New MFA Program Anticipated Fall 2008!
The MFA in Interdisciplinary Practice and Emerging Forms (IPEF) is a transdisciplinary program that mirrors the expansion in the fields of contemporary art practice. IPEF bridges traditional areas of specialization, and pioneers new and emerging technologies methodologies, strategies, and contextual fields of practice.
The programs pluralistic approach integrates the resources of the School of Art and the University to provide students with the practical, theoretical and analytic tools necessary to engage meaningfully in contemporary (cultural, social, and political) discourse through expanded and emergent models of art making.
This new concentration will provide the School with an MFA studio art concentration that is both reflective of contemporary practice and able to adapt to innovations in the field. It will provide a focal point for new research and artistic production at the frontier of art and technology, and integrate the media-specific disciplines already in place.
Faculty Affiliate Network (FAN)
Since the 1970’s the visual arts have witnessed a steady deconstruction of the boundaries between disciplines, and a meteoric expansion of new fields of practice. Artists now work at the frontiers of science and technology, and within the contexts of social and political activism, defining new forms and pioneering expressive new media.
To meet the needs of students whose interests bisect fields of study that are outside of the prevue of art, we are developing a Faculty Affiliate Network (FAN) through the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts, to provide curriculum that is dynamic and responsive to the unique interests of each student.
The FAN network will create an infrastructure of scholars campus wide that have an interest in the arts, and have agreed to mentor students with research needs that fall within their area of expertise. These intersections may occur where, for example, art crosses politics, biology, anthropology, engineering, history, science, economics, psychology or religion. In this way, FAN establishes a fundamentally multidisciplinary platform for creative research.
The network, additionally, will encourage collaboration and experimentation; cultivate art practice that is engaged in larger contextual fields; challenge conventions of production and presentation; and identify new areas of investigation as well as new media.
New Minor in Interdisciplinary Arts Anticipated Fall 2008!
The School of Art, Creative Writing Program, Moores School of Music, and the School of Theatre and Dance are introducing innovative academic programming through the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts new minor in Interdisciplinary Arts (IART). The minor will contextualize interdisciplinary practice and its ascent in cultural production through IART 3300, (an introductory lecture/ seminar course), and will culminate in IART 4300, a “hands on” exploration of collaborative projects that integrate visual art, creative writing, music, and theater.
Interdisciplinarity is characterized by an innate permeability between disciplines and media, and the resulting evolution of new forms of creative expression. In this spirit, the minor (like the practice) will be open to students from across the university who have an interest in the study and practice of intersections in the visual and performing arts, writing and beyond.
IART courses will provide the School of Art, Creative Writing Program, Moores School of Music, and the School of Theatre and Dance, with integrated collaborative programming, and an opportunity for faculty and students from the disciplines to work within a unified community.
Center for Land Use Interpretation
University of Houston Residency
2007–2008
The University of Houston School of Art and the Creative Writing Program through the Cynthia Woods Mitchell Center for the Arts will host The Center for Land Use Interpretation (CLUI) for an extended Houston residency. The residency will include research projects, student participation, public programs, and publication.
The Center for Land Use Interpretation is a research and educational organization that explores land and landscape issues, with a focus on how humans interact with their surroundings and the traces they leave upon it. CLUI engages in research, classification, extrapolation, and interpretation through the establishment of physical field stations, virtual and physical databases of land-based research, publications and exhibitions.
A former CLUI site-specific project featured audio devices that emitted the sound of lake waves gently lapping at the imaginary shore of Owens Lake, California, once 100 square miles of deep water. The site—now an alkali dust plain—was used as an area water supply by the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power until the lake was completely depleted.
The Residency
CLUI will focus on three areas of research during their residency, including Houston as an energy capital, the Texas highway system, and the Houston Ship Channel. In January 2008 CLUI members Matthew Coolidge, Erik Knutzen, and Steve Rowell will begin their residency by establishing a research field station on a site on the Buffalo Bayou, adjacent to Houston Biodiesel on Navagation Blvd. & N. Drennan Street. From this base camp, CLUI will conduct land research in a mobile unit and will explore the Houston waterways by boat.
Research will focus on the highway system, Buffalo Bayou, and the 50-mile long Houston Ship Channel - a central geographic site for the energy sector. Community partners based on the bayou and Ship Channel will provide access for CLUI research, including the Buffalo Bayou Partnership (a coalition of civic, environmental, governmental and business representatives) and the Port of Houston (comprised of the Port of Houston Authority and the 150-plus private industrial companies along the Houston Ship Channel).
Student Participation
Students from participating courses in the School of Art, Creative Writing Program, College of Architecture and other areas will work with CLUI members to visit, examine and interpret the regional landscape (water and land) and the activities of the local energy industries. The students will be engaged in CLUI’s research and re-presentation methodologies.
Public Programs
In Fall 2008 CLUI and participants will offer a series of public programs that may include boat, walking, and bus tours. A publication documenting the CLUI Houston residency will also be available.