Digital + Media
Digital + Media (D+M) operates at the nexus of art and technology, creating a framework for students to discover emergent creative practices and make research-driven, critically-informed work. Offered at the graduate level only, the program encourages degree candidates to explore many mediums, such as sound, land and the body, and to challenge the social constructs that produce and are enforced by new technologies.
Degree program
In Digital + Media you use a wide range of research methods and forms—both digital and analog—to investigate technology as both creative medium and cultural-historical phenomenon.
In the studio
D+M majors delve deep into concepts and contexts, and then identify the best media for pursuing questions about technology, biology and culture, natural and built environments, and more. Supported by faculty with a broad range of expertise, students also take advantage of exceptional tools for research and making, from electron microscopes and autonomous vehicles to the college’s state-of-the-art Studio for Research in Sound and Technology.
Student work
Through his practice, Clement Valla considers the role of computer vision and automated image-making in shaping contemporary life. Working at the intersection of art and computer programming, he explores tensions between creativity and the influence of systems on individuals in both widely-exhibited solo projects and interdisciplinary collaborations. The New York-based artist has also had an instrumental role in establishing the Computation, Technology and Culture academic concentration at RISD, where he began teaching in 2009.
Believing strongly in the power of interactive and collective experience, Hyojin Yoo creates objects and performance-based work that investigates boundaries between visible and invisible, tangible and intangible. Working across several media—from drawing to code and physical computing—the Brooklyn-based artist uses her research and creative practice to explore the role of the senses in framing and reframing identity within multiple social and cultural contexts. While also working in the commercial sphere, Yoo also exhibits widely in solo and group shows throughout the US and internationally.
Featured stories
Mycelium as Mode generates individual research projects exploring everything from decomposition to symbiosis to the containment of plastic waste.
Faculty member Griffin Smith welcomes the creative opportunities evolving artificial intelligence tools provide.
Members of RISD’s growing community of sound artists and researchers discuss how the evolving studio contributes to the college’s overall educational mission.