RTF New Media Program
and
Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory (ACTLab)
RTF New Media Program
and
Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory (ACTLab)
The RTF New Media program offers general courses in New Media theory and practice, and an intensive sequence in production, theory, and cultural impact of New Media Our home is the Advanced Communication Technologies Laboratory (the ACTLab), a freewheeling research facility for advanced work at the boundaries where technology, art, and culture collide.
In our entry-level courses, or ABC (Actlab Boot Camp) you'll learn the basics of interface and interactivity, narrative and storytelling. You'll go hands-on with the technology assisted by some of the most interesting people in the field. You'll have chances to meet cutting-edge guest lecturers from all parts of the field and the world.
After your introductory work, the program branches. If a career in New Media production sounds enticing, you'll choose the Intensive Production courses. If your interest is in New Media studies, you may prefer the courses in New Media and Culture. But since you can't do cutting-edge production work without understanding theory, nor can you understand New Media theory without having some hands-on experience with one or another aspect of the technology, we provide enough overlap in each track to assure that you come away "theoretically grounded and practically proficient".
Our Intensive New Media Production courses, taught by top practitioners in the field, prepare you for the highly competitive New Media job market. You will finish the sequence with your own presentation portfolio, the equivalent of the film production student's demo reel, limited only by your imagination.
Some students find our special advanced courses in both undergraduate and graduate work the most interesting of all. In them we're not primarily concerned with the topics most often associated with the idea of New Media (or "Interactive Multimedia", which was coined in the 1940s to mean slide projectors used with recorded music). We prefer more exotic fare, approaches that you can't take in too many other labs. In fact we're a wee bit worried about computers as the sewing machines and metal lathes of the twenty-first century and software houses as the sweatshops of the future -- unless we allow room for the weird and the creative, room to stretch and do risky things. So we encourage you to invent projects that cross boundaries and challenge old ideas, that use movement and dance, architecture and design, music and the fine arts. A successful project doesn't even have to be computer-based...as long as it raises interesting questions at the cutting edge of interactivity and interface.