Master of Arts in Culture Industry

at Goldsmiths, University of London United Kingdom

Computation consists of all the changes brought about by digital technology. Art is an open set of ways of acting inventively in culture. Mixing the two together in a systematic way gives us computational art. This is a very open field, and one that is set to expand enormously in the coming years. It is where the most exciting developments in technology and in culture can already be found. This degree will place you in the middle of this fast-evolving context.

This degree develops your arts practice through the expressive world of creative computation. Over a two years (full-time) or four years (part-time) you will develop your artistic work and thinking through the challenge of developing a series of projects for public exhibition which will explore the technological and cultural ramifications of computation.

You will learn the fundamentals of programming and how to apply this knowledge expressively. You will work with popular open source programming environments such as Processing, OpenFrameworks, P5.js and Arduino, and will learn how to program in languages such as Java, Javascript and C++.

Since computational artworks don’t necessarily involve computers and screens, we also encourage students to produce works across a diverse range of media. Supported by studio technicians in state-of-the-art facilities, our students are producing works using tools such as 3D printers, laser cutters, robotics, wearable technologies, paint, sculpture and textiles.

You will also study contextual modules on computational art and the socio-political effects of technology. Modules provide students with the historical foundations, frameworks, critical skills and confidence to express their ideas effectively. You will have the opportunity to learn the cultural histories of technology, to reflect on computation in terms of its wider cultural effects, and to understand the way in which art provides rigorous ways of thinking.

It’s really important for us that you graduate with a set of core digital journalism skills so half of the degree focuses on the computing side of the discipline and half on media and communications. This means you get a holistic MA, where you study the foundations of digital journalism and practise it in its most current forms.

You’ll have the chance to study multimedia and interactive journalism, look at interactive documentaries, digital reporting, and video journalism. You’ll also learn coding, so you can get to grips with using algorithms and data sets, and do social network analysis to monitor what’s going on behind the screens.

Through our partnerships with BBC news labs and The Times’ development team, we make sure we’re keeping up with industry but also working with it.

We want you to reimagine the medium while you’re here, so you get the chance to specialise in your own area of interest for your final project. This could be anything from an interactive website to a video production using interactive story telling and text.  We offer a lot of support when it comes to the coding side of the course. A boot camp before the start of the programme gives you an introduction to some of the techniques and languages.

What you go away with are the core skills for news writing, video, and computational techniques and some amazing industry contacts.

The BA in Drama and Theatre Arts is designed to foster creative, radical theatre-makers and thinkers. It is adventurous in form, international in scope and hands-on in practice.

The Complete Theatre Maker

• This degree supports you to become the complete theatre maker. At the heart of the programme is a balanced integration of theory and practice. Knowledge gained through making and doing adds to your conceptual understanding, while the insights gained in writing about theatre and society inform the choices you make in your practice-based work.
• Tutored by our diverse and talented team, you will develop technical skills in acting, directing, writing, sound, lighting, scenography, and costume. Bringing these skills together, you will learn how to collaborate and operate in companies, ready to take your own show on the road.
• You will be introduced to a wide range of theatre thinkers, and explore the history and cultural diversity of performance. You will develop a complex understanding of what it means to make theatre in an increasingly global 21st-century society. And with London’s rich theatre culture on your doorstep, you can draw on an exciting range of contemporary practice to inform your thinking and making.

The BA Drama and Theatre Arts is a radical and innovative degree. The curriculum is responsive to the global reach of our teaching staff, including expertise in African, American, Francophone, Japanese, and South Asian performance, as well as British, European, and Russian theatre traditions. We prepare theatre-makers who are socially, culturally, and politically engaged.

The degree explores what it means to perform in contemporary culture, mobilising a range of theatre and performance practices from the interpretation of play texts to devised ensemble work and the possibilities opened up by political protest, live art, and the avant-garde.

This programme looks at language from a sociocultural perspective. It's designed for anyone with an interest in the relationship between language, culture and society but also provides a solid understanding of English language and linguistics.

Why study MA Sociocultural Linguistics at Goldsmiths?

• This degree focuses on (socio)linguistics and discourse analysis and enhances your analytic and linguistic skills by introducing different approaches to the analysis of written and spoken language from a range of everyday and institutional contexts.
• You'll cover topics such as language and ideology, linguistic performances of identity (particularly language and gender, sexuality, ethnicity and social class), language and the media, talk at work, English in a multilingual world, intercultural communication, English as a Lingua Franca, multilingualism and code-switching, and attitudes to different varieties of English.
• You'll be encouraged to engage with these topics by drawing on your own social, cultural and occupational backgrounds in class discussions and in your written work. The opportunity to explore new interests in written work, including the dissertation (dissertation), has allowed many of our students to forge new career trajectories, e.g. in internationalisation, diversity and inclusion, marketing, advertising, journalism, work for NGOs and many different educational contexts, including language teaching.  
• You will be encouraged to engage in hands-on analysis of spoken and written language, after receiving training in how to collect, transcribe and analyse different types of language data, in interviews, natural conversational context, and a various written texts and corpora.
• You will learn how authentic spoken English is used as a resource by speakers to achieve their goals, signal intimacy or dislike, gossip or report, persuade or interview others, position themselves and their identities in different ways. You will learn how written English and other semiotic practices are used to report and to distort, create ingroups and outgroups, reflect and perpetuate ideologies in a variety of print and social media.

Study economics for a constantly changing world. This degree offers you formal and rigorous training in economic theory and real world application, and allows you to specialise in a key area of the modern economy.

Today economics means change. New technologies constantly reconfigure how markets work. New emerging countries from around the world reshape the world economy. At Goldsmiths we encourage you to face these new and evolving challenges by thinking outside the box and marrying innovation with tradition.

You'll cover:

• Economic analysis
• Finance and accounting
• Maths and statistics
• Microeconomics
• Macroeconomics
• Quantitative methods
• Communication and presentation skills

But your degree does not stop there. You will be given a choice of five minor specialisations. You can choose the one that best suits your interests and future plans. These minor specialisations are:

• Communication and Technology
• Markets and Organisations
• Human Behaviour and Choice
• The Creative Impulse
• Concepts, Ideas and Perspectives

The MA Digital Media is unique in its combination of practical and theoretical approaches to contemporary media and technology.

This established and exciting degree is designed to help you understand digital transformations in media, culture, and society and apply this understanding in practice, in the media and creative industries and in further research. The programme will equip you with skills that can be applied to current and future developments in digital media, social media, computing, and other aspects of technology.

The MA Digital Media educates aspiring media practitioners and academics as well as early and mid-career professionals who seek to reflect on their roles in a structured and stimulating learning environment designed to give all students up-to-the-minute knowledge of digital media and the skills to apply that knowledge to future developments.

This programme offers three pathways:

• Pathway 1 is a Theory programme where you learn about developments in digital media and technology.  This pathway draws on media theory, critical theory, continental philosophy, science and technology studies, gender studies, critical race studies, the posthumanities, software studies and cultural studies to diagnose our present digital condition.
• Pathway 2 (Image Making) is a theory and practice programme.  Alongside engaging with digital media theory you will work with one or more of the following – animation, photography, video and other forms of moving image – to create installations, apps and single/multi-screen work that is responsive to a continually changing, and conceptually understood, digital landscape.
• Pathway 3 (Critical Computing) is a theory and practice programme where you will interrogate technical objects through critically learning a technical subject and by collectively criticising the results and processes involved – for example, by studying the racialisation of algorithms or exploring non-proprietary databases, operating systems, software licensing, programming, networking and open hardware in the shape of physical computing.

This degree encourages you to develop an independent critical involvement with works of art and visual culture, to examine changing historical conceptions of art and the artist, and to explore the visual arts in their wider cultural and political contexts.

Why study BA History of Art at Goldsmiths?

• You'll investigate modern and contemporary art, art theory and visual culture from around the world, approaching the subject from a fresh perspective which puts an emphasis on key areas of debate rather than chronology.
• We'll explore visual culture in all forms to broaden your outlook. You’ll not only examine the kinds of artefacts you might see in museums and art galleries, but also those that make up our everyday environment: like architecture, city and landscapes, adverts, TV and film, websites, the body, and street style.
• You’ll study at one of the top creative universities in the UK (Which? University 2018) based in vibrant South-East London, where you’ll discover everything from art spaces and studios to foodie pop-ups and markets.
• Our London location means you can take advantage of the many galleries, art spaces, museums, cultural facilities and specialist libraries the city has to offer.

This distinctive degree supports your individual concerns and development and enables you to navigate your way through theory and practice, various fine art media, and thematic strands within the study of art history and visual cultures.

Why study BA Fine Art and History of Art at Goldsmiths?

• You’ll gain the expertise that will help you develop independent thought and confidence in your practice, as well as transferable skills suitable for employment in the creative industries.
• Studying both the theory and practice of fine art means you’ll be able to take a critical approach to your work and think about it in the wider context of art history.
• We're renowned for our strengths in the creative and visual arts, as well as humanities subjects, so you'll be able to benefit from this wide-ranging expertise.
• We're ranked 15th in the world for art and design (QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021).
• Staff on the programme are practising artists, curators, academics and writers, here to help you develop your practice, focus your research and respond to the work that you make.
• Our teaching takes advantage of the many galleries, art spaces, museums, cultural facilities and specialist libraries in London and on campus you'll have access to a studio space and excellent facilities including specialist art practice areas, as well as the newly opened Goldsmiths Centre of Contemporary Art.
• Invited artists, curators, gallerists, administrators and funders will provide you with specialist advice and further information to complement your studies and prepare you for professional life after graduation.

This pioneering Masters offers interdisciplinary perspectives on international performance, and aims to understand performance in relation to the culture to which it contributes.

Why study MA Performance and Culture at Goldsmiths?

• The programme takes in diverse forms of theatre, including multicultural and street theatre, and practices such as:
  • Performance art
  • Dance
  • Ritual
  • Site-specific performance
  • A wide range of hybrid forms
• You will explore performance as a sociocultural process, using analytical principles from sociology, cultural theory, anthropology, history, philosophy, politics and theatre and performance.
• We have numerous links, locally and internationally, with a wide variety of theatres, companies and performers, all of which enhance your research possibilities.
• The programme will provide you with the appropriate categories of thought and methodological procedures for analysing, understanding and explaining performance processes as sociocultural practices: how and why they emerge from specific sociocultural and historical time place and space.

If you are passionate about pursuing a career as a cinematographer in an environment that promotes innovative filmmaking, this programme is for you. With its unique blend of hands-on workshops, studio and location filming exercises, and high production value collaborative film projects, the MA Filmmaking (Cinematography) elevates your skills as a moving-image storyteller to the level of Director of Photography.

What we offer

• The MA Filmmaking (Cinematography) is a pathway of the Goldsmiths MA Filmmaking. It is housed in a new purpose-built media facility with state-of-the-art teaching spaces including film and photography studios equipped with Arri cameras and lighting.
• You'll learn sophisticated camera, lighting and gripping techniques, and will perform all camera department roles from Director of Photography to Camera Operator, Focus-puller, Gaffer, Camera Assistant, Spark and Grip. You’ll work on a number of exercises and films per term in your specialist role, culminating in a major film production towards the end of the degree. Throughout the degree, you’ll also gain parallel experience in related cine roles by crewing for your fellow cinematographer classmates.
• In addition to developing professional-level skills in your specialist craft area, you’ll attend classes in related disciplines such as Directing and Editing and advance your collaborative skills by working with students across all specialisations, including writers, producers and sound designers. The horizontal framework is designed to stimulate collaborative practice by introducing you to a breadth of filmmaking knowledge combined with a high level of expertise as an accomplished cinematographer.