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 MFA thesis exhibition.

The goal of this course is to explore the major concepts and perspectives on media culture and contemporary media art from a critical point of view.

This seminar course develops student’s ability to contextualize and interrogate their own work and practice within a larger cultural lineage.

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

Electives

Participants in the Technological Landscapes research group are passionate but critical observers of today's living environment in relation to ubiquitous, integrated, and emerging technologies.

The Radical E-Threads seminar is a space of reflection and creation around aesthetics and practices that involve technology, culture, and social and communal dynamics. This seminar will explore the intersection of these topics through practical hands-on activities, lectures, and group discussions.

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

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.

Machine Learning: Aesthetics and Applications will look to early cybernetics as well as contemporary artists to explore the ontological, cultural, and practical implications of artworks produced with machine learning. Creative applications will include building and tagging datasets, training generative image networks (GANs), language models (GPT-3), custom deepfakes, and more.

Fungi Arts - Mycelium As Mode is a graduate-level collaborative studio for learning and making in conversation with fungi.

Juicy Carcasses, Abundant Futures: Detritus as Nourishment’ is a course that challenges creative practitioners to listen to the wisdom of non-human detritivores, and transform that which is discarded.

Machine Objects is a course that delves into the ever-evolving contemporary understanding of machines through the medium of physical objects in the context of design and art.

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. These are the student taught courses for Wintersession 2023:

Wintersession (student taught)

What is Glamour? Permanent pleasure seeking, polished perfection, and an intrinsically manufactured surface? Or is it simply a trap, a vulgar fetish or a scandalous word with very little substance?

Nirvana. Heaven. Bliss — Utopia. This course is informed by the unbounded concept of “Utopia”. Utopia is a term meaning a heavily idealized or imagined perfect society, most often characterized by social, political, and economic ideals that are often unrealistic.

What makes the needle and thread such captivating storytellers? Embroidery: Material as Storyteller is a space for students to explore the narrative potential of traditional and digital embroidery.

Archives are repositories of primary sources that document the human experience, from official records to personal papers, photographs, audiovisual recordings, and born-digital materials.