“At UCLA, students of the arts are challenged to find solutions, to take personal responsibility for their work and to bring the evanescent products of the creative imagination into the world with artistic discipline and technical mastery. The things we teach at UCLA Arts, and the way we teach them — a synergy between the intense focus of the arts conservatory and the open intellectual horizons of the liberal arts university — produce individuals who are good at seeing what’s around the bend and at seeking practical solutions to complex problems. Perhaps even more importantly, our young artists are able to view things that other people are inclined to take for granted as inherently questionable. That’s what artists do, after all; they pick up the box, shake it and rearrange the pieces. They are always asking 'why that way?' An approach to the arts in higher education that links knowledge and practice, that concerns itself with the deep questions that run through and connect established bodies of knowledge, and that impels us to look at the world with new eyes, to listen with new ears and to question our own assumptions can have profound value both within and far beyond the boundaries of the university.”

Christopher Waterman
Dean, UCLA School of the Arts and Architecture

Department of Design Media Arts

The UCLA Department of Design Media Arts (DMA) offers a comprehensive, multidisciplinary approach to media creation that fosters individual exploration and innovative thinking. Our internationally renowned faculty provides each student with a creative and intellectual foundation for constructing a unique contribution to culture. DMA is committed to educating conscientious creators by emphasizing production within the context of history and theory. The core curriculum is augmented by series of vital lectures, workshops, and other events, and we actively encourage our students to pursue additional interests within the university.

Within the context of the department, design is a process and way of thinking, and media arts foreground experimental media creation. We synthesize practice, history, and theory and hybridize technologies, discourses, and audiences. The results emerge in and on books, galleries, game consoles, installations, films, magazines, performances, public spaces, televisions, and websites. We strive to create socially and culturally relevant objects, experiences, and spaces.

The School of Arts and Architecture

The School of the Arts and Architecture at UCLA (UCLA Arts) is dedicated to training exceptional artists, performers, architects and scholars who are enriched by a global view of the arts and prepared to serve as cultural leaders of the 21st century. Graduate degree programs are offered in the Departments of Architecture and Urban Design, Art, Design Media Arts, Ethnomusicology, Music, and World Arts and Cultures. The School’s unique curriculum interweaves work in performance, studio and research studies, providing students with a solid creative, artistic and intellectual foundation. World-class faculty provides a depth of expertise and achievement that supports the most ambitious vision a student can bring to the campus. To enrich their coursework students have access to outstanding art collections, exhibitions and performing arts presentations through the School’s internationally acclaimed public arts institutions.

The Hammer Museum presents art ranging from Impressionism to Contemporary and the Fowler Museum at UCLA features material culture and art from Africa, Asia, Oceania, and the Americas. UCLA Live, one of the nation’s premiere arts presenters, brings more than 100 leading performers to the campus each year featuring programs of dance, jazz, world music, blues, international theater, spoken word, classical and popular music. We invite you to join the growing community of UCLA Arts. Please visit the http://www.arts.ucla.edu”>School of Arts and Architecture website.

The University

One of America's leading public research universities, UCLA is also the most multicultural campus in the nation. Situated five miles from the Pacific Ocean and ten miles from downtown Los Angeles, the campus is within a short drive of mountains, beaches, lakes, and deserts. The 419-acre campus is a self-contained community replete with restaurants, medical facilities, gyms, botanical and sculpture gardens, movie theaters and concert halls. Students also have access to a wide range of campus services including a career planning center, a nationally recognized library system and a host of professional, social and cultural organizations. Visit the Web site at www.ucla.edu

The Broad Art Center

A newly renovated space welcomes students to Design Media Arts at UCLA. The Broad Art Center, designed by Richard Meier & Partners Architects, also houses the Department of Art, the New Wight Gallery and the Dean’s Office for the School of the Arts and Architecture. Located on north campus, the building’s plaza exhibits a torqued iron ellipse sculpture, “T.E.U.C.L.A.,” by world-renowned artist Richard Serra. In addition to structural upgrades, the Broad provides interactive multimedia technology, updated classrooms, studio space, and galleries for student exhibitions and public presentations.

Design Media Arts Facilities

DMA operates several state-of-the-art instructional labs and service labs in support of its curriculum including a video lab dedicated to digital video and audio editing, two digital audio facilities, a fabrication lab for construction and a dedicated electronics lab for interactive and electronic installations, a print lab equipped with laser printers, ink jet printers and large-format plotters, a shoot room that facilitates photographic and video production, eight faculty research labs, and a large lab space shared by graduate students.

The department has a central server room with approximately 25 servers for file sharing, web hosting, print accounting, databases, mail, licensing, video streaming and other server-based systems. All users and classes in the department are given web space as well as databases, e-mail lists, and other services. Each of the instructional computer labs features a mix of Apple Macs and Windows PC workstations.

DMA also provides access to a large library of graphics software in the areas of digital photography, illustration, interactive media, and 3D modeling and animation. Examples include: Adobe Suite, Apple Logic and Final Cut Pro, Unity game engine, and the Autodesk Entertainment Creation Suite.

DMA Labs

Directed by Maroun Harb, Alan Wood, and Mihai Peteu the DMA Labs feature high-end Windows and Macintosh computers; various peripherals, such as scanners, laser printers, and large-format Epson plotters; CD and DVD burners; and film recorders and digital video cameras. The Labs also provide access to a large library of graphics software in the areas of digital photography, illustration, interactive media, and 3D-modeling and animation. In addition to our main labs, our facilities include studio space for graduates and undergraduates, a blue screen room, a video facility supporting analog and nonlinear digital editing, audio mixing, and video capture, and two digital audio facilities. Wireless access is available to laptop users, and all the computers in our facilities are connected to the campus network, giving students individual access to DMA network resources and the Internet. The DMA Labs also contains the DMA Help Desk, which provides student support for Labs activities. The DMA Labs support website provides a wide range of online services to DMA students, faculty, and staff, including the abilities to view current lab and help desk hours, lab information and guides, reserve equipment from inventory, modify user accounts, access charge histories, and submit print jobs.

Video Lab

The video lab features high-end Macintosh computers equipped with specialized video cards, video decks and monitors capable of HDV-video editing.

Digital Audio Facilities

The Audio Lab is a digital audio recording and editing space containing a Macintosh/Logic Studio system, microphones, monitoring speakers, and other tape, vinyl, and disc playback equipment. The Audio Lab is operated by the School of Arts and Architecture and is available to students, faculty, and staff in the School.

Fabrication & Electronics Labs

The fabrication and electronics labs provide students and faculty with physical computing and fabrication resources. Located in room 2250 on the second floor of the Broad Art Center, the fabrication lab facilitates physical construction across several different media, including wood, metal, and plastics. In addition to traditional manual and powered fabrication equipment, such as table saws, drills, routers, and sanders, the fabrication lab features a growing collection of computer-aided milling and rapid- prototyping facilities. The adjacent electronics lab supports research and development for projects utilizing physical computing with the goal to move away from standard computer interfaces such as monitors and keyboards. The lab provides electronics fabrication resources, including soldering equipment, power supplies, multimeters, oscilloscopes, basic components, and micro controllers. Additionally, the electronics lab functions as a communal site for sharing and documenting physical computing experiments.

Print Lab

The Print Lab offers high quality laser and large format poster printing on various paper stock to our undergraduate students. Other services include video and photo equipment rental, booklet binding, and technical support for the instructional labs.

Shoot Room

The shoot room is a dedicated studio used for professional photography and video production. The studio is equipped with a variety of lighting options, including moveable kinfolk floods, spots, soft boxes and photography strobes. The studio maintains multiple photography backdrops, a large blue screen and a state-of-the-art Reflecmedia curtain and camera ring for high quality chroma key shoots.

Game Lab

The UCLA GAME LAB fosters the production of computer games and game related research. The lab supports exploration of these areas of focus: Game Aesthetics through experimentation in the look, sound, language and tactility of games; Game Context through development of games that involve the body, interface, physical space and performance in new ways; and Game Genres through examination of the socio-historic-political discourse around games and the development of new game genres that challenge the presently accepted boundaries of gaming.

The Game Lab’s primary function is a research and production space for collaborative teams to pursue focused work on gaming projects, while benefiting from the technological infrastructure and expertise provided by the lab staff and faculty. This type of incubation space creates a context of community, interdisciplinary exchange, privacy, focus and continuity that is vitally conducive toward the completion of ambitious game projects. Professor Eddo Stern is the director of the Game Lab.

Art|Sci Center

The Art | Sci Center aims to pursue, facilitate and promote research and programs that demonstrate the potential of media arts and science collaborations. Media artists and scientists from the home campus, UCLA, from the UC system, the national and international communities will approach the center's intention to address ethical, social and environmental issues of contemporary scientific innovations and artistic projects that respond to cutting-edge inventions and research. Professor Victoria Vesna is the director of the Art|Sci Center.

EDA

The EDA (Experimental Digital Arts) is an experimental space designed for multimedia lecture presentations, performances, and exhibitions. The EDA was established in 1999 as a space to encourage dialogue between disciplines and experimentation with new technologies. The DMA website features a schedule of past and present events, as well as an extensive archive of streaming video documentation from all previous events.

DMA Grad Student Gallery

The DMA Grad Student Gallery is a space curated by DMA MFA students. The Gallery provides an alternate space for presentation of new student work outside of normal coursework or MFA shows. The Grad Student Gallery is located on the ground floor of the Broad Art Center, adjacent to the EDA in room 1250 of the Broad Art Center.

New Wight Gallery

Located on the ground floor of the Broad Art Center, the New Wight Gallery, established in 1995, is a vital center on the UCLA campus for the display and discussion of student art, design and media arts work. In winter and spring quarters, MFA exhibitions representing work from the UCLA Department of Art and the UCLA Department of Design | Media Arts are presented in the 5,500-square-foot gallery, offering each graduating MFA student a professional exhibition setting for their work and an appropriate venue for review by their graduate faculty committees.

MARS

The Media Arts Research Space (MARS) provides faculty and graduate students access to hard to find audiovisual material and literature from the fields of media arts and design. MARS contains several hundred videotapes, laserdiscs, CD-ROMs, DVDs and books. It also has basic viewing facilities for video, DVDs and laserdiscs, as well as for Internet-based works. The collection is curated by Professor Erkki Huhtamo.

Arts Library

The Arts Library has more than 270,000 books in the fields of architecture, architectural history, art, art history, design, film, television, photography, theater, and allied disciplines. Approximately one-third of these holdings are stored in the Southern Regional Library Facility. Reference assistance is available during reference hours and via email. Detailed research guides are available online for Architecture and Design, Art and Art History, and Film, Television and Theater.