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Digital Media

	A Hands-on Education

	A short animated film written and directed by Professor Chris Perry in collaboration with his Hampshire animation students over four years, The Incident at Tower 37 has won numerous awards since it began its festival run in April 2009. Read more >>

Hampshire College was one of the first institutions to offer digital media as an academic concentration, and our program continues to be at the forefront of this emerging field.

Digital media as a field crosses boundaries: It occurs at the intersection of technology and art, and explores how one influences the other. Hampshire’s multifaceted curriculum provides students with strong skills in programming, digital design, and technology-based studio art, and offers access to media labs with industry-standard software.

Hampshire offers courses in this field that include digital photography, digital film and video, electronic music, interactive installation, computer graphics, and animation, all of which explore the potentials and limits of new technology, innovative sources for creative expression, and engaging technology as a powerful catalyst for both intended and inadvertent social transformation.

Affiliated Faculty

» Susana Loza, assistant professor of media culture
» James Miller, professor of communications
» Chris Perry, associate professor of media arts and sciences
» John Slepian, Five College assistant professor of art and technology

Student Project Titles

» WhoseSpace?: Issues of Empowerment and Control in Social Networking Communities

» Challenging the Digital Generation: An Approach to Creating Critical Consumers Through Media Education

» Virtual Power, Digital Bodies: Capital and Control in Cyberspace
» Helga: The Filmmakers Open-Source Toolset
» Visceral Reality: New Interfaces for the Digital Playground

» pseudofemme.com: a virtual narrative environment

» Cyborgs, Posthumans, and New Techniques of Existence in the Age of Technoscience

» Caught in the Net: Potential Sexual Offenders and the Regulation of Sexual Deviance

» The Changing Self: Reflections on a Computer Mediated Existence

Sample First-Year Course

Video Art in the 21st Century

To quote artist and critic Catherine Elwes, "video is the default medium of the 21st Century." Today video screens and projections are everywhere from cell phones to the sides of buildings, and video has become one of the most prominent media in museum and gallery exhibitions. In particular, screens and projections are a prominent component of much contemporary sculpture and installation. Throughout this course, we will study not only the history of video as gallery art form, but also some of its most important themes, including: structuralism and the form of the moving image, depictions of the body and space, video as a representation of culture and gender, and digital imaging. Readings will include works by theorists Sergei Eisenstein, Laura Mulvey, Marshall McCluhan and Lev Manovich. We will look at the work of artists Joan Jonas, Martha Rosler, Vito Acconci, Bill Viola, Mariko Mori and Matthew Barney, among others. Mostly importantly, this is a studio critique course. During the semester students will create a number of screen-based and video installation works. Prerequisites: Some experience with basic video production and editing tools (your home camera and iMovie are fine) and at least one studio art course in any medium.

Sample Courses at Hampshire

» Art/Nature/Technology
» Computer Animation I, II, and III
» Computer Music I
» Digital Art: Multimedia, Malleability and Interactivity
» Digital Image Manipulation for Film and Video Data Structures
» Intro to Media Arts in Film, Photo and Video: Cuba
» Intro to Media Production: Media in Action
» Math and the Other Arts
» Media Studies 2.0: An Introduction to New Media
» Mediawork
» Minds, Brains, and Machines: The 50 Key Ideas
» New Media: Innovation, Adoption, Future
» Ordering the World: From Gutenberg to Google
» Pixelbending
» Programming Artificial Life
» Sequential Imagery I and II

» Topics in Computer Graphics
» Video II: New Media Convergence
» What Computers Can’t Do
» Women in Animation

Through the Consortium
» Cinema and New Media (AC) » Digital Art (MHC) » Digital Cultures (AC) » Digital Media: Printmaking (UMass) » Digital Sound and Music Production (SC) » Global Communication (UMass) » Interactive Digital Multimedia (SC) » Intro Media Arts and Technology (SC)

Facilities and Resources

Media Facilities
Hampshire has six flat-bed editing machines, an optical printer, and a professional-quality animation machine. Students have access to large and medium format photography cameras, 16mm film cameras, tripods, light meters, lights, lenses, and virtually any other piece of related equipment they might need. We have a Final Cut Pro editing suite, an Avid digital editing suite, a video studio, control room, and media lab.

Media Services
The media services office coordinates the booking of all films and videos in the Five College collections, loans of video production and audio/visual equipment, reservations for film preview rooms, and film/video reference help.

Jerome Liebling Center for FIlm, Photography and Video
The new addition to the Jerome Liebling Center for FIlm, Photography, and Video now houses the Advanced Media Workgroup, provides training and skill development in the production of media. The work ranges from video editing, sound design, and interactive DVD to still photography, page layout, presentations, and QuickTime VRs. Additionally, they install and maintain labs, classrooms, and facilities for media presentation and production, providing students with the skills and hardware to make, develop, and present media.

Digital Media

Contact Us

Office of the Dean of Faculty
Hampshire College
893 West Street
Amherst, MA 01002
413.559.5378
Fax 413.559.6081
dof@hampshire.edu