Arts & Culture (Research): Visual Arts, Media and Architecture

Blending analyses and interpretations

How can we make sense of the changing role of art and culture in an ever more ‘mediatized’ and commercialized global society? What approaches are available now that visual arts, media and architecture, or culture in general, act as interdisciplinary domains closely related to the realms of politics, economy and social reality?

Past, present, future

In an age fuelled by commercial interests and technology-driven developments, is the future the only thing we should concentrate on? What about history and theory? To what extent do theoretical discourses and specific examples from both the past and the present provide a critical framework to assess present manifestations and future developments in art, culture and society?

Interpreting the digital age

Now that the digital medium has become a key form of documenting, presenting, preserving and modernizing art and culture, how can we evaluate and conceptualize these border-crossing developments? At the crossroads where retention meets innovation, what is the significance of an historical perspective and a critical distance?

Going beyond boundaries

As contemporary culture is afflicted with a cult of crossing borders, what remains of the traditional institutional and spatial determinations? Is today’s incessant urge to make ‘unexpected’ connections
between the different arts, engage in interdisciplinary collaborations, set up transgressive projects, etc., nothing but a mere marketing strategy? A sales gimmick, a trick of the trade that is being performed over and over again, ad nauseam? Or do the disciplinary and institutional differences of old still serve to assess the increasing interaction between the arts, the media and the public and private space?

The VAMA research Master's offers a study of current developments in visual arts, architecture and media – from both a theoretical and historical perspective. These developments – among them, the role of the new media, the ever expanding culture industry and the rise of the ‘creative industries’ – have led to complex relationships between visual arts, architecture, media and society. Students of the VAMA research Master's will be trained to critically examine and discuss the visual and material manifestation, presentation and representation of these relationships. Courses will discuss the arts and the media as interacting domains and explore their reciprocal relationships, wider, socio-cultural context.

The teaching programme:

• directed towards international comparisons;
• of an interdisciplinary nature: it blends art-historical, architecture-historical and intermedia analyses and interpretations;
• marked by both a historical and contemporary approach.

The VAMA research Master's is aimed in particular at the talented student who is exceptionally motivated to train in academic methods in the field of art history, architecture history, visual culture and media studies. To be admitted to the programme the student should have at least a bachelor’s diploma in art, architecture, media and culture with an excellent record of study results.

The VAMA research Master's is part of the Graduate School of Humanities of the VU University.