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.
DMA operates several state-of-the-art instructional and service labs in support of its curriculum including a video lab dedicated to digital video and audio editing, a digital audio lab, 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
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. 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 ability 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.
Audio Lab
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 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.
See the fablab website for more information.
Print lab
The Print Lab offers high quality laser and large format poster printing on various paper stock to our 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.
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.
Grad Student Gallery
The DMA Grad Student Gallery is a space primarily for the exhibition of MFA first year solo shows. The gallery is located on the ground floor of Broad Art Center, adjacent to the EDA in room 1250 of the Broad Art Center.
New Wight Gallery
Located on the ground floor of 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.
DMA maintains its own library dedicated to media arts and design in Broad Art Center, the Media Arts Research Space (MARS). UCLA’s Arts Library, located a short distance from the Broad, is also an important resource to our students.
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.