This is right on from my experience... from both sides of the coin. And
it's effecting not just art departments. i was recently teaching in a
Univ. department called Media, Journalism & Film under the same
conditions Grant mentions.
How these classifications play out will indeed play a role in
determining how funding is distributed. The current trajectory for
media arts in the US is creating a situation where the most significant
public investment is being channeled into a highly profitable private
industry - namely, gaming (and away from other things). And the
media/entertainment industry is fairly unbalanced in many way relating
to demographics as it is. (just ask a child to draw a picture of a
computer scientist or video game designer) So, it seems important to
consider how the language we adopt is influenced by/influences the
situation. What are the goals?
ryan
On Sep 8, 2004, at 4:06 PM, Automatic digest processor wrote:
> From: Grant Kester <[log in to unmask]>
> "New Media" has achieved a level of institutional accommodation in the
> academic art world that is truly mind-boggling. Most of this is
> enrollment driven. For the past ten years or so the demand for various
> courses and programs in computing and new media has increased
> exponentially (especially for software skills and lower level/basic
> programming skills vs. the kind of training one receives in a straight
> computer science/engineering program). In most cases this enrollment
> demand is driven by students (and compliant parents) who see (rightly
> or wrongly) computer skills as a guarantee of employment but want to
> avoid the déclassé associations of “technical institutes” like DeVry,
> etc. At the same time, research universities in the US, which are
> increasingly coming to function as adjuncts to corporate biotech and
> engineering interests, like to channel money to the arts (especially
> to art that parades some connection to “science” or “technology”) to
> help preserve their aura of high-minded scholarly inquiry and
> renaissance learning.
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