Rensselaer Catalog 2024-2025
Arts
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Department Head: Rob Hamilton
Graduate Program Director: Igor Vamos
Undergraduate Program Director: Kate Galloway
Department Home Page: https://hass.rpi.edu/arts
The Department of Arts is dedicated to interdisciplinary creative research in electronic arts. It offers a unique environment to develop and realize innovative art within a technological university. The department offers a Bachelor of Science and a Doctor of Philosophy in Electronic Arts (EART) and a Bachelor of Science in Music (MUSC). The Department offers minors in Studio Arts, Well-being, Electronic Arts, Music, and Video, Performance, and Social Practice. These programs provide students with an opportunity to pursue a degree with a particular emphasis on the use of technology and an interdisciplinary approach to the arts.
Within the Arts, studio courses feature activities that stress creative and expressive development. Faculty encourage students to develop their perceptual sensitivity, as well as to build their confidence to apply creative exploration and problem-solving skills to a wide range of aesthetic challenges. In addition to a full complement of traditional disciplines, such as drawing, painting, sculpture, music, filmmaking, and performance, the department offers courses in media, video, computer imaging, animation, interactivity, multimedia installation, sound production, as well as music theory, composition, and performance.
Research Innovations and Initiatives
Arts department faculty members take varying approaches to the use of media in artistic creation and performance. All are active artists/theoreticians whose works are represented internationally in museums, galleries, and performance venues.
Students will become familiar with creative tools and are encouraged to work with combinations of media. The center of such creative work includes professional quality facilities in electronic and computer music, digital video production and post-production, computer imaging, animation, interactive media, installation art, and performance art. Opportunities to engage in creative or research projects with students or faculty from other departments or schools within the Institute are also possible.
Undergraduate Programs
Majors:
Minors:
Graduate Programs
Ensembles
The department offers credit-bearing ensembles that may be applied toward the B.S. in Music or the Music Minor: Rensselaer Orchestra, Rensselaer Concert Choir, Wind Symphony and Chamber Music Ensemble. Non-credit ensembles, dictated by student interest, are also available on campus: typical examples have included symphonic band, pep band, swing band, and vocal groups such as the Rensselyrics and the Rusty Pipes.
Course Descriptions
Courses related to all Arts and Music curricula are described in the Course Descriptions section of this catalog under the subject code ARTS and some INQR courses.
Faculty*
Professors
Century, M.—M.A. (University of California, Berkeley); new media history and theory, contemporary music performance, and innovation studies.
Chang, B.—M.F.A. (School of the Art Institute of Chicago); virtual reality, experimental games, interactive installation, and open-source software.
High, K.—M.A. (State University of New York at Buffalo, Center for Media Study); video art, film production & theory, ecological arts, bioart, science and art, queer studies.
Miller, B.—M.F.A. (New York University Graduate Film and Television Program); video art and media art.
Nideffer, R.—Ph.D. (University of California, Santa Barbara); net art, contemporary social theory, game culture, and technology.
Vamos, I.—M.F.A. (University of California, San Diego); tactical media, video, film production, and theory.
Associate Professors
Hamilton, R.—Ph.D. (Stanford University, Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics); computer music, interactive performance, composition, virtual reality, instrument building, game design and development.
Ruiz, K.—abd Ph.D. (Europäische Universität für Interdisziplinare Studien, EGS); interactive simulation, game studies, photography, and emerging multidisciplinary genres.
Staniszewski, M.—Ph.D. (Graduate School and University Center, City University of New York); modern and contemporary art, culture, and media history.
Assistant Professor
Galloway, K.—Ph.D. (University of Toronto); musicology; ethnomusicology; sound studies; popular music studies; performance studies; music and sound in games and interactive media.
Goodheart, M.—Ph.D. (University of California, Berkeley); music theory and musicianship, improvisation, composition, sound art and installation, history, aesthetics, interactive and compositional technologies.
Ruzanka, S.—M.F.A. (School of the Art Institute of Chicago; Art and Technology Studies); video, installation, performance, and virtual environments.
Vanderhyden, P.—M.F.A. (Northwestern University; Art Theory and Practice); animation, digital art.
Senior Lecturers
Fisher-Lochhead, C.—D.M.A. (Northwestern University); music theory, musicianship, composition.
Loveless, S.—M.F.A. (Bard College and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); Director, The Center for Deep Listening.
Meltz, N.—M.F.A. Art, (State University of New York at Albany); collage, printmaking, animation, and graphic arts.
Press, E.—M.F.A. (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute); television, video art, documentary, journalism.
Ragsdale, K.—M.F.A. (State University of New York at Albany); drawing, painting, sculpture, paper-craft, theatre lighting, and photography.
Lecturers
Rice, R.— M.F.A. (Middle Tennesse State University); sound recording and production, songwriting.
Whalen, R.—D.M.A. (University of Minnesota); music and conducting.
Zheng, L.—M.F.A (Tisch School of Arts, New York University); game design and development.
Professors Emeritus
Bahn, C.—Ph.D. (Princeton University); computer music and interactive performance.
Hahn, T.—Ph.D. (Wesleyan University); ethnomusicology, performance art, and dance.
*Departmental faculty listings are accurate as of the date generated for inclusion in this catalog. For the most up-to-date listing of faculty positions, including end-of-year promotions, please refer to the Faculty Roster section of this catalog, which is current as of the May 2022 Board of Trustees meeting.
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