Transmedia Research is the major, individually mentored, production-based studio course at the New Media Department. It is dedicated to building the student’s creative insight into new media art through the development of conceptual thinking, technical skills, technological and theoretical knowledge, critical discourse, individual integrity and responsibility.
My mentoring strategy emphasizes the integration of transdisciplinary approach with technical mastery for the creation of inventive, innovative and socially relevant artwork. The focus is on harmonizing the artistic research with artistic experimentation, and students are free to choose the ideas, methodologies, forms and media for their projects with consideration for conceptual cogency, material and logistic feasibility. The students are expected to take initiative in mastering the skills and competences working with tools and techniques required by their projects.
The program combines production, lectures, workshops, consultations and exhibitions. Production is focused on the development and production of students’ art projects. The emphasis is on harmonizing the research and experiment with the efficiency and technical sophistication, and students are required to improve and successfully defend the conceptual and structural integrity of their projects prior, during and after production. Lectures provide an insight into the phenomenological diversity of new media art and contemporary culture, and in 2018/2019 will cover the topics such as VR in the Arts and AI and the Arts. Workshops in fall semester 2018 include Introduction to Generative Sound Synthesis seminar by Philippe Kocher from HdK in Zürich (21-23 November), and lectures by Vladan Joler Exploitation Forensics about his acclaimed project Internet Atlas and forthcoming book Critical Cartography of the Internet and Beyond (December). In spring semester 2019 (March/April) the teaching/lecturing residence by Anton Cierni and Jaroslav Kyša from APK+ Studio at AFAD in Bratislava. Consultations are dedicated to addressing and elaborating the conceptual, formal, technical and theoretical aspects of the emerging student projects.
Gallery presentations of student projects, selected and set up according to the clearly defined curatorial concepts. It provides the students experience building through preparing and promoting the exhibitions, establishing contacts with cultural institutions, and direct exposure to the public reactions and professional critique. Since 2014 we realised Transsampler 2014 and Transsampler 2015 within FESTUM in SCC Belgrade, and Transanimations 2015 at FESA in Belgrade.
The term new media art refers to a wide spectrum of creative methods and approaches that strategically transcend and redefine the notions of artistic media, challenging the distinctions between artistic process, experience and product. It denotes a creative position rather than artistic category or genre, and new media artwork can be identified as an authentic outcome of the activity whose concept, content and form defy the strict definition of one or more known media and cannot be unquestionably placed within the established art disciplines such as painting, music, film, etc. The interrelatedness of conceptual, ethical, emotional, perceptual, corporeal, material, spatial and temporal aspects in new media art often manifests itself through thematization or critique of political, cultural and other social issues.
