Top Media MFA’s in the USA

I’ve been doing a little research on MFA’s with a media edge, trying to start to imagine how I can take my Indyish work along with me for more education. (I finished an MA in media in October) I’m not ready yet, but in a year or so I suspect I’ll be getting the itch, and MFA’s can be a good follow up option for MA’s who want more art then Phd, so I’m just starting to poke around. Even if you’re not looking into this yourself, you might find it interesting to hear what artists are doing at these top universities.

A friend of mine recently did a thorough and ultimately successful application campaign to infiltrate the ivy league echelons for his Poli Sci Phd. It involved an impressive cross-referencing of ranking systems and journal articles and, I suspect, cue cards. Inspired by his gusto and armed with his advice on where to look for the best ranked school in your field I found some really exciting and inspiring ways to spend … oh say sixty thousand dollars a year:

SAIC: The Fine Arts program School of the Art Institute of Chicago is ranked #1 by US News, and for Multimedia/Visual Communications comes third.

While students enter the Master of Fine Arts in Studio program through a specific department, interdisciplinary work is strongly encouraged, and students have access to the breadth and richness of the School’s graduate-level studio areas. For example, faculty from the departments of Art and Technology Studies; Film, Video, and New Media; Performance; and Sound are dedicated to advancing and facilitating interdisciplinary work in the time arts. The open nature of the studio arts program addresses the needs of the artist who is drawn to this ground—the place where film, video, sound, performance, computer animation, interactive installation, telecommunications, holography, kinetics, and electronics meet and combine in new and challenging ways. Students often pursue interdisciplinary work in other areas as well, creating works that blend the disciplines of sculpture with those of visual communication or interior architecture, or that combine painting with installation.

Carnegie Melon School of Art has what looks to be a hugely cool MFA program,

This outreach aspect of the program enriches the student’s artmaking processes through connections to fields outside of art. Through course work, projects, and interaction with faculty members the student develops in-depth connections to other disciplines at the university.

And because of these links with other disciplines, for example via the Studio for Creative Inquiry, Carnegie Melon ranks 2nd in the U.S. News Multimedia/Visual Communications breakdown:

All STUDIO projects are artist-generated. Fellows are selected by invitation and by application, using criteria based on furthering the STUDIO’s mission. Work carried out over the years by the STUDIO has typically engaged contemporary science and technology, through projects incorporating disciplines from cell biology to robotics to neuroscience to imaging technology. The generative process utilized by the STUDIO seeds artistic experimentation through artist residencies. Several seeded projects have evolved into major collaborative efforts by interdisciplinary teams.

Personally, if I can add a web aspect and multimedia performance aspect to it, I think The Center for the Arts in Society stream of the Carnegie Melon MFA sounds perfect thanks, I’ll take two:

The Center for the Arts in Society brings artists and humanists together to inquire into the role of the arts in societies. Through practice, publications, exhibitions, performances, and projects, artists and humanists examine the impact of the arts on social change as well as the importance of historical events for the evolution of the arts. In courses, in programs for visiting scholars, and in sponsored research activities, the Center fosters interdisciplinary collaboration both within the University and between the University and arts and cultural organizations.

Another program that sounds like a fascinating tweaking of Media art is the Writing program in Critical Studies at CalArts:

The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) Writing Program allows advanced students to pursue a variety of traditional and new forms ranging from narrative fiction to experimental criticism, from poetry to hypertext. This challenging program sets high standards for both creativity and craft, but it is also flexible enough to accommodate interdisciplinary endeavors and new practices that depart from conventional categories and chart new aesthetic horizons.

CalArts in general sounds cool. Which is a laughable understatement I guess, given that it’s ranked #1 for Multimedia/Visual Communications MFA’s.

But you know, lowly #14 on the disputed-but-not-as-much-as-in-Canada-list of bests, is Arizona State University, where the MFA students - including those in theatre - can work in conjunction with the Arts, Media and Engineering program at Arizona State - AME:

AME courses emphasize a holistic understanding of the fields of media engineering and media arts. Courses are taught by AME faculty and faculty from the Fulton School of Engineering, the Herberger College of Fine Arts and other associated disciplines. Many AME courses are taught collaboratively.

Multimedia performance stuff and ahh that mountain air… so that’s tempting, if you’re going that direction with your media..

There are some pretty heartwrenching Media art opportunities up here in Canada too.. sort of. But more on Canada’s Ivy League .. (Piney League?) next time, alright? Back to work now.