Posted on Tue, Apr 17, 2012 @ 07:31 PM
Have you wondered if an interactive gaming system could be used not only for entertainment but as a tool for rehabilitating physical disabilities
or fighting diabetes?
Have you thought that a smart phone could be even smarter, potentially sensing environmental changes and anticipating and intuitively responding to local emergencies?
Have you wanted to create a virtual bridge among various cultures and
styles of design and the arts that allows people to experience the world’s creative offerings regardless of their location?
At the ASU Herberger Institute for Design and the Arts we’ve created the only interdisciplinary Digital Culture BA program in the nation where students and faculty explore new media and digital experiences in an educational environment unlike any other in the nation.
Our Digital Culture undergraduate program was created recognizing that we exist in a world that is based on digital assistance from the computers we use to our phones and entertainment devices, cars and household appliances. Users drive the development of the next-generation applications and tools as much as developers. Aesthetic, emotional and intellectual engagement – all elements of a design and arts experience – are as integral to the continual evolution of our digital world as actual product functionality.
Digital Culture provides students with a contemporary liberal arts education that gives them a set of skills that will be highly desirable in the workplace over the next 40 years,’’ said Thanassis Rikakis, professor and director of the School of Arts, Media and Engineering. “The proficiency-based approach means students connect courses across academic disciplines instead of by traditional methods such as course prerequisites.”
The program’s curriculum was designed to prepare students to develop new media systems for cultural practice and combine this knowledge with critical thinking and problem-solving skills to be able to create what has not yet even been conceived.
