MA in Media Design
Piet Zwart Institute, Rotterdam, The Netherlands


The MA in Media Design is a two-year full-time course offered by the
Piet Zwart Institute. We are the postgraduate centre for art and
design of the Willem de Kooning Academy Hogeschool Rotterdam.

Systems not surfaces
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, rythmic, economic, numerical, meet and shape each other.
The role of the designer is to track, sort and remix these dynamics
in relation to others.

Technology, theory, practice
In a working context where software is doing half the thinking and
doing for you, where is the divide between theory, technology and
practice? This course is committed to a fundamental revaluation of
the division between these terms. We will look for and invent the
technology that is in media philosophy; find the conceptuality of an
operating system; and design in a way that synthesises the power of
all three.

The course started last year and maintains the excitement of a
process that is still being invented. For participants, work is
carried out as a series of group and self-initiated projects. In
certain cases participation in single projects may be arranged. A
primary focus of the work is the internet, 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.

Find more information at http://pzwart.wdka.hro.nl/
Application dates for 2003-2004:
Recommended (for visa purposes) for applicants outside EU: April 1st
Recommended for applicants inside EU: July 1st
Final application deadline: September 1st

For further information contact Femke Snelting, F.Snelting@hro.nl