information while providing hands-on-experience with state-of-the-art equipment. The courses merge the technical and aesthetic aspects of Digital Arts. The Digital Arts program, with over 175 majors, at BGSU has become one of the leading programs in the nation for studying Digital Arts and animation. Digital Arts is an exciting area with dynamic, ambitious, self-motivated students who push themselves and their artwork to the edge.

URL

=

Master Of Fine Arts In Digital Arts
The Cleveland Institute Of Art
Cleveland, Ohio

The mission of the Master of Fine Arts in Digital Arts is to provide advanced education in the media arts, specifically in the creative application of digital technologies. The program is designed to prepare students to be highly proficient in digital production, both experimentally as artists and in a variety of applied areas. Students expand their capacity for critical thinking and creative problem solving through a combination of studio practice, academic courses, and professional development.

URL

=

Griffith University
CyberStudies Major
School of Arts, Faculty of Arts
Gold Coast Campus, Queensland, Australia

This major prepares the student for professional employment in new media industries, particularly in the areas of concept development, writing, directing and research. You will develop a comprehensive understanding of multimedia production requirements for the Web, and for inscription to removable media (CDROM, DVD, Digital Video, CDAudio) and in live performance. You will also develop a knowledge of the industry and cultural context of digital media as well as the ability to assess and critique multimedia programs.

URL

=

Comparative Media Studies at MIT, Boston

The goal of our program is not to replicate existing paradigms, but as an early CMS backer said, to prepare students for jobs that don't yet exist. We consult regularly with leaders in industry, the arts, public policy, journalism, education, and the nonprofit sector, trying to understand contemporary developments, identify job and internship opportunities, and pinpoint skills and knowledge which will help prepare our students for new opportunities. Our courses are designed to teach students to both make and reflect upon media and in the process, to acquire important skills in team work, leadership, problem solving, collaboration, brainstorming, communications, and project completion, which will prepare them for a broad range of academic and professional careers. A growing portion of our students are double majors, combining technical skills acquired elsewhere at MIT with the social and cultural expertise which has become the hallmark of the Comparative Media Studies Program.

URL

=

University of Southern California. School of Cinematic Arts, Los Angeles
Interactive Media Program

The Interactive Media Division presents a broad and deep curriculum, exploring the methods and technologies that are shaping art and entertainment today. Located within the world's first film school, the University of Southern California's School of Cinematic Arts, the Interactive Media Division (or "IMD") provides leading edge research and a hotbed of ideas for future professional storytellers. It is the only program of its kind tied to a cinema-television school and, as such, offers unprecedented opportunities for students to explore media convergence in an environment that leverages the natural advantages of its Hollywood setting. Unlike technical or vocational institutions, the School's interactive media program draws from a rich storytelling tradition, and from a collaborative atmosphere that encourages interaction among students and instructors from a wide range of disciplines. Interactive media students learn from and network with artists, writers, directors, producers, sound designers and cinematographers, many of whom are—or soon will be—entertainment industry leaders.

URL

=

Syracuse University’s Department of Transmedia

Syracuse University’s Department of Transmedia, positioned within SU’s College of Visual and Performing Arts, is a major academic center for the education of media arts professionals. The Department of Transmedia offers bachelor of fine arts (BFA) and master of fine arts (MFA) degrees in art photography, art video, computer art, and film. These degree programs offer rewarding studio experiences in well-equipped facilities, simultaneously integrated with rigorous academic studies, challenging curricula immersing students in media arts history, theory and contemporary issue courses, comprehensive and diverse. SU’s transmedia students also benefit from elective studio and academic opportunities in the School of Art and Design and the College of Visual and Performing Arts as well as the rest of SU, including the S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications, L.C. Smith College of Engineering and Computer Science, School of Information Studies, the English and writing programs in the College of Arts and Sciences, and the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs.

URL

=

The Media Architecture MFA, Bauhaus University Weimar (taught in English)

The interdisciplinary, post-graduate masters course, MediaArchitecture reacts to the continuing structural change in society and the increasing importance of the reciprocal influence of media and architecture. The aim is to open up the growing cross-section between the architectonic and medial space for study and research, as well as new professional fields. Based on the increasing medialisation of public space and everyday culture the master’s course is not lastly a reaction to the ever higher demand for highly-qualified university graduates in the interdisciplinary area between media and architecture.

URL

=

Interactive Media and Knowledge Environments (IMKE), Tallin

Interactive Media and Knowledge Environments (IMKE) is an international new media master program offered by the department of Informatics at Tallinn University. The special focus of the IMKE curriculum is on knowledge environments, that is, digital interactive environments that host and facilitate individual and shared knowledge construction, in contexts such as educational environments, e-service environments, e-participation environments and game environments. According to the program goals, the graduates will master a spectrum of critical perspectives as well as an individually tailored set of professional skills in the field of digital interactive media. All instruction is in English. The requirements are BA or equivalent degree, experience or
skills in some field of digital media, computing skills and proficiency in English.

URL

=

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."

URL

=

Media & Communications PhD, Goldsmiths College, London

URL

=

Master of Arts in Media Studies, The New School, A University, NYC

Some media studies degrees emphasize theory. Others focus on production. The New School's Media Studies master's degree is one of the few in the country that allows you to integrate coursework in media theory, media production, and media management. Whether you're a social activist producer or media manager, a filmmaker or media theorist, a web designer or a media writer, this degree program will help you put theory into practice, guided by a faculty of media professionals from all walks of academic, artistic, and commercial life, who strive to be humane and thoughtful citizens in an increasingly mediated world. In an era defined by rapidly changing information and communication technologies, your master's degree in Media Studies can give you the competitive edge you need to break through the noise.

URL

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

URL

=

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.

URL

=

Corcoran College of Art and Design
B.F.A. in Digital Media Design

Digital Media Design students concentrate on the design requirements of non-print media such as web design, digital video and computer animation. Students benefit by learning from professional animators, digital video editors and web designers that comprise the Digital Media Design faculty. The location of the college in the Washington DC area, places students in close proximity to many new media companies and news organizations which afford wonderful opportunities to students who wish to pursue a career in the field of digital media design upon graduation.

URL

=

The Digital Media Art program in the School of Art and Art History
University of Florida, Gainsville

Technology and mediated information are transforming the world in which we live, resulting in shifts in social interaction and the way we perceive ourselves as well as our environment.  Art and artists  are increasingly responding to these changes by integrating the  language and methods of science.  The Digital Media Art program in the School of Art and Art History at the University of Florida prepares students to become artists by facilitating the conceptual, technical, and creative development of an informed and critical practice.  The program approaches forms and technologies located at  the "cutting-edge" of science and commerce as sites of potential creative discourse, simultaneously realizing alternative possibilities and connections with the continuing dialogue of art.  Learning is viewed as a participatory experience where students learn to think critically and gain aesthetic, technical, and production skills in a hands-on environment.  Students are encouraged to approach art from a transdisciplinary perspective, using technology to critically explore and understand the world as well as technology itself.  Digital Media Art not only empowers artists to produce effective art, but also provides skills that allow students to excel in any endeavor that rewards creativity and innovation.

URL

=

University of Oregon, Eugene
B.F.A./M.F.A. in Digital Arts

Digital Arts can take many forms - from the computer screen, to the movement of the body on a platform, to the acoustic space of digital music. The Digital Arts program at the University of Oregon takes an intermedia approach where knowledge is not simply presented, but rather, constructed, designed, and performed. Intermedia is characterized by the particular fluidity it allows among text, body, space, sound, and image. This program fosters both student and faculty creative exploration in areas of convergence amidst media, data, image, and sound working in spatial, time-based, traditional, hybrid, interactive, and biological forms.

URL

=

Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS)
University of Washington, Seattle
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.

URL

=

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...

URL

=

The Media Lab, Helsinki
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.

URL

=

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?

URL

=

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.

URL

=

Science and Technology Studies, Cornell University, Baltimore

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.

URL

=

Hartford Art School Media Arts, West Hartford

Media Arts is a cross-disciplinary program that reflects the rise of new imaging technologies in studio practice, the expansion of artistic creativity within the digital domain, and the cultural impact of such media. The major is designed to meet the needs of art students interested in the use of digital technology as a sophisticated art making tool within a broad, cross-disciplinary context. Central to the program is the interdepartmental cooperation and collaboration within the Hartford Art School between new media and traditional art disciplines. Students are also encouraged to participate in inter-collegiate collaborations especially with the Hartt School, and the Computer Science, Engineering and Cinema Studies departments in the College of Arts and Sciences.

URL

=

University of the Arts, Philadelphia
Multimedia

The web is still unexplored. There is still much to be created with so many possibilities. From Gutenberg to Torvald, new technologies have always created opportunities and challenges. The Multimedia program at The University of the Arts exists in this world of possibilities and is educating a group of pioneers who expect to do exciting things outside the boundaries of the traditional.

Multimedia students get one of the broadest educations available. With classes covering subjects ranging from Dada to Interface Design, Pop Art to Punk Rock, Multimedia majors are encouraged to question, to experiment, and to push their talents to the limit – and beyond. Their classrooms are both battlegrounds for new ideas and applications and playgrounds for fun and creativity. As one might expect in such a landscape, Multimedia students learn through play, hands-on experimentation, and practical application. The curriculum is flexible, and students are encouraged to take electives in other majors and minors within the College and University.

What’s Multimedia? It’s whatever your imagination working in an interactive environment can create. It’s learning how to integrate sound, image, text, motion and audience into practical applications. It’s creating electronic music, a film, a game, a web site, or an installation. There are, after all, no limits in a world open to people who create things that matter.

URL

=

The New Media Program at the University of Maine, Orono

The New Media Program at the University of Maine offers an interdisciplinary course of study in the systems, technologies, history, design, and theory of information. The curriculum enables students to investigate the creative and applied processes essential to this area of study. It prepares students to be technologically capable, articulate thinkers, and creative media professionals.

Today, information is becoming fluid, continuous and instantly accessible. This has caused a shift in the ways in which we create, access, use, understand and distribute information. The advent and convergence of new ideas, technologies, and information systems has rekindled the relationship of the applied and creative arts and sciences. This renewed bond presents new collaborative opportunities for artists, scientists, communicators, and other creative thinkers. Our program provides an interdisciplinary, experiential approach to learning that emphasizes creativity, critical thinking, teamwork and entrepreneurship.

URL

Jon Ippolito | Joline Blais

=

M.S., M.A., and PhD in Media Arts and Technology
University of California, Santa Barbara

The Media Arts and Technology Program (MAT) is an interdisciplinary and interdepartmental graduate degree program that offers the Master of Sciences and Master of Arts degrees in Media Arts and Technology. MAT provides the UC system with a unique cross-college graduate program available to students with an interest in media arts and technology. MAT serves as a focal point for multimedia education, engineering, research, and artistic production.

URL

=

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

URL

=

Integrated Media Arts

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

URL

=

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."

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

Media Architecture at the Bauhaus, Weimar
-in German-

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

Douglas Khan

=

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

- in Russian-

URL

=

Academy of Media Arts, Cologne

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."

URL

=

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."

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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 CalArts' 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."

URL

=

California Institute of Telecommunications & Information Technology

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

The Department of Media Study, 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.

URL

=

The Department of Visual Studies' Concentration in Computer Arts, SUNY at Buffalo
The Department of Visual Studies at the University at Buffalo is dedicated to the practice and scholarship surrounding the history,  
critical study and making of art.  Our department offers degrees of BA  and MA in Art History and BFA and MFA in Studio Art, with a pending PhD  theory/practice degree in Visual Studies.  Studio Art concentration areas include: Emerging Practices, Communication Design, Painting, Photography, Printmaking and Sculpture.  Undergraduates may select one  or more concentration areas while graduate students define their own focus area(s) and plans of study.

Emerging Practices faculty stress the critical exploration of emerging media forms where the major means for exploration and expression stem from unique properties of these technologies. The curriculum is  multidisciplinary and requires studio practice and research. Building on knowledge of conventional art practices, students learn the technical, tactical, cultural and communicative potential of emerging technologies such as interactive multi-media, electronic installation, networked telematic communication, robotic art, three-dimensional simulation, biotechnology, and algorithmic image synthesis.

Paul Vanouse, Steve Kurtz, Tony Rozak

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

MIT Program in Media Arts and Sciences (MAS)

The MEDIA ARTS AND SCIENCES program is a part of the MIT School of Architecture and Planning, and includes three levels of study: a doctoral program, a master of science program and a program that offers an alternative to the standard MIT freshman year as well as a set of undergraduate subjects that may form the basis for a future joint major. Each degree program is heavily weighted on the side of research and practice, with education being very much in the atelier mode that distinguishes our program. All graduate students are fully supported (tuition plus a stipend) from the outset, normally by appointments as Research Assistants at the Media Laboratory, where they work on research programs and faculty projects, including assisting with courses. These research activities typically take up about half of a student's time in the degree program.

URL

=

Piet Zwart Institute
MA in Fine Art, Media Design, Rotterdam

In September 2002, the Piet Zwart Institute began a new Master of Arts programme in Media Design. The MA in Media Design is a two-year full-time english-language course.

Too often, media design has simply been the arrangement of pixels and plug-ins. For us, the computer and the networks are where dynamics that are aesthetic, social, political, technical, spatial, linguistic, economic and numerical, meet and shape each other. The role of the designer is to track, sort and remix these dynamics in relation to others.

A primary focus of the work is the internet. Thorough education in these technologies is a staple part of our work. Core themes in our programme are: transmission, use, behaviour, and experience; knowledge and memory; the political economy of the information society; citizens and consumers, public and private identities; urban and virtual reality, network and diaspora.

URL

=

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."

URL

=

Design and Technology Program
Parsons College,. New York

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

Steve Wilson

=

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.

URL

=

School of the Visual Arts (SVA) Computer Art Department

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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

URL

=

UC San Diego, Visual Arts Department, San Diego

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.

URL

=

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

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

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.

URL

=

Indiana University Bloomington
B.F.A. in Studio Art, concentration in Digital Media

The advancement in computer technology and its growing influence on society makes Digital Art a poignant reflection of our culture. It enables artists from existing fields to extend their interest by taking advantage of the power and flexibility of the digital form, while opening doors to artistic practices that have never been realized before. The Digital Art area in the School of Fine Arts focuses on artistic experimentation with immersive virtual environment, mobile computing, multimedia, video, and other electronic media. The faculties in the program strive to be the leaders in the field with cutting edge work that are positioned in the forefront of the artistic dialog. By merging art and technologies in galleries, museums, public spaces, the web, or even research laboratories, we aim at creating both new forms of expressions and ways of appreciating art for the 21st Century.

URL
=

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

URL

=

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 inter- disciplinary 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.

URL

=

Maryland Institute College of Art
B.F.A. Experimental Animation, Interactive Media
M.A. in Digital Arts

Overview: The Interactive Media major, located in the Brown Center, explores the aesthetic discourse between culture, communication, technology, and human interaction, providing a broad framework of inquiry for students to develop as independent thinkers. The major investigates multiple modes of publication including the art and design of websites, CDs, and DVDs, as well as varied art forms involving human interaction and computers expressed on screen or off screen, as performance or installation, and in any combination with traditional media. Additionally, students will have the opportunity to create artwork that engages the audience on-line and off-line through remote systems, micro-controllers, and programming.

URL

=

College of New Jersey, B.F.A. in Interactive Multimedia
Interactive Multimedia Major
The College of New Jersey

The program in Interactive Multimedia is a transdisciplinary undergraduate education, providing a national exemplar of educating students to be "successful, ethical, and visionary leaders in a multicultural, highly technological, and increasingly global world." The program is a cutting-edge, collaborative work to prepare students for the next generation of innovation in technology and communication. It is specifically targeted to students who are talented across disciplines, those whose gifts are broad-based and whose potential lies in developing skills to integrate ideas from a variety of perspectives. The program is unique and explicitly designed as an undergraduate experience. It is the only program of its type in the country (undergraduate or graduate) that combines in a balanced manner with emphasis on interaction and collaboration, the three areas of Digital Media, Interactive Computing, and Professional Writing.

URL

Ricardo Miranda Zuniga

=

M.A. in Media Creations
International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences

IAMAS consists of two schools: the Institute of Advanced Media Arts and Sciences and the International Academy of Media Arts and Sciences. The Institute is solely a graduate school (for obtaining a Masters Degree) and has one faculty and one course, namely Media Creations. There are 20 students in each year of the course. The Academy is a vocational college accepting 30 students each year who must have at least graduated from high school. The Academy was founded in 1996 and the Institute was opened in 2001. Both schools were established by Gifu Prefecture as part of a strategy to promote advanced information technology and the culture that develops from this. The schools' activities are closely linked with Softpia Japan, the hub of the Prefecture's information industry.

URL

=

Wayne State University
B.F.A. in Interdisciplinary Electronic Arts

The Interdisciplinary Electronic Arts program combines the elements of fine arts and design through the use of computers in art and art practice. This program provides career training for teachers, artists, designers and producers of interactive multimedia. Completion of the program, which includes a mandatory internship, can lead to a career in such areas as video production, hypermedia development, CD-ROM production, university and corporate media center management or work as an independent visual artist.

URL

=

London College of Communication
MA in Interactive Media (MA IM), London

The MAIM is located in a new $50m media block at the LCC, one of the colleges of the University of the Arts London, with 24,000 art and design students. It is one of the longest established courses in the field, but its focus is on helping students shape the way communications will change over the next 25 years. The 45 week programme continually blends theory and practice, with the emphasis on innovation, teamwork and courage.

URL

David Silver also points to   http://www.allc.org/imhc/