In this studio course, we will create digital + physical based projects by investigating the body as a medium for communicating personal narratives and observing emotions. Through the analysis of contemporary performance artworks and the use of multimedia software programs, we will engage with sound installation, video, site-specific performance, and related media. Methods such as movement practice, object interaction, field recording, social experiment, and nature observation will guide our exploration of the body’s integration with its surroundings in a nonverbal way.

Do you remember the unspeakable inner trigger that emerges when you begin creating something? What is it? In an era dominated by algorithms, the body exposed to data, reaches the edge of sensation, and often collapses unconsciously. As social hierarchies shift the modern art system into an invisible ‘factory,’ (Hito Steyerl) visual dominance pushes us into the world of ‘hot medium.’ This course challenges us to re-position ourselves as an artist, a doer, a viewer. Between eternity and ephemeral organic reactions, lies a gap that calls for recognition. We will create a supportive space to let the natural body lead, redefining vulnerability as a form of resistance. Engaging with existing works, including Bruce Nauman, Francis Alÿs, Yvonne Rainer, David Tudor, and Aki Sasamoto, we will reinterpret them beyond conventional critique, developing a sensitivity to presence and transforming perception into embodied practice. The course unfolds in three phases: decompose, recompose, and decompose again.

Open to Undergraduate Students

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

This course introduces the fundamentals of game design and development through lectures and hands-on workshops, exploring various game engines and tools such as p5.js and Unity. Students will select the most suitable tools based on their technical background and creative needs. The course also encourages students to move beyond traditional input methods like keyboards, mice, and game controllers by experimenting with unconventional control techniques, expanding the possibilities of gameplay experiences.

Through the exploration of game theory and technological history, combined with case studies of classic games and works by artists, students will develop a foundational understanding of game structures and player experiences, cultivate critical thinking, and learn how to analyze and refine game interactions as an effective medium for artistic and interdisciplinary expression. Each week will also include in-class workshops that allow students to gain hands-on experience with game development tools. By modifying existing game project files, students will quickly learn to understand and implement core game mechanics. Open to all students. No prior coding experience required.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

This seminar focuses on exploring technological textile practices to challenge and disrupt the hegemonic conceptions on art and technology, specifically on e-textile field. This seminar seeks to question the hegemonic technological tools, and the paradigms they involve, in order to create e-textile projects from a radical, critical, situated, and anticolonial perspective. Articulating textile techniques (embroidery, patchwork and sewing in general) with simple and low tech analogical electronic mechanisms (LED lights, motors, DIY loudspeakers, etc.), each student will create a e-textile piece. Electronics then will become part of the tissue: threads that conductive threads, batteries, LEDs, motors and speakers will invade the fabrics like a thread, a buttonhole or a button. The interactive and haptic aspect of the textiles, based on tactile stimuli, sonic devices, and light, will make visible political thoughts, actions and feelings. Going beyond the dominant and non-neutral narratives implies seeking into other forms of art practices to question the epistemological foundation itself. The goal of this seminar is to work from scratch in order to develop DIY, e-textile poetics, activism, techno-feminism, craftivism and social practices rooted in the territories themselves, interweaving with their own traditions, cultures and idiosyncrasies, in order to nurture resistant forms of conceiving digital and e-textile projects.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Sonic Practices is a research intensive course focused on acoustic, electronic, and/or computer-based means of sound production and reception. Participants explore audio culture and technology while developing experimental approaches to composition, performance, recording, and/or listening. Areas of investigation include, but are not limited to: audio programming languages, embedded/mobile computing for sound and music, spatial audio, sound synthesis, audio electronics, sonification and auditory display, electroacoustic music composition and improvisation, field recording and soundscape studies, sound installation and performance, and sonic interaction design. Each semester, course content changes in response to a new unifying theme upon which students base individual and team-based research projects. Meetings consist of discussions, workshops, critiques, and collaborations that support students' individual inquiries, the exchange of ideas, and the exploration of research methodologies.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $200.00

Elective

This combined studio and seminar forum supports Digital + Media first-year graduate students during their second semester as they research and develop the theoretical, social, material, technical, and contextual aspects of their emergent arts practices. Students are encouraged to break comfort zones and practice through experimentation. Students pursue and refine individual interests, as well as collaborative projects within the department. Students conceptualize and discuss their work and their ongoing practice. Readings in critical cultural theory, media art theory, philosophy, semiotics and other areas further support the contextualization and grounding of the innovative practical and conceptual approaches of students. Each student is responsible to select readings and works important as references in individual research and to co-lead a discussion on a set of self-chosen readings and artists' works during the semester. The course is a mix of group discussions, group critiques, and individual meetings. Guest lecturers and visiting critics may also become involved with this class in terms of critical/research aspects. Each student will practice articulating their art process and work towards their thesis, and will contribute to the dialogue concerning the research and work of their classmates.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $300.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Digital + Media Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Digital + Media

This course supports the practical, conceptual, theoretical and historical development of the M.F.A. thesis (exhibition and written document). Students are required to work independently and in individual consultation with their thesis committee to develop and finalize the thesis exhibition and written document for presentation at the end of the year. The exhibition and written thesis should articulate one's personal studio art / design practice in an historically and theoretically informed context. Formal group critiques are required at the midterm and end of the semester. A major final critique with visiting critics is held in the context of the final MFA Exhibition. The accompanying written thesis is expected to be of publishable quality and is also placed within the public sphere through electronic publication and filing with the RISD Library. Final submissions for this course include the presentation of a final exhibition, submission of the final written thesis, and timely completion of work for preliminary deadlines throughout the semester (draft theses, exhibition plans and press materials). Please see Digital + Media Thesis Timeline for a clear sequence of required deadlines. Please refer to the DM Thesis Guidelines and Policies for clarification of the goals and expectations of the RISD DM MFA.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 - $300.00

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Digital + Media Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Digital + Media

This seminar course analyzes the aesthetic conventions, narratives, and formats of works in new media. As a group, we will examine the impact digital technologies and new media have had on existing media, as well as the ways in which new media function as a unique system of communication. While investigating the aesthetic conventions, economic conditions and infrastructures that affect the production of new media, we will address the social and political contexts in which new media are disseminated, interpreted and privileged. Within this course, students will be expected to identify, analyze, and critique readings that critically inform and underwrite the foundations of their written thesis and studio practice. Students will contribute to the focus of the course through discussions and writings that contextualize their own work as it relates to critical theory. Class time will be mainly used for discussion of readings and concepts, critique of work and to introduce methods and theory.

Majors are pre-registered for this course by the department. Enrollment is limited to Digital + Media Students.

Major Requirement | MFA Digital + Media