The Expanded Media area of the Art Department at KU is characterized by a dedication to innovative forms of artistic expression and conceptual approaches to art, the pursuit of which lies beyond any one medium. The availability and growth of media technologies have resulted in a fundamental rethinking of the boundaries of disciplines. This is embraced as representing unique opportunities for students. The area provides a solid foundation for those who wish to integrate time-based ideas and technology into their art making process. Comprised of Performance Art, Installation Art, Digital Strategies and Intermedia, Expanded Media provides an environment for students who wish to experiment and create interdisciplinary multiple media works often associated with various technologies. Expanded Media emphasizes the idea and process of expanding techniques. It embraces collaborative and interdisciplinary approaches. Work is grounded in an exploration of new forms with an understanding that it provides the potential to open creative possibilities with all medias, which mirror and embody one's artistic vision.
In Expanded Media, students are expected to engage in critical dialogue about art, technology, the nature of creativity, the role of the artist in society and other aspects of art as a professional practice. Issues of process, context and problem solving are inherent in the curriculum. Students are encouraged to find indoor/outdoor sites suitable for their projects and to procure professional exhibition spaces in the local community. There are numerous outlets at the University that can provide an opportunities for students to present their works in the public and professional environment. In addition, the city of Lawrence has many centrally located venues for students to exhibit their work before a diverse audiences.
Installation Art covers a large area of practice and inquiry within contemporary art. The particular distinction of Installation is that it is a hybrid discipline, where concept and form evolve reciprocally. This art form addresses the interaction between objects, humans and their context in time and space. This class is devoted to the expanding discourse of traditional media towards new forms.
Performance Art is an interface between art, the human body, and technology. The course examines improvisational and historically based practices of performance that depend on the body's materiality and history as a basic medium of expression. Performance Art equally addresses an interdisciplinary and collaborative relationship of multi-media performance that fully engages available technologies and principles of set design, composition, choreography and collaborative presentation to create a multifaceted relationship of multi media performance in real time and space.
Inter-Media Art focuses on mixed materials, material abstraction and cross media. Inter-Media functions in the field of art and in the Expanded Media program area, to connect various diverse media, as well as art to life, culture, matter, to intellect, social issues and to the environment. It initiates from the premise that media, subject and concept are partners in the creative process. It explores non-conventional approaches to ideas, tools and subject matter. Its aim is to explore the role of concept and process in the development and production of works. It serves to develop strategies and identify linkages between seemingly disparate elements.
Digital Imaging engages the students in a rigorous development of creative study related to various digital technologies. It fosters the development of technical skills, as well as creative application and innovative approaches toward the realization of artistic output.) Approaches that reach across art disciplines are encouraged to tie possibilities of the digital realm's relationship to other new and established artistic practice. An integral function of expanded media practice and the program at KU, is its focus on exploration of theoretical issues related to digital technologies in the artistic environment as well as those emerging in an expanding world community.
Expanded Media B.F.A. degree check sheet
For more information about the MFA in Expanded Media, click here.
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The University of Kansas School of Fine Arts Lawrence, KS 66045 785/864-3421 |
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