Created in 2013, Media Arts and Practice (MA+P) is the seventh degree-granting division of the

USC School of Cinematic Arts The USC School of Cinematic Arts is an academic unit of the University of Southern California, in Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles. With a history that dates to the first years of Sound film, talkies, the school descends from America's first ...

Degrees and Programs

The division offers two primary degree programs: a BA and a PhD in Media Arts + Practice. The PhD program, better known as iMAP, began accepting students in 2007. It is a practice-based PhD program in which students develop skills in both the theory and practice of media arts while doing doctoral level research that may be realized in an exclusively digital form. The degree was conceived by

Anne Friedberg Anne Friedberg (August 29, 1952 – October 9, 2009) was an American author, historian and theorist of modern media culture, chair of the Critical Studies Division in the School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California and Preside ...

and Jen Stein with help from the program's founding director Steve F. Anderson. Other advisory faculty members include

Holly Willis Holly Willis is a Professor and Chair of the Media Arts and Practice division in the USC School of Cinematic Arts United States. Previously, she served as Associate Dean of Research and Founding Chair of Media Arts and Practice, as well as Dire ...

, Scott Fisher, Kathy Smith, Mary Sweeney,

Tara McPherson Tara McPherson (born April 7, 1976, in San Francisco, California) is an American artist based in New York. McPherson creates paintings, murals, poster art, and designer toys, within the New Contemporary Art movement. Biography Tara McPherson ...

Mark Bolas Mark T. Bolas is a research scientist and professor known for his work in virtual reality. He serves as a Professor of Interactive Media in the USC Interactive Media Division, USC School of Cinematic Arts at the University of Southern California ...

, Aniko Imre,

Henry Jenkins Henry Guy Jenkins III (born June 4, 1958) is an American media scholar and Provost Professor of Communication, Journalism, and Cinematic Arts, a joint professorship at the University of Southern California (USC) Annenberg School for Communicatio ...

Andreas Kratky Andreas Kratky is a media artist and associate professor in the Interactive Media and Games Division and the Media Arts and Practice Division of the School for Cinematic Arts of the University of Southern California. He was born in Berlin, Germa ...

and

Norman Hollyn Norman Hollyn (May 11, 1952 – March 17, 2019) was an American film editor and Michael Kahn Endowed Chair in Editing at the University of Southern California School of Cinematic Arts. Biography Hollyn was born in New York on May 11, 1952, and ...

. The BA in Media Arts + Practice, which began accepting students in 2013, is "an interdisciplinary storytelling program combining the study of contemporary digital media with hands-on production and research." Students learn to create media across several different platforms, such as video or interactive programming, while also studying the history and theory of media. The curriculum emphasizes the use of emerging technologies (such as virtual reality) to develop new narrative models. There is also an emphasis on media activism and social change. The division also offers three undergraduate minors (Digital Studies, Future Cinema and Media and Social Change), an undergraduate honors designation (Honors in Multimedia Scholarship), and a graduate certificate program (Digital Media and Culture).

Research

MA+P faculty and students actively participate in several arts-based research projects. Arts-based research is a practice by which artists and creative practitioners use their practical skillset as a method of developing original research questions and thereby contributing to the process of knowledge production. Arts-based research is unique in that it is not predetermined by desired end results; it borrows and combines many different research methodologies; and it often involves collaboration with professionals from other art and non-art fields. Research labs at the

include the Creative Media and Behavioral Health Center, the Game Innovation Lab, the Mobile and Environmental Media Lab, the Mixed Reality Lab, the Scalar Lab, the Transient Media Lab and the World Building Media Lab.

References

External links

Media Arts and Practice website

Official Academic Information About the Program
{{coord, 34.02400, N, 118.27919, W, source:placeopedia, display=title Schools of the University of Southern California