Digital Arts and Culture (DAC) is an interdisciplinary degree program, combining courses in the areas of arts, humanities, social sciences, and information studies.
The major aims to empower learning communities by leading students to a variety of opportunities: to develop skills and understanding of new knowledge production and research methods; to operate with confidence as media practitioners and global communicators with a diverse range of media literacies; and to collaborate and contribute as creative problem solvers using digital media in a networked culture.
Students who complete the Digital Arts & Culture major will be able to:
- Analyze digital and electronic media systems, explaining what these platforms do and how they do it.
- Engage with complex digital issues: online, offline, via ubiquitous computing hardware and software.
- Organize information, both architecturally and visually, structuring software, websites, advertisements, social media, and more.
- Demonstrate hands-on, collaborative, and cross-disciplinary, media production with artists and designers.
Coursework is drawn from three schools/colleges at UWM: Peck School of the Arts, College of Letters and Science, and School of Information Studies, with an overarching interest in the study and practice of Arts, Information, and Media.
Five categories of courses define the themes of the major:
- Core Culture, introducing students to essential cultural and historical dimensions of Digital Art and network practices.
- Media Systems, providing an overview of media industries.
- Digital Composition, building on the foundations of the 100-level core culture courses, encompassing courses that set out competencies in composing with concepts and tools of digital media for students to achieve.
- Understanding Digital Culture, engaging at the upper levels to analyze more complex systems and issues.
- Practicing the Digital Arts, also engaging at the upper levels, as a means of gaining practical experience organizing and collaborating in media production processes.
Download our fact sheets to the right to learn more about this innovative program.