Electronic and Time-Based Art
Patti and Rusty Rueff School of Design, Art and Performance, Purdue University

Education

Overview

Through interdisciplinary art practice and research, ETB students explore the creative, critical and expressive potential of electronic and time-based media such as digital video and sound, real-time computer graphics, interactive digital systems, virtual and augmented reality, electronic circuitry and robotics. Our international faculty promotes an environment of innovative and imaginative thinking that connects artistic production to the campus body at Purdue and the communities of Lafayette/West Lafayette. Through their art practice, students make unique contributions to contemporary culture in various forms: public interventions and exhibitions, websites, radio shows, films and videos, interactive environments, computer games and simulations, performances, zines and DIY manuals. Through experiences both inside and outside the classroom, the ETB program challenges students to pair aesthetic sensibility with critical thinking, artistic freedom with practical application and technological experimentation with cultural awareness. Coursework in ETB is enhanced by exhibitions, visiting artist lectures, guest workshops and open studio events.

The program's curriculum promotes individual inquiry and collaboration across the different departments and divisions of the Rueff School of Design, Art and Performance (such as Art & Design, Theater and Dance) as well as encouraging/supporting links to academic partners and resources outside of the department. These include, but are not limited to: the interdisciplinary program in American Studies the Envision Center for Data Perceptualization, Interdisciplinary Film and Video Studies, the School of Engineering Education as well as the departments of Computer Graphics Technology, Computer Science and English.

The area of Electronic and Time-Based Art offers an undergraduate minor and a 3 year MFA graduate program.