Master of Arts in Media, Art and Performance Studies
Utrecht University
Key Information
Campus location
Utrecht, Netherlands
Languages
English
Study format
On-Campus
Duration
2 years
Pace
Full time
Tuition fees
EUR 2,209 / per year *
Application deadline
Request info
Earliest start date
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* EU/EEA, Surinam or Swiss students; €17,500: International students
Scholarships
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Introduction
Emerging Technologies and Practices in Transition
This Research Master's program in Media, Art, and Performance Studies is an interdisciplinary and internationally oriented research-based program that offers advanced training in academic research skills appropriate for today's highly dynamic and interdisciplinary field of media, visual arts, and performance. The research Master’s is aimed at excellent students from both the Netherlands and abroad, who have a background in the history and theory of contemporary art, or media and performance studies.
Emerging Media, Art, and Performance
As a student of this program, you will be introduced to and specialize in new research areas and methodologies, necessary for investigating emerging media, performance, and contemporary art forms within today's rapidly changing culture. In relation to this, you will also reflect on the role of the Humanities in both academic and public debates.
Central Concerns in the Program
Central concerns in this program are, amongst others:
- The role and meaning of (visual) media in a mediatized society, inter-and transmedial practices in theatre, dance, film, television, digital media, and visual arts
- Spectator- and users, the performative turn in contemporary arts and media
- Technology, materiality, and corporeal literacies
- Game, play, and activism
- Changing institutions, mobile and/or location-based media, urban interfaces, navigational screen-based practices
- Art and media ecologies
Research Questions
In this program, you will reflect on questions such as:
- How have media developed from the time of early cinema up to current new media art?
- How has the definition of 'live' changed alongside these mediatized cultural forms?
- How has the performative turn changed the ways we think about audiences?
- How do media technologies facilitate new methods of self-staging and social performance?
- What is the influence of media and technology on the way we curate and educate in museums and archives and other cultural institutions?
Program Outcome
After Graduation
- You are trained as a researcher within the field of Media, Contemporary Art, and Performance Studies, to either prepare you for a Ph.D. position or for other research-oriented positions.
- You have acquired knowledge of the history and the state of the art in media, visual art, and performance practice and research, as well as insight into current public, academic and critical debates.
- You know how to employ an intermedial and historically informed comparative approach for studying emergent media, art, and performance practices, and how to use and develop research methodologies related to this perspective.
- You have the skills to critically investigate relations and transitions in the field of media, art, and performance and are trained to communicate research outcomes.
- You can effectively communicate theoretical insights that will contribute to the field, as well as have broader social and cultural relevance.
- You can reflect upon the social and ethical implications of developments within the field of media, art, and performance, and contemporary humanities research.
Alumni of the Media, Art, and Performance Studies research Master’s have been successful in obtaining Ph.D. positions in various prestigious international programs. Graduates also find their way to other job markets.
Career Opportunities
This English-language program prepares you for Ph.D. studies in the Netherlands or abroad. After graduation, you will also be qualified for positions in academic or research institutes or cultural organizations requiring specific academic skills in media, art, and performance studies at the Master's level. The program can also be an excellent starting point for a career in cultural policy and consultancy in the media sector or art world.
Academic Careers
Alumni of the Media, Art and Performance Studies research Master’s have been successful in obtaining Ph.D. positions in various prestigious international programs at, for example, the University of Rochester, the University of Hong Kong, London School of Economics, and the University of Leeds, as well as at Maastricht University, Erasmus University Rotterdam, and Utrecht University.
Professional Careers
Graduates also find their way to other job markets. For example, an alumnus of the program now works as a researcher on issues in media history in the Dutch television industry. Another one has been recruited by the Dutch Ministry of Culture and Education and a third is a cross-media researcher at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam. Others work successfully in the domain of media consultancy.
Students that graduated from this program have soon found jobs as, for example:
- Policy advisor at the Legal and Policy Department of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU)
- European Affairs Advisor for the Italian public service broadcaster RAI
- Commissioned writer of a biography on Jan de Vaal, for the Joris Ivens Stichting
- Communications Officer at Cost Office
- Dramaturge in Dutch theatre
- IT Business Analyst bij Glencore Grain BV
- Coördinator, Circuit X, production Moving Meetings Theatre at Vti, Belgium
- Programme Researcher with Andere Tijden (NTR); image researcher with Grote Geschiedenis Quiz (NTR)
- Relations Manager at http://Mediawijzer.net (in Dutch)