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Arts Division celebrates groundbreaking of Digital Arts building

The Arts Division celebrated the groundbreaking of a $25 million Digital Arts building with an event in October. Slated for completion in May 2009, the state-funded facility will be located near the Elena Baskin Visual Arts Center on campus.

Architectural rendering of the new Digital Arts building.

The new building will house the expanding digital arts program as well as provide 10 studios for art faculty, a photography studio, and expanded space for music and theater arts classes.

The Digital Arts building was designed by BCJ, the architects that designed the Apple-Stores and Pixar Studios. Situated at an important crossroads in the public-access area of campus, the building is conceived as a node, or hub, at the center of the existing Theatre, Music and Visual Art facilities.

At the building’s core, both physically and intellectually, are facilities housing the multi-disciplinary Digital Arts and New Media (DANM) MFA program, which draws its faculty and students not only from the arts, but also from Engineering, Mathematics, Biology, Anthropology and many other disciplines. Modelled on the successful MIT Media Lab, this facility will provide offices and research labs for 36 graduate students, two leadership research faculty members (others having their labs in the nearby departmental facilities), and post-doctoral students involved in research, fund-raising and industry collaborations. Surrounding this core will be faculty studios, graduate research laboratories, and undergraduate instructional facilities from several arts disciplines that dovetail into the DANM program.

An Oct. 18 event featured faculty and alumni speakers, including representatives from the Art, DANM, and Music departments. It was followed by a reception in Kretschmer Plaza.

The Arts Division plans to launch a naming opportunity campaign within the next six months. If you are interested in this opportunity, please contact Matt Henry at mfhenry@ucsc.edu. For more information on the Digital Arts and New Media program, please contact Felicia Rice at fsrice@ucsc.edu.