Overview of Interactive Media
Maryland Institute College of Art
Interactive media integrates art, technology, and design into a creative practice with cultural immediacy and relevance in a global environment. Interaction designers create opportunities, situations, and contexts that allow us to communicate better and live our lives meaningfully in a world of man-made artifacts. We engage in mobile computing and social networking daily. We use the products of interaction design for communication, travel, and entertainment. We encounter human/computer interactions at the bank, in the kitchen, and in the car. Interaction design facilitates human experience to reveal our best qualities and enrich our lives. MICA's interactive media department fosters skill sets essential for the practice of interaction design: the ability to listen empathically, mastery of and responsiveness to new technologies, and the social skills to collaborate with others. Our students learn to design interactions between people and websites, electronics, objects, and systems.
MICA's interactive media students are prepared to become productive, engaged artist/designers in the interaction design field. Implementing professional methodologies, the curriculum gives specific attention to interface design, user experience design, interactive exhibit design, and physical computing, All of these processes and technologies are applicable to those who choose to pursue one of the many career paths in this field, as well as to those who choose a career as an exhibiting fine artist, following in the footsteps of professional artists whose interactive works are expressed in such areas as installation, telematic art, performance, responsive objects, and alternative reality games (ARGs).
At MICA, you will find yourself in the company of other like-minded students, studying with a diverse faculty committed to supporting you through advising and mentoring to help you achieve your goals. In the sophomore year, you will be introduced to a broad array of tools, concepts, ideas, and technologies that form the fundamentals of interaction design, applicable to both artist and designer. You will explore your interests through avenues for creative expression including: web design, two-dimensional screen-based design, mobile technologies, social networking, and physical computing - working with microcontrollers and sensors your work can be integrated into an installation or embedded in a 3 dimensional form. The sophomore year gives you the opportunity to follow your curiosity and create compelling work with these technologies and spaces.
In the junior year, you will begin to shape your career path, utilizing many electives to augment the core curriculum. You will learn advanced concepts about interface design and user experience design; begin to explore the relationship between cultures, ethnography, and psychology to design research; and learn the importance of understanding audience. The junior year is a time to refine your vision, goals, and career objectives. Department faculty work closely with you and facilitate collaborations with students at other schools. Internships are encouraged to explore your career interests in a real-world setting.
The department provides a range of opportunities for students to build professional experiences. An exciting professional initiative, Interactive Exhibit Design, partners students with the staff of science centers and museums to design interactive exhibits. Working with the Maryland Science Center staff, students participate in research and ideation, develop prototypes, engage in usability studies, and implement their concepts. MICA students work with the Port Discovery Children's Museum to build web-based projects, mentored by industry professionals gaining valuable professional skills in team work, marketing, and the client/developer experience. Students interested in exhibiting their work in galleries or festivals have numerous opportunities and have recently exhibited work nationally and internationally: The Contemporary Museum, Baltimore, Maryland ; Flashpoint, Washington, D.C.; SSamzi Art Museum, Seoul, South Korea; Conflux Festival, NYC, N.Y., and the Enzimi Festival, Rome, Italy.
Your senior year will culminate in an expressive, intellectually rigorous thesis project which will be the transition to your professional life as an interaction designer or artist.
Software and programming changes as new technologies emerge. At this time, MICA interactive media students are using applications such as Dreamweaver, Flash, Max/MSP and Jitter; languages such as Actionscript, Javascript, XHTML, XML, CSS, PHP, AJAX, Processing; and freeware such as Arduino, Mogulus, Ustream, Twitter, and Kyte.tv.