GRADUATE STUDENT ELECTIVE OPTIONS

GRAD-663 | PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE

MALGORZATA BAKALARZ DUVERGER | Monday 2-5pm | Online

This course explores diverse pathways for leveraging a graduate degree in art and design within the job market after graduating from MassArt. We will explore a range of career possibilities related to art and design while first conducting a competence audit—a structured assessment of the professional profile students develop throughout their studies. This includes identifying translatable skills, specialized expertise (such as diverse research methodologies and critical discourse skills), and potential applications across various industries.

Students will engage with an HR specialist to gain insights from employers’ perspective on recruiting, and will have opportunities to hear from professionals sharing their experience in the art and design sector. The course will address both professional trajectories within the field, and alternative career pathways in commercial, academic, and studio-based contexts, helping students strategically position themselves for their next steps.*

*NON-STUDIO (ACADEMIC) CREDIT

GRAD-633 | JUICY CARCASSES, ABUNDANT FUTURES: DETRITUS AS NOURISHMENT

FALAKS VASA | Tuesday 6-9pm | Online

‘Juicy Carcasses, Abundant Futures: Detritus as Nourishment’ is a course that challenges creative practitioners to listen to the wisdom of non-human detritivores, and transform that which is discarded. It explores how those of us in the margins can reconstruct new worlds from the still active, reeking remains of (post)coloniality. Thinking through the work of scholars like Homi Bhabha and his idea of the Third Space, Fred Moten and his idea of Noise and fugitivity, and Alexis Pauline Gumbs’ radical lessons from marine mammals, this course calls us to cease our resisting of dominant hegemonies with the tools of their making, and instead find each other outside of the binary of oppression/resistance, within a space of our own invention. As we chew and pick at these juicy carcasses of oppressive systems, we will dream new futures, new worlds, new practices, all the while drawing inspiration from the emergent practices of non-human detritivores. (see full description)

GRAD-611 | GRADUATE MAKER STUDIO

DENNIS SVORONOS | Thursday 9am-1pm

This course explores the concepts and techniques required to apply digital tools to the creation of physical artworks. Students learn the fundamentals of design for laser-cutting (wood, paper, and acrylic), plasma-cutting (steel), and 3D printing in a variety of materials. Students are trained in a range of processes using MassArt’s Universal Tools and various object-making facilities, and focus on digital design and its ability to augment and facilitate the physical process of making. Students gain practical skills to be applied across a range of media. Class discussions and critiques focus on technique, ideas and the relationship of course projects to students’ broader body of work. Artists, designers, tinkerers, and makers of all skill levels are welcome; no specific previous experience required.

GRAD-649 | TIME-BASED DIGITAL MEDIA

REBECCA MORRISON | Thursday 6-9pm | online or in-person option

This graduate-level course is designed to offer students from all art and design disciplines a technical and conceptual foundation for using digital video, sound, and animation techniques in their own practice. Intensive technical skill-building in video and sound production and post-production is combined with screening and discussion of historical and contemporary video works, experimental animation, and sound art. In the first half of the course, a series of flexible exercises provides a technical foundation. At mid-semester, students propose a longer-term project that relates to their own area of interest, which may range from straightforward video works to multichannel mapped projections and/or spatialized sound. Class time involves lectures, screenings, technical demos, 1:1 work/lab sessions, individualized feedback, and group critiques, allowing each student to pursue a personalized path while gaining a deep understanding of time-based digital media art in the twenty-first century.

2DPM-506 | GRADUATE PRINT PORTFOLIO

CATARINA COELHO | Friday 8am-1pm

This advanced course in printmaking enables students to invent and explore a theme through the creation of multiple images linked by a conceptual thread. Experimentation in the practices of intaglio, screen printing, plate lithography, relief print through a combination of traditional and digital print processes guide students through an expanding range of visual possibilities. Students propose, plan, and execute a series of prints which may be formatted into either a custom-made portfolio or a bound book. Debate of contemporary practices and discussion of the particular characteristics of print media, separately or in combination, is of paramount importance in this course. Experience with printmaking is helpful but not required.

MPPH-512 | GRAD TECH SEMINAR

MATTHEW MONTIETH | Monday 9am-12pm

This course is designed to develop a comprehensive understanding of the current digital tools available to photographers. While studying these tools in detail, we will also step back and look at the themes of digital photography, trying to unpack how technology shapes picture making. We will focus on refining the skills used for inkjet printing, with an emphasis on color management, camera raw and large format scanning. We will also look at the myriad of forms digital images take and discuss how the perception and understanding of photography changes when images flow among walls, screens, phones and books. For this class you will learn advanced techniques that will enable you to better execute the ideas and aesthetics you pursue this semester. The emphasis will be on your production of new images – more proficiently using digital tools, more cognizant of your technique. [Formerly titled Advanced Digital Printing]

DSGN-631 | ELEMENTS OF MEDIA

FRED WOLFLINK | Wednesday 6-9pm 

This course is focused on developing a better understanding of the complexities of the re-synthesis of visual, oral, aural, and temporal information as they exist in time-based and interactive media. Through lecture and in-class demonstration students will learn the technological processes necessary to begin temporal explorations in sound and image.

MDES-607 | PROTOTYPING LAB: LEARNING BY MAKING

GEORGE WHITE | Thursday 5:30-8:30pm

This course provides a basis for understanding the processes, practices and application of prototyping. The goal of the course is to give students an understanding of the uses of prototypes and hands-on experience through the creation of both physical and digital prototypes. Topics covered in the course are the use of prototypes for exploration, learning, explanation, clarification, and refinement within the context of a problem space; understanding and selecting prototype fidelity; working across different scales; testing and refining with prototypes; prototypes as a component of storytelling; and evaluating the move from prototype to production. This lab focuses on learning by making, with an emphasis on hands-on work, mixed with enough theory to connect prototypes to essential working goals. The lab also explores the notion of identifying, adopting, and working with constraints. 

MPSM-413 | INTERRELATED MEDIA INDEPENDENT PROJECTS

TAKAHIRO YAMAMOTO | Asynchronous – Meetings TBD

This course is designed for advanced students that have an inter and/or omni-disciplinary and independent practice and would benefit from individualized instruction and guidance based on their specific needs. Students may be working with a combination of text, live events, movement, conceptual art, sound, objects and installation. These students may be developing a senior thesis, preparing for an ambitious review board, producing an installation or event outside of any formal curriculum, or working on a project that does not align with the academic schedule. The course includes a rigorous structure that includes expected deliverables and milestones (e.g. illustrated project proposal document, reading responses, artist statements and documentation.) Students are expected to present their in progress and final projects in a Pecha Kucha style presentation either in person or in video form. This course is slightly different from the SIM Independent Study (MPSM399) option as it provides more direct guidance alongside the peer review components of being part of a cohort, each pursuing independent projects during the same time period. This is also an excellent opportunity for students to study closely with visiting faculty that are not able to offer independent studies.

This is a selection of electives open to all grads with requisite skills. Additional departmental electives are available to grads in specific programs; consult with your program director or the graduate team for options.

Please Note: This list is not comprehensive. Information on this page will be updated periodically during the registration period, but should not be the last place you check for available elective options. 

Do an Advanced Search in MassArt’s Self-Service portal to view a full list of elective options, and view detailed registration procedures here.

• TBA Permission may be requested once instructor has been announced
• GA indicates that a Graduate Syllabus Addendum is on file for this faculty and course.
• OL indicates an online course. 
• H indicates a hybrid course (some course meetings online, some in person).