Head:
Univ.-Prof. MMag. Dr. Clemens Apprich
Media Theory is a theoretically oriented department within the Institute
of Fine and Media Arts. Its courses are open to all students and deal with the theoretical engagement with older, partly analogue
media such as photography, film, sound, video, and moving image (expanded cinema), as well as the study of the history of
digital, often data-based systems, with an interest in how they bring about social transformations.
Critical
reflection on the ‘digital’ requires a depth of focus that does not stop at a critique of digitisation, but seeks to uncover
its historical intersections with the analogue – for example, how the typewriter can be thought of as a digital medium. Contemporary
issues of artificial intelligence and machine aesthetics (or other areas of hybrid application) are critically examined through
a wide range of interests in media theory, including photography, film and sound studies, as well as the historical and philosophical
foundations of digital thought.
The courses on offer include subject-specific lectures as well as practical, method-oriented
seminars. The department is also a place for students who wish to pursue an academic career; it supports and supervises PhD
projects and research proposals.
In addition to the international networking and the organisation of lectures,
exhibitions and symposia, the department’s location in the Alte Postsparkasse offers the opportunity to cooperate with other
Angewandte institutions under one roof: the Weibel Institute for Digital Cultures, the Coding Lab, the Art x Science School
for Transformation or the Angewandte Interdisciplinary Lab (AIL).
