Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program 
at UC Santa Cruz
digital art :: social impact

Apply Now for Fall 2010
Deadline: February 15, 2010

www.danm.ucsc.edu

Contact
831.459.1554
danm@ucsc.edu

DANM Announces New Collaborative Research Projects 
in Digital Media Arts
with
Newton Harrison
David Yager
James Bierman, David Cuthbert and Kate Edmunds
Noah Wardrip-Fruin

The Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program at UC Santa Cruz is pleased to announce the initiation of new collaborative research projects in the context of the program’s ongoing research. Collaborating with faculty and contributing to digital media arts research that results in publications and exhibitions is a critical component of each student’s experience in the DANM program. Students entering in Fall 2010 will have the opportunity to collaborate on the following projects:

Mechatronics :: Innovation and Design for the Living Laboratory
Faculty: David Yager
Collaborate with Professor and Dean of the Arts, David Yager, and researchers at the Johns Hopkins Children’s Center on breakthrough thinking for the advancement of new knowledge, products, and processes in the health care. Contribute to the development of a new project for “The Hospital of the Future: The Living Laboratory. “The Hospital of the Future” is a project of The Innovation and Design Lab (the IDL founded by Professor Yager) and the Department of Pediatrics at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutes (JHMI).

Participatory Culture :: Collaborative Artmaking from a Whole Systems Perspective
Faculty: Newton Harrison, Helen Mayer Harrison of The Harrison Studio
Join the Harrison Studio, members of the Paleoclimate and Climate Change Research Group on campus, Warren Sack of DANM, whose basic research is large conversations, and Ronnie Lipschutz (Department of Political Science), whose work looks at Global Justice from legal, political and ecological perspectives and future possibilities in developing “The Force Majeure: Six Considerations for the Sacramento/San Joaquin Drain Basin and the Bays at San Francisco.”

Performative Technologies :: Media-Rich Interactive Environments for Theatrical or Gallery Showing
Faculty: James Bierman, David Cuthbert, Kate Edmunds
Exploration of environmental art and theater can create an
environment that is media rich, engaging, reactive, and digital. Individual
projects and interests agglomerate into a consistent and integral whole in an environment that itself performs rather than merely supporting performance, and that responds to the presence, movements, touch, and sounds of people within that environment—be they performers or spectators.

Playable Media :: Playable Fictions
Faculty: Noah Wardrip-Fruin
Play can change the audience’s relationship to a fiction. It is also a powerful method of developing audience understanding of a computational system, which is perhaps the most promising future territory for the development of digital fictions. Explore the potential of playable experiences that combine the concerns of fiction (language, character, story), the techniques and research methods of media making and computer science, and the insights of game design.

The application deadline for Fall 2010 admission is February 15.

ABOUT THE PROGRAM
The Digital Arts and New Media MFA Program at UC Santa Cruz serves as a center for the development and study of digital media arts and their social impact. This intensive two-year MFA program brings together faculty and students from across the academic spectrum to pursue interdisciplinary artistic and scholarly research. In addition to conducting collaborative research in one of four areas - Mechatronics, Participatory Culture, Performative Technologies, or Playable Media - DANM students take core and elective courses in the theory and practice of digital media arts. The MFA journey culminates in the development of individual thesis projects, which are premiered in our annual MFA exhibition. The MFA is the terminal degree in the field of digital media arts, qualifying graduates for a variety of career paths including university-level teaching and research.

RESOURCES
DANM now occupies a new, state-of-the-art Digital Arts Research Center at UC Santa Cruz. http://danm.ucsc.edu/web/darc

VISITING ARTISTS
An ongoing speaker series takes place on campus throughout the year and includes noted regional and international visiting artists.

FINANCIAL ASSISTANCE
DANM makes a strong effort to help graduate students put together the support they need while attending the program, including teaching assistantships for the first year. Additional support may be in the form of grants and fellowships, graduate student researchships or additional teaching assistantships, depending on the availability of funds. Certain kinds of support are awarded on the basis of academic merit, and others are granted on the basis of need. Graduate students are encouraged to apply for both kinds.

ADMISSIONS INFORMATION
For information on the program and application process, visit: http://danm.ucsc.edu/web/ApplicationInfo.

MORE INFORMATION
http://danm.ucsc.edu/