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MediaSCAPES

1 YEAR (three terms)

About the program
Program sequence
Curriculum
Institutional connections
Symposia
Eligibility & Application procedure

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About the program

The MediaSCAPES program at SCI-Arc supports the research into contemporary practices of media, art and architecture. Projects and research address conceptions for synthetic ecologies and proactive environments at the intersection of virtual and physical space.

MediaSCAPES advances a new generation of designers and professionals in media, architecture and art practices. It merges the mandates of a research lab, think tank and institute to collectively investigate and evolve.

We incorporate contemporary media into the practice of architecture and art to create entirely new types of spaces and environments. We research, design, and develop interactive spaces that are part virtual, part physical. The convergence of architecture, media, art, and technology evokes new complexions of synthetic and biological life systems, i.e., immersive environments that are informative and interactive.

MediaSCAPES was established at SCI-Arc to creatively engage and critically respond to transforming technological and cultural paradigms. The program offers a unique opportunity for working at the frontiers of these transformations.

Unlike programs that only touch on this emerging field, SCI-Arc’s MediaSCAPES focuses intently on building the knowledge, research, and skills it requires—and on conducting the collective exploration that is shaping it.

MediaSCAPES alumni successfully engage in independent practices in media art, progressive architecture, or curating of media art and architecture. Some remain active in education and conduct further research to attain a doctoral degree.

Successfully completed, the one-year program at SCI-Arc leads to a Master of Design Research Degree in Architecture and Media Art. MediaSCAPES is open to students who hold a professional degree in architecture or a bachelor’s degree or equivalent in a relevant field. The program requires attendance in the Fall, Spring and Summer terms.

Program Sequence

MediaSCAPES explores cultural production through media, technology, art and architecture. The program, founded in 2007, provides a platform and systemic vision for progressive engagement with new modes of practice.

Through media, science and technology, spaces existing in virtual, nano and macro worlds have begun to intermingle in a substantive manner, creating novel "scapes." Over the course of MediaSCAPES, students develop concepts for the production of virtual and immersive environments, culminating in a master’s project presentation.

MediaSCAPES sets the framework for research and design in the following fields:

Conceptions for interactive, virtual and immersive environments
Physical and Virtual Space Computing
Video and Sound Technology
Game Environment
Process Visualization
Media Theory and Media Philosophy

Over the three sequenced terms, students develop and pursue an individual media art and architecture research program. The course framework supports a personalized career path in the field of new media design and research.

This is achieved by developing a personalized research agenda, building skill-set excellence, expanding professional and academic networks, studying in a think tank and workplace environment, and collaborating in team-based studios and seminars.

MediaSCAPES employs a two-phase program structure:

Phase one (semester 1):

Skill set building
Developing personalized topics and objectives
Team based studio and seminar courses.

Phase two (semester 2+3):

Development of media Art and Architecture design projects.

Curriculum

In the fall term, the curriculum centers on classroom and studio experiences. Course offerings change year to year, and the following were offered in Fall 2009:

Theory and Criticality—establishes a language of critical discourse to position our individual cultural production in contemporary theory and philosophy. Guest lecturers expand the multiplicity of voices by engaging participants directly with contemporary practices.

Generative Design Processes — engages algorithmic techniques in the development of methodology grounded in behavioral and swarm intelligence. The workshop focuses on abstract design methodology, recasting simple decision making ability into agents capable of self-organizing into an emergent intelligence. Not simply engaging in the mapping of swarm systems, students instead mine the self-organizing potential of the systems to negotiate between a complex set of desires and parameters in the generation of architecture.

Spatial Interactive Computing — focuses on using Max/MSP/Jitter for real-time computed operations and 3D graphics processing. This advanced course builds a solid understanding of the fundamental concepts of Jitter, namely how to manipulate the Jitter matrix. Building on this foundation, we will explore how audio, video, and geometry can be represented in a matrix to build real-time processing networks.

Video/Film Practice, Media Theory and Philosophy — examines contemporary video reflected in the milieu of video history, contemporary practice as well as media theory and philosophy. The class explores and analyzes key video/motion and sound works related to experiential and immersive space. It engages in the theory of new art production as well as in the making of a series of thematically precise video essays. Students develop their own research topics and interests by conceiving video work that traverses the realm of autobiographical fictions, deploying text, still image, moving image, sound and off-screen space.

Mediations of the New Flesh, in this World and in the Other — probes relationships between matter and imagined subjectivity. Through the production of experimental video work involving spatial rigging, students in this studio generate a serial project dealing with issues in the construction of time-based media, strongly positioned in the world of material, based on a critical contemporary subject matter.

Consuming Signs — delves into the source of French Theory in the late ’50s and early ’60s, at a time when France reinvented as "Sign Culture" and "Society of the Spectacle," what Americans had already consumed as a material society. The rediscovery of linguist Ferdinand de Saussure triggered an invasion of signs that quickly occupied the entire social space. In just a few years, it reshuffled all the human sciences under the heading of "Structuralism" and collapsed with May ’68, opening the way to detournement, deconstruction and the flows of "desire."

In the spring and summer terms, MediaSCAPES students take on media art and architecture design projects in selected areas.

Project Development — evolving from an intensive design studio culture with theory, research and practice, students establish their master’s projects. A faculty team of critics, lecturers, workshop leaders and guests from academia and professional practices worldwide provides students with training and a global network. The program offers an intense schedule of classes to acquire knowledge and skills with computing tools, media theory and philosophy. Students integrate skills from across SCI-Arc’s programs.

Thematic areas include Aesthetics and Computation, Affective Computing, Ambient Intelligence, Cognitive Machines, Environmental Computing, e-Motion, Camera Culture, Video, Responsive Environments, Robotics, Cybernetics, Smart Environments, and Tangible Media.

Prospective Master of Design Research Degree candidates publicly exhibit, discuss and publish their master’s project and become part of a global network community supporting growth, exchange and sharing of ideas and resources. MediaSCAPES students participate in collaborative and institutional exchanges with affiliated institutes pursuing media art, architecture and technology research.

"The conception of the world as a giant hologram projection converges matter and consciousness in a single field firing up much needed new models of reality and imagination of what is possible and it provides us with new visions of what we are and the worlds we create." -- Jean Michel Crettaz

Institutional Connections

MediaSCAPES has developed relationships with a variety of scientific, art and media institutions and firms.

Media Arts and Technology at UC Santa Barbara
ARS Electronica, Linz, Austria
Bitforms gallery, New York
Architectural Association, London
Getty Research Institute, Los Angeles
Hyperbody, Delft University of Technology, Netherlands
Aeolab, Los Angeles
Machine Project gallery, Los Angeles
Media Design Program, Art Center College of Design, Pasadena
Noby Games, South Korea
Spacecollective.com
SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory, Menlo Park, CA
ITER, Cadarache, France
European Organization for Nuclear Research, CERN, Geneva
Media Design Lab EPFL Lausanne, Switzerland
Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, Zürich
TED (Technology, Entertainment, Design), New York

"If at first an idea does not sound absurd, there is no hope for it." -- Albert Einstein

Symposia

Fall 2009//Immersive & Expanded Cinema of Visual Music
SCI-Arc's MediaSCAPES program and the Los Angeles-based Center for Visual Music presented an evening of immersive and expanded cinema exploring the evolution of visual works and sound. Cindy Keefer, director of the Center for Visual Music, presented and discussed Raumlichtkunst to Vortex: Early Expanded Cinema Experiments of Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson. The second part of the evening was dedicated to the screening of contemporary works from the CVM archive, including Scott Draves, Robert Seidel, Baerbel Neubauer, Richard Baily, Bret Battey, Single Wing Turquoise Bird Light Show and Curtis Roads (courtesy of Roads Films/SCI-Arc). Read more >>

Sp 2009//Virtual and Immersive Architecture at the Edge of Physicality
This symposium provided an opportunity to identify reflect and discuss questions of current idea and force-fields that impact and transition new research practices in architecture, the discipline of tangible and virtual world-making. For this discussion, SCI-Arc hosted seven distinguished architects and theorists that work at the intersection of physical and virtual worlds. They presented their work and ideas and discussed the practice of immersive and virtual architecture, which spans animation and 3D technologies, digital environments, and questions of materiality ranging from theory to contemporary practices. The discussion explored the convergence of the material and the virtual within contemporary architecture, while also questioning the future of these shifting definitions and asking how these classifications will define our understanding of the relationships between tangible and intangible worlds. Participants were Benjamin Bratton, Jean Michel Crettaz, Manuel DeLanda, Ed Keller, JoAnn Kuchera-Morin, Eric Owen Moss and Marcos Novak. Read more >>

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Eligibility & Application procedure

SCI-Arc's MediaSCAPES is open to applicants with a professional degree in architecture or a Bachelor's degree or equivalent in any relevant field. MediaSCAPES welcomes interdisciplinary applicants from such fields as media philosophy, game design, software development, video and multi-media art.

Applications for admissions to the 2010 - 2011 MediaSCAPES program are due March 1, 2010. March 1 is the postmark deadline; late applications will be considered on a case-by-case basis.

For information on applying to this program, please contact SCI-Arc's Admissions Office at admissions@sciarc.edu or 213 356 5320.
You can also use our ONLINE INQUIRY FORM

Faculty

The MediaSCAPES core and visiting faculty is comprised of media artists, architects, directors, writers, scientists, theorists and philosophers.

Jean Michel Crettaz
Program Coordinator
Contact me >>

Juan Azulay
Aaron Bocanegra
Silvere Lotringer
Chandler McWilliams
Nikita Pashenkov
Wes Smith
Carolina Trigo
Graham Wakefield