Interdisciplinary Arts
The interdisciplinary arts major at KCAI is an option for students who wish to integrate diverse interests in their work. Students can apply for this major and, if accepted, will work with the department chair to tailor their course work and graduate in interdisciplinary arts.
The major is grounded in making, researching, conceptualizing and contextualizing. It builds on existing artistic technologies while investigating new opportunities offered through digital culture and contemporary social structures.
To be eligible for this major, a student must have completed one semester in a fine arts studio major at KCAI (or equivalent), have a minimum cumulative GPA of 3.0 and demonstrate a focused artistic direction that will thrive within interdisciplinary arts.
Students in this major pursue 15 to 18 credit hours per semester, combining required liberal arts courses with professional practice and studio courses.
Interdisciplinary Arts Electives
IT WORKS! How to do Strange (and Successful) Things with Electricity
This introductory level class will teach you how to use electrical systems to make objects and environments respond and react. The course will cover the basics of electricity, electronic components and tools, soldering and building circuit boards, different types of sensors and enough programming skills to command a microcontroller. We will also investigate the kinds of robotic elements that can be activated by a microcontroller, such as lights, motors, relays and so on. The class will move slowly, and there will be a group project that you will be able to modify for your own installations. At the end of the class we will discuss how microcontrollers can be used to communicate with other computers to run multimedia programs, and this will prepare you for the advanced classes in video and sound installation, computational cinema and database narratives to be offered in Photo/New Media. Applications of this material range from careers with interactive artwork and exhibition design, to the exciting new fields of tangible user-interfaces and ubiquitous computing.
Collaborative Art Practices
Concurrent enrollment with INDA 260. This course is both an entry level elective for the interdisciplinary arts major and a core class for the Community Arts Service Learning (CASL) program. Either this course or The Artist’s Role In Society CASL 381 must be completed before participating in a CASL internship. You will be introduced to a wide range of collaborative artwork and artists, and discover the unique contributions this way of working offers to society. Through a series of exercises, the course will teach you the skills necessary to be a sensitive and effective team member, as well as how to locate and manage resources for multidisciplinary projects. You will then have the opportunity to practice these in a creative collaboration with community partners.
Interdisciplinary students will have the option to develop an alternative project under the direction of the interdisciplinary arts faculty. By the end of the class you will have a sense of the powerful way collaborative practices enable groups of individuals to make artwork, with a texture, depth and impact that could not be achieved alone. The skills and techniques developed in this class will be invaluable in any number of careers involving teamwork and leadership, as well as for artists who make public, community-based or individual interdisciplinary work.
