D+M's core curriculum includes a three semester studio/seminar sequence, two seminars on the theory and history of media art and a thesis project at the end of the second year.

Core Studio + Seminar

This combined studio and seminar forum supports Digital + Media students as they research and develop the theoretical, social, material, technical, and contextual aspects of their emergent arts practices.

This course supports the practical, conceptual, theoretical and historical development of the M.F.A. thesis exhibition.

In this historical survey, we analyze the aesthetic conventions, narratives, and formats of works in new media.

Digital + Media Theory develops student’s ability to contextualize and interrogate their own work and practice within a larger cultural lineage.

This studio course is comprised of intensive writing sessions, group critiques, and one-on-one meetings designed to support each student in assembling a comprehensive written work.

Research Studios are facilitated by top practitioners in the field, and foster an environment for interdisciplinary exploration of art and technology in context around a core theme, enabling individual inquiry and high-level collaboration. Participants engage in current dialogues and methodologies of practice directed toward meaningful impact in social and environmental realities and potential realities.

Research Studios

Technological Landscapes is an experimental, interdisciplinary research group focusing on the intersection of place, landscape and technology.

Sonic Practices is a graduate-level research group focused on acoustic, electronic, and/or computer-based means of sound production and reception.

This research studio attempts to fuse the social sciences, network theory, and the seemingly limitless possibilities of server, web and interface programming.

Electives offered within Digital + Media typically take the form of studio courses that support the development of technical skills and conceptual integrity. General Electives may be run solely through Digital + Media or may be cross-listed with another collaborating department at RISD.

Electives

This interdisciplinary studio course explores the critical perspectives of internet-based performance art.

In this course we will create performance works utilizing audio, digital video, and/or installation to spark the spiritual mind.

Using technologies ranging from the intimacy of handheld devices to the monumental scale of a building façade, in this class we will learn to activate the space through multimedia content and relational strategies.

This intensive studio course investigates computational approaches to generating sound and image in real time

During wintersession, D+M graduate students are invited to design studio electives open to the entire student body in which “the digital” is both the means and the ends of inquiry.

Wintersession

This studio course explores dark humor within artistic context throughout history to understand its role and potential within artistic practice.

This interdisciplinary course encourages students to reimagine the future human body.

Practical transdisciplinary research and artistic methodology for a troubling digital age of information over-saturation and despair.

A studio-lab context to explore modes of integrating alternative sensory modalities in artworks.

In this class we will explore our own origin stories while examining and questioning mid-career contemporary artists and theorists who address issues related to personal narrative in art.