MediaSCAPES launch

SCI-Arc launches MediaSCAPES, a new postgraduate program for 2007–08 academic year, with a focus on media production and theory in the context of today’s highly technologized cities, landscapes and architecture.

In the five years between 2007 and 2012, the world will experience greater technological advances in the mediascapes which form our everyday life than in the entire previous fifty years of progress. In Fall 2007, SCI-Arc will launch a new one-year postgraduate program as a response to these massive changes, as an academic platform defining a new paradigm in curriculum, research and design that critically responds to contemporary technologies and emergent geopolitical systems. Founded and directed by Ed Keller, MediaSCAPES leverages significant emerging relationships within technology, software, media, film and game spaces to produce new content and ideas in a “thinktank R&D” environment. The curriculum blends an intensive design studio culture with theory, research and practice, preparing students for thought leadership in design, research and theory work across the fields of new media, architecture, landscape, and digital film. A cutting edge faculty drawn from academia and professional practice worldwide provides students with training as well as a vital global network in both academic and professional contexts. In 2007–08, this faculty will include Alisa Andrasek (BioThing), Juan Azulay (AiB Matter Management), Ben Bratton (The Culture Industry), Manuel DeLanda, Ed Keller, Carla Leitao (a|Um Studio), Jean-Michel Crettaz, Nick Pisca (Gehry Technologies), George Showman, and Roland Snooks (Kokkugia). The program has research and technology partnerships with local and international media, game design, and technology companies. Students graduate with a Masters in Architecture.

Ed Keller is a designer, professor, writer, and musician/multimedia artist. He is a member of the Design and Cultural Studies faculty at SCI-Arc, and has taught at the Columbia University Graduate School of Architecture, Planning, and Preservation (GSAPP), the University of Pennsylvania, Pratt, and Parsons Schools of Design. In 2000–01, he was acting director of Columbia University GSAPP’s Advanced Architectural Design program. Ed Keller is a founder (with Carla Leitao) of a|Um STUDIO (www.aumstudio.org) an award-winning architecture and new media firm, whose recent work includes residential projects and new media installations in Europe and the US; the installation SUTURE at the SCI-Arc and TELIC galleries in Los Angeles; and script, concept and design work for ORNAMENT, an online multiplayer game/film/graphic novel. They have participated in urban design and architecture competitions such as the MAK Vertical Garden, Turku Finland, UIA Celebration of Cities (National Award), House for Andrei Tarkovsky (first prize) and Museum for Nam June Paik. a|Um STUDIO presented their installation Time Flow Control at the 2004 Beijing Biennale NY Hotspot event.


FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

For more information, contact the SCI-Arc Admissions Office on 213.613.2200 x320, admissions@sciarc.edu.