<nettime-ann> Call for Applications - MA in Media Design and Communication, Piet Zwart Institute 2016

[Richard Wright <futurenatural@blueyonder.co.uk>]

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Call for Applications - MA in Media Design and Communication, Piet Zwart Institute 2016 

The Media Design and Communication MA is a two year, experimentally orientated programme, working across audio visual and computational media to include students from cinema, animation and photography to games, networked and interactive media. This makes for a very rich interdisciplinary environment with a strong emphasis on developing technical literacy and supporting studio practice with critical theory.


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The PIET ZWART INSTITUTE, MASTER IN MEDIA DESIGN AND COMMUNICATION (LENS-BASED MEDIA / NETWORKED MEDIA) is an intensive project-based research degree that will equip you to create a distinctive voice as an artist/designer in the contemporary media landscape.

Our programme encourages students to explore the new possibilities released by the friction between media forms, critically working across the historical gaps between photography, cinema, animation, mobile media, information systems and technological networks. This course does not believe in old media and new media, nor in the pattern of media extinctions that punctuate traditional media histories: we believe in the cross fertilisation of a thriving media ecology.

Digital media can be thought of as a field in which radically different materialities of software, interface and human behaviour are being brought together for the first time. This is often experienced as tensions between computer code and the images that this code generates but does not explain; a clash between abstract symbols and concrete models, between concept and sensation. This course does not try to resolve these tensions but uses them to stimulate new ways to think about how we might live with information today.

The following principles are central to the course:

	â the placing of equal value on artistic forms including moving image production, data driven and network based art and cross-platform approaches such as transmedia narrative.
	â a strong emphasis on providing students with basic technological skills ranging from computer programming to cinematography, the synthesis and manipulation of digital imagery, from beginners to advanced levels.
	â a critical engagement with Open Source and Free Software development, especially in its implicit âhackerâ attitude to opening up media for experimental purposes.
	â the integration of theoretical inquiry, critical analysis and studio based practice into research methodologies that can support artists practice and artistic research.

Our teaching plan is comprised of four main methods:

	â Thematic Seminars â are short, intensive modules that concentrate on exploring a particular topic through practice and theory, such as Art Factories, Archives and Databases, Chain Reactions and Sniff, Scrape, Crawl.
	â Technical Prototyping Sessions â these deliver specialist technical skills and overviews of the basic grammars of different media forms through guided practical projects and workshops.
	â Research Methodologies Seminars â give you the intellectual disciplines needed to conduct research, to analyse and to gain insights into the current media landscape.
	â Self-Directed Projects â longer, independent projects closely supported by our staff and tutors.

The course is taught by staff with international reputations in their respective fields: course Leader Simon Pummell is a BAFTA winning filmmaker currently completing his fourth feature film; MIT Media Lab graduate Michael Murtaugh is a pioneer of the online video âactive archivesâ project which he presented at Documenta 13; Aymeric Mansoux is a multi-awarded artist and media researcher;  Steve Rushton is a curator, writer and editor for a range of projects with artists such as Rod Dickinson and Thomson & Craighead; Annet Dekker is an independent curator/ researcher; Barend Onneweer runs the film VFX company R3MWERK; Andrà Castro is a media artist and technical teacher.

Our recently expanded department is part of a leading international centre for the study of art, design and media, housed in a dedicated building with its own studios, facilities and project spaces. Piet Zwart enjoys strong links with a range of arts organisations in Rotterdam, from established contemporary arts spaces like TENT and the Netherlands Photo Museum in Rotterdam, the Eye in Amsterdam to independent spaces like WORM and the V2 Institute for Unstable Media and a regular presence in the International Film Festival Rotterdam.


Application Deadlines

Each Piet Zwart Masters programme is highly competitive, places are given on a rolling basis, therefore early submissions are encouraged. Due to the time required to complete enrolment requirements, non-European applicants must submit their materials no later than March 1st 2016.

Priority deadline - Non European and European students: February 1st 2016
Second deadline - Non European and European students: March 1st 2016
Third and final deadline (For European students only): May 15th 2016

Tuition Fees

European students - For EU/EEA students (who apply for their first master course in the Netherlands), the annual tuition fee for the full-time course in 2015/16 is 1,951 Euros.
Non European students - For non-EU/EEA students, the fee for the full-time course in 2015/16 is 9,800 Euros.

For more info please see: http://www.pzwart.nl/master-media-design-and-communication/


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