Intermedia
Students can choose from subjects and from media according to their own interests, within a structure that allows them to explore ideas and build skills.
— Emily Ginsburg, Department Chair
— Emily Ginsburg, Department Chair
The Intermedia department offers a rigorous program of study for students who intend to build interdisciplinary work across departmental lines. This major encourages students to examine combined media and hybrid art-making strategies with a conceptual foundation.
With thematically diverse coursework, the curriculum emphasizes both theory and practice, presenting broad cultural perspectives in art-making throughout the program. Working with innovative and supportive faculty, students engage in a course of study that combines the conceptual, technical and historical structures of a variety of traditional and contemporary art disciplines.
Projects & Assignments
- Transforming his relatives into a multimedia and merchandising experience, a student from a family of 15 children made figurines of siblings and parents, devised an interactive DVD of their stories, and created associated merchandise including T-shirts.
- Another student investigated self-identity and gender by building a garment with exchangeable gender characteristics.
- Exploring art as community, a student wrote hundreds of letters to PNCA students and staff; she then documented the responses. She staged events and performances making offerings to passersby, such as making waffles and giving them away during the First Thursday Artwalk. Finally, she created an environment featuring evidence and documentary materials of her interactions.
- A student interested in the pervasiveness of violence in popular and consumer culture wallpapered, decorated, and tiled an entire bathroom in violent images from media and entertainment sources — even the toothbrush, rug, and shower curtain.
