BA Honors in Digital Media

Digital Media is offered collaboratively by Computational Arts (School of Arts, Media, Performance, and Design) and Electrical Engineering and Computer Science (Lassonde School of Engineering), fusing arts and media with engineering. In the program, students use code and programming as tools for creative expression in forms such as games, immersive and 3D environments, the internet of things (IoT), interactive performance, and data visualization.

Work in digital media focuses on a broad range of current and emerging forms of digitally supported media, with applications that range from software development to video games and interactive media art. The name Digital Media reflects the breadth and the hybrid nature of the area of study, which applies the methods and theories of computer science and art to the design, implementation, evaluation, and study of the multitude of forms found in contemporary digital media.

Digital Media responds to a well-established worldwide interest in the hybridization of art and science practices and methodologies. Students work within a shared environment that enables them to develop expertise across computational science and artistic practice, work in teams, and to develop interdisciplinarity. In Digital Media students integrate critical artistic discourse and scientific inquiry with broad application to the creative industries of tomorrow, including next-generation performance, screens, mixed reality, informatics, data visualization, games, mobile applications development, and new contemporary art forms.

In the program, students begin with an 18-month common core and then branch into one of three streams according to their interests and goals. In upper-year courses, students work independently and collaborate on ambitious group projects, allowing them to advance their individual interests and gain valuable large-scale development skills. In addition to gaining in-depth knowledge with cutting edge technology, students graduate with the creative skills for the future of work, including computational thinking, sensemaking, resilience, teamwork, and human-machine collaboration.

Highlights

Top 6 reasons to apply

• Ontario’s only degree program that integrates art, computer science, and engineering.
• Learn computational thinking, teamwork, resilience, and skills for the future.
• Explore creative expression through innovating technology.
• Professional internship opportunities through Lassonde’s Co-op office.
• Work in cutting edge research labs and state of the art classroom facilities.
• Great career opportunities.

Combine your love of Game Design and Development with future forms and contexts for gaming - Digital Media Game Arts

Video Games are a defining cultural form of the 21st century. The Digital Media Games Arts stream has an expansive and forward-looking perspective on game education through the exploration of a range of delivery platforms. In the Digital Media Game Arts streams students learn the skills of game development and design from concept to production. Students gain hands-on experience working with professional game engines, with the dissemination of work in various platforms and cultural contexts (mobile media, web-based, gallery, urban gaming, etc.), with an approach that incorporates interdisciplinary collaboration and new frontiers of gaming. In addition, the Digital Media Game Arts Stream examines new and cutting-edge trends in video game development, such as in the areas of alt gaming, queer games, Not Games, and urban gaming where the potential and boundaries of games and gameplay are being challenged and tested.

Are you interested in exploring technology as an expressive medium? - Digital Media Arts

The Digital Media Arts stream focuses on the creation of digital media performance and artistic expression through technology. With its blend of offerings in digital performance, physical computing and fabrication, and mixed reality, the program inhabits the spaces between the virtual and the physical, encouraging a seamless continuum between virtual reality and the world we inhabit. While placing more emphasis on offerings in AMPD, the stream in Digital Media Arts emphasizes the use of creative coding, computational, and systems thinking as methods for creative expression. The Digital Media Arts stream has the most flexibility of the three streams. Students can pursue a range of interests from creative technology to artists who are exploring the cutting edge of new media and new contemporary art forms.

Want to create the future of Digital Media tools and technologies? - Digital Media Development

Placing more emphasis on offerings in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, the Digital Media Development stream focuses on the design of core tools and technologies supporting digital media practices. This stream provides a specialized track into our most advanced options in Digital Media such as low-level game development, human-computer interaction, signal processing, virtual reality, machine learning, and simulation. Students in this stream are well situated to work in areas of low-level digital media and tool development that represent a high-demand sector in the creative industries. As with all of our streams, topics are taught in a manner that encourages resilience and adaptability in the ever-shifting landscape of new media technology, so that graduates are positioned to adopt new technologies and paradigms as they arise and keep on the cutting edge of the field for the unforeseeable future.

Our world increasingly needs creative thinkers to ignite bold new ideas, invent transformative experiences, and develop innovative solutions for global challenges. As one of North America’s premier centers for education in the arts, York University’s School of the Arts, Media, Performance and Design (AMPD) will unleash your creativity and prepare you to thrive in a world where the single most valuable asset is creativity.

This is your opportunity to join Debra Brown (Cirque du Soleil choreographer), David Quilico (Vice-President of Sony/ATV Music Publishing Canada), Georgiana Uhlyarik (Associate Curator of Canadian Art, Art Gallery of Ontario), and Hael Kobayashi (Executive Director of Creative Intelligence, University of Technology, Sydney), as York AMPD graduates, uniquely defining what creativity means today and how it will be imagined tomorrow.

Our School is committed to excellence, experimentation, and leadership. Learning by doing is the hallmark of our programs. We offer intensive professional training and in-depth academic studies in dance, design, digital media, film, music, theatre, and visual arts.

But disciplinary rigor is only one part of the AMPD experience. Guided by award-winning artists and leading scholars with real-world experience, you’ll push the boundaries between artistic media, explore emerging technologies, and discover the creative side of other fields. You will gain practical experience, explore career options, and build relationships with prospective employers through field placements, internships, and the School’s partnerships with creative industries and arts organizations, from Facebook to the Canadian Stage.

You have a dream. This is your time and this is the place to transform that dream into new ways of thinking, new avenues for your creativity, and new paths to success after graduation.