MEDIA ARTS + PRACTICE PhD

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1 MEDIA ARTS + PRACTICE PhD

2 ABOUT THE MEDIA ARTS + PRACTICE PhD The Media Arts + Practice PhD program offers a rigorous and creative environment for scholarly innovation as students explore the intersections of cinema, design, emerging media and critical thinking while defining new forms of cinematic experience, research and scholarship for the 21st century. Core to the program is its transdisciplinary ethos, its open curriculum and its commitment to the union of critical thinking and making. After completing foundational coursework, students design their own curricula, drawing on expertise within all of the divisions and research labs within the School of Cinematic Arts, and in other schools across the USC campus. The areas of research investigated by MA+P PhD students are broad, and currently include attention to these core themes: interactive architecture; media activism; affect; world building; database documentary; embodiment and tangible interfaces; games and interactivity; digital historiography; neuro-cinematics; expanded and spatialized cinema; multimodal scholarship; performativity; pervasive/locative media; and immersive journalism. PROGRAM REQUIREMENTS To earn the degree, students complete 64 units of graduate coursework, including at least eight units in theory-based coursework and at least fourteen units in practice-based coursework, as well as eight to sixteen units in a minor area. The program also requires the successful completion of two screening procedures, qualifying written exams, an oral defense and a portfolio review. For their dissertation, students are encouraged to reflect their practice-based learning through an innovation in scholarly expression; rather than simply writing a dissertation, students may create a dissertation object or experience that embodies their research.

3 FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS How many students are accepted every year? We accept three students for fall semester admittance every year. There is no rolling or spring semester admittance. Is the GRE required? Yes, the GRE is required and cannot be waived or substituted. Scores must not be older than five years. In order to be eligible for the USC Graduate School fellowship, GRE scores must fall in the 90th percentile or above in at least one category, either verbal or quantitative. Does the program provide funding? The program nominates each accepted student for a USC Graduate Student fellowship. The fellowship provides five years of funding, which includes tuition remission, health insurance and a stipend. Students who receive this fellowship are expected to serve as a Media Arts + Practice teaching assistant or research assistant for three of the five years. Please see note above on GRE scores for eligibility. What careers are students suited for after they graduate? Students leave the program equipped as new media practitioners, capable of working across both the practical and theoretical sides of academia, and also able to apply skills to defining new directions for media in the commercial realm. Does one need experience in media arts to apply to the program? A Master s degree in media arts, or a closely related field, is required for admission to the PhD program. Additional Questions? Please contact: Elizabeth Ramsey, PhD Associate Director, Division of Media Arts + Practice eramsey@cinema.usc.edu

4 HOW TO APPLY Please visit the USC Graduate Admissions website for general information on admissions and to begin the online application. ( In addition to the materials required by USC Graduate Admissions, the Media Arts + Practice PhD program requires the following supplemental materials: GRE Scores must be not be older than five years. Personal Statement The personal statement should describe the applicant s motivation and career objectives and relate them to past experiences with media, design, programming or scholarly practice. In addition, applicants should describe a hybrid scholarly-creative project that exemplifies the type of work they want to pursue while in the program. Applicants are under no obligation to undertake this project if accepted to the program, but may consider this an opportunity to present their research/design interests in concrete terms. Writing Sample The writing sample should demonstrate an applicant s ability to write with sophistication and clarity about matters of relevance to the theory and practice of media arts. Media Portfolio The media portfolio provides an opportunity for applicants to present creative work for which they were the primary creator, designer or programmer. In general, applicants are encouraged to emphasize quality over quantity in selecting materials for the portfolio. Time-based works should not total more than 15 minutes. Excerpts of longer works are welcome. Preferred format for portfolio submission is URL. Three Letters of Recommendation The program requires a minimum of three letters of recommendation. These may come from a variety of sources (not exclusively from faculty) and should be submitted through the University s online application. Applicants are responsible for verifying that the letters have been received.

5 SCHOOL OF CINEMATIC ARTS RESEARCH LABS The School of Cinematic Arts is home to several innovative research labs, providing MA+P PhD students the opportunity to participate in cutting-edge research within the field of media arts. Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center (CM&BHC): The Creative Media & Behavioral Health Center brings together the School of Cinematic Arts and the Keck School of Medicine to create an incubator for innovation in the use of entertainment applications at the intersection of behavioral science, medicine and public health. Scalar Lab: The Scalar Lab explores new forms of scholarly publishing aimed at easing the current economic crisis faced by many university presses while also serving as a model for media-rich digital publication. Game Innovation Lab (GIL): The Game Innovation Lab pursues experimental game design in cultural realms including art, science, politics and learning. Transient Media Lab (TML): The Transient Media Lab supports an eclectic range of fugitive research conducted by faculty and students from across all divisions in the School of Cinematic Arts. The TML emphasizes short-term, high-impact, low-resource experiments that embrace the unstable and transitory nature of media, technology and humanity. Mobile and Environmental Media Lab (MEML): The Mobile and Environmental Media Lab explores context- and location-specific mobile and spatial storytelling. Through the use of ubiquitous technologies, it is the lab s goal to enhance environmental awareness, augment presence in the physical environment and enable participation in place-making. MxR: The USC MxR Lab pushes the boundaries of immersive experience design and rapidly prototypes and explores techniques to improve the fluency of human-computer interactions to create visceral synthetic experiences. World Building Media Lab (WbML): The World Building Media Lab is reimagining cinematic and interactive workflow, transmuting the 20th century linear, industrial model of pre-production, production and post-production into a 21st century nonlinear, iterative, integrated and persistent process that creates a dynamic space for all narrative media, and opens up a new world for cross-media and multi-platform research.

6 Media Arts + Practice School of Cinematic Arts University of Southern California 3470 McClintock Avenue Los Angeles, CA map@cinema.usc.edu (213) Visit us online to learn more: facebook.com/imlusc twitter.com/usc_mediaarts