The program works to sustain a community of artists rethinking the way technologies can digest and extend the diverse practices of photography, digital cinema, interactive environments, sound installations, Web-based practices, social networking, and wireless media. MICA's MFA in Photographic and Electronic Media is a platform to explore the reverberating social and artistic uses of optical and electronic media technologies. Its curriculum and intent is to ground artistic practices in a rigorous investigation of historical and critical contexts; it prepares students to realize artistic projects involving complex techniques, and provides intellectual and technical skill sets demanded for professional practice and teaching. Crucial in the Photographic and Electronic Media program idea is to probe and extend the continuing efficacy of the photographic (in all its forms) while simultaneously recognizing that optical media have been challenged by computer graphics, animation, data-visualization, virtualization, mixing media, or by the incorporation of scientific, medical, or experimental technologies. In this it is essential to join creative practices with cultural, scientific, critical, and historical discourses and to encourage and evolve a wide array of theoretical and reflective practices.
