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An Interdisciplinary Arts and Engineering Initiative for Experiential Multimedia+

Thanassis Rikakis, Jiping He, Hari Sundaram, Gang. Qian, and Andreas Spanias Arts Media and Engineering Program (http://ame.asu.edu/), Arizona State University

Abstract The engineering, arts and science disciplines involved in media training, research and education at Arizona State University have come together to create the Arts, Media and Engineering (AME) graduate education and research program. The education component of this program consists of formalized graduate concentrations within existing degrees that allow faculty and students to combine extensive training in their chosen discipline offered through their home department with hybrid engineering-arts-sciences training offered through AME. This paper states a basic education and training problem in arts and media and presents a program that was formed at Arizona State University to address this problem. The structures, participation, associated sub-areas of this program are also described.

1. Introduction The ASU arts and media (AME) program aims to produce a new kind of hybrid graduate students who draw their creativity from the arts and their methodology from the sciences. The program trains students to integrate principles of computing and communication with artistic ideas and objectives, with the goal of enabling new paradigms of human-machine experience that directly address societal needs and facilitate knowledge. The students’ research activities will focus on how the computer mediation of experiences can facilitate the evolution of the information age into the age of digitally enabled knowledge. Our vision and plans are predicated on two ideas: Civilizations are after deep, useful knowledge Most human knowledge results from experience. The need for this information to transcend into experience and then knowledge is rarely addressed. Historically, the arts have been crucial in allowing civilizations to experience truths about their state and thus acquire self-knowledge. However, at this point most art generated is not organically connected to the tools and structures established by the emerging digital culture. Most media content makes use of forms that have their origins in the pre-digital age. In doing so artists and media content creators in general are not addressing the issues that are shaping our society. Thus the evolution of the digital age is left without the strong aesthetic and emotional inputs that art can provide. It is clear that the fast evolution of technology and its effects on society have produced a discontinuum between development of media technology and media content and consequently a discontinum between our means of acquiring information and our means of acquiring knowledge. The result is that our society is highly informed, has access to lots of data, but suffers from a lack of deep experiences and true knowledge. The painting Guernica by Picasso, Fig. 1, is a strong example of art communicating an experience through an analog medium (painting). The horror and agony of war are directly communicated through the visual composition. Picasso can achieve this communication of experience because he handles perspective, shape, color and light as

+Sponsored in part by NSF CISE RI Award 0403428

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Rikakis, T., & He, J., & Sundaram, H., & Spanias, A. (2005, June), An Interdisciplinary Arts And Engineering Initiative For Experiential Multimedia Paper presented at 2005 Annual Conference, Portland, Oregon. 10.18260/1-2--15183