Visual Arts, Media & Architecture

The Research Master's programme Critical Studies in Art and Culture focuses on current developments in visual arts, architecture, design and media, from a theoretical and historical perspective.

In a globalizing cultural world in which art, architecture, design and media are ever more closely integrated and packaged as “creative industries,” disciplinary boundaries need questioning and challenging, yet a thorough grounding in older and newer disciplines such as art history, architectural history, design culture, and media studies is a prerequisite for doing so.

You will focus on the analysis of “visual objects”: of artifacts in various media that function as images. This ranges from landscapes, cities and buildings to artworks in various media, as well as film, television, design and games. Notions as inter-, cross- and transmediality play an important part in the program. Since artifacts, media and forms of intermediality can only exist in specific social, institutional, economical and ideological frameworks and networks, the Master will equip you with the analytical and critical tools for analyzing these. Each of the four main disciplines that inform the specialization brings specific theories and methods to the table, and the programme seeks to foster a sense of their interconnectedness, highlighting their specific potential as well as possible limitations.