Students in Shaping Solid Light, one of four new required classes taken by first year students in the Interdisciplinary Arts & Media MFA Program, are breaking new ground in the realms of both collaboration and new media experimentation. The course, taught by Mat Rappaport, explores the conceptual and technical use of light as projection, as image, and as source of illumination within the context of creating artificial spaces in installation and performance.

Along with Silence/Sonorous Objects, Excavating the Image, and Code/Language, the new intensive hands-on two-credit courses are part of the new first-year Media MFA program structure. “The new two-credit courses are designed to empower students to take advantage of the technology while integrating experimentation and collaboration with their art making” says Paul Catanese, Program Director of the Interdisciplinary Arts + Media MFA. “Twenty-first century artists are increasingly required to negotiate a complex ecology of materials, technical capabilities, histories, and conceptual frameworks in order to realize their vision. Shaping Solid Light is one of our many courses that provide students with hands-on engagement to expand and transform the nature of their practice.”

Read more about one student’s experience as part of the
inaugural Shaping Solid Light class here.