Welcome to the Digital Arts Minor

The Minor in Digital Arts in the Claire Trevor School of the Arts at UC Irvine provides opportunities to explore creativity through new media art and digital technologies. This program is open to undergraduate students from all areas of UCI who want to acquire a working knowledge of how digital media content is conceived, constructed and performed.

On a theoretical level, students in the Digital Arts Minor learn to appreciate the basic components of new media art and to understand aesthetic relationships between emerging and traditional art forms. Lectures and discussions examine how today’s pervasive digital media culture has evolved through interdisciplinary collaborations between artists, engineers, scientists and scholars.

In the studio, students receive hands-on experience with current software tools, creating their own new media art projects and learning fundamental techniques for video, audio and web design. Students are provided a variety of opportunities to explore personally meaningful creative process while developing a deeper appreciation of new media aesthetics, concepts and design principles.

Coursework considers relationships between a wide range of new media art practices, touching on areas such as social networking, interface design, digital music, telepresence, interactive performance, video/audio broadcasting and narrowcasting, intelligent agents, virtual realities, artificial life and ubiquitous computing. The program investigates critical issues related to emerging technologies and the arts, and surveys recent works by leading new media artists.

Admission

The Digital Arts Minor is open to all UCI students. There are no restrictions based on major or level. To better serve the needs of all students campus-wide, the previous requirement for an admission application has been removed, effective immediately.

Requirements for the Minor

Completion of the Digital Arts Minor requires eight courses, consisting of six required courses plus two electives:

Required (six courses):

  • Arts 1 (Arts Core) - replaces Arts 1A
  • Arts 11 (Digital Media: History and Foundations) - replaces Arts 1D
  • Arts 12 (Digital Media: Current Directions) - replaces Arts 1E
  • Arts 50 (Digital Media: Experience & Content)
  • Arts 60 (Digital Media: Video/Audio for the Web)
  • Arts 70 (Digital Media: Interaction Design)

Electives (choose two courses):

  • Arts 75 (Digital Media: Exhibition)
  • Dance 163 (Dance and Video Technology)
  • Dance 164 (Screendance)
  • Music 51 (Music Technology and Computers)
  • Music 147 (Studies in Music Technology)
  • Music 151 (Computer Music Composition)
  • Music 152 (Interactive Arts Programming)
  • Studio Art 65A (Foundations in Media Design)
  • Studio Art 65B (Foundations in Internet Art and Design)
  • Studio Art 81A (Video Production)
  • Studio Art 81B (Video Stage Production)
  • Studio Art 100 (when topic is related to digital arts)
  • Studio Art 106A (Programming for Artists)
  • Studio Art 106B (Game Studies)
  • Studio Art 106C (Design for Print)
  • Studio Art 130A (Projects in New Technologies)
  • Studio Art 143 (Projects in Computer Painting)

Each of these courses may be taken one time only for credit toward the Digital Arts Minor (with the exception of topic-varies courses, e.g. Studio Art 100). None of the required six courses may be taken Pass/Not Pass.

We strongly recommend that all students complete Arts 11 and 12 during their first year working toward the Digital Arts Minor. Note that these courses are prerequisites for Arts 50, 60 and 70.

Arts 1A (offered 2011 and prior) may be substituted for Arts 1. Arts 1D and 1E (offered 2007 and prior) may be substituted for Arts 11 and 12.

See the Courses page for more information on the core courses currently offered in the Digital Arts Minor.