Testing and questioning new artistic and social practices, the process of creation, diffusion and hybridization emerging from the changes in communication and the media (including the meanings mass media and networks) constitute the principal axis of the immédiat programme.

As with social and economic upheavals, continuous technical developments pose a challenge for artists and designers. The transformations of images and sounds, knowledge techniques, memorization and exchange linked to the generalised use of digital tools affect not only the issues and economy of information and culture, but also artistic skills. It is important for creators to be able to find their place in a world in constant flux where these media play such a role in the processes of perception, conception, fabrication, presentation and diffusion. It is vital for creators to understand and master these parameters, so that their work remains relevant, so that it becomes part of the contemporary field and so that it contributes to its evolution.

tools
The standardisation of creative tools (sensors, computers, software programmes, networks) causes language and aesthetics to become uniform, often conforming to the audiovisual conventions of the mass media. The tools employed by artists working in the audiovisual, new media and new technology fields are identical to those of communication professionals. It is necessary to create an electronic/digital laboratory to test the specificities of the new media and to equip new practices with these now omnipresent tools.

reality
New practices manifest themselves within contemporary art and design as much in the sphere of production as in that of diffusion. They encounter interference from the dominant aesthetic stemming from the global economy. It is now no longer just a matter of discovering media specificities, but also of questioning them and breaking with the conventions they entail.
It is important to create new aesthetics and new forms of production with media intended a priori for the worlds of communication, advertising, information and indeed of disinformation. It is also important to revisit, to question and to go beyond the image of the world and of "reality" as produced and reproduced daily by the mass media.

policy
Varied and differentiated forms and skills corresponding to the multitude and plurality of emerging cultures need urgently to be sought.
New diffusion channels not confined to the contemporary art circuit or to the communication networks peculiar to the dominant economy should be found. These new diffusion channels could be socio-cultural and political networks responding to the needs of the various cultural trends by which our society is driven.

invention
The creation and development of networks, interactivity and virtuality call for an experimental approach with the aim of inventing new forms, strategies, tools and skills. The arrival of new art forms, and indeed of new artistic disciplines, encourages participation in their emergence and contribution to their improvement. The growth of the new media makes it possible for something made using digital procedures to belong to traditional disciplines such as photography, literature, cinema, drawing, design, scenography, as well as to emerging fields such as those of games and networks.

technique
Digital tools are characterised by the variability, the modularity and the transcodable character of the data subject to programming. These characteristics open up new areas diversified by the work on sensors and real time, code and algorithms and robotics. The immédiat laboratory places at students' disposal appropriate technical resources to enable the creation of original and innovative experimental artistic realizations. But technique, if it plays a decisive role in experimentation and research within the new media, cannot be an end in itself. The establishment of a critical distance towards it, questioning and analysing the relationships between art and technology, their history and their usages, are included as central issues in the programme.

research
Training and research should encourage the revitalization of language and the transformation of existing tools as well as the development of new ones, freely and in line with artistic intention. The gesture, the body-machine relationship, the implication of new techniques for performance and the living spectacle, in museography and scenography, their link with the practices of the investigation of reality, from both documentary and fictional perspectives, constitute the important lines of research and training of the programme. One of the singularities of the programme is to link the piloting of projects to appropriate and high level theoretical, critical and aesthetic thought, imparted by the humanities and social sciences, by history, philosophy and the cognitive sciences.

organisation of studies
Students determine their course of study according to their personal projects. The modular offer includes workshops, theoretical seminars, technical classes, lectures and supervised work notably with the participation of numerous guest lecturers: artists, designers, theoreticians, curators or internationally renowned critics. Visits and meetings with art and media professionals also form part of the programme.

thematic content
Art and communication, art and technology, cinema and intelligent machines, forms and aesthetics of interactive devices, hybridization, mass media, the machine and I, image and reality, document, fiction (conceptual documentary), realities and virtual spaces, networks and nomadism, cultures of deterritorialization.

technical and pratical courses
Code and algorithms, DVD, 3-D synthesis images, animation, interactivity, real time, sensors, robotics, websites, sound, video / special effects / editing, interactive video.

postgraduate course leaders
Daniel Pinkas and Enrique Fontanilles.

lecturers
Joerg Bader, Jean-Louis Boissier, Yan Duyvendak, Enrique Fontanilles, Hervé Graumann, Claudy Iannone, Simon Lamunière, La Ribot, Guy Milliard, Damien Molineaux, Ariane Rezzonico, Pierre Rossel, Laurent Schmid, Bruno Serralongue, Jules Spinatsch, Bohdan Stehlik, Frank Westermeyer, plus guest lecturers.

partnerships
Centre pour l'image contemporaine Saint-Gervais, Geneva; Ecole nationale supérieure des arts décoratifs, Paris (ENSAD) CIREN, Université Paris 8.

course fees
1150.00 CHF per year

duration of studies
4 semesters (90 ECTS)

deadline for applications
30th March 2007

admission requirements
Downloadable form on the website
admission procedure (pdf)
application form (pdf)

Course starts Monday, 17th September 2007

Geneva University of Art and Design
Design Secretariat
15, Boulevard James-Fazy
1201 Geneva
Switzerland
Tel. + 22 388 51 00
Fax + 22 388 51 59
lise-marine.benhassel@hesge.ch