Digital Arts MA

Modules

Semester one

Research Methods for Creative Practice
This module provides a grounding in research methods for creative technologies projects, offering students methodologies and techniques to support and develop their learning throughout their course of study.  The module will cover research methods across art and design, humanities and technology. Students will be given techniques in methods of collaborative and cooperative working as well as systems of the development of creative ideas and research.

Digital Technologies for Arts Practice A/Digital Technologies for Arts Practice B
These modules provide a practical understanding of a range of different digital technologies through workshops and lectures delivered by established practitioners in the field and will be assessed through a negotiated group project, where students work collaboratively to produce a piece of digital artwork.

Digital Arts Seminar I
This module serves as a forum for the survey and discussion of important theoretical texts and examples of practice in the field of digital arts. Students will identify an area of interest, and make a research presentation of their own practical interests in the context of the texts/practices discussed in the seminar, helping them to situate their practice in relation to research in the broader field, and to share their discoveries with a diverse group of practitioners.

Semester two

Professional Practice Workshop
This module will give students a practical understanding of the different methods of dissemination, presentation and communication of practice/research/projects in creative technologies as well as practical experience in presenting their research to a range of audiences.  It will cover types of research outputs and dissemination, research presentation formats, ways to present and market research to different audience types, communication and presentation techniques, and project planning, culminating in an assessed showcase event for both public and private audiences.

Digital Arts Practice A/Digital Arts Practice B
These modules will continue to expose students to new technologies for digital arts practice, as in Digital Technologies for Arts Practice, while shifting the focus from collaborative exploratory workshops to the pursuit of developing individuals’ creative interests in practice. The module will be taught through workshops, tutorials, and critique/presentation of individual projects. Students will be assessed on the bodies of practical work produced in the module.

Digital Arts Seminar II
This module serves as a forum for the survey and discussion of important theoretical texts and examples of practice in the field of digital arts. Toward the middle of the semester, the students will become responsible for selecting texts and practices for discussion and leading sessions. Students will produce a piece of scholarly writing on the relationship of their digital arts practice to a specific text.

Semester three

Major Project
This module is the culmination of practical modules designed to support students in a structured progression through the establishment, development and evaluation of a digital arts practice, and the production of an individual body of work, as a means to a tacit and articulate understanding of the contemporary subject at an advanced level. It is an opportunity for students to demonstrate initiative, personal responsibility, complex decision making, and that they have acted autonomously in planning and implementing tasks at a professional level.

Note: All modules are subject to change in order to keep content current.

Overview

Modules employ a variety of assessment methods including presentations, group work and collaboration, creative assignments, essay assignments, practice-based critical commentaries and reports and research projects. The aim of the varied assessment methods is to encourage insights that allow you to deepen your understanding of your own area of practice, as well as to gain a critically informed contextual understanding from a wider perspective. 

The programme aims to attract participants from a broad range of backgrounds and seeks to use this diversity for enriching the learning experience of students, to facilitate collaboration amongst student and to maximize the potential for peer group learning at an advanced level. This is achieved by encouraging students to address issues in relation to their own and others’ working experience. To achieve this and the aims of the programme generally, it has a teaching and learning strategy where the following methods are used:

• Lectures and presentations
• Seminars
• Tutorials
• VLE-based and online activities
• Workshops
• Group exercises
• Practical Project Work
• Personal Development Planning
• Reflective dialogue and writing
• Visits
• Guest lectures

Contact hours
In your first two terms you will normally attend around 6 hours of timetabled taught sessions including lectures, tutorials and workshop and studio sessions each week, and be expected to undertake at least 29 hours of independent study each week. Your third term will be pre-dominantly self-directed (including meetings with your supervisor), during which you can expect to undertake 35 hours of independent study each week.  

You are also expected to devote a considerable amount of your out of class time to further study, including independent reading, viewing, observation and research.  The teaching methods associated with a subject area are indicated on each Module Template.  However, it is intended that a flexible approach to teaching will be adopted in order to encourage alternative learning methods and self-directed study.  

Part-time study is normally undertaken on a half-time basis.