Contents

  3 President Interview

The Programs
  7 mfa Art Criticism and Writing
 25 mat Art Education
 43 mfa Art Practice
 61 mps Art Therapy
 81 mps Branding
 95 mfa Computer Art
127 ma Critical Theory and the Arts
139 mfa Design
163 mfa Design Criticism
187 mfa Design for Social Innovation
205 mps Digital Photography
225 mps Fashion Photography
239 mfa Fine Arts
261 mfa Illustration as Visual Essay
279 mfa Interaction Design
301 mps Live Action Short Film
315 mfa Photography, Video and
Related Media
345 mfa Products of Design
371 mfa Social Documentary Film

388 General Information

392 Tuition and Expenses
396 Financial Aid
398 Admission to the Programs
408 Administration
414 Building Directory
and Campus Map
 “As an art school in the United States, it is entirely appropriate that we have adopted the American
philosophy of Pragmatism. As a college we have always been willing to experiment and learn from
trial and error. I’m proud that one of the things we’ve made function effectively at sva is a culture
of working professionals who head programs that are deeply connected to current creative work and
evolve over time, taking account of new conditions in the field and the shifting interests of the depart-
ment chairs, faculty and students. With a renewed emphasis on education as central to development
and growth, and an ever deeper appreciation of how much students can (and must) contribute, I believe
the u.s. will continue to grow as a top international destination for graduate-level study.”
What are the challenges of organizing staff and programming in the way that sva does? “There
is a modest tension between faculty members’ professional commitments and their teaching respon-
sibilities,” Mr. Rhodes admits, ‘but I think we’ve solved that here. A typical institution hands faculty
a lot of work that they’re not necessarily expert at. We don’t do that; our faculty is here to teach what
they know, and to impart what they are expert at in their work

David
lives. And since they are actively involved in their professions,

President Interview
what they’re doing is fresh. There may be some virtue to drawing
from plaster casts, but we have found it’s more useful—to make

Rhodes
another Pragmatic point—to be doing something of the moment.
The content of our programs changes almost annually. No one’s
lecturing from yellowed notes made 30 years ago.”
And it’s not just the content of existing departments that
keeps moving: sva continues to introduce new graduate
programs, responding to emerging interest and demand. “For
example,” President Rhodes begins, “an mfa in Art Practice,
developed by curator and former Whitney director David Ross, is beginning in the summer of 2011.
Its mission is two-fold: The continuous development of art-making through extensive studio work, and
a thorough understanding of contemporary art practice, including critical and curatorial endeavors.”
“In the fall of 2011 we’ll welcome our first class to a one-year mps in Fashion Photography.
Chaired by Jimmy Moffat and Stephen Frailey, the program is designed to immerse students in the
narrative, conceptual and cultural subtext of fashion photography, and provide direct engagement
with the leading figures in fashion and fashion photography in New York City.”
“And in 2012,” he continues, “we will launch our first purely research-based degree, an ma
in Critical Theory and the Arts, developed by philosopher Robert Hullot-Kentor, as well as two new
advanced design degrees: mfa Products of Design, a strategic making-based curriculum considering
purposeful artifacts, systems, and design offerings, chaired by Core77 founder Alan Chochinov, and
mfa Design for Social Innovation, which, as Chair Cheryl Heller says, ‘considers the new challenges
of working at the intersection of business, society and the natural world.’”
Recently, the College has expanded physically as well as in its range of programs. One particularly
striking development is the sva Theatre on West 23rd Street. “This is something we had wanted to do
for a long time,” the president reveals. “To create a cultural center for Midtown South. Pedagogically,
it will allow graduate programs to collaborate on some lectures and multimedia presentations.”
In addition to these and other changes, he recognized the College’s longstanding strengths.
“Illustration has been around for a long time, but (the mfa in Illustration as Visual Essay) is actually
an innovative program that turns the discipline on its head. Half of its graduates have published books
and graphic novels and even produced painting series. That’s not what we expected setting it up, but
that program has stayed out ahead of the field.”
“Ultimately,” President Rhodes concludes, smiling, “we are open to supporting and guiding
whichever paths students choose, so long as their work is smart.”

3
Accreditations
the school of visual arts has been authorized by the New
York State Board of Regents (www.highered.nysed.gov) to confer the
degree of Bachelor of Fine Arts on graduates of four-year programs in
Advertising and Graphic Design; Computer Art, Computer Animation
and Visual Effects; Film, Video and Animation; Fine Arts; Illustration and
Cartooning; Interior Design; Photography; Visual and Critical Studies;
and to confer the degree of Master of Arts on graduates of the one-year
program in Critical Theory and the Arts; and to confer the degree of
Master of Fine Arts on graduates of two-year programs in Art Criticism
and Writing; Computer Art; Design; Design Criticism; Design for Social
Innovation; Fine Arts; Illustration as Visual Essay; Interaction Design;
Photography, Video and Related Media; Products of Design; Social
Documentary Film; and to confer the degree of Master of Fine Arts on
graduates of the three-year program in Art Practice; and to confer the
degree of Master of Professional Studies on graduates of the two-year
program in Art Therapy and the one-year programs in Branding; Digital
Photography; Fashion Photography; Live Action Short Film; and to confer
the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching on graduates of the program in
Art Education and to confer the degree of Master of Arts in Teaching on
graduates of the program in Art Education. Data required by the U.S.
Department of Education on “Gainful Employment” for each of the above
programs may be found on each individual program page at sva.edu.

the school of visual arts is accredited by the Commission

on Higher Education of the Middle States Association of Colleges and
Schools (www.msche.org), 3624 Market Street, Philadelphia, PA
19104, 215.662.5606. The Commission on Higher Education is
an institutional accrediting agency recognized by the u.s. Secretary of
Education and the Council on Higher Education Accreditation.

the school of visual arts is an accredited institutional member

of the National Association of Schools of Art and Design (http://nasad.
arts-accredit.org).

the interior design program leading to the Bachelor of Fine

The
Arts in Interior Design is accredited by the Council for Interior Design
Accreditation (formerly FIDER) (www.accredit-id.org), 146 Monroe
Center nw, Suite 1318, Grand Rapids, mi 49503-2822.

the master of professional studies in Art Therapy degree

program is approved by the American Art Therapy Association, Inc., and

Programs
as such meets the Education Standards of the art therapy profession.

the master of arts in teaching in Art Education program

is accredited by the New York State Regents Accreditation of Teacher
Education (rate ).
 XX For us, criticism is a way to ask bigger and better questions
XX We want students with wide-ranging curiosity about contemporary culture
XX Emphasis on the history and current transformations of the image

The mfa in Art Criticism and Writing is one of the only graduate writing programs in the country that
focuses specifically on criticism. We honor Walter Benjamin’s desire to “create criticism as a genre,”
unto itself, and that means opening the program to a wide variety of approaches and inquiries. For us,
criticism is an open proposition—a way to ask bigger and better questions.
The practice of criticism involves making finer and finer distinctions among like things, but it is also
a way of asking fundamental questions about art and life. Writing good criticism requires a grounding
in art history and aesthetics, and also a prodigious curiosity and knowledge of contemporary culture.
Critics cannot afford to be specialists, so our curriculum is both finely focused and wide-ranging. In
addition to the foundation seminars Bases of Criticism, three levels of writing practicum, and the thesis
seminar, we offer a broad array of continually changing electives, dealing with everything from the
idealist tradition to artists’ writings. We concentrate on the essay as form, as well as on shorter forms
of review, and learn criticism by doing it. Students’ writing and reviews are published regularly in our
online magazine Degree Critical, and art magazine editors are involved in the program in various
capacities. The thesis that students write at the end of their course of study is intended to be a substantial
work of criticism. We want students to come out of this program and be able to write in the world.
From its inception, this program has also had a special emphasis on the history and current transfor-
mations of the image. We live in an age when images have an inordinate power over us—the power to
influence public opinion, to create and direct desire, to comfort and inflame. The critics of tomorrow must
study images, in all of their manifestations, in order to better understand how we are subject to them.
In addition to our exceptional core faculty, we invite many artists, writers, critics, editors, art his-
torians and philosophers each year to give lectures and meet with our students individually or in small
groups. This will always be a small program, with a good deal of opportunity for one-on-one interaction.
We think it makes sense for a program like this to be situated within a major art college like the School
of Visual Arts, since good things happen when artists and writers get together. It is also obviously a
big advantage to have such a program located in the heart of New York City, amidst the greatest con-
centration of artists and art activity in the world. We will look at a lot of art here, and try to account
for our experience of it in writing. And in all we do, we will be guided by the advice Henry James gave
to writers when he said, “Try to be one of those on whom nothing is lost.”

David Levi Strauss, chair

MFA
Art Criticism
and Writing
www.sva.edu/grad/artcriticism
department site: artcriticism.sva.edu 7
 Catching
Up With
the Critics
Alumni Profile: Christine Licata
and Clay Matlin

Clay Matlin (MFA’07) reflected in the windows of the

New Museum on the Bowery in New York City. Ugo
Rondinone’s work “Hell, Yes!” was installed on the
façade of the building for the museum’s opening at
its new location in December 2008.
Students entering the Art Criticism program have their work cut out for them. Not only is the
discipline evolving rapidly, but its educators—often critics themselves—demand a high level of
cultural understanding and a commanding skill of the pen. “The program really re-trained me how
to write,” explains recent grad Clay Matlin. “The experience is bigger than the standard 300 - to
600 -word exhibition review. Instead, the entire spectrum of art writing is encouraged. The program
makes you think about the act of writing, how one exists in the moment of the experience, and to
be thoughtful and careful in the use of words.”
This deeply thorough re-education in the skill of writing was especially demanding for fellow
alumna Christine Licata. “For me, the biggest challenge in art writing was to learn to express the visual
to the verbal. My undergraduate degree is in graphic design, so for many years I had been trained to do
the opposite—to translate language and concepts symbolically and visually,” she says. “Studying art
criticism, I had to learn to reverse the process, to literally extract these ideas in order to communicate.”
Fortunately, both Matlin and Licata can rest easy knowing they were put through their paces by
those that can walk the walk, including Raphael Rubinstein. Rubinstein, a widely published critic
and former senior editor of Art in America for over a decade, teaches the final writing course before
students embark on their thesis. Students are given assignments as if they were critics in the real
world, and have their work openly edited and discussed in class. A large amount of time in Rubin-
stein’s class goes into helping students simply describe what they see with their own eyes. “It’s essential
to giving the readers the evidence they need in order to follow you to their conclusion,” he says.
“It keeps you honest as a writer.” Assignments go through multiple revisions—just as they would
in a magazine—until the piece is perfect. “You can’t separate the importance of good criticism
from good writing,” says Rubinstein. Admits Matlin, “Raphael taught two of my writing courses
and was particularly brutal, which is a great thing to have from a writing teacher. One can’t always
be told how good one is, because it’s simply not true. Writing students are going to produce a lot
of terrible writing. They have to, otherwise they wouldn’t be learning anything.”

Christine Licata (MFA ’08) at El Taller Boricua Gallery

in Spanish Harlem, where she is assistant curator.
 The MFA Art Criticism and Writing Department has its own floor
chair interview in a beautiful building in Chelsea, the heart of New York City's bustling art

David Levi Strauss

district. Our department comprises a seminar room and the departmental
library, a room where students can congregate to read, work, have
informal discussions or make use of the shared Internet and word
“This is a program for the present,” says David Levi Strauss, “a time when there’s some confusion processing workstations. The departmental library expands almost daily,
about what criticism is. In my teaching, I’ve noticed the rise of ‘curatorial rhetoric,’ writing that as we are constantly adding new books of art criticism, philosophy, art
borrows from specialized languages in which the author lacks a background, which often obscures history and critical theory, and also includes subscriptions to a broad and
more than it reveals. For me, chairing this program represents a chance to counter that tendency.” diverse array of art magazines and newspapers.
What are the program’s concentrations? “There’s an emphasis on the history and transformation
“Our program is unique.
of the image,” Strauss responds, “but there’s also a philosophical base. My model for it is the Poetics
It’s a small, seminar- and
Program that Robert Duncan ran in San Francisco during the early ’80s. Duncan and the other poets
discussion-based program
who taught there conceived of poetics in its largest sense, as the study of how things are made, so it
in which students learn

On any
can be applied to anything made.”
as much from each other
“Students in the sva program come from a variety of fields,” Strauss observes. “Some have diff­
as from the teachers.”
erent kinds of writing backgrounds, others have training in art history, but most have been working

given day...
for some time. They might have been publishing criticism professionally but found themselves looking
for a way to go to the next stage.”
“Our program is unique. It’s a small, seminar- and discussion-based program in which students
learn as much from each other as from the teachers. Students here write every week, in a variety of
formats, and attend workshops with working writers and editors. It’s direct and intense.”
The program incorporates electives that change from year to year. “Virtual Curating has been a
popular course,” Strauss observes. “Students do everything required to make an exhibition short of noon  First year students meet in Chelsea to do a round of gallery visits 6pm  Students take a break in the departmental library, making use of the
actually mounting it, and that includes writing a catalog. Another elective, The History of Reading, and look at art from newly opened shows. After an informal walking tour kitchen area to grab a quick bite.
is based on the idea that, as literacy is becoming a cult activity, questions are emerging about what read- of half a dozen galleries, students reconvene at a café to have an informal
ing is, how it works, and the influence of technological changes. Artists’ Writings is another interesting discussion about the shows, in preparation for writing reviews. 7pm  The department hosts a public lecture by writer and art historian

track, looking at the history of the form, from Kandinsky, Moholy-Nagy and Breton to the present.
We also had a great series by Jeffrey Kastner that looked at contemporary art history through the lens
of the art magazine.”
As is the case with sva in general, the program takes full advantage of its New York base. “There
are so many people here that we can draw on.” Strauss enthuses. “Leo Steinberg did a special session
with all of my students that was incredible.”
As to the thesis toward which students work, Strauss explains that “from the beginning, the idea has
been that it should be a work of criticism, but that can include many different approaches.” He pulls out
a stack of examples. “Alyssa Timin wrote one called ‘The Eye of the Storm: Regarding Waiting for Godot
in New Orleans,’ while Sophie Landres wrote a comparison of artists who used language in the Concep-
tual art of the ’60s and ’70s with contemporary artists who use it in connection with digital states.”
“Ultimately,” Strauss concludes, “our hope is for people to be able to write real criticism in the real
world, and the pathways to that are many and complex.”
T.J. Clark at the SVA Theatre on Picasso’s Guernica. After the lecture,
1pm  First- and second-year students convene at the home of artist Clark joins our students for a meal and discussion on the talk.
Nancy Goldring for an intimate conversation with Leo Steinberg
about works such as Pontormo's Capponi Chapel, that the art historian 9pm  Students head downtown to a Cabinet Magazine launch party, to
has written extensively about over decades. mingle with writers and editors including Jeff Kastner, senior editor and
faculty member.
2pm Chair David Levi Strauss has a studio visit with artist Terry
Winters in preparation for an upcoming piece for the Brooklyn Rail.
3pm  Second-year students meet with Susan Bee for their required thesis
seminar, to discuss research issues in long-form critical writing. Writer
Bonnie Marranca visits the class to talk with students about writing
strategies.
4pm Chair Levi Strauss meets with a second-year student to discuss a
writing opportunity that has come up for a CUE Art Foundation catalog
for an upcoming show.

Art Criticism & Writing 12 13 www.sva.edu/grad/artcriticism

(above) T.J. Clark speaking at the SVA Theatre about
Picasso’s Guernica. Afterwards, (left) Clark joined
Chair Strauss and students at El Quijote, one of New
York City’s oldest Spanish restaurants.
The Program  The mfa Art Criticism and Writing program provides a broad spectrum of courses taught
by experts in their respective disciplines. Course work both informs and guides students toward their personal and Course Descriptions
professional goals in art criticism and its writing. ¶ The curriculum assists students in the development of both
a professional engagement with the visual arts and a professional body of work. These objectives are achieved
through training in and exposure to contemporary critical practices, and the simultaneous development of a solid
foundation in cultural histories and philosophies, both ancient and modern. The second year concentrates on the
refinement of critique and writing skills to enable each student to achieve a personal style of commentary. ¶ Bases
of Criticism I and II; Writing I, II and III; Thesis Seminar and Thesis are all required courses. The curriculum is also
designed to accommodate specific areas of interest through the elective courses, which relate to major issues in Required Courses Elective Courses
contemporary art criticism. Students work with their academic advisor to create a course schedule that is tailored to Bases of CRITICISM I & II Against Interpretation
their individual academic objectives. ¶ In addition to the core faculty, the program includes visiting lecturers from Required of all first-year students, these courses provide background for A subjective overview of strategies for resisting criticism, this class
the history, theory and criticism offered through the elective courses. will look at the perennial efforts artists have undertaken to resist the
around the world. These lecturers will both discuss the backgrounds of their traditions as they relate to creative Foundational texts will create a base for further studies during the two- authority, and the conventional formats, of criticism. From Dada,
expression and share their perspectives on the relationships between the artistic practices of their cultures and the year program. These courses will assist students in understanding the Fluxus, and Conceptualism, to the Bruce High Quality Foundation
prominent theoretical positions of art criticism—past and present—and and other collectives dedicated to rewriting art history’s curriculum (or
global significance of these practices. ¶ Degree candidates must successfully complete 60 credits, including all their sources, and will concentrate especially on the history and theory pedagogical practice), usurping the critical role has been a recurrent
required courses, and maintain a 3.0 grade point average. A residency of two academic years is required. In the of the image. motive. Because the subject is so broad, this course will be organized
in part around examples of particular interest to the students who
final semester, each student completes a thesis, which must be reviewed and approved by the thesis advisor and Writing I, II & III enroll. Susan Sontag’s essay will be one starting point; Sol LeWitt’s
the department chair in order for the student to be eligible for degree conferral. These courses will lead to the writing of the thesis in the final semester sentences and paragraphs on Conceptual art will be another.
of the program. Students will read examples from different styles
of critical writing. Brief texts, in the nature of reviews of current THE ART OF THE INTERVIEW
exhibitions, will be assigned. In conjunction with writing and revising An important tool of the art writer is the interview. Yet it is often
Sample Program exhibition reviews for possible publication in the program’s online regarded as a kind of blank-faced question-and-answer followed by the
journal Degree Critical, instructors will consult on thesis issues. As publication of a mechanically edited transcript. In this course, we will
the process advances, students are encouraged to dig more deeply discuss and practice what it means to conduct a successful interview.
first year into ideas without ever losing sight of the value of clarity. Students will learn how to prepare properly, how to read a person
and use dialogue as a creative form, and how to fashion the interview
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
Thesis Seminar material after the fact. Students will interview one another, and use
Bases of Criticism I 4 Bases of Criticism II 4 Students will begin thesis preparation by formulating the central ideas New York City as a laboratory of artists, dealers, gallery directors,
Writing I 4 Writing II 4 that will become the thesis, and will consider appropriate strategies for editors, writers, academics and other representatives of the art world
Electives (2) 8 Electives (2) 8 the research, form, presentation and distribution of their ideas. Thesis to interview and profile.
Seminar will give students the opportunity to meet as a group with a
faculty member and discuss issues related to the development of their Artists in the Present
theses, and read portions of their work in class. Guest lecturers from Instead of concentrating on the conventional modes of interview,
second year various fields will discuss what is important about a thesis. which rely on sets of questions that apply to everyone, this course
will explore different preparations and methods congenial to a wide
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
Thesis variety of practices and approaches that artists have adapted in order
Writing III 4 Thesis Seminar 4 Each student will meet with his or her thesis advisor and work to differentiate themselves. Critics need to be able to talk with artists.
Electives (3) 12 Thesis8 on a one-to-one basis throughout the semester. Meetings are used We’ll prepare interviews that uncover working methods and ideas. The
for the instructor to respond to drafts of the thesis and discuss course includes studio visits.
Note: Each elective course is four credits. its development.
Artists’ Writings
The significant interventions that visual artists have made through art
writing into the art criticism of their time are the focus of this course. It
will examine artists’ writings, including journals, art criticism, manifes-
tos, theoretical writings, letters and artist-run publications. Artists such
as Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, Kasimir Malevich, André
Breton, Marsden Hartley, Barnett Newman, Ad Reinhardt, Robert
Motherwell, Louise Bourgeois, Allan Kaprow, Robert Smithson, Donald
Judd, Robert Morris, Adrian Piper, Mary Kelly and Carolee Schnee-
mann, among others, have bridged the gap between art practice,
artwork and critical theory, and invigorated the language of art criti-
cism. We will concentrate on some of the key artists’ writings from
Russian constructivism to the Bauhaus, surrealism, abstract expression-
ism, Fluxus, feminism, conceptual art and minimalism.

Art Criticism & Writing 16 17 www.sva.edu/grad/artcriticism

Criticism and Risk
I suspect that for most everyone seriously involved with art, risk is an
essential and uneasy word. The best artists, critics, curators, collec-
tors and dealers may approach risk differently, but in order to meet
the challenges of art, they all know that risk is required. Without
risk, there can be neither knowledge nor transformation. Uncertainty,
disturbance, otherness and shock have been part of the fabric of
modernity, of which each incarnation of The Contemporary, no mat-
ter how distinct, is itself part. But what a difficult word risk is! Risk
what? Risk how? For what? For whom? With what objective? For a
critic, the potential for risk is shaped by the publishing outlet. Risk is
encouraged or suffocated by strategies of writing—including style. It
goes without saying that its energies and stakes are also shaped by per-
sonality and history. This course will not fetishize or commodify risk.
Through writings by artists, critics, curators and others—including
you, the students—it will consider questions such as: What are risk’s
forms? How do we recognize them? How does risk happen within
overt and internalized systems of authorization? What role does risk
play in the experience of art and writing?
Developing a Voice: From Jacques Derrida to Don DeLillo
This course takes ekphrasis—art writing, the art of visual descrip-
tion—as its topic. Art writing exists in many forms and is a mutable
and creative act. Often, the least interesting writing on art is done by
art historians. We will spend the semester studying the writings of
poets (including Baudelaire), novelists (including DeLillo), filmmakers
(including Pier Paolo Pasolini), philosophers (including Derrida), and
artists (including Robert Smithson). The goal of the course is two-fold:
for students to be exposed to a variety of writing styles, and to experi-
ment with and develop a unique voice outside the bounds of academic
writing or journalism. There will be weekly writings and in-class cri-
tiques as well as a final paper.
Form and Function
From the Bauhaus and de Stijl to Donald Judd and Scott Burton to
Mary Heilmann and Franz West, the commitment to abstraction has
coincided, with striking frequency, with an impulse to create functional
form. Seemingly contradictory, the two inclinations have also inter-
sected with others, including, variously, utopianism, asceticism and
iconoclasm. This class will look at the conceptual, social and politi-
cal agendas associated with such hybrid work. Artists whose work
engages these paradigms critically or ironically (Andrea Zittel and
Jorge Pardo, among many others) will also be considered. Problems of
engaging sympathetically with the various historical contexts in which
these varied expressions of idealism (or nihilism) have arisen will be
addressed.
THE IDEALIST TRADITION
The idealist tradition begins with Plato, migrates to the Neoplatonists,
the Renaissance Platonists, the Cam­bridge Platon­ists and Kant. After
Kant, the tradition adapts through various stages—Hegelian histori-
cism, the critical historians, the British formalists (especially Bell and
Frye), and lands finally with Clement Greenberg. Greenberg popular-
ized and reinvigorated the idealist tradition for about a generation
and then it lost force, at least for a time. Readings include Plato’s Ion,
Art Criticism & Writing
Phaedrus, Republic 3, Philebus; selections from Plotinus’ Enneads;
Kant’s Critique of Judgment and selected essays; Hegel’s Philosophy
of History and Philosophy of Fine Art; Clive Bell’s Art; Roger Frye’s
Transformations; Clement Greenberg’s Art and Culture, and selected
essays of Fried and Nodelman.
In the Process: Thinking about how Art Is Made
Through reading essays by artists, critics and historians about the
process of making art, this class will consider the importance of close
attention to any given work’s material as well as conceptual quali-
ties. Subjects will range from traditional studio practices resulting in
discrete paintings and sculptures to the development of work based
in ideas and realized as ephemera or in time-based media. The goal
of the class will be a broader understanding of how process shapes
not only physical outcome but also meaning. We will begin with two
texts on Alberto Giacometti, by James Lord (A Giacometti Portrait)
and David Sylvester (Looking at Giacometti). Further assigned authors
will include artists Donald Judd, Robert Smithson, Robert Morris, Eva
Hesse, Yvonne Rainer, Rackstraw Downes, Carroll Dunham, David
Humphrey, Andrea Fraser and Frances Stark, and writers Robert Storr,
Richard Sennett, David Levi Strauss and Patricia Phillips.
The Language of Color
What language do we use to write about color in art? This course will
explore the descriptive, critical and poetic terms that signify color,
from prehistory to the present day. Through observation, reading,
discussion and writing, we will examine the science and philosophy of
color, the historical and literary development of color language, and
the cultural and political significance of color in modern and contem-
porary art. Museum and studio visits, discussions with artists and crit-
ics, experiments in color identification and mixing, and regular writing
workshops will be included. Readings will range from scientific and
philosophical texts (Aristotle, Isaac Newton, Goethe, Michel-Eugène
Chevreul, Ludwig Wittgenstein, Josef Albers) to fiction/memoir and
poetry (Rainer Maria Rilke, William S. Burroughs, Barbara Guest,
Frank O’Hara, William Gass, Maggie Nelson) to contemporary criti-
cism (David Batchelor, Yve-Alain Bois, Esther Leslie and Kathryn
Tuma). Students will develop a language of color through descriptive
writing, response to critical texts and subjective encounters with color
in art.
Live Art Criticism: History and Practice
This course will explore strategies for writing about live art, and study-
ing innovators in dance, theater and the visual arts, mostly through the
intrepid critics who have long, if sporadically, provided a context for
category-defying works. The performing and visual arts have always
borrowed from one another, but this mutual interest is too rarely
accompanied by critical understanding or comfort, both of which can
only be achieved by looking and writing. That’s what we will do here.
MARXISM AND ART CRITICISM
This course aims to acquaint students with significant figures and texts
in the tradition of Marxist art theory and criticism, beginning with an
essay from Marx himself and concluding with work by T. J. Clark, the
most eminent contemporary art historian working within the frame-
18
work of Marxism. Readings include works by Trotsky, Plekhanov,
Raymond Williams, Simmel, Georg Lukacs, Ernst Fischer, Jameson,
Althusser, Marcuse and Adorno.
Motion Capture
This course will track the course of movement as depicted in still
images via some of the oldest and newest forms of animation. From
ancient traditions of animism and the talismanic characteristics of
inanimate objects to the newest motion capture technologies and mili-
tary surveillance, we will examine how we represent movement, and
to what ends. We’ll read Aby Warburg and Roland Barthes, look at
Muybridge and Marey, and move into ideas of montage in Eisenstein
and Godard. We’ll talk about the accumulation of images as material,
drones and infrared heat sensor goggles, and speculative motion cap-
ture, in an attempt to get closer to the future of images.
The Poet as Critic
In this class, we will examine the various ways in which poets have
responded to visual art in the modern Western tradition. Our pri-
mary focus will be Paris in the nineteenth and early twentieth century
and New York from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Our
trajectory will reveal a rich tradition, beginning with Baudelaire,
continuing with Apollinaire, and concentrating especially on the New
York School, with writings by Frank O’Hara, Edwin Denby, and Bill
Berkson, and continuing to the present with such writers as Eileen
Myles, Carter Ratcliff, Raphael Rubinstein, and John Yau. We will
also touch on writers who had and have deep involvements with
poetry, many of them artists themselves: Rudy Burckhardt, Nicolas
Calas, Rackstraw Downes, Merlin James, and Fairfield Porter. We
will read pieces that have become touchstones in contemporary think-
ing about art, such as Baudelaire’s “The Painter of Modern Life” and
Denby’s account of New York in the 1930s. Our goal is to introduce
participants to diverse ways of thinking about the visual arts, to notice
how language can be energized to discuss visual arts, to examine
effects of collaborations between poets and visual artists, and to learn
new ways of writing and thinking about works of art.
SCIENCE AND ART CRITICISM
From atomic theory to the decipherment of the human genome, sci-
ence has spilled out of the laboratory and into our lives. When we add
to this mix the invention of the Internet and its global perspectives in
cyberspace, a revolution is upon us. As scientists engage in molecular
makeovers, plastic surgery and nanotechnology, the corporeal body
has become a topic of public and aesthetic discourse in itself. This
course will examine the ways in which artists are addressing genetic
engineering, new anatomical models, reproductive technologies and
cloning as part of the emergent “sci-art” movement that is taking
place in the United States and abroad. Other topics include: genetically
modified food, the commodification of bio-matter, lab residencies for
artists and ecological initiatives. In addition, new imaging technologies
and their relationship to science, art, design and architecture will be
conceptually explored. Visiting speakers will complement the course
material.
19
A SHORT HISTORY OF READING
Reading is a skill that has shaped society and the human brain in a
manner we are just beginning to understand. It has developed from
the 15th century as an elaborate and varied practice within very
specific historical and cultural contexts. But what is it to read? We
will learn about the impact of the printing press, the book, the novel
and the Internet. Of primary importance, we will use the history of
reading to explore whether reading is “dead” or simply ap­proach­ed
differently in contemporary society. Students will read literature,
poetry, historical and theoretical texts from John Donne, Gertrude
Stein and Roland Barthes, to Proust and the Squid: The Story and
Science of the Reading Brain by Maryanne Wolf.
The Sublime and the Beautiful
This course will conduct a literary and visual examination of the con-
cepts of the sublime and the beautiful, as one of the great dichotomies
in Western theory and criticism. We will examine the sublime (Burke,
Kant, Turner, Newman) and the beautiful (Bell, Greenberg, Heidegger,
Habermas), as well as some of the images on which their theories are
based. In addition, recent works, including Dave Hickey’s The Invisible
Dragon and essays by Peter Schjeldahl, will be discussed.
VIRTUAL CURATING
The premise of this course is for students to conceive a thematic, bien-
nial-style exhibition, and select the artists and works for the show.
During the semester, the class will write all texts required for such an
exhibition, includ­ing letters of invitation, press releases, catalog essays/
entries and wall text. Theoretical texts on curating as well as exem-
plary catalog essays will be discussed and analyzed. All aspects of
curating (short of an actual physical installation) will be covered, with
an emphasis on writing.
The Work of Art in the Age of Information
“The immense size of modern databases gives us a feeling of
meaninglessness.” —Freeman Dyson.
In this course we will discuss some of the following questions: What
is the work—the task—of art in a world given over to the near instan-
taneous flow of data across all boundaries of self and state? Is it still
useful to think of the artist as a singular figure whose work captures
a present reality, when history itself seems to be a rapidly shifting,
tractionless field? How can we distinguish between subjective and
objective reasons for aesthetic judgment (and is it important to do so)?
Can critical thinking/writing reinscribe the criteria of meaning into
the art experience without disavowing the work of theory or reject-
ing the ubiquity of information and opinion? Is there a new relation
to be found between critical authority and cultural/social resonance?
Readings from a range of thinkers, artists and writers. Weekly short
papers and one term paper.
www.sva.edu/grad/artcriticism
Faculty
David Levi Strauss, chair
Writer, critic
Education: BA, Goddard College; graduate work in the Poetics
Program, New College of California
Books include: Between the Eyes: Essays on Photography and
Politics; Between Dog and Wolf: Essays on Art & Politics; Leon
Golub and Nancy Spero: The Fighting Is a Dance, Too; From Head
to Hand: Art and the Manual
Contributing editor: Aperture; The Brooklyn Rail; founding
editor, ACTS: A Journal of New Writing. Other publications include:
Artforum, Art in America, The Nation, Art Journal, Cabinet
Awards and honors include: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation Fellowship; Artspace Grant for New Writing in Art
Criticism; Logan Award, Boston University, Infinity Award for Writing
Suzanne Anker
Chair, BFA Fine Arts Department, School of Visual Arts;
fine artist; critic
Education: BA, Brooklyn College; MFA, University of Colorado
at Boulder
Publications include: Art Journal; Tema Celeste; Seed; M/E/A/
N/I/N/G; Leonardo; Nature Reviews Genetics; Update: New York
Academy of Sciences magazine; co-author, The Molecular Gaze: Art
in the Genetic Age
Group Exhibitions include: Walker Art Center, Minneapolis;
Smithsonian Institution, Washington, DC; P.S.1 Contemporary
Art Center; J.Paul Getty Museum, Los Angeles; Museum of Modern
Art, Japan
Susan Bee
Editor; writer; fine artist; co-editor, M/E/A/N/I/N/G Online.
Formerly, editor, special issues, New Observations, Artkrush;
co-editor, M/E/A/N/I/N/G: A Journal of Contemporary Art
Issues and M/E/A/N/I/N/G: An Anthology of Artists’ Writings,
Theory, and Criticism
Education: BA, Barnard College; MA, Hunter College
Artist’s books include: Talespin, Bed Hangings, Log Rhythms,
A Girl’s Life, Little Orphan Anagram, The Burning Babe and
Other Poems
Awards and honors include: New York State Council on the
Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Virginia Center for the
Creative Arts, Yaddo Fellowship
Art Criticism & Writing
Michael Brenson
Critic, scholar
Education: BA, Rutgers University; MA, PhD, Johns Hopkins
University
Professional experience includes: Art reporter, art critic,
The New York Times; art critic, New York magazine
Books include: Visionaries and Outcasts: The NEA, Congress,
and the Place of the Visual Artist in America; Acts of Engagement:
Writings on Art, Criticism, and Institutions, 1993-2002. Co-author,
co-editor, Culture in Action: A Public Art Program of Sculpture
Chicago. Co-editor, Conversations at the Castle: Changing Audiences
and Contemporary Art; Witness to Her Art: Art and Writings by
Adrian Piper, Mona Hatoum, Cady Noland, Jenny Holzer, Kara
Walker, Daniela Rossell and Eau de Cologne
Publications include: Art & Auction; Art Journal; Art in America;
Sculpture; Journal of the Clark Art Institute; American Theatre; The
New York Times Magazine; Connaissance des Arts; Association
Internationale des Critiques d’Art; Washington Post; Joel Shapiro:
Sculpture and Drawings
Presentations include: Distinguished Critic’s Lecture,
International Association of Art Critics, New School University;
Samuel P. Harn Museum of Art, University of Florida; Denver
Art Museum; Princeton University; Yale University Art Gallery;
Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Museum of Modern Art;
Weatherspoon Art Museum; Storm King Art Center; Albright-Knox
Art Gallery
Awards and honors include: John Simon Guggenheim Memorial
Foundation Fellowship; Bogliasco Fellowship; visiting scholar, Getty
Research Institute; Board of Trustees, Fondation Alberto et Annette
Giacometti. Commencement speaker: School of the Art Institute of
Chicago; New York Studio School
20
Phong Bui
Publisher, editor, Brooklyn Rail; visual artist; curator
Education: BFA, Philadelphia College of Art;
New York Studio School
Professional experience includes: Curatorial advisor,
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center. Host, “Off the Rail Hour,” Art
International Radio. Board member: Marie Walsh Sharpe Foundation,
International Association of Art Critics
Publications include: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
New York Sun, Sculpture, Hudson Review, Art in America, New York
Observer, The Village Voice, San Francisco Chronicle, Art Monthly
Australia, Matador, Art & Auction, Brooklyn Rail, Metro, The New
Yorker, NY Arts, art.net
One-person exhibitions include: Leslie Heller Gallery, Wooster
Arts Space, Sarah Bowen Gallery, Sideshow Gallery
Group exhibitions include: Lohin Geduld Gallery; Norte Maar;
Vaudeville Park; Janet Kurnatowski Gallery; Gallery Satori; Cité du
Livre, Aix-en-Provence, France; Today Art Museum, Beijing; Pierogi
2000; Brooklyn Museum
Awards and honors include: Eric Isenburger Annual Prize,
National Academy Museum; American Academy of Arts and Letters;
Pollock-Krasner Foundation; NURTUREart; Arcadia Fellowship;
Hohenberg Award for European Travel, New York Studio School;
Charles H. Revson Foundation
Munro Galloway
Visual artist
Education: BA, Brown University; MFA, Bard College
One-person exhibitions include: Murray Guy; Ohio State
University, Columbus
Group exhibitions include: Redux Contemporary Art Center,
Charleston, SC; University of Tennessee, Knoxville; Hudson Frank-
lin Gallery; Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Salzburg
Artists’ books include: Drawings After Bacon, Vessel States,
The Weeds
Publications include: Artforum, The New Yorker, Time Out
New York, Flash Art, Knoxville News Sentinel
Awards include: Farpath Foundation; Arnold-Watson
Fellowship, Paris; Fergus Fellowship, Ohio State University
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve
Producer, writer. Formerly, research associate, Whitney Museum
of American Art
Education: BA, Sarah Lawrence College; MA, New York University;
PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz
Books and Anthologies include: How Like a Leaf; Ellen
Gallagher, A Painter in III Acts; Peter Halley; Louise Bourgeois;
The Monster’s Progress: The Art of James Barsness
Publications include: Artforum, Parkett, Art in America,
The Village Voice, Guggenheim magazine
21
Tom Huhn
Chair, Art History Department and BFA Visual and Critical Studies
Department, School of Visual Arts; coordinator, Honors Program,
School of Visual Arts; philosopher; critic
Education: BA, Sarah Lawrence College; MA, PhD,
Boston University
Books include: Imitation and Society: The Persistence of Mimesis
in the Aesthetics of Burke, Hogarth, and Kant; The Cambridge
Companion to Adorno; The Wake of Art: Criticism, Philosophy, and
the Ends of Taste; The Semblance of Subjectivity: Essays in Adorno’s
Aesthetic Theory
Publications include: Oxford Art Journal, British Journal of
Aesthetics, New German Critique, Art & Text, Eighteenth-Century
Studies, The Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Art Criticism,
Telos, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism, Philosophy and
Social Criticism
CURATORIAL WORKS INCLUDE: “Ornament and Landscape,”
Apex Gallery; “Still Missing: Beauty Absent Social Life,” Visual Arts
Museum and Westport Arts Center, CT
Awards include: Getty Scholar; Fulbright Scholar; First Prize,
American Society for Aesthetics Essay Contest; New York State
Council for the Humanities
Vincent Katz
Writer, curator
Education: BA, University of Chicago; BA, MA, Oxford University
Books include: Pleasure Palaces: The Art and Homes of Hunt Slonem;
Janet Fish: Paintings; Alcuni Telefonini; Judge; Rapid Departures;
Understanding Objects. Editor, Black Mountain College: Experiment in
Art. Co-author, co-editor, Kiki Smith: The Venice Story. Contributor,
Cy Twombly: Photographs; Francesco Clemente: New Works
Publications include: Apollo, Art in America, ARTnews, Art on
Paper, House & Garden, Parkett, The World of Interiors, Tate Etc.,
Jacket magazine, Bomb, Brooklyn Rail, Esopus, Evergreen Review
Curatorial projects include: “Street Dance: the New York
Photographs of Rudy Burckhardt,” Museum of the City of New York;
“Black Mountain College: Una Aventura Americana,” Museo Nacional
Centro de Arte, Reina Sofia, Madrid. Co-curator, “Rudy Burckhardt
& Friends: New York Artists of the 1950s and 60s,” Grey Art Gallery,
New York University
Awards and honors include: Rome Prize Fellowship, American
Academy in Rome; National Translation Award, American Literary
Translators Association
www.sva.edu/grad/artcriticism
 Guest Lecturers

Nancy Princenthal Claudia La Rocco Bill Berkson Nancy Princenthal

Critic; senior editor, Art in America. Formerly, assistant manager, Writer, The New York Times; cultural critic, WNYC; contributing poet, critic critic; senior editor, Art in America
Printed Matter; exhibitions director, Creative Time editor, Brooklyn Rail
Education: BA, magna cum laude, University of Pennsylvania; Education: BA, summa cum laude, Bowdoin College Susan Buck-Morss Avital Ronell
MA, Hunter College Professional experience includes: Writer, online editor, writer, theorist author
Contributing editor: Artforum, ARTnews, Parkett, The New Associated Press; creator, “Performance Club” blog, WNYC
York Times Publications include: Artforum, Musical America, Art on Paper, T. J. Clark Peter Schjeldahl
Co-author: After the Revolution: Women Who Transformed Art & Auction, failbetter.com art historian, writer critic, The New Yorker
Contemporary Art Group exhibitions include: High Desert Test Sites, Joshua Tree,
CA; Janet Kurnatowski Gallery Arthur Danto Katy Siegel
Lucy Raven Honor: Phi Beta Kappa critic, author critic; art historian; editor, Art Journal
Visual artist, filmmaker
Education: BA, BFA, University of Arizona; MFA, with honors, Raphael Rubinstein Boris Groys Leo Steinberg
Bard College Contributing editor, Art in America. Formerly, managing editor, critic, theorist writer, art historian
Professional experience includes: Managing editor, Bomb, Flash Art
Bidoun; co-founder, co-editor, The Relay Project; contributing editor, Education: BA, Bennington College Dave Hickey Michael Taussig
A Public Space; guest editor, Journal of Short Film Books include: The Afterglow of Minor Pop Masterpieces; critic, writer writer, anthropologist
Co-curator: “Nachleben,” Goethe-Institut; “The Marfa Sessions: Polychrome Profusion: Selected Art Criticism 1990-2002; The
Sounds Across Town,” Marfa, TX Basement of the Cafe Rilke; Postcards from Alphaville. Editor, Critical Ann Lauterbach Lynne Tillman
Exhibitions and screenings include: P.S.1 Contemporary Art Mess: Art Critics on the State of Their Practice poet, essayist writer
Center; Museum of Modern Art; MASS MoCA, North Adams, MA; Publications include: Grand Street, American Poetry Review,
Storefront for Art and Architecture; Overgaden, Copenhagen; Nevada Oulipo Compendium Lucy Lippard Peter Lamborn Wilson
Museum of Art, Reno; Princeton University Art Museum, NJ; Dallas Award: Chevalier dans l’Order des Arts et des Lettres writer, critic writer
Contemporary
Publications include: Artforum; Triple Canopy; Bidoun; Bomb; Sylvère Lotringer John Yau
contributor, The Road to Reno: Inge Morath writer, theorist poet; critic; art editor,
Awards and honors include: Best of 2009, Artforum, Frieze; Art
Cuauhtémoc Medina The Brooklyn Rail
Matters; Phi Beta Kappa. Artist residencies include: Wexner Center for
the Arts, Atlantic Center for the Arts critic, curator
website: www.lucyraven.com

Tel: 212.592.2408

Contact Us
Fax: 212.989.3516
E-mail: artcrit@sva.edu
www.sva.edu/grad/artcriticism
department site: artcriticism.sva.edu
We strongly encourage applicants to submit application materials as early as possible. The chair
is always available to meet with interested candidates to discuss the program and its philosophy.

Come to our Departmental Information Session, or contact us directly to schedule a tour.

Departmental Information Session: Saturday, October 22, 2011.

All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit.

To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact the Office of
Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.

Art Criticism & Writing 22 23 www.sva.edu/grad/artcriticism

 XX Develop an educational philosophy while continuing to create personal artwork

MAT
XX Gain specialized teaching experience through the School of Visual Arts’ innovative
children’s programs within the New York City community
XX Start teaching next fall with our one-year intensive program, or attend part-time

Art with our two-year program

Education The art classroom is a place where children are given the opportunity to explore and develop their per-
sonal dreams and goals, and to think independently. The Master of Arts in Teaching (mat) provides a
hands-on learning environment where student teachers investigate educational issues and techniques,

www.sva.edu/grad/arteducation
develop their own educational philosophy and continue creating personal artwork. The program takes
a child-centered approach to art education that emphasizes collaboration and community and address-
es the needs of diverse populations, including those with special needs.
Designed for students who have completed an undergraduate major in studio art, the mat Art
Education program can be completed either as a full-time, one-year intensive or as a two-year, part-time
program, ideal for those who want to continue working while they complete the coursework required
to qualify for the New York State Initial Certification in Visual Art.
Our faculty is comprised of professional artist/teachers who are experts at training artists to apply
their creative skills to teaching art to children in pre-kindergarten through grade 12. The program
provides the foundations and psychology of education as they are applied to diverse elementary
and secondary populations. Seminar courses investigate age-appropriate materials, methods and
educational concepts, which student teachers then apply directly to classroom practice in public school
placements. Courses like Curriculum for Special Populations, that includes faculty-led practica
at a homeless shelter; Museum Studies: Theory and Practice; Technology in Art Education; and
Curriculum: Arts Integrated, provide students with further training in varied approaches to teaching
art. The program culminates with the completion of a teaching portfolio, master’s thesis and an
exhibition of mat student artwork.
Individualized student teaching placements are made at carefully selected public schools through-
out the City. Our students have the opportunity to gain specialized teaching experience through sva’s
innovative children’s programs: Art Program for the Homeless and Art for Kids.
sva offers its students state-of-the-art facilities and studios. In addition, as our campus, the City
provides unparalleled resources—for field trips to museums and galleries and for classes held at the
Whitney Museum of American Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art,
the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and the Rubin Museum of Art. mat students may also audit
two courses from sva’s extensive continuing education offerings.
At sva we believe that to teach art, you should first be an artist who can use the power of art to
open the minds, as well as the eyes, of the young to new experiences and individual fulfillment. One
person—a gifted and caring teacher—can make a difference in a young person’s life. Our program is
for artists who want to become teachers and make that difference.

Rose Viggiano, chair

25
 Miller spends most of his time with school groups.
Here he overlooks the Panorama of the City of New
York, a massive miniature of the City. It’s the pride of
the Queens Museum, where he’s an educator.

An Artist
Teaches
Alumni Profile: Tim Miller
The Panorama was built for the 1964 New York
World’s Fair. It was called the world’s largest
scale model at the time. It encompasses 9,335
square feet and includes all 320 square miles
of New York City’s five boroughs.
 Sometimes learning from the faculty at SVA inspires students to give back and become teachers
themselves. In the early nineties, Tim Miller left the small town of Snohomish, Washington—where
wintry, bucolic tv shows like Northern Exposure and Twin Peaks were filmed—for sva, with dreams
of becoming a great illustrator, chasing his childhood passion for the comic book industry. Miller
graduated in 1994 from the undergraduate illustration and cartooning program, but his mentors at
sva, including artists Jack Potter and John Ruggeri, turned him on to the fine arts. They sparked
a passion for painting that continues to this day.
In the late nineties, he worked in galleries and other day jobs to support his painting until, yet again,
his mentors turned him on to something new: teaching. Miller entered the Art Education program in
2002, its inaugural year. “It was clear from the start that this was an intensive commitment,” says
Miller, “and that for one year of your life everything else was on hold. In a lot of ways, the fact that you
had to step up to the plate like that benefited me, in that it emboldened me to tackle the fundamental
challenge of teaching.” Miller was especially interested in discovering places to apply his degree outside
the traditional classroom and a class in museum education captured his imagination. “To be honest,
public speaking scared the hell out of me,” he recalls, referencing his current day-to-day life. “But the
program taught me to deal with that and find my footing.” Six months after graduating in 2003, he
began freelancing for New York’s Queens Museum of Art, which eventually led to his staff position as a
school and family educator.
Now 36, Miller teaches a wide variety of programs, in both the museum and after-school programs
for students of all ages. At the Queens Museum, he interacts directly with the kids and the institution’s
unique collection, most notably its prized possession, the Panorama of the City of New York, a 9,335
square foot architectural model of the Big Apple, originally built for the 1964 World’s Fair. He also
works in a program called Queens Teens once a week, where he mentors youth to explore the many
careers in the art world. The program was recognized last year in Washington, D.C., with a Coming Up
Taller Award, which is given by the President’s Committee on the Arts and the Humanities. “You see
the kids responding, living in what they’re doing and opening up before you,” he says. “I’m privileged to
have an opportunity to witness that.”

(Left) Miller stands in front of

“Chupacabra,” a sumi-ink mural by
Lisa Iglesias that was included in the
museum’s latest biennial, Queens
International 4. (Right) “Like, A
Conversation” by Karolyn Hatton,
another piece in the exhibition.
“We run the school groups through all these
exhibitions, exploring the artworks with them,
engaging them in a way that asks them about
what they see, what’s going on, why did the
artist do this, etc.,” explains Miller. “The aim is
to navigate the content, but at the same time
empower them to read the work through their
own means.” (Left) An installation titled “Fast
Forward” by Ryan Humphry. (Right) Outside
a window of the museum sits the Unisphere, a
12-story icon of the World’s Fair, whose theme
was “peace through understanding.”
 Located at 132 West 21st Street in Chelsea, the MAT Art Education Department
chair interview occupies the entire 4th floor—most of which is dedicated to a loft-like studio area with two

Rose Viggiano
Rose Viggiano has been at sva for 30 years and her passion for teaching and enthusiasm and affection
for sva remain strong. “My background is in sculpture so my schooling was creative… but disorga-
nized. In order to run the department, I had to get my doctorate, but I was happy to do it because I really
love and believe in teaching. And I have a great faculty. They’re superb. I sit in on their classes because
I learn so much from their techniques.”
“…the program is
Students in Viggiano’s Art Education program are encouraged to keep making their own work,
about taking artists
though she admits this can be a challenge. “They do find it difficult, but they make it work with the
and shaping them into
help of studio classes and electives. And I look at portfolios and suggest what they might need to brush
something else. We
bays of windows. The studio was designed to be a flexible art and teaching space that is left
open for lectures and for public events, such as exhibitions of children’s artwork. For
meetings of MAT and Art for Kids classes, a soundproof partition divides the studio into two
classrooms, each with its own materials closet, sink and entryway. Included in the depart-
ment’s facilities are an ever-expanding library of books and periodicals on art and education
topics as well as access to a secure Wi-Fi network. A lounge area, kitchenette and storage
shelves for personal items are available for student use. The MAT Art Education Department
is within walking distance of Chelsea art galleries, art supply stores and the Photo District.
Other SVA facilities are close by including the Writing Resource Center and West Side
Gallery, located just across the street.

On any
up on. Really, though, the program is about taking artists and shaping them into something else. We
get people who want
get people who want to change careers, to do something more humanitarian. They’re all smart, but
to change careers, to
they may not have had hands-on experience with teaching, so we add a lot of that! It’s a challenge but
do something more

given day...
it’s a lot of fun.”
humanitarian.”
“Students teach a range of ages,” Viggiano explains, “so we include a detailed class in educational
psychology. They have to know what happens at what age, developmentally, which is a big undertaking
in one or two years, but vitally important. Teaching art has a cognitive dimension, a physical dimen-
sion, an emotional dimension…. You come here, you really get your head turned around!”
“We work with theater techniques in the first week or two,” Viggiano continues. “The time when
the students first arrive is very important. We try to get them to bond as a group. It’s not like the fine 8:30am – 2:30pm  Students report to student-teaching placement 6 – 9pm  The class travels to a homeless shelter for mothers and their
arts department where they’re looking primarily at work; we’re looking at people. And if students don’t sites where they work with cooperating teachers on class assignments, children, located on the Lower East Side, where they meet with Sandra
have the right people skills, they’re not going to make it as teachers. So we make sure to start with a development of lesson plans and classroom management techniques. Edmonds for Curriculum: Special Populations class, where student
dynamic group, then have them work through acting scenarios involving teaching and related situa- teams develop population-appropriate lesson plans and art activities.

tions. That immediately kills any lingering shyness. It isn’t exactly ‘therapeutic’ though, it forces you to
question and test your purpose.”
“Some feel really strongly about having their students develop a curriculum according to an exclusive
pedagogical philosophy or emphasis, but I don’t believe in that. I believe that what really needs to be
encouraged is outreach: How do you connect with your community? That’s why we’ve been do­ing things
like working with a shelter for homeless mothers and kids. It’s important because it allows students to
work with a population they otherwise might not.”
“A teacher,” Viggiano concludes, thoughtfully, “is someone who wants to be a student, because he
or she is always in a learning situation. Education is not ‘top-down.’ It’s very reflective and you have to
be able to take criticism.”
She grins. “It’s a real art!”
Mike Filan and Lynn Seeney, Student Teaching Supervisors, conduct
daily site visits where they assess the progress of MAT student teachers
as they lead a classroom lesson.
3:30pm  Students report to the MAT department where they study,
take a break or work on group projects in the lounge and classrooms.
Barbara Salander, faculty member and thesis advisor, conducts
individualized meetings with students to discuss thesis topics and
research methods.
Mike Filan, faculty member and Student Teaching Supervisor, conducts
individualized meetings with students to review their student teaching
site work progress.
Class assignment example — Shelter students are shown a number of
collage portraits done by Eric Carle, Romare Bearden and Henri
Matisse. They discuss the visual and sensory qualities such as surface,
color, shape, size, texture and volume. Next they are introduced to the
materials—paper, glue sticks, scissors and a variety of embellishments
such as fabric and buttons—and through a demonstration are shown how
to begin their own self-portraits. Students receive individualized
instruction by SVA students and overlapping is emphasized. After
completing the collages, students are given strips of paper and asked to
use them to frame their collage self-portraits. The work is displayed so that
each student can explain one aspect of his or her piece. This reflection
serves as an assessment of the project in which it is determined that every
student has met the criteria of creating a collage self-portrait.

4 – 5pm  Students meet with Barbara Salander for Special Study, a

thesis advisement course. A guest lecturer, Dr. Michael Bitz, discusses
the Comic Book Project.

4 – 6pm  Art for Kids After School Portfolio Preparation class for
students in seventh and eighth grades. Class is taught by a master artist/
teacher. Seventh and eighth graders expand their knowledge of art ideas
and techniques while exploring a variety of materials, including charcoal,
pencils, cray-pas, watercolor, ink and acrylic paints.

Art Education 34 35 www.sva.edu/grad/arteducation

The Program  The Master of Arts in Teaching program provides the course work and student Sample Program
teaching required for the New York State Initial Certification in Art, pre-K through grade 12. We concentrate
on teaching students with diverse backgrounds and needs, and the gifted and talented. The uses of computer one-year program
technology in art education and integrated curricula are included. The program is also geared to teach FALL Semester Credits spring Semester Credits

effective collaboration with school administrators, parents and caregivers, members of the community, and Curriculum for Special Populations 3 Curriculum: Arts Integrated 3
Educational Foundations 3 Materials and Methods: Secondary 2
staff members of relevant agencies and cultural institutions. ¶ Course work relates directly to fieldwork
Materials and Methods: Elementary 2 Museum Studies: Theory and Practice 3
and student teaching through discussion of course development, classroom management and age-appropriate
New York State Teacher Certification 0 New York State Teacher Certification 0
application of educational theory. mat students will complete 100 hours of fieldwork and 40 days of student Exam (NYSTCE) Preparation Exam (NYSTCE) Preparation
teaching in public elementary, middle and high school placements under sva faculty supervision. Students Psychology of Special Populations 3 Special Topics Seminar 2 1
can choose to do additional fieldwork and thesis case studies in the following sva programs: Special Topics Seminar 1 1 Student Teaching in Public Secondary Schools 2
Student Teaching in Public Elementary 2 Technology in Art Education 3
XX Art Program for the Homeless: Students teach art to elementary-age children housed at a shelter for and Middle Schools Thesis: Data Collection and Presentation 1
homeless mothers and children. Thesis: Research and Observation 1

XX Weekend Art for Kids Program: Students provide art instruction to children from kindergarten summer Semester Credits

through ninth grade. Advanced Studio Art  3

Thesis: Compilation and Presentation 3
Degree candidates must successfully complete 36 credits, including all required courses, with a cumulative
grade point average of 3.0. Course work can be completed in a three-semester program, or in a part-time,
two-year program. In the final semester, each student is required to complete a thesis project, which must be two-year program
reviewed and approved by the thesis director and the department chair in order for the student to be eligible First Year
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
for degree conferral.
Curriculum for Special Populations 3 Museum Studies: Theory and Practice 3
New York State Teacher Certification 0 New York State Teacher Certification 0
Exam (NYSTCE) Preparation Exam (NYSTCE) Preparation
Psychology of Special Populations 3 Special Topics Seminar 2 1
Special Topics Seminar 1 1 Technology in Art Education 3

New York State Teacher Certification Examinations Second Year

FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
Annual Institution Report Program Year: 2009– 2010
Educational Foundations 3 Curriculum: Arts Integrated 3
Materials and Methods: Elementary 2 Materials and Methods: Secondary 2
Test Field Number Tested Number Passed Pass Rate: Institution Pass Rate: Statewide
Student Teaching in Public Elementary 2 Student Teaching in Public Secondary Schools 2
and Middle Schools Thesis: Data Collection and Presentation 1
Assesment of Teaching Skills–Written 17 17 100% 100%
Thesis: Research and Observation 1
summer Semester Credits
Visual Arts Content Specialty Test 17 17 100% 93%
Advanced Studio Art 3
Liberal Arts and Sciences Test 17 17 100% 99% Thesis: Compilation and Presentation 3

Summary Totals and Pass Rate 17 17 100% 99%

Art Education 36 37 www.sva.edu/grad/arteducation

Course Descriptions
Advanced Studio Art
This course will offer MAT candidates an opportunity to reconnect
with their art-making practice and develop works of art. We will dis-
cuss the relationship between teaching art and art-making, and develop
a theme for an exhibition of students’ work at SVA’s Westside Gallery.
Group and one-on-one critiques, presentations on contemporary artists
and visits to galleries in Chelsea will be included.
Curriculum: Arts Integrated
The purpose of this course is to create educators who will be compe-
tent in the numerous new demands that educational reform is making
of the learning community. Areas addressed will include: the New
York State Education Depart­ment’s learning and performance stan-
dards in social studies, science and English language arts; cross-cultural
issues and curriculum; integration of the visual arts with other subject
areas; and how to develop the listening, speaking, reading and writing
skills of all students, including English-language learners.
Curriculum for Special Populations
Understanding the needs of special populations and how disabilities,
home situations and socioeconomic levels affect learning will be
the focus of this course. Students will hold workshops for elementary
school-age children at a shelter that houses displaced mothers and
their small children. The role of art activities in fostering self-esteem
and confidence in children will be explored, with emphasis on group
management, discipline and development of population-appropriate
lessons. A special education component will focus on individualized
instruction, legal responsibilities and ethical considerations for
students with disabilities.
Educational Foundations
Art education will be explored through an examination of its cultural,
social, psychological, environmental and aesthetic foundations. Art and
its teaching will be situated within the contexts of psychosocial, cogni-
tive and artistic development of children and adolescents. Research
methodologies will also be introduced.
Materials and Methods: Elementary
The methods and materials appropriate for art experiences suitable
for pre-kindergarten through middle school will be examined, including
problem-solving approaches to various teaching situations, classroom
management and discipline. Based on cumulative, developmental learn-
ing experiences in the visual arts, students will develop strategies and
procedures for teaching art, including sequential lesson plans that they
may use in their student teaching.
Materials and Methods: Secondary
The objectives and practical methodology involved in teaching art on
the secondary level is the focus of this course. Topics include devel-
opment and organization of appropriate content and design for a
secondary-school curriculum, classroom management and discipline.
Sequential lesson plans for the development of age-appropriate skills
may be devised and implemented at the student teaching sites.
Art Education
Museum Studies: Theory and Practice
This course will examine and explore the theory and practice of
museum education. We will focus on how to talk about art with
elementary- and secondary-school students, including discussion
of contemporary art from other cultures and genres such as abstract
art. Guest lectures by museum educators and field trips to museums
and galleries are included.
NYSTCE Preparation
This course prepares students to take the New York State Teacher
Certification exams. The Liberal Arts and Sciences Test, Content
Specialty Test in Visual Art and Assessment of Teaching Skills–
Written, required for New York State art teacher certification, will be
included. Test-taking strategies will be discussed, and several sample
exams will be given.
Psychology of Special Populations
This course will provide students with the psychological foundations
and implications for practice of teaching special needs populations. It
will address learning, development, motivation, intelligence research
and effective instruction with a range of students with special needs
who require accommodations and modifications in the classroom.
Populations with learning, physical and developmental disabilities,
including autism spectrum disorder will be discussed. We will also
cover the Response to Intervention (RTI), pre-referral strategies, and
collaborative models of planning and instruction with other teach-
ers (including inclusion models). The areas of instructional strategies,
formal and informal assessment, assisted technology and classroom
management as pertaining to the psychological well-being of children
will be stressed.
Special Topics Seminar 1 & 2
Lectures will provide information on substance abuse for use in
curricula that promote health and physical fitness to students from
pre-kindergarten through 12th grade. How to identify and report
suspected child abuse (or maltreatment), the prevention of child
abduction and violence, and instruction in fire and arson will be
included. In the second semester, we will address the use of art to
support student learning in reading and literacy.
Student Teaching in Public Elementary and Middle SchoolS
Student teachers will be placed at elementary- and middle-school sites
to observe classes, prepare lesson plans and teach their lessons. After
two weeks of fieldwork, participants will work with an art teacher for
20 full days of student teaching. Observation and evaluation by School
of Visual Arts faculty and cooperating teachers will be given on an
ongoing basis.
Student Teaching in Public Secondary Schools
Student teachers will be placed at secondary-school sites to observe
classes, prepare lesson plans and teach their lessons. After two weeks
of fieldwork, participants will work with an art teacher for 20 full
days of student teaching. Observation and evaluation by School
of Visual Arts faculty and cooperating teachers will be given on an
ongoing basis.
38
Technology in Art Education
The digital revolution has brought about a tidal wave of technical
innovation, and produced an essential shift in human perception. This
course will explore the wide-ranging communities of thought, action
and expression that permeate the Web, as well as some of the issues,
concerns and possibilities they present for educators. During the course
of the semester, students will develop multimedia projects that involve
video, sound and still images as a means of exploring how new tech-
nologies available to students—in particular the smartphone—can
provide a rich outlet for creative exploration and interface in the glo-
balized world.
Thesis: Compilation and Presentation
This seminar gives students the opportunity to synthesize and docu-
ment their completed research, particularly in AEG-5080, Thesis:
Research and Observation, and AEG-5085, Thesis: Data Collection
and Presentation. We will meet as a group to discuss progress of thesis
projects. Each student will make a final presentation to the department
chair and faculty.
Thesis: Data Collection and Presentation
Methodologies for conducting action-based research in classroom
situations and data collection will be introduced in this course, and
students will finalize their thesis proposals. Research techniques and
compilation will provide the necessary background for thesis projects
to be completed during the summer semester.
Thesis: Research and Observation
Weekly meetings to assist students in the development of the thesis
project will be held throughout the semester. Students will conduct lit-
erature searches, prepare a literature review and conduct field research
in SVA’s children’s programs or other placements and develop their
ideas for a thesis topic.
Professional Opportunities
The MAT Art Education Department offers its students
research opportunities as well as experience in the application
of educational theory and practice. Teaching sites provide
resources for the development of a personal teaching philosophy
and the thesis project. These sites have included: SVA’s Art for
Kids Programs , a shelter for homeless mothers and children,
and New York City public schools and museums.
39
Faculty
Rose Viggiano, chair
Fine artist, art educator
Education: BFA, Philadelphia College of Art; MA, SUNY Albany;
EdD, Columbia University
One-Person Exhibitions include: SOHO20 Gallery; Museo del
Pueblo de Guanajuato, Mexico
Group Exhibitions include: Whitney Museum of American
Art, Downtown Branch; 80 Washington Square; Port Authority Bus
Terminal; Henry Street Settlement; Hudson River Museum; Benton
Gallery
Awards and honors include: CAPS, New Jersey State Council on
the Arts, Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture
Sandra Edmonds
Fine artist, fashion/costume designer, art educator
Education: BA, MA, College of New Rochelle; EdD, Columbia
University
Exhibitions include: Macy Gallery, Teachers College, Columbia
University; ABC No Rio; Lumen Gallery, New Rochelle Library, NY
honors include: Kappa Delta Pi
Michael Filan
Painter, printmaker, art educator
Education: BFA, MPS, Pratt Institute
Group Exhibitions include: Virginia Center for the Creative Arts,
Sweetbriar; Lehman College Art Gallery; SUNY Fredonia; Food Stamp
Gallery
Collections include: Heinz Corporation
Awards and honors include: Virginia Center Fellowship, Studio
in a School Association, Bronx Council on the Arts
Valerie Foster-Adam
Art instructor, Poughkeepsie Day School
Education: BFA, University of North Texas; MA, Brooklyn College;
School of Visual Arts
Jerry M. James
Fine artist, Lincoln Center Institute
Education: BFA, Old Dominion University; MFA, Yale University;
EdD, Columbia University
Exhibitions include: Searles Spicer Gallery, Macy Gallery, National
Arts Club
Publications include: Rulers in the Land of Imagination, Art
and Cognition, Teaching Artists Journal
Awards and honors include: Teachers College Merit Scholarship;
Virginia Center for the Creative Arts; Ely Harwood Schless Memorial
Fund Prize, Yale University
www.sva.edu/grad/arteducation
 Guest Lecturers

Jaime Permuth Lynn Seeney Gary Bates Peter Mason Mary Sullivan
Visual artist, art educator Fine artist; arts administrator; lecturer, Museum of Modern Art. past president, The New York NYC Board of Education artist
Education: BA, Hebrew University, Jerusalem; Formerly, executive director, Collaborative Projects, Inc. State Art Teachers Association Wayne Miyamoto Bruce Wands
MPS, School of Visual Arts Education: BA, Tyler School of Art; MA, New York University
One-person exhibitions: Instituto Guatemalteco Americano, One-Person Exhibitions include: Asyl Gallery Michael Bitz artist, art educator chair, MFA Computer Arts,
Guatemala; Palacio Nacional, Guatemala Group Exhibitions include: VIA #7 International Arts Festival, founder, director, Eva Pataki School of Visual Arts
Group exhibitions: Mary Barone Gallery, New York; Centro Cultural Paris; Musée de la Poste, Paris; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
Metropolitano, Guatemala; Museum of Modern Art, New York Publications include: The New York Times, New York,
The Comic Book Project art educator, New York State Ejay Weiss
Publications: Forty Cent Tip: Stories of New York City Immigrant Newsday, Art/World John Broughton Board of Education artist
Workers, New American Photography, Los Angeles Times Curatorial works include: “Monumental Vision: Abstraction
Awards: Artist-in-residence, Centro Cultural Metropolitano, Today,” “Gods of the Modern Age: Art and Technology,” Bronx
educator Joyce Raimondo Nancy Wells
Guatemala; Paula Rhodes Award, School of Visual Arts; Texas River Art Center and Gallery Judith Burton author, artist artist
Commission on the Arts Grant
Devin Thornburg
art educator David Sandlin Susan Edmonds Wiggins
Barbara Salander Psychologist; director, childhood education, educational leadership, Dan Cemeron artist director of special education,
Fine artist; thesis director, MAT Art Education Department, Adelphi University
School of Visual Arts Education: BS, cum laude, Tulane University; M.Ed., Harvard
curator, artistic director Lonnie Saunderson Sherman School, CT
Education: BA, Barnard College; MA, EdD, Columbia University University; PhD, New York University Sandra Carey teacher, recruitment manager,
Exhibitions include: Lori Bookstein Fine Arts; Mana Fine Art, Publications include: Pathway to Inclusion: Voices from the Field;
Jersey City; Munson-Williams-Proctor Arts Institute, Utica, NY; Projects in After Schools: Diverse Learners and School Achievement
communications instructor NYC Department of Education
Peters Gallery, Houston Awards and honors include: U.S. Department of Education, Jennifer Carroll Natalie J. Schifano
Publications include: The Mirror and Adolescent Identity Greentree Foundation, New York City Department of Education, After
Formation: Adolescents’ Reflections on Reproductions of School Corporation, Booth Ferris Foundation
actor art educator
Paintings with Mirrors; Watching Yourself Teach: A Teaching Antonia Demas Graeme Sullivan
and Learning Experience
Awards and honors include: Kappa Delta Pi
founder, Food Studies Institute art educator
Barbara Ellmann
artist
Joan Goodman
art educator
Joel Handorff
Tel: 212.592.2445

Contact Us
artist
Dorothee King Fax: 646.336.7702
architect
Phyllis Kornfeld
E-mail: matarted@sva.edu
artist www.sva.edu/grad/arteducation
Kimberly Lane
elementary art teacher We encourage applicants to visit our department prior to submitting
application materials.
Rick Lasher
past president, Minorities are strongly encouraged to apply.
Art Educators of New Jersey Come to our Departmental Information Sessions, or contact us directly to schedule a tour.
Tara Maceyak Departmental Information Sessions: October 25, 2011 and November 5, 2011.
curriculum specialist All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit

To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact the
Office of Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.

Art Education 40 41 www.sva.edu/grad/arteducation

 XX Multidisciplinary program that addresses the intellectual, aesthetic,
technical and practical concerns of the artist
XX Three-year low-residency format combines online coursework with
three summers of studio practice in NYC
XX Students will engage with artists, designers, curators and others from
New York’s art world and beyond

The Art Practice program offers a fully interdisciplinary approach to an mfa degree. Artists in
the program are not defined or separated by medium or discipline. In this post-conceptual, post-studio
era, artists pursue their practice by engaging an idea first, and then developing a plan that may involve
a combination of media, technologies and techniques, some of which are linked to traditional art
media, and some of which find the artist working with technologies and industries not usually associ-
ated with art-making.
We aim to prepare artists to feel secure in their ability to produce works of art using traditional
and nontraditional media in both traditional and nontraditional settings. To accomplish this, we bring
together a carefully selected, small group of mfa candidates who will devote three successive
summers and the two intervening years to a program in which they will engage with artists, designers,
art historians and museum curators, including Vito Acconci, Suzanne Anker, Cory Arcangel, Roger
Black, Maurice Berger, Dara Birnbaum, Kathy Brew, Mel Chin, Liz Diller, Liam Gillick, Susan
Hefuna, Lee Mingwei, James Harithas, Glenn Ligon, Steven Henry Madoff, Douglas Nickel, Martha
Rosler, Tim Rollins, Gary Simmons, Philippe Vergne, Carrie Mae Weems, Lawrence Weiner, Robin
Winters and Terry Winters.
Like the nature of the work we hope to help students produce, this program itself is work in progress,
and will be continuously refined as a function of the experience of all its participants. This is an exciting
time for us, and another example of why SVA is seen as an art college for the 21st century.

David A. Ross, chair

MFA
Art
Practice
www.sva.edu/grad/artpractice
43
department site: artpractice.sva.edu
 Dara Birnbaum’s
apartment in Soho
is both her home
and studio.

An Artist
at Work
at Home
Faculty Profile: Dara Birnbaum
 Some music from Birnbaum’s
home collection. Birnbaum,
most known for her video and
installation art, has collaborated
Imagine having to break the law in order to acquire and manipulate footage from a popular TV with numerous musicians
show. It seems absurd: the idea of having to break the law to, say, slow a scene down, or repeat a throughout her career. She will
be mentoring students in their
scene a few times, or re-assemble scenes in a way that reveals something new or possibly latent in the studio work where they will be
show. But Dara Birnbaum did just this in 1978, with Technology Transformation: Wonder Woman, encouraged to experiment with
in order to execute her idea: which was to pull out the show’s latent gender stereotypes. She had a different art mediums.

degree in painting, but she knew that painting wouldn’t articulate what she wanted as effectively as
going into the source material and changing it. So that’s just what she did, with the help of friends
in the industry, none of whom likely knew they were aiding and abetting Birnbaum in her inspired
production of what many consider to be the original “scratch video.”
An architect by training, Birnbaum has produced many acclaimed art works since she began
working as an artist more than 35 years ago, varying in form from single to multi-channel videos that
re-contextualize pop cultural figures and TV genres, to operatic, un-appropriated installation works.
A crucial thread that connects all her formally and thematically disparate work is her thinking, her
ideas – which makes her a great fit as pilot core member of SVA’s innovative MFA Art Practice program.
Like Birnbaum, the Art Practice program has no prejudice toward any one medium. It’s designed
instead to help artists identify the medium best equipped to realize their ideas, and then to match
them up with state-of-the-art studio facilities where they can work those ideas out.
Birnbaum has frequently worked with video, so she’ll be conducting weekly media seminars, but
her participation in all the changes that have electrified the art world the last 35 years makes her
invaluable also as an instructor who can speak from experience. It’s no surprise that she’s also a fre-
quent international lecturer, collaborator, a former SVA instructor, (Film and Video), and the recent
subject of a major retrospective and beautiful companion monograph titled, Dara Birnbaum:
The Dark Matter of Media Light.
“For me it’s a thought process that, after a while, builds up enough to where I can finally enter a post-
production house, or go into a studio, and work,” Birnbaum says. SVA is pleased, and lucky, to have her
in a program designed to help other artists trace that same exciting but tricky line from idea to artifact.
Birnbaum works both day and night on her
art, while also corresponds with students
as well as various art professionals. For
the summer session of the Art Practice
program students are encouraged to work
on their art some six hours per day.
 chair interview

David A. Ross
“SVA is a remarkable institution,” says David A. Ross, “in many ways it represents a nearly perfect
school for the teaching of art, design, and interrelated areas of art education. The College is blessed with
ambitious students, an enthusiastic (and energized) faculty, and an administration that seems to have
figured out what it takes to keep this kind of institution lively and relevant. But what impresses me most
about the College is that it refuses to rest on its laurels, and continues to consider ways in which the
“(The program) will
idea of an art school can be improved—reinvented if necessary.”
function both as a
“Starting last year with the Digital Photography program,” Ross continues, “SVA began exploring the
laboratory for the
ways in which it could use an Internet-based low-residency framework to deliver a highly technical course
exploration of new

On any
in state-of-the-art digital imaging. Now we are taking the next step, with a full MFA program that will
directions in art
make use of both online courses and a series of intensive six-week studio, seminar and workshop sessions.”
practice, as well as
Ross is enthusiastic about the possibilities, “The program welcomes self-motivated students who have
a program that will

given day...
completed undergraduate degrees in any discipline and who have already spent some time out of school
engage students and
exploring their professional options and opportunities. It will function both as a laboratory for the
faculty in an intense
exploration of new directions in art practice, as well as a program that will engage students and faculty
give and take.”
in an intense give and take. A working premise of the program is that students and faculty should, to
the extent possible, work within a non-hierarchical framework in which the blur between teacher and
student becomes increasingly apparent as the program progresses through its three-summer structure.”
“One feature that I feel will be quite useful and valued is our mentor program. Each student will select
one core faculty member as his/her mentor, and over the three summers and two intervening years of 8am  Though the morning seminar begins at 9 am, students will meet 7pm  Two evenings each week, all students and faculty meet for a group
for coffee before class starts, to compare notes and prepare for the day. critique with a visiting critic or curator. Tonight Dia director Philippe
the program, those relationships should become increasingly important to both student and faculty alike.”
Some will engage in yoga or stretching exercises in neighborhood gyms. Vergne, and artist and filmmaker Shirin Neshat join in the discussion.
“I suspect that our students will be artists who may have already found work teaching, or in some
allied creative field, and who now feel ready to re-engage the educational process—albeit with some real-
9am  Today’s seminar guest speaker is the artist-designer Vito Acconci 10pm  Exhausted but energized, some students go home, some head
world experience in addition to their undergraduate degrees.”
who will talk about his career as a poet, performance artist, sculptor and back to their studios, while some head out into the warm New York City
“We have a fantastic faculty and a group of distinguished guest lecturers and mentors from all
architect/designer. Students will engage in a three-hour give and take summer night.
areas of the visual arts,” continues Ross, “Such notables as the video art pioneer Dara Birnbaum, who with Acconci and with MFA Art Practice chair David A. Ross and seminar
specializes in complex narrative video installations, and Gary Simmons, who produces large-scale leader Gary Simmons.
wall drawings and sculptural installations exploring the profound social and psychological nuances of
American culture. In addition to core seminar faculty, visiting critics, curators and art historians—in- 1pm  Studio time begins after the morning seminar. Studio Practice men-
cluding Thomas Crow, Elisabeth Sussman and Robert Pincus-Witten—will share their perspectives and tor Dara Birnbaum will meet one-on-one with students in their individual
experiences with students.” studio space.

Art Practice 50 51 www.sva.edu/grad/artpractice

The Program  As the nature of the mfa in Art Practice assumes students are seeking a fully
interdisciplinary program, the course of study addresses a wide range of intellectual, aesthetic, technical Course Descriptions
and practical concerns. An underlying thread running through the three-year low residency program is the
ability to situate one’s creative practice within a thoroughly considered social context, and the ability to
remain open to the revision of one’s operating premises. In addition to enhancing communication skills, the
program seeks to refine and enhance critically necessary technical skills, and encourages experimentation
without fear of failure. ¶ As the program makes use of a low-residency framework, students participate in
six weeks of nyc-based coursework and studio practice for three successive summers. During the intervening
academic semesters, participants engage in rich-media online coursework carefully supervised using sva’s ADVANCED DIGITAL IMAGING WORKSHOP ART BUSINESS PRIMER
Imagery technology is advancing at a rapid pace, and it is important It is critically important that artists have a firm grasp of the basic busi-
“Moodle” virtual learning environment. ¶ Degree candidates must successfully complete 66 credits, including to master the techniques necessary to the production of digital work, ness principles and procedures necessary to managing and maintaining
all required courses, and must maintain a 3.0 grade point average. In the final summer session, degree and to have a thorough understanding of the technology itself. Each an independent artist’s studio practice. An overview of studio manage-
student will shoot video footage prior the start of the workshop, and ment, budget-making and cash-flow, and a basic understanding of the
candidates complete a thesis project, which will usually take the form of a thesis exhibition, but, upon prior then edit the material using Adobe Photoshop and a variety of digital ins and outs of buying real estate, will be covered in this workshop.
approval, can be presented in other formats. All candidates must have their thesis project approved by the imaging postproduction tools. Advanced audio and video editing struc-
tures and processes will be covered. While this workshop will be held ART LAW PRIMER
department chair and thesis committee before the start of the third and final summer residency period. in SVA’s state-of-the-art digital photography studios, additional train- Artists must comprehend the complex nature of changes in intellectual
ing and support for the production of prints and for the use of images property law. In addition, it is increasingly necessary for artists to have
online, and in interactive telecommunications is included. a strong professional overview of the legal and basic business practices
central to independent art practice. This workshop will provide an
Sample Programs ADVANCED VIDEO AND SOUND EDITING WORKSHOP overview of current art law, with an emphasis on intellectual property
The production of single-channel videos or multiple channel video rights and basic contract law.
installations first requires an ability to master a range of postproduc-
first year tion strategies and techniques. Assuming basic video production ARTISTS’ WRITING
and postproduction skills as a prerequisite, this workshop will assist The significant interventions that visual artists have made through
summer Semester Credits fall Semester (online) Credits
students in mastering advanced video and audio editing techniques. their own writing into the art criticism of their time will be the focus
Advanced Video and Sound Editing Workshop 3 Art History I: Exploring the Interdisciplinary 3 Each student will shoot footage prior the start of the workshop, of this course. We will also explore a range of artists’ writing forms
Graduate Seminar I 3 Autobiography of a Place I 3 and then script and complete the postproduction of a finished video such as journalism, manifestos, poetry, theoretical writing, letters,
Studio Practice I 6 Studio Practice Review I 1.5 work–of any type–during this workshop. Apple Final Cut Pro and artists’ books and artist-run publications. The course will also examine
a variety of video and audio postproduction tools will be covered. some key artists’ writings from Russian constructivism to the Bauhaus,
Training and support for the production of a video installation will surrealism, abstract expressionism, minimalism, conceptual art and
spring Semester (online) Credits
also be provided. feminism. Assigned readings, writings and online group discussions
Autobiography of a Place II 3 are included. The role of social engagement in the production of indi-
Foundations of Criticism I: Becoming the Image 3 ART HISTORY I: EXPLORING THE INTERDISCIPLINARY vidual (or collective) practice will be emphasized, and students will
Studio Practice Review II 1.5 To better understand the role of art history in preparing and develop- acquire an understanding of the influence of artists’ writings on
ing one’s own artistic direction, this course will explore and critique various forms of art criticism. A deeper understanding of one’s own
the conventional masterpiece-based notion of art history, from several writing in relation to the development of one’s practice will be under-
perspectives. We will trace the history of modernism in relation to the scored throughout the semester.
second year notion of interdisciplinary art. Starting in the mid-19th century with
examples of gesamtkunstwerk, the course examines the impact of this AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF A PLACE I & II
summer Semester Credits fall Semester (online) Credits
kind of thinking through an exploration of key examples of contem- Where and how we live, how we connect to the communities in which
Art Business Primer 0 Art History II: Challenging Conventions 3 porary interdisciplinary art. In response to a wide range of primary we live and work, and how we situate creative practice into our every-
Graduate Seminar II 3 Artists’ Writings 3 source readings, audiotapes, video and film, students will write a series day lives are the subjects to be explored in this course. During the
Performance Workshop 3 Studio Practice Review III 1.5 of critical responses to the readings, and participate in online group summer session, students will share works in process with faculty,
sessions and discussions. mentors and fellow students, and will continue to gather material for a
Studio Practice II 6 rich, multimedia self-portrait/autobiography. In this online workshop,
ART HISTORY II: CHALLENGING THE CONVENTIONAL students will script and gather and prepare material using video, film,
spring Semester (online) Credits
Looking at the history of modern art from a non-Western perspective still photographs and audio recording, and plan the manner in which
Foundations of Criticism II 3 requires the complete suspension of several commonly held assump- the work will be edited and presented.
The Journal: A Writing Workshop 3 tions about art history. That would not make any more sense than a
Studio Practice Review IV: Thesis Preparation 1.5 blind acceptance of the prevailing historical paradigm. This course will
contrast the canonical history of modernism with the emerging histo-
ries that rely upon a very different reading of the social and political
third year context in which art history is conventionally taught. In response to
a wide range of primary source readings, audiotapes, video and film,
summer Semester Credits
students will write a series of critical responses to the readings, and
participate in online group sessions and discussions.
Advanced Digital Imaging Workshop 3
Art Law Primer 0
Graduate Seminar III 3
Studio Practice III 3
Thesis  3

Art Practice 52 53 www.sva.edu/grad/artpractice


FOUNDATIONS OF CRITICISM I & II
Understanding prominent theoretical positions within art criticism—
past and present—is the focus of these two online courses. Part I,
explores theories of the image from cave paintings to advertising,
film theory to the comic strip, video to the digital image, and cur-
rent debates in animation studies. Students will read classical writ-
ings from philosophy (e.g., Plato), art history (Panofsky, Greenberg,
W.J.T. Mitchell) and film theory (Eisenstein, Bazin), as well as writers
such as Apollinaire and Delillo. We will also cover semiotics, feminist
theory and institutional critique reading key theorists such as Barthes,
Benjamin, Baudrillard, and Debord among others. In the second part
of this course, the focus will be upon interdisciplinary concerns, par-
ticularly the intersection of art and music history, art and the history
of science, and the relationship of critical theory to changes in technol-
ogy and evolving concepts of authorship, originality, and ownership.
Assigned readings and writings, as well as weekly Web-based group
discussions are required.
GRADUATE SEMINAR I & II
The cognate areas of art and relevant issues that have lead to a blur-
ring of the boundaries between formerly discrete aspects of the art
world are examined in these seminars. As the program supports a view
of contemporary practice that combines a conventional approach to
visual art-making, criticism and curatorial work, the series consid-
ers the shifts in contemporary society that underlie these profound
changes. Topics of central concern will include government and com-
mercial censorship, the continuing impact of technological innovation,
changing social relations as a function of the politics of identity and
ways in which power relationships within the art world have been
transformed. Assigned readings form the basis of discussions and will
relate to ongoing work in studio production. The second seminar will
include focused conversations concerned with the nature of the chang-
ing world of art and ideas. Working in rich-media (multimedia) par-
ticipants will generate an extended essay on a topic to be determined
during the second summer session.
GRADUATE SEMINAR III
A continuation of the readings, writings and discussion that formed
the intellectual core of years I and II, Seminar III adds a discussion
of the ways in which private and public patronage have affected the
history of art, the current status of the schism between public and
private sculpture, the nature and function of art collecting (both public
and private), and the ways in which the institutions of art (including
schools) function in this blurring art world. Students will begin to
conceptually frame their final thesis projects. Topics will address the
differences in conception of artistic practice, including historical devel-
opments and basic philosophical formulations, the rhetoric of contem-
porary art practice, and the social and ideological shifts in contributing
to changing ideas of artistic practice.
THE JOURNAL: A WRITING WORKSHOP
Using the skills developed in the first year of study, this workshop
explores the production of the individual artist’s journal. Students will
produce a daily journal employing a conventional written form or
Art Practice
using new media, including blog writing, video journals, and hybrid
forms. The intent of the course is to reach a full understanding of the
ways in which maintaining a journal allows for the ongoing self-exam-
ination of each student’s creative practice supporting the continual
refinement and integration of one’s work and life.
PERFORMANCE WORKSHOP
As performance has become central to the contemporary definition of
sculptural practice, this workshop will help to refine students’ capabili-
ties to plan and execute performance and performance-based instal-
lation works. Students will explore and master the technical aspects
of gallery-based (as opposed to theatrical) performance art, and study
historic performance works. The history and various theories of per-
formance and theater will be examined. Students will develop and
hone performance skills, including planning, production and the per-
formance itself. The workshop will conclude with the presentation of a
performance or performance-based installation work.
STUDIO PRACTICE I, II, & III
The core of the summer sessions is studio practice. Studios are
available twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Students
are required to spend six hours a day at minimum working in
the studio. The objective is to produce original, advanced work
with instruction and support from faculty and under the specific
guidance of an individual mentor, who will offer ongoing
critical evaluation. While studios are available at all times, reviews
will take place Monday through Friday, with weekly group critiques
in the evening. Studio Practice is the central element and primary
requirement of the program. As such, it is expected that students will
make notable progress in their individual practice.
STUDIO PRACTICE REVIEW I, II, & III
During the fall and spring semesters, online study sessions will take
place, and students are expected to continue their studio work from
their home location. Students and mentors will remain in contact
online. At least one on-site review of work-in-progress during the fall or
spring semester will take place. In the second year, students will begin
work on their thesis projects under the supervision of their mentor.
STUDIO PRACTICE REVIEW IV: THESIS PREPARATION
During the second spring semester, online study sessions will take
place, and students will continue their studio work from their home
location. Students and mentors will remain in contact online. At least
one on-site review of work-in-progress during the semester will take
place. Students will begin work on their thesis projects under the
supervision of their mentor.
THESIS
Each student will produce a complete body of new work with guid-
ance and support from faculty and under the specific guidance of
an individual mentor. The thesis exhibition represents the culmination
of the program, and is a central requirement for the successful comple-
tion of the degree.
54
Faculty
David A. Ross
Chair, MFA Art Practice Department, School of Visual Arts; writer,
curator
Education: BS, Syracuse University
Professional experience includes: director, San Francisco
Museum of Modern Art; director, Whitney Museum of American
Art; director, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; associate direc-
tor, chief curator, University Art Museum, Berkeley; deputy director,
curator of video art, Long Beach Museum of Art; curator of video art,
Everson Museum of Art
Curatorial projects include : “Tomorrow,” Kumho Museum,
Artsonje Center, Seoul and Long March Space, Beijing; “Peter
Campus: A Survey,” Antico Collegio de San Ildefonso, Mexico
City; “Lorna Simpson: 31,” Claustro Sor Juana, Mexico City;
“Quotidiana,” Museum of Contemporary Art, Castello di Rivoli, Italy;
“KoreAmericaKorea,” Sonje Museum, Seoul; “Bill Viola: a 25 Year
Survey,” Whitney Museum of American Art, traveling exhibition:
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam;
Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt; San Francisco Museum of
Modern Art; Art Institute of Chicago
Suzanne Anker
Chair, BFA Fine Arts Department, School of Visual Arts; fine artist,
theorist
Education: BA, Brooklyn College; MFA, University of Colorado,
Boulder
One-person exhibitions include : Medizinhistorisches Museum
der Charité, Berlin; Center for Cultural Inquiry, Berlin; Universal
Concepts Unlimited; Greenberg Wilson Gallery; Richard Gray Gallery;
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis, MN
Group exhibitions include : J. Paul Getty Museum, Los
Angeles; Basel Art Fair; Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, NY;
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; Pera Museum, Istanbul; National
Museum of Modern Art, Kyoto; Phillips Collection, Washington D.C.;
Kunsthaus Merano, Italy; Museo de Arte Extremeño e Iberoamericano
de Arte Contemporáneo, Badajoz, Spain
Collections include: Santa Barbara Museum of Art, Cleveland
Museum of Art, Oakland Art Museum, New York Public Library, The
New School, Denver Art Museum, St. Louis Art Museum
Publications include: Artforum, Art in America, ARTnews, Flash
Art, The New York Times, Art Journal, Newsweek, The Economist,
Nature, Tema Celeste, M/E/A/N/I/N/G
Awards and honors include: New York Foundation for the Arts,
Artists Space, Zentrum für Literatur- und Kulturforschung
Dara Birnbaum
Visual artist
Education: B.Arch., Carnegie Mellon University;
BFA, San Francisco Art Institute
Represented by : Marian Goodman Gallery
One-person exhibitions include : S.M.A.K. Stedelijk Museum
voor Actuele Kunst, Ghent, Belgium; Museum of Modern Art
Group exhibitions include : Kunsthalle Düsseldorf; Museum of
Malmö, Sweden; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; Whitney Museum
of American Art
55
Kathy Brew
Producer, video maker, media arts curator
Education: BA, cum laude, Middlebury College
Professional experience includes: Co-director, Margaret Mead
Film & Video Festival, American Museum of Natural History; direc-
tor, Thundergulch/Lower Manhattan Cultural Council; senior associ-
ate producer, City Arts, WNET
Video projects include: ID/entity: Portraits in the 21st Century;
Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution; Penetration and
Transparency: Morphed; Mixed Messages; Regret to Inform
Curatorial consultant: “Engaging Characters,” Art Interactive,
Cambridge, MA; Reel New York, WNET; Reframe, Tribeca Film
Institute; Scanners: The New York Video Festival
Publications include: Women, Art, and Technology; Shift;
Documentary; Civilization; High Performance; San Francisco Bay
Guardian; San Francisco Focus; Artcoast
Awards and honors include: Emmy Award, CEC ArtsLink
Katrin Eismann
Chair, MPS Digital Photography Department, School
of Visual Arts; photographer; author
Education: BFA, Rochester Institute of Technology; MFA, School of
Visual Arts
Author: Photoshop Masking & Compositing, Photoshop Restoration
and Retouching. Co-author, The Creative Digital Darkroom, Real
World Digital Photography
Clients include: Apple Computer, Eastman Kodak, Adobe Systems,
Fuji Film, U.S. Navy, Nikon, PMA, PPA, ASMP
Publications include: Photo District News, American Photo,
Popular Photography, Step by Step Graphics
Award: Photoshop Hall of Fame
Website: www.katrineismann.com
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve
Critic, writer. Formerly, research associate, Whitney Museum of
American Art
Education: BA, Sarah Lawrence College; MA, New York University;
PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz
Publications include: How Like A Leaf; The Monster’s Progress:
The Art of James Barsness; When Pain Strikes; The American Art
Book; catalog essays for Tony Oursler Retrospective, Hanover Gallery,
Germany; “PUPPY,” Guggenheim Magazine
www.sva.edu/grad/artpractice
Susan Hefuna
Visual artist
One-person exhibitions include: Galerie Grita Insam, Vienna;
Rose Issa Projects, London; Third Line Gallery, Dubai; Albion
Gallery, London and New York; Townhouse Gallery, Cairo; Bluecoat,
Liverpool; South African National Gallery, Cape Town; Paul Kasmin
Gallery; Museum Moderner Kunst Stiftung Ludwig, Vienna; Sigmund
Freud Museum, Vienna
Group exhibitions include: Museum of Modern Art; Venice
Biennale; Victoria & Albert Museum, London; Seville Biennial;
Sharjah Biennial; New Museum of Contemporary Art; Modern Art
Museum of Algiers; Haus der Kulturen der Welt, Berlin
Collections include: British Museum; Institut du Monde Arabe;
Sharjah Art Museum; University of Colorado, Boulder; Victoria and
Albert Museum
Awards and honors include: ZKM Center for Art and Media
Grant, Kunststiftung Baden-Württemberg, Akademie Schloss Solitude
Fellowship
Website: www.susanhefuna.com
Daniel Kunitz
Executive editor, Modern Painters; contributing editor, The Paris
Review
Education: DEUG, University of Paris, Sorbonne; BA, cum laude,
University of Wisconsin, Madison; MFA, Columbia University
Professional experience includes: Editor-in-chief, Mediabistro;
managing editor, The Paris Review; U.S. editor, ArtReview; art critic,
The Village Voice, New York Sun; travel editor, literary editor, Details
Publications include: Modern Painters, The Village Voice, The
Paris Review, Wall Street Journal, ArtReview, Details, Vanity Fair,
Harper’s, ARTnews, New York magazine, Slate, Salon, Bookforum,
Art & Antiques, New York Observer, Los Angeles Times Book
Review, London Times Literary Supplement. Catalog essays for:
“Zhang Huan: Blessings,” PaceWildenstein; “Kirstine Roepstorff,” The
Drawing Center; “John Dubrow,” Salander-O’Reilly Gallery; “Caio
Fonseca,” Instituto Valenciano de Arte Moderno
Steven Henry Madoff
Art critic, poet, curator. Formerly, executive editor, ARTnews
Education: BA, Columbia University; MA, Stanford University
Books and catalogs include: Modern Melancholia: Thoughts On Jan
Hafstrom’s Art; Y. Z. Kami. Co-author, Marina Abramovic: Balkan
Epic; Christopher Wilmarth: Light and Gravity; Rebecca Horn: Moon
Mirror; James Drake. Editor, Art School (Propositions for the 21st
Century); Pop Art: A Critical History
Publications include: Time, The New York Times, Artforum, Art
& Auction, Modern Painters, ARTnews, Vogue, Christian Science
Monitor, Tate Etc., The Nation
Awards include: Access to Artistic Excellence Grant, National
Endowment for the Arts; Best Scholarly Art Book of the Year Award,
Association of American Publishers
Art Practice
Ernesto Pujol
Performance artist
Education: BA, magna cum laude, Universidad de Puerto Rico, San
Juan; MFA, School of the Art Institute of Chicago
One-person exhibitions and performances include: Salina
Art Center, Kansas; Chicago Cultural Center; Galeria Ramis Barquet;
Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston; McNay Art Museum, San
Antonio, TX
Group exhibitions and performances include: Magnan Metz
Gallery; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center; Miami Art Museum; Exit
Art; Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, San Juan; Kunstmuseum
Ahlen, Germany; Herzliya Biennial for Contemporary Art, Israel; Van
Abbemuseum, The Netherlands
Collections include: Bronx Museum of the Arts; Museum of
Art, Rhode Island School of Design; Museo del Barrio; Museo Rufino
Tamayo, Mexico City; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
Publications include: Art in America, Time Out New York, NY
Arts, The Village Voice, The New York Times, San Juan Star, Art
Nexus, Artforum, Michigan Quarterly Review, Atlantica International,
El Nuevo Herald, Sculpture, Art Journal, El Diario, La Prensa,
ARTnews
Awards and honors include: Art Matters Inc.; New York
Foundation for the Arts; Joan Mitchell Foundation; Pollock-Krasner
Foundation; International Association of Art Critics; Distinguished
Fellow, Interdisciplinary Art Practice, School of the Art Institute
of Chicago; Cuban Artists Fund; Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation
Fellowship; Artist in the Marketplace, Bronx Museum of the Arts
Website: www.ernestopujol.org
Sarah G. Sharp
Visual artist; video consultant
Education: BA, Evergreen State College; MA, MFA, SUNY Purchase
One-person exhibitions include: Gallery 1724, Houston; Shine
Studio, East Hampton, NY; Richard & Dolly Maass Gallery, Purchase
College, NY; Red Mill Gallery, Johnson, VT
Group exhibitions include: Aldrich Museum of Contemporary
Art, Ridgefield, CT; Real Art Ways, Hartford, CT; Stephan Stoyanov
Gallery; Frederieke Taylor Gallery; Broadway Gallery; Homestead
Gallery; 55 Mercer Street Gallery
Publications include: The New York Times, Hartford Courant,
Greenwich Time
Awards and honors include: Art Connects New York, BRIC
Media Arts Fellowship, Getty Research Institute Library Grant. Artist
residencies include: Kimmel Harding Nelson Center for the Arts,
Vermont Studio Center
Website: www.sarahgsharp.net
56
Gary Simmons
Visual artist
Education: BFA, School of Visual Arts; California Institute of the Arts
One-person exhibitions include: Metro Pictures; Museum of
Contemporary Art, Chicago; Studio Museum in Harlem; Jan Weiner
Gallery, Kansas City, MO; Margo Leavin Gallery, Los Angeles;
Anthony Meier Fine Arts, San Francisco; SITE Santa Fe, NM
Group exhibitions include: Center for Art and Visual Culture,
University of Maryland, Baltimore; Krannert Art Museum,
Champaign, IL; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Museum Villa
Stuck, Munich
Collections include: Portland Art Museum, OR; Saint Louis
Art Museum; Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden; Walker Art
Center; Museum of Modern Art; Whitney Museum of American Art
Awards and honors include: USA Gund Foundation Fellowship;
Penny McCall Foundation Grant; Interarts Grant, National
Endowment for the Arts
Jovana Stokic
Art historian, curator
Education: BA, Belgrade University; MA University of California,
Riverside; PhD, New York University
Professional experience includes: Researcher, Whitney
Museum of American Art; curator, video selection, Montehermoso
Cultural Center; curator, Kimmel Galleries, New York University
Curatorial projects include: “Off Center Femininities: Regards
from Serbia and Montenegro,” Robert Else Gallery, California State
University, Sacramento; “New York as an Open Market: Individual in
Global Spectacle,” Ozone Gallery, Belgrade
Publications include: La Fabrica, ARTMargins. Catalog essays
include: “Leaving the Balkans, Entering the Other Side,” Marina
Abramovic: The Artist is Present; “Forbidden Games: Marina
Abramovic’s 8 Lessons on Emptiness with a Happy End,” Galerie
Guy Bärtschi
Mark Tribe
Visual artist; founding director, Rhizome
Education: BA, Brown University; MFA, University of California,
San Diego
Co-author: New Media Art
Projects include: The Port Huron Project, StarryNight
Exhibitions include: DeCordova Museum and Sculpture Park,
Lincoln, MA; Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions; Trinity Square
Video, Toronto; Arlington Arts Center, VA; Cranbrook Art Museum,
Bloomfield Hills, MI; Park Avenue Armory; National Center for
Contemporary Art, Moscow
Publications include: Artscope, Now Toronto, Los Angeles
Times, Washington Post, Art Papers, Frieze, The New York Times,
Atopia, Artforum, Zing
Awards and honors include: Silver Award, I.D. Interactive
Media Design Review; New York Foundation for the Arts; Elizabeth
Foundation; Creative Capital; New York State Council on the Arts;
Greenwall Foundation; Jerome Foundation; Rockefeller Foundation;
Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; CEC ArtsLink
Website: www.marktribe.net
57
Robin Winters
Multimedia artist
One-person exhibitions include: Berkeley Art Museum and
Pacific Film Archive, CA; Mary Boone Gallery; The Renaissance
Society at the University of Chicago
Group exhibitions include: De Appel, Amsterdam; Dinter Fine
Art; Arizona State University Art Museum, Tempe; Paula Cooper
Gallery; Witte de With Center for Contemporary Art, Rotterdam;
New Museum of Contemporary Art; Contemporary Arts Museum,
Houston; Museum of Modern Art; Silverstein Gallery; Plus Ultra
Gallery; Queens Museum of Art
Collections include: San Francisco Museum of Modern Art;
The Fabric Workshop and Museum, Philadelphia; Netherlands Media
Art Institute Montevideo
Publications include: Art in America, The New York Times,
The Village Voice, The New Yorker, Miami Herald, Art International,
Artforum
Awards and honors include: New York Foundation for the Arts,
John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation Fellowship, National
Endowment for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts
Linda Yablonsky
Writer; art critic; columnist, Artforum, T: The New York Times Style
Magazine; contributing editor, ARTnews
Education: BA, New York University
Author: The Story of Junk: A Novel. Co-author, Face Addict
Books include: Contributor, The Concert I Can’t Forget; The
Creative Time Book; Okay You Mugs: Writers on Movie Actors;
Curve: The Nude in Contemporary Art; Time Out Book of New
York Walks: 23 Walks Around the Big Apple; Bomb! Speak Fiction
and Poetry; Low Rent: A Decade of Prose and Photographs from the
Portable Lower East Side
Publications include: The New York Times, W, Bloomberg News,
Time Out New York, Art & Auction, Elle Decor, Art on Paper, Art in
America, The Village Voice, Art Newspaper
Awards and honors include: Peter S. Reed Foundation. Artist
residencies include: Yaddo, MacDowell Colony
www.sva.edu/grad/artpractice
Visiting Artists,
Studio Mentors and
Guest Lecturers
For an up-to-date roster of individuals who will serve the MFA Art Practice program, please visit our department online at www.sva.edu

Vito Acconci Charles T. Danziger Izhar Patkin Elisabeth Sussman

visual artist, writer and designer, Partner, Danziger, Danziger & Muro, assistant visual artist
 curator, Whitney Museum of American Art
principal Acconci Studio general counsel, The Museum of Modern Art Adriano Pedrosa Andras Szanto
Cory Arcangel Thomas Danziger curator, director writer, Senior lecturer in Arts Business,
visual artist
 partner, Danziger, Istanbul Biennial Sothebys Institute of Art, New York
John Baldessari Danziger & Muro Christopher Phillips Philippe Vergne
visual artist
 Liam Gillick curator, International Center for Photography (ICP)
 director, Dia Center
Lynda Benglis visual artist
 Robert Pincus-Witten for the Arts

sculptor
 George Gittoes art historian, critic
 Carrie Mae Weems
Maurice Berger painter, filmmaker, Tim Rollins visual artist

art historian photographer
 visual artist
 Lawrence Weiner
Roger Black Martin von Haselberg (Harry Kipper) Martha Rosler visual artist

graphic designer performance artist, visual artist
 Terry Winters
photographer
 visual artist

AA Bronson David Rothenberg
fine artist, director, Glenn Ligon composer, musician,
Printed Matter
 visual artist
 philosopher
Eric and Heather Chanschatz Terence Koh
visual artists visual artist


Thomas Crow Lee Mingwei

art historian visual artist


Contact Us
Tel: 212.592.2781
Fax: 212.493.5405
E-mail: artpractice@sva.edu
www.sva.edu/grad/artpractice
department site: artpractice.sva.edu
We strongly encourage applicants to visit SVA prior to submitting application materials.

Come to our Departmental Information Session, or contact us directly to schedule a tour.

Departmental Information Session: October 29, 2011

All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit

To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact
the Office of Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.

Art Practice 58 59 www.sva.edu/grad/artpractice

 XX The MPS Art Therapy program is committed to developing students into working
professionals, via coursework and a clinical internship program, and to serving the
community locally, nationally and internationally.
XX In addition to writing a thesis that is clinical in scope, second-year students choose
from two unique specialization tracks—Challenged Populations (physical, emotional
or mental challenges) or Addictionology (substance abuse and non-drug addictions).
XX The program offers numerous opportunities to work with a variety of populations on a
short-term basis through a unique Special Programs & Projects component, allowing
students to enhance clinical skills and to supplement their training and experience.

Artists intuitively understand the inherently beneficial aspects of the creative process. Art therapy is an
innovative profession that provides a valuable contribution to the care of people living with psychologi-
cal and physical challenges. The mission of the mps Art Therapy program at sva is to offer students
this avenue of helping others through creative expression. Students are trained within a humanistic
framework, coupled with the theory and practice of art therapy. The program offers coursework taught
by working professionals, innovative internship opportunities and workshops, lectures and special
projects reflective of current trends within the profession.
The internship requirement is a significant part of the training, giving students the opportunity
to work directly with clients on an ongoing basis, in both individual and group settings. Students are
supervised by registered and licensed art therapists as well as members of the mps Art Therapy faculty,
and begin internships in the first semester of study, ensuring that theory and practice are integrated
from the start. The program’s full-time Internship Coordinator meets individually with students to choose
a placement from a wide array of settings, including treatment centers, schools, hospitals and shelters.
Community outreach via Special Programs & Projects affords students additional opportunities to work
with clients outside of their internship experience.
The diversity and density of New York City’s population make it a unique location for cutting-edge
treatment, technology and technique. The thousands of working professionals, including art therapists,
psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers, educators and artists, provide the program a remarkable pool
of talent and experience from which to select faculty, internships and guest lecturers. The mps Art
Therapy program, an educational provider fully approved by the American Art Therapy Association, is
committed to serving the community and to training students to work and thrive within this demanding
profession, as well as aiding alumni in their post-graduation growth. The program looks forward to
seeing the accomplishments of its alumni, and the role they will play in promoting and developing the field
in the years and decades to come.

Deborah Farber, chair

MPS Art Therapy

www.sva.edu/grad/arttherapy
department site: arttherapyblog.sva.edu

61
 Lesley Achitoff was a decorative
painter for over a decade before
studying Art Therapy at SVA. She

Making a
is photographed at her school in
Manhattan, where she works with
court-involved teenage girls.

Difference
One Student
at a Time
Alumni Profile: Lesley Achitoff
 The field of art therapy enables artists to combine art and psychology as a vehicle for healing,
communication, self-expression and personal development. Lesley Achitoff, a 2004 graduate who
changed careers after being a decorative painter for 15 years, is now the only art therapist on staff
at Community Prep High School in Manhattan, a transitional high school for court-involved adoles-
cents. The school was created to help the students raise their grade levels and address the behavior
issues that impede their academic achievement so that they will succeed in diploma-bearing high schools
or ged programs.
Lesley teaches a daily group advisory class with an art therapy focus for girls ages 14 to 18.
Female students make up just 25% of the school’s population. “Art gives these students an opportunity
to express themselves in a non-verbal way,” she explains. “Therapy helps counter their resistance
and builds trust. Art therapy helps them to discover their creativity and raises their self-esteem, which
in turn helps them do better in school.”
Achitoff believes that in this line of work, small victories make all the difference. One student,
who struggles with the effects of trauma, has made significant progress in her schooling and therapy.
“She is leaving the program with patience and focus and even wants to go to college.” Achitoff
emphasizes that she is not trying to change the students but to help them recognize their own strengths
through the art therapy process. But just like any artist, her work is never truly done.

Art therapy helps at-risk youth communicate their

emotions without words. This mask was made
by a student to express what she thought others
saw when they met her.
Achitoff holds up a roll
of paper that students
worked on together
that blends collage,
drawings and poetry.

Achitoff also works with her students on personal journals.

“The girls put down their thoughts, experiences, poems and
photographs. Some of them draw,” says Achitoff. “There are
times I give them the freedom to do anything they want in
the books. Other times I’ll ask specific questions which they
can answer in any medium they choose.”
 The MPS Art Therapy Department is housed in an expansive space
chair interview that includes an open studio with an observation area for hands-on training

Deborah Farber
of students working with clients in the creative art therapies. The open studio,
as well as two classrooms, are designed and operated based on the humanistic
philosophy that art therapy and art therapy training should be a collaboration
What ideas guided you in creating the mps Art Therapy program at sva? “From the beginning of the mediated by artistic processes and human interactions. It is modeled after
program,” recalls Deborah Farber, “I was interested in community outreach. And I had the idea that an “enabling space,” or sanctuary, in which the connection between creativity and
it should be multidisciplinary. I thought students should hear from different members of treatment teams, healing can be made. This environment, and all that happens within it, reinforces
not only art therapists, but other people in the hierarchy. So we have psychologists who are also artists the notion that by treating clients with respect and dignity and introducing them
teaching as one way to vary the approach, learning style and material. And we look for a totally hetero- to art as a special language for self-expression, the power of the creative process
“Internships are a
geneous mix of students,” Farber stresses, “because in group therapy, that’s the ideal situation.” can be utilized as a form of therapeutic treatment.
key element of the
Why did you add the addictionology track to the curriculum? “We arrived at the twin-track struc-
program. We have
ture of the program by thinking about the usefulness of a substance abuse counseling certification.
over a hundred

On any
I wanted the equivalent of that qualification to be incorporated into the program because I thought it
placements in
would enhance the training’s practicality. And sure enough, we quickly began to find that our gradu-
the New York
ates had a huge advantage when trying to get art therapy jobs in addictions facilities.”
metropolitan area.”
Can your students balance their artistic development with the demands of graduate study? “Stu-

dents are encouraged to maintain their own art practices.” Farber explains. “We have an open studio
all day on Friday, and we incorporate a lot of art-making into classes, so they’re always using art
materials. Creation is universal, and the creative process is a healing process. Students need to be fluent
in two languages, clinical language and the language of creativity. Whether or not their clients
are ‘talented’ has nothing to do with it.”
How is the internship component structured? “Internships are a key element of the program. We
have over a hundred placements in the New York metropolitan area. When someone is accepted into
the program, they meet with our internship coordinator, who works full-time to set up legal contracts
with our affiliates and to assist students in their placement. We work with every type of population such
as therapeutic nursery schools, day treatment programs for substance abusers, assisted living programs
for the elderly, and everything in between.”
What are students working toward? “The thesis is a culmination of everything they’ve learned.
They come up with a clinical question, something that involves research and a hypothesis. It’s done
in measurable steps and they discuss their research with instructors as well as with the entire group.”
How do mps Art Therapy alumni contribute to the field? “I have one student,” Farber enthuses,
“who worked with abused children and wrote her thesis on adolescents with attachment disorders.
It was recently published in the American Art Therapy Journal. Another student was an animator
who wanted to go into art therapy. He started his own nonprofit and works all over the metropolitan
area, hiring art therapists to work using animation with at-risk adolescents. He’s got all kinds of
grants already, and he’s only been out of the program for two years!”
given day...
First-Year Student:
9 – noon  Raquel Stephenson’s Adult Development & Aging class,
students discuss “Creativity & Aging” and Rudolf Arnheim’s essay
“On the Late Style.”
noon – 3pm  Rebecca DiSunno’s Expressive Therapies class covers
“Film & Photography.” The documentary Born into Brothels is screened.
3 – 6pm  Break. Students conduct research at the Visual Arts Library;
some catch up on paperwork from their internship sites; some work on
their watercolor technique for an upcoming Visiting Artist Workshop
given by watercolorist Judi Betts.
6 –9pm  Supervision Class: students hand in process notes from
internship sites and conduct case presentations.
Second-Year Student:
9 – noon  Students meet with thesis instructors Eileen McGann and
Raquel Stephenson for Thesis Project class and discuss putting finishing
touches on their theses as well as upcoming thesis presentations.
noon – 3pm  Break. Students catch up on paperwork from internship
sites; some work on submissions for In Touch, the Art Therapy Depart-
ment’s online newsletter; some attend a planning meeting for an upcoming
Special Project with coordinator Val Sereno; some meet with clients in
the MPS Art Therapy Department’s Counseling Center.
3 – 6pm  Community Access Through the Arts class. Students
participate in a collaborative art therapy/museum education project at
the Whitney Museum of American Art.
6 – 9pm  Clinical Topics in Challenged Populations class for students
in the Challenged Populations track, guest lecturer Marcia Cohen-
Liebman discusses Forensic Art Therapy.

Art Therapy 68 69 www.sva.edu/grad/arttherapy

The Program  The mps in Art Therapy curriculum is interdisciplinary in approach, drawing from art,
clinical and educational applications, and the social sciences. The first year of study covers the general theory and
practice of art therapy and is designed to help students understand the relationship between cognition, emotion
and behavior as well as how these areas relate to art diagnosis and treatment. In the second year, students choose
between two areas of specialization: addictionology and challenged populations. ¶ Degree candidates must
successfully complete 60 credits, including all required courses, with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0.
A residency of two academic years is required, but there is a three-year and four-year part time option for students
unable to attend the program on a full time basis. In the final semester, each student is required to complete a
thesis project, which must be reviewed and approved by the thesis committee and the department chair in order
for the student to be eligible for degree conferral. ¶ In exceptional instances, students may be allowed to transfer
up to 15 credits from other accredited graduate programs. Decisions concerning transfer of credit and course
exemptions are made by the committee on graduate admissions.

Specialization
Addictionology:   The addictionology track focuses on both
substance abuse and non-drug addictions. Students will learn about
diagnosis and treatment, and gain a thorough knowledge of the
physiology of addictions and of how to work with affected families.
Challenged Populations:   The challenged populations track
focuses on the uses of art therapy in a variety of settings, including
physical, mental and emotional challenges. Counseling methods
and the impact of disability on the family are among the subjects
addressed.

Sample Programs
first year
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

Child Art Development 3 Adolescent Art Development 3

Internship/Supervision in the Studio I 3 Adult Development and Aging 3
Interviewing and Counseling Skills for 3 Group Therapy and Practice 3
Challenged and Addicted Populations Internship/Supervision in the Studio II 3
Methods and Materials in Art Therapy 3 Psychiatric Populations and the 3
Theoretical Foundations of Art Therapy 3 Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM IV)

second year: addictionology

FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

Art Assessment and Diagnosis 3 Community Access Through the Arts 3

Clinical Topics in Addictionology 3 Family Art Therapy: The Impact of 3
Internship/Supervision in the Studio III 3 Disability and Addiction
Multicultural Issues in Art Therapy 3 Internship/Supervision in the Studio IV 3
Thesis Project I 3 Physiology of Addictions 3
Thesis Project II 3

second year: challenged populations

FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

Art Assessment and Diagnosis 3 Clinical Topics in Challenged Populations 3

Art Therapy in Disabilities 3 Community Access Through the Arts 3
Internship/Supervision in the Studio III 3 Family Art Therapy: The Impact of 3
Multicultural Issues in Art Therapy 3 Disability and Addiction
Thesis Project I 3 Internship/Supervision in the Studio IV 3
Thesis Project II 3

A grading rubric for Leslie Achitoff’s class: “The students

are graded on a point system to help them to be more
Art Therapy 70 aware of their behavior and contribution to the class.”
Course Descriptions
Adolescent Art Development
As art therapists, it is essential that we have an understanding of the
individuals with whom we may work. This course will provide a
theoretical framework in which to examine adolescence in terms of
developmental processes in art expression, cognition, intra-psychic
dynamics, external environmental influences and the interrelation-
ship between the two. Attention will be given to increasing the stu-
dent’s understanding of the role and impact family, society, culture
and trauma have upon adolescent development and functioning.
Establishing a safe arena and therapeutic alliance in order to effectively
implement art therapy as assessment, intervention and in ongoing
treatment with the adolescent will be a continual area of discussion.
ADULT DEVELOPMENT and AGING
Students will examine the physical and emotional growth of adults
and will explore the psychological and physiological factors involved.
Specific emphasis will be placed on the variations of the aging process
and how these manifest themselves in behavior and creative expres-
sion. Normal development, psychopathology and art therapy treatment
approaches will be included.
ART ASSESSMENT and DIAGNOSIS
Art assessment and diagnostic materials will be explored through expe-
riential sessions, didactic learning and casework. Students will learn the
fundamentals of art therapy assessment, statistical concepts including
reliability and validity, selection of the assessment tool and familiarity
with a variety of specific art therapy instruments and procedures used
in appraisal and evaluation, and will gain an understanding of develop-
mental levels, cultural factors, psychopathology and psychological health
manifested in artwork and art-making. Additional topics to be discussed
include, administration and documentation of art therapy assessment;
formulation of treatment goals; objectives and strategies related to assess-
ment and evaluation, including historical perspectives of assessment; basic
concepts of standardized and non-standardized testing and assessment,
fundamentals of psychological testing; biopsychosocial assessment; statisti-
cal concepts including reliability and validity; strategies for selection of
the assessment tool and familiarity with a variety of specific instruments
and procedures used in appraisal and evaluation. Projective tests such as
the Diagnostic Drawing Series (DDS), Levick Emotional and Cognitive
Art Therapy Assessment (LECATA), Mandala Assessment Research
Instrument (MARI), Silver Drawing Test of Cognition and Emotion,
Ulman Personality Assessment Procedure (UPAP) and other psychometric
instruments will be explored.
Art Therapy
Art Therapy in Disabilities
This course will examine the relationship of art therapy intervention
in persons with physical and emotional challenges. Emphasis will be
placed on the facilitation of coping strategies. Case presentations, slide
and video illustrations, readings, research and clinical implications for
treatment will be offered.
CHILD ART DEVELOPMENT
The course will focus on the behavior of children from birth through
pre-adolescence. Through case presentations, readings and discussion,
students will examine the physical, emotional and intellectual growth
of children, and explore the psychological and physiological factors
involved in learning, creativity and personality development. Normal
development, psycho­pathology and art therapy treatment approaches
will be included.
CLINICAL TOPICS IN ADDICTIONOLOGY
A broad overview of the changing and expanding field of addictions
will be presented. Topics will focus on the psychological nature of
substance abuse (including the so-called “para-addictions”), the vari-
ous theories that attempt to explain it, and how we, as clinicians, can
begin to have an impact. Special emphasis will be placed on ways in
which art therapy can begin to address difficult treatment issues.
CLINICAL TOPICS IN CHALLENGED POPULATIONS
This course will offer a range of art therapy applications and issues,
presented by a series of clinicians with specific areas of expertise.
Client populations, treatment approaches and related professional
aspects in isolation, trauma and chronic disease will be examined.
Phenomena within the treatment setting explored will include inter-
disciplinary collaboration, co-treating, contributing to the treatment
record, ethics and standards of practice. Students will explore the
potential of the therapeutic arts discipline within the treatment milieu.
72
COMMUNITY ACCESS THROUGH THE ARTS
The professional role as an art therapist, with regard to function and
relationships with other mental health providers, including knowledge
of professional organizations, credentialing and licensure, public pol-
icy, advocating for the profession and client advocacy will be explored.
Students will learn how to create an in-service presentation, which
will include didactic materials and client work, to appeal to various
audiences. Alternatives to traditional methods of psychotherapeutic
treatment will be explored, such as psychosocial clubs, peer-led sup-
port groups and consumer-run centers. Field visits will be included for
observation and presentation purposes. Students will receive instruc-
tion in preparing to enter the job market, including practice in resume
writing and professional interviewing skills. Occupational counseling,
career development theory, information and resources, diversity fac-
tors, supervision and ethical and legal issues, and the development
of art therapy-based career counseling will be covered, along with
knowledge and skills considered essential in enabling individuals and
organizations to positively affect career development and aptitude.
FAMILY ART THERAPY: THE IMPACT OF DISABILITY AND ADDICTION
Systems theory will provide the theoretical foundation for this course;
family art therapy and strategic learning will be explored and experi-
enced. To conceptualize the emotional phenomena within the family
of origin offers practitioners the skills to maneuver in complex waters.
When addiction, mental illness and physical disabilities exist within the
system, every member is impacted with a life-altering experience. To
restore a functional adjustment and balance is the goal of the family
art therapist. Research, genograms, case studies and literature will be
part of the learning experience.
GROUP THERAPY and PRACTICE
This course will assist in the development of clinical skills through
an exploration of techniques and practices. Topics will include stan-
dards and methods of documentation, treatment planning, treatment
team reports (oral and written) and case presentation. Emphasis will
be placed on theoretical and experiential understanding of group art
therapy techniques: group dynamics and process, counseling methods,
leadership styles and approaches, member roles and behaviors, selec-
tion criteria, short- and long-term group process, therapeutic factors
and stages of group development. Contemporary theorists will also be
critically surveyed. In addition, research methodologies and design will
be explored for thesis/special project preparation.
73
Internship Opportunities
The Art Therapy Department has developed internship affiliations
with hospitals and agencies in the metropolitan area. Internships
provide students with the opportunity to integrate theory with
art therapy practice and to gain professional skills. Internship
sites include, but are not limited to: New York Foundling Hospital,
Refrew Center, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, HeartShare Human
Services, Coalition for Hispanic Families, NYC Public Schools,
St. Mary’s Children’s Hospital, Lutheran Medical Center, Interfaith
Medical Center, New York Presbyterian Hospital, North Bronx
and Jacobi Hospitals, NYU Medical Center, and Queens Children’s
Psychiatric Center.
The Department employs a full-time internship coordinator
who works with students in their clinical placement, and
communicates with on-site and faculty supervisors in assessing
each student’s progress.
internship/supervision in the studio I, II, III & IV
The SVA Art Therapy Department has developed numerous affilia-
tions with a wide variety of institutions in and around New York City.
Working with the field placement coordinator, each student will be
placed in a supervised internship that corresponds with his or her area
of specialization. Students are required to spend 16 hours per week
at an internship site each semester. Small-group supervision will also
be provided by SVA faculty members through a unique studio-based
component of this course. This will give students a regular opportunity
to reflect on their work with clients and to further their own artis-
tic development as they explore the challenges of artist-as-therapist.
Students will explore professional identity, professional ethics and the
ethical practice of art therapy and the proper application of ethical
and legal principles of art therapy practice, and gain familiarity with
the ethical standards of the American Art Therapy Association and Art
Therapy Credentials Board as well as other related fields.
INTERVIEWING and COUNSELING SKILLS FOR Challenged and
addicted populations
Students will be introduced to assessment and evaluation techniques
for the treatment of challenged populations, chemically dependent
clients and their families. Intake strategies for both short- and long-
term settings, and how to develop counseling skills will be the primary
focus. Students will learn the historical development of counseling and
psychological theories, understanding of systems perspective, applica-
tion to case material and critical thinking with regard to similarities
and differences between art therapy intervention and counseling inter-
vention. Case material and presentations, role-playing, videotaping,
contemporary theories such as the Minnesota Model for treatment of
substance abuse, behavioral, cognitive, educational, creative arts, lec-
ture and experiential work will be offered.
www.sva.edu/grad/arttherapy
Methods and Materials in Art Therapy
This course will enable students to examine the use of paints, inks,
organic art processes, sculpture materials and other traditional and
non-traditional art media and their uses with particular client popula-
tions. Salient features of particular materials and expressive dimen-
sions will be explored. Discussion of computer applications relevant
to art therapy will be included. Students will explore the impact of
art processes and materials through ongoing participation in personal
art-making. By strengthening their connection to the creative process,
students will gain an understanding of personal symbolic language-
and arts-based learning, allowing for the opportunity to integrate intel-
lectual, emotional, artistic and interpersonal knowledge.
MULTICULTURAL ISSUES IN ART THERAPY
The effect of ethnicity and culture in the therapeutic process will be
examined through case material, slide illustrations and didactic and
experiential sessions. This course will explore cultural determinants
of problems encountered in the field of art therapy, and provide a
foundation of knowledge in cultural diversity theory and competency
models applied to an understanding of diversity of artistic language,
symbolism and meaning in artwork and art-making across cultures
and within a diverse society. Students will investigate the role of the
art therapist in social justice, advocacy and conflict resolution, includ-
ing theories of counseling and development of competencies essential
for a culturally responsive therapist with regard to age, gender, sexual
orientation, ethnicity, nationality, socio-economic status, develop-
mental disability, education, family values and religious and spiritual
values. Cultural self-awareness through self-assessment, strategies for
working with diverse communities and critical thinking with regard to
attitudes, beliefs and competent practice will be explored. Students will
be encouraged to share their own cultural beliefs and attitudes in rela-
tion to the practice of art therapy.
PHYSIOLOGY OF ADDICTIONS
A consideration of contemporary neurochemical theories of addictions.
Neuroanatomy and physiology, and the use of psychotropic medica-
tion in the treatment of substance abuse will be examined. An in-depth
look at theories regarding the genetic etiology of substance abuse will
be reviewed.
Art Therapy
Psychiatric Populations and the Diagnostic and
Statistical Manual (DSM IV)
Psychopathology, as determined by the DSM multi-axial system, will
Special Projects
be examined in depth. Case material will be presented for each diag- Special Projects are a distinctive element of the MPS Art Therapy program, as
nostic category, and the clinical implications for the art therapist will they afford students additional opportunities to work with clients outside of
be explored. Treatment approaches will be considered, as will indica-
tors of functional and organic disorders in behavior and artwork of their internship setting. Special Projects are innovative short-term art therapy
clients. Types of psychopharmacological medications will be covered. experiences facilitated by students and a board certified art therapist. Students learn
THEORETICAL FOUNDATIONS OF ART THERAPY to create client-specific directives, encourage community partnership and assess
The history of the theoretical aspects of art therapy will be explored. project objectives and results. Special Projects are facilitated with a wide range of
Analytic, behavioral, cognitive, interpersonal and humanistic
approaches, important events, practitioners and the development of client populations, in such venues as social service agencies, healthcare facilities,
art therapy as a distinct therapeutic practice will be reviewed through community centers, schools, corporations and alternative sites.
readings and didactic and experiential sessions. Ethical and legal issues
of art therapy practice, including certification, values, malpractice and
confidentiality, and an overview of psychotherapy theories relevant to
art therapy will also be included in discussions and examined through
case presentations and lectures. Mandated Reporter
Training Seminar
THESIS PROJECT I & II
Students will be supervised by members of the art therapy faculty in
the development of a thesis topic. Each project must be clinical in
scope, present an original point of view and include supporting docu- Students are required to receive training in the identification and reporting of child
mentation of its concepts and findings. In addition, students may opt
to explore grant-writing opportunities. Structured methods and formats
abuse offered by a New York State approved provider. Students are instructed in
such as quantitative and qualitative research, formal case studies and how to effectively report child abuse or maltreatment/neglect to the NYS Child
arts-based research will be discussed. Students are required to present
their thesis projects to peers and faculty. The department chair will
Abuse and Maltreatment Register, evaluate situations to determine whether there is
oversee all projects. reasonable cause to suspect child abuse or maltreatment, and identify the physical
and behavioral indicators commonly associated with child abuse. This seminar is
offered at the beginning of each academic year.
74 75 www.sva.edu/grad/arttherapy
Faculty
Deborah Farber, chair
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BA, Herbert H. Lehman College; MPS, Pratt Institute;
Substance Abuse Counseling Certificate, Marymount Manhattan College
professional experience: Art therapist, Holliswood Hospital;
alcoholism psychotherapist, Freedom Institute; activities director,
High Point Hospital; activities therapist, Association for the Help of
Retarded Children; curator, “Annual Art Therapy Exhibition,” School
of Visual Arts
publications and presentations include: “Rebuilding Hope
One Block at a Time: Collective Art in New York City,” American
Art Therapy Association Annual Conference; “Child Art Therapy,”
Montclair Art Museum; panelist, Arts and Humanities Confer­ence,
School of Visual Arts; “Art Therapy and Literacy with Children,”
International Reading Conference; Encyclopedia of Disability and
Rehabilitation; Ferguson’s Careers in Focus: Art
Claudia Bader
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT; psychoanalyst; executive director,
Institute for Expressive Analysis. Formerly, art therapist, Manhattan
Psychiatric Center
Education: BA, University of California San Diego; MPS, Pratt
Institute
Irene Rosner David
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BA, City College of New York; MA, New York
University; PhD, Union Institute
professional experience: Board of directors, Ameri­can
Art Therapy Association; director, Therapeu­tic Arts, Bellevue
Hospital Center
publications include: Art Therapy: Journal of the American Art
Therapy Association; American Journal of Art Therapy; Time Out
New York; Photo District News; New York Newsday
awards and honors include: Distinguished Service Award,
Clinician Award, American Art Therapy Association; Honorary Life
Member Award, Dis­ting­uish­ed Service Award, New York Art Therapy
Associa­tion
Elizabeth DelliCarpini
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT; internship coordinator, MPS
Art Therapy Department, School of Visual Arts
education: BFA College of New Rochelle; MAAT, School of the
Art Institute of Chicago
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Art therapist, Community Prep HS for
court-involved adolescents; Brooklyn Community Counseling Center
9/11 Outreach; Catholic Charities homelesss adult employment pro-
gram; child welfare coordinator, Jamal Place residential program
PRESENTATIONS INCLUDE: “Boys: Art & Destruction,” American Art
Therapy Association; “Working with Young People in Challenging
Situations,” Fund for the City of New York; “Working with Girls in
the Juvenile Justice System,” Legal Aid Society
Art Therapy
Rebecca Di Sunno
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT; clinical nurse specialist
Education: MA, PhD, New York University
professional experience: Art therapist, East End Hospice; art
therapy program coordinator, International Child Art Foundation,
World Children’s Festival
Publications include: American Journal of Art Therapy, East
Hampton Star
Michael Fisher
Senior psychologist and outpatient program coordinator,
Comprehensive Addiction Treatment Center, Jacobi Medical Center;
associate director, The Mimesis Institute; private practice
Education: BA, SUNY Binghamton; MA, Yeshiva University;
PhD, Long Island University; postgraduate training, Eastern Group
Psychotherapy Society; New York Milton Erickson Society for
Psychotherapy and Hypnosis
presentations include: “Unconscious at Play: Utilizing the
Mimesis Process,” Institute for Expressive Analysis; “Chemical
Dependency in the Workplace: Establishing a Chemical Dependency
Program,” Lenox Hill Hospital
Lisa Furman
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BFA, Rhode Island School of Design; MA, New York
University
professional experience: Clinical psychotherapist, New York
Foundling Hospital; Danbury Hospital for Children and Adolescent
Treatment Services; Long Island College Hospital; New York Institute
for Special Education
presentations include: “When a Scribble Is Not Just a Scribble:
Diagnostic Implications of the Content and Process of Art,” Department
of Psychiatry, Harlem Hospital Center; “Using Art Therapy with
Children in Foster Care,” Council of Family and Child Caring Agencies
(COFCCA); “A Touching Sight: Art Therapy with Blind Children,”
Annual Conference, American Art Therapy Association
Stephanie Gorski
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BA, SUNY Geneseo; MPS, Pratt Institute
professional experience: Clinical coordinator, New York
Foundling Hospital; social worker, South Brooklyn Prevention
Program; art therapist, Blueberry Treatment Center; adoption social
worker, New York Spaulding for Children
publications include: Pratt Institute Creative Arts Therapy Review
Award: Sr. Teresa Vincent McCrystal Excellence Award
76
Robert Abel Grant
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BA, Long Island University; MPS, Pratt Institute
professional experience: Art therapist, clinical supervisor,
Family Service Programs; post-adoption coordinator, HeartShare
Human Services; art therapist, Graham Windham Services to Children
and Families; consultant, New York Urban League: Manhattan Branch
Family Redirection Program
exhibitions include: Baca Downtown Theater and Gallery, Long
Island University, New York Art Therapy Association, Art in General
Markus J. Kraebber
Psychiatrist
Education: BA, Harvard University; MD, Jefferson Medical College
professional experience: Attending psychiatrist, pediatric con-
sultant, New York Presbyterian Hospital; Massachusetts General
Hospital/Chelsea; Eric Lindemann Mental Health Center; Volunteers
of America, Inc.; ACI, Inc.; Lenox Hill Hospital; Bellevue Hospital
CPEP; research assistant, Diabetes Research Center, University of
Pennsylvania Medical School; corporate finance analyst, Smith Barney
publications include: “Blood Pressure Changes, Evaluation
of Fever,” On Call Psychiatry; “Validation and Utility of a Self-
Report Version of Prime-MD,” Journal of the American Medical
Association; “Effect of the Hypoglycemic drug AZ DF 265 on ATP-
Sensitive Potassium Channels in Rat Pancreatic beta cells,” British
Journal of Pharmacology
Carol Greiff Lagstein
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BFA, California College of the Arts; MPS, Pratt Institute;
MSW, Columbia University
Professional experience: Private practice; student assistance
counselor, Clarkstown Central School District, NY; co-founder, facili-
tator, Teen Power
Presentations include: “Creative Genograms,” American Art
Therapy Association
Publication: The Whole Mind: The Definitive Guide to
Complementary Treatments for Mind, Mood, and Emotion
Eileen P. McGann
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BFA, Manhattanville College; MA, New York University
professional experience: Senior art therapist, Jewish Board of
Family and Children’s Services
One-person exhibition: Molloy College Art Gallery
group exhibitions: New York University, Rye Art League,
Manhattanville College, Kean Mason Gallery
publications include: American Journal of Art Therapy, Art
Therapy with Older Adults, The Arts in Psycho­therapy, Journal of
the American Art Therapy Association, Journal of Emotional Abuse,
Racism and Racial Identity
77
Renee Obstfeld
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BA, Sarah Lawrence College; MA, New York University
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Art therapist, Robert Mapplethorpe
Residential Treatment Facility
Publication: American Journal of Art Therapy
Meagan O’Connell
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT; director, therapeutic services &
creative arts therapies, Incarnation Children’s Center
Education: BA, Manhattanville College; MA, New York University
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Senior child life specialist, Mount Sinai
Medical Center; advisory board, Splashes of Hope
Presentations include: “The New Psychosocial Morbidity: A
View from the 21st Century,” Mount Sinai Pediatric Grand Rounds;
“Weaving Creative Arts Modalities into Child Life Practice,” Bank
Street College of Education; “Weaving Creative Arts Processes
Into Child Life Programming,” Child Life of Greater New York
Professional Development Conference; “Child Art Therapy,”
New School University
Valerie Sereno
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT; coordinator, special programs and
projects, MPS Art Therapy Department, School of Visual Arts
Education: BA, Marymount Manhattan College; MA, New
York University
Professional experience: Art therapist, 9/11 School Recovery
Program, PS 89, PS 124; Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center;
Montessori Manhattan School, St. Luke’s Hospital
Presentations include: “The Creative Arts Therapies’ Response
to 9/11,” New York University; American Art Therapy Association
Conference; Psycho-Oncology Conference, Heidelberg
Raquel Chapin Stephenson
Art therapist, ATR-BC, LCAT
Education: BFA, University of Michigan; MA, New York University
PROFESSIONAL EXPERIENCE: Program coordinator, clinical supervi-
sor, New York University Creative Aging Therapeutic Services; art
therapist, St. Luke’s Hospital
publications include: The Older Learner, Generations
www.sva.edu/grad/arttherapy
Guest Lecturers

Bonnie Allie Lawrence Brown Barbara Fish Scott Green Marilyn LaMonica Shaun McNiff Joan Phillips Daniel Siegel
art therapist physician art therapist, director, Art head of Fine Arts, art therapist, psychoanalyst art therapist, founder, art therapist psychiatrist, executive
Therapy Associates University of Derby Institute for the Arts and director, Mindsight Institute
Corinne Arles Ani Buk Carol Lark Shirley Riley
expressive arts therapist, art therapist Linda Gantt Ellen Horovitz art therapist, psycho- Human Development art therapist Ellen Speert
Free Arts NYC art therapist art therapist therapist, director, The Art Nancy McWilliams art therapist; founder,
Marcia Cohen-Liebman Diane Rode
Brian Austin art therapist Natalia Gomez Joseph Jaworek Therapy Center psychotherapist art therapist, Kravis California Center for
art therapist art therapist art therapist Laura Loumeau-May Rebecca Beers Miller Children’s Hospital at Creative Renewal
Barbara Cooper
Liz Baring art therapist, SuperKids David Gonzalez David Read Johnson art therapist art therapist Mount Sinai Bobbi Stoll
art therapist, psychoanalyst music therapist director, Institute for the Paola Luzzatto Bruce Moon Judith Aron Rubin art therapist
Margaret Hills de Zárate
Arts in Psychotherapy; co- art therapist art therapist art therapist Brian Tepper
Ted E. Becker Jr. art therapist Robin Goodman
director, Post Traumatic art therapist
psychiatrist Ashley Dorr art therapist and clinical Linda Levine Madori Cathy Moon Andree Salom
Stress Center
Chris Belkofer art therapist psychologist; Director of art therapist art therapist art therapist Nicolas Touron
the Bereavement Center Lynn Kapitan sculptor, ceramist
art therapist Gail Elkin-Scott Cathy Malchiodi Thomas Moore Brenda Seckerson
at A Caring Hand, Billy art therapist
Judi Betts art therapist art therapist, Director of the author expressive arts therapist, Annette Vaccaro
Esposito Foundation Gussie Klorer Institute for the Arts and Free Arts NYC art therapist, social worker
watercolorist Mimi Farrelly-Hansen Bereavement Center Larry Norton
art therapist, social worker Health
Elaine Breiger art therapist deputy physician-in-chief Karen Seeley Bessel van der Kolk
Christina Grosso Judith Kuspit Shannon McGinn and director of breast can- psychologist psychiatrist
printmaker Kimberly Faulkner art therapist psychologist, psychoanalyst art therapist; staff attorney, cer programs at Memorial
art therapist Laura Seftel Judy Weiser
Prisoner Reentry Project, Sloan-Kettering Cancer art therapist psychologist, phototherapist
Legal Services of Center
New Jersey Suellen Semekoski Stephanie Wise
Peggy Papp art therapist art therapist
Carole McNamee social worker, Ackerman
marital and family therapist Institute Katherine Shargo Gaelyn Wolf-Bordonaro
art therapist, New Jersey art therapist
Sojung Park Department of Corrections Irvin D. Yalom
Tel: 212.592.2610 art therapist
Contact Us

psychiatrist
Saadia Parvez
Fax: 917.606.0461 art therapist
E-mail: arttherapy@sva.edu
www.sva.edu/grad/arttherapy
department site: arttherapyblog.sva.edu
We strongly encourage applicants to contact our Department to schedule an informational
meeting and receive a tour of our facilities prior to submitting application materials.

Departmental Information Session: November 5, 2011.

All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit

To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact
the Office of Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.

Art Therapy 78 79 www.sva.edu/grad/arttherapy

MPS XX Create frameworks to guide brand, design and business development
XX Critically evaluate brand, business, marketing and design strategies

Branding XX Master the intellectual link between leadership and creativity

The Master of Professional Studies in Branding is a one-year degree program that examines
www.sva.edu/grad/branding the relationship between design and strategy, and the power of design thinking as a way to

department site: branding.sva.edu
combine creative skills with the problem-solving and decision-making processes of design and
business. Students graduating from this program will be able to take advantage of new market
opportunities, and to deliver innovative, successful and sustainable project outcomes in the worlds
of design, advertising, marketing and business.
During the year, students develop an understanding of diverse branding strategies, brand
valuation, and brand development life cycle. We’ll explore important themes in behavioral science
and relevant cultural themes as they relate to branding. We’ll investigate marketing challenges
involved in creating and sustaining brands and gain an understanding of and experience with
senior corporate management discourse.
The thesis is a critical part of the mps in Branding that is developed and completed in the summer
semester. Students will develop their thesis, formulating and developing the central idea that will
become their thesis, and will consider appropriate strategies for the research, form, presentation
and distribution of their ideas. The thesis class will provide students the opportunity to meet
as a group and with a faculty member to discuss issues related to the development of their theses,
as well as review portions of each other’s work. Students should emerge from this process with
a significant body of work.

Debbie Millman, chair

81
Designing
Smartly:
Bringing
30 Years of
Experience
to theFaculty Profile:
Dan Formosa, PhD

Classroom
Smart Design’s studio in NYC. Dan
Formosa is a founding member of Smart
Design, a group based on the idea the
design should be about people, not things.
A wall shows current projects being
worked on. Their clients include the
Guggenheim Museum, MoMA and the
Whitney Museum of American Art.
“I try to give students an overview of every topic that is
represented by design: biomechanics, physiology, psychology, sta-
tistics, information, and happiness, to name some. I also discuss the
differences between design research and market research, because
the two often get confused – especially by marketing people, who often
don’t have an exposure to design. But the techniques and the ground
rules of design research and market research are quite different.”  His designs work because he designs for everyone on the con-
This is mps Branding instructor Dan Formosa’s perspective
today. It’s also been his perspective for the past 30 years. When he
was starting out in the late 70s, it was common, he says, for market-
ing research to limit a designer’s focus to the appearance of the
object. But Dan thought a designer’s focus should be on the person,
not the object, and that research shouldn’t come from the market-
place, but from behavioral sciences like ergonomics, biomechanics,
and psychology.
This approach tended to rankle marketers early on in his career.
He co-founded Smart Design to create products from research that
drew subsequent skepticism: A Pyrex bowl with a finger-tab, for
example, that could go from the freezer to the stovetop without
cracking. The bowl failed in the marketing studies, but Corning
pushed it through anyway, and it became a best seller. The success
of the bowl validated the research they built into the design, and
paved the way for the next Corning product: sunglasses whose de-
sign was, essentially, a crystallization of fresh anthropometric data
about the face and cognitive psychological data about perception.
The sunglasses were a hit, too – doubling the number of consumers
satisfied with Corning’s previous line.
sumer spectrum—not just the “average consumer”—and so more
people actually respond to them. Smart Design has continued to
grow under Dan’s vision, scoring major hits with the first ibm pc,
best-selling kitchen tools for Oxo, syringes that insure safe and
regular use in home users, and SmartGauge, a digital interface
designed for the award-winning Ford hybrid, the Fusion, which tells
drivers when to modify and/or sustain their driving behaviors in
order to optimize the car’s performance.
This is maybe where Dan’s value as a thinker and designer (and
new faculty member at sva) truly lies: he not only makes the rela-
tionships between people and objects more personal and functional,
he also creates successful commercial products that originate from
the idea that design can improve people as people improve design.
We’re excited to have Dan share his vision at sva.
Dan’s product design work has always relied on physical
models as opposed to sketches. An extensive shop allows ideas
to go from rough mockups (or “three-dimensional sketches”) to
final working prototypes, as various concepts are explored and
continuously “reality-checked.”
Dan’s design career began with a degree in product With clients worldwide, Smart Design has offices in
design. Studies soon reached to biomechanics and New York City, San Francisco and Barcelona.
ergonomics, while work expanded to include information
design, interaction, service design and design strategy.
 The Branding Studio is located on West 21st Street in Chelsea,
chair interview where classes are conducted. The following is a typical day in the life

Debbie Millman
of the MPS Branding Department at SVA.

“Human beings have a need to make things and to mark them—we’ve been doing it throughout
our history, marking ourselves as part of something bigger than just the individual,” reflects Debbie
Millman from her office at influential midtown agency Sterling Brands. “Branding is an interesting
discipline in that it involves a slew of other fields,” she continues. “You need to have an expertise in
cultural anthropology, behavioral psychology, and supply chain management as well as in marketing
“I’m hoping that our and design. In the program at SVA, we teach a sort of unified theory of branding, looking at real-life
graduates will be brands, their history, evolution, and sustainability within the business models they embody. We’ll look
able to change our at how and why certain brands stumble and fail—or stumble and recover—and use that knowledge
world, because they

On any
to analyze in depth how brands contribute to the way we live.”
will understand what “Branding has always been about the man behind the curtain,” Millman concedes with a smile.
the tactics are to “This program is about pulling the curtain away and focusing on things that have been, for the most
make that change.” part, either taught in business school or learned on the job. Our approach takes the world as a case

given day...
study. There are other graduate programs that have an aspect of branding to them, but they tend to
couple it with either advertising, strategy, or what’s called ‘design thinking.’ This MPS gives students
the vocabulary they need to participate in the conversation around branding in a much more significant
and meaningful way, by applying an understanding of the language of business to whatever they’re
passionate about. I’m hoping that our graduates will be able to change our world, because they will
understand what the tactics are to make that change.”
Millman is thrilled by the many new opportunities that the program offers. “Everything was built 9am Chair Debbie Millman meets with Steve Ginsberg at M&M Mars 5pm  Graduate advisor J’aime Cohen meets with publisher to go over
from scratch,” she says excitedly, “the curriculum, the materials, the space, everything. And it uses to discuss student mentorship program book about the program
progressive technology throughout. We have a podcast space and every lecture is documented on video.
We anticipate having an online program in the future, and a summer workshop. There’ll be a lot going 10am  Millman speaks with Ric Grefé at AIGA Headquarters to arrange 7pm  Guest lecture with cultural anthropologist Grant McCracken
on! We’re positioning the department like a think-tank, a place where brands can be researched and for students to tour the AIGA Archives

analyzed, built and developed outside the realm of corporate culture and
11am  Josh Liberson meets with Malcolm Gladwell to plan his
commercial pressure.”
guest lecture
How will participants gain both practical experience and theoretical insight? “Students work on
building a brand as part of their thesis. And it isn’t a brand in a box that no one sees; it is sustainable in-
12pm  Lunch with students at the Cooper Hewitt Design Museum, and
side and outside the classroom. Brands are used to project an image to an audience, and we’re interested
tour of the latest exhibit
in examining the management of that projection.” Millman stresses that branding has political and
ethical as well as commercial power. “Whether we’re talking about brand or anti-brand, Democrat or 3pm  Millman’s “Design Matters” podcast taping with Dan Pink
Republican, pro-life or pro-choice, many of the same tools are used. We’re looking at branding as both
a science and an art, and we’ll be able to speak honestly and truthfully about its powers and its perils.”

Branding 88 89 www.sva.edu/grad/branding
The Program  The required coursework for this degree program is organized into five progressive
segments: Culture, Behavior, Business, Commerce and Creative. Each discipline works both independently and Course Descriptions
cohesively with the others, but rigorous attention will be paid to each field to determine and define the modern
practice of branding. Degree candidates must successfully complete 36 credits, including all required courses, with
a cumulative grade point average of 3.0. A residency of one academic year is required. ¶ There is a mandatory
Guest Speaker Lecture Series bringing exposure, interaction and inspiration from esteemed practitioners in the
branding and business community. ¶ The summer semester is dedicated to the thesis. The outcome of the Master
of Professional Studies in Branding is a comprehensive conference and exhibit that allows students to show,
display, articulate and defend the premise of their new brand and showcase their work to the design, business Analysis, Insight and Forecasting
Cultural change is neither unpredictable nor random. The seeds of
and branding communities. Ultimately, the thesis must be reviewed and approved by the thesis committee and the next are buried in the now, in the psyche of the individual and in
the department chair in order for the student to be eligible for degree conferral. the collective mind called “culture.” In this course, students will learn
to read deeply and carefully the cultural signs that surround them in
order to recognize underlying patterns and learn to translate these pat-
terns into actionable human and cultural insights, valuable throughout
Sample Program the lifecycle of any product or brand. We will also explore how to
leverage trend analysis to forecast paradigmatic shifts in human behav-
ior and culture as well as in the marketplace. Students will complete
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
the course with the means to identify and leverage the patterns under-
Business Strategies  3 Analysis, Insight and Forecasting  3 lying the most powerful and beloved cultural artifacts and brands.
Foundation of Visual Branding and Strategy 3 Brand Design Leadership  3 experience and lifestyle. Where does the CPG brand stand today and
The Meaning of Branded Objects  3 The Evolution of CPG Brands and Package Design  3 Brand Design Leadership
Every day, from the moment we wake up to the sound of our iPhone
A Unified Theory of Branding  3 Practices in Design and Market Research  3 alarm and drink our first sip of Starbucks, to the second we put down
Lecture Series I 3 Lecture Series II 3 our Crest and crawl into bed, we interact with brands. Great brands
have been passionately, holistically, reverently and thoughtfully created
and nurtured by managers within corporations with the support of
SUMMER Semester Credits consumers, researchers, trends experts, designers, engineers, anthro-
Creating Brands, Identity and Experiences 6 pologists and strategists, to name a few. But how is design designed?
How does a branded image transform from a business need to a tan-
gible identity? This course will unravel the pieces of the brand design
process, and transport you from market-driven need to fully realized
brand. We will begin with the mechanics of a corporation and a need
as a business defines it, through the scenarios that occur as design
managers and brand design firms respond, convince and create a brand
identity. We will use actual business examples and work individually
and in teams to create methodologies, develop guidelines, present and
critique design and hone the art and science of creating a point of view
worthy of a creative partnership.
Business Strategies
From developing a brand personality to discovering invisible brand
assets, this multidisciplinary course is about creating brand value,
strategy and business literacy. We’ll review core branding disciplines
such as developing brand positioning, mission statement, brand char-
acter, naming and brand architecture. We’ll take a look at financial
valuation models, as well as creative methods for discovery and ide-
ation, and why a strong brand strategy is like an organization’s DNA,
serving as a blueprint for strategy and informing other activities such
as leadership, marketing, product development, communication, design
and advertising. Discussions based on case studies and readings will
also use worksheets as a lens, and provide a platform to examine
forces and dynamics that shape brands from traditional corporate to
entrepreneurial startups. We’ll touch on globalization, technology,
critical thinking, culture and lifestyle.
Creating Brands, Identities and Experiences
The summer semester will be entirely focused on the development
and creation of a real-world brand. We will continue to investigate
the challenges of bringing elegant, innovative and efficient solu-
tions to market targeted to strong customer needs. The course is
structured around the following innovation process: opportunity
Branding 90 91
identification, idea generation, design, testing, launch. The goal is
to develop and/or create a brand with an existing organization or
to as a solo proprietor.
The Evolution of CPG Brands and Package Design
Consumer brands, and the retail marketplace that supports them,
have evolved through several stages in the last 150 years. Each has
been strongly influenced by culture, events and the changes of the
retail markets of which they are a part. The first three stages, from the
1850s through the 1990s, can be described as the era of the retailer,
the era of the manufacturer and the era of the brand. The last decade
has seen an evolution of brand activity toward a focus on consumer
what is its future? This course will review the historical evolution
of CPG brand identities though the lens of retail brand identity and
package design. We will review, decade by decade, the relatively brief
history of CPG brand identities, and the aesthetic and cultural influ-
ences that have shaped their path. While reviewing these historical
precedents, students will develop an informed judgment on where CPG
brand identities are today and where they may be headed.
Foundation of Visual Branding and Strategy
Beginning with the history and underlying ideas of branding, this
course will examine the development of classic brands such as Bass
Ale and Coca-Cola, as well as seminal identity designers and design
studios, including William Morris, Paul Rand, Landor Associates and
Pentagram. We will examine contemporary examples that highlight
the challenges of brand and identity creation in specific contexts: retail
experiences; the arts and the nonprofit sector; the branding of loca-
tions, politicians and political ideas. A look at the future of brands
and identity design will be given. The second half of the course will
explore brand strategy: how an audience perceives a brand and how
that perception might evolve. Students will work on projects that aim
to visually address the strategic concerns of several brands. Reducing
a visual identity to its most elemental parts and then incorporating
material to create a visual context will be addressed, and students will
create matrices to determine what audience a brand addresses. We
will also mine a brand’s history for new opportunities, and conduct
SWOT-style analyses that define innovation opportunities and chart a
course for future growth. Guest lectures by contemporary practitioners
will complement course work.
Lecture Series I and II
The aim of the lecture series is to bring students in contact with a
wide variety of professional perspectives and to introduce them to
experts in the field. Some lecturers will discuss practical aspects of
their critical endeavors and others will focus on intellectual issues.
Topics to be addressed include: practices in market research; mass
vs. class brands; practices in cultural anthropology; why we shop:
marketing, economics and brands; understanding consumer behav-
ior; nomenclature and visual language development; branding,
cognition and culture.
www.sva.edu/grad/branding
 Faculty Guest Lecturers

The Meaning of Branded Objects Debbie Millman, chair Virginia Postrel Malcolm Gladwell Daniel H. Pink
Brands transform objects into meaning-bearers. This course will President, Design Division, Sterling Brands; radio show host, Author; editor-in-chief, Deep Glamour writer, The New Yorker; entrepreneur; speaker;
explore the collective and individual history of this transformation. Design Matters with Debbie Millman. Formerly, senior vice Education: Princeton University author, The Tipping Point, author, A Whole New Mind,
As we have evolved from hunter-gatherers into robustly cultural president, Interbrand Professional experience includes: Contributing editor, Culture
beings, objects themselves have also evolved: from disposable, purely Education: BA, SUNY Albany & Commerce columnist, The Atlantic; editor, Reason
Blink, Outliers The Adventures of Johnny
functional extensions of the body to deeply personal, even cherished, Clients include: Tropicana; Pepsi; Unilever; Pepperidge Farm; Author: The Substance of Style: How the Rise of Aesthetic Value DeeDee Gordon Bunko: The Last Career
expressions of an individual’s life. We will examine the history and Campbell’s; Gillette; Nestle; Colgate; Mars, Inc.; Georgia Pacific; Is Remaking Commerce, Culture & Consciousness; The Future and
co-creator, L Report, Look- Guide You’ll Ever Need
insights of individual and social psychology in shaping the context GlaxoSmithKline Its Enemies: The Growing Conflict Over Creativity, Enterprise, and
for 21st-century perceptions of, and relationships with, the things books include: How to Think Like a Great Graphic Designer, Progress. Co-author, Glamour: Fashion, Industrial Design, Architecture Look Magazine Cheryl Swanson
that surround us. Concretely, we will investigate the increasingly Essential Principals of Graphic Design Publications include: I.D., The New York Times, Forbes,
Stanley Hainsworth founder, Toniq. Formerly,
sophisticated manner in which brands have gained and integrated Publications include: Speak Up, Step, Creativity, HOW, Graphic D Magazine, Los Angeles Times, Print, New York Post, Slate, Boston
chairman, chief creative senior vice president,
quantitative and qualitative insights into our lives (and our cultural Design USA, The New York Times, Adobe Proxy, Design Globe, The Best American Science and Nature Writing, Wall Street Journal
contexts) to create opportunities for complex, meaning-centered Management Journal, Print Awards and honors include: Phi Beta Kappa; Mencken officer, Tether. Formerly, Wallace Church Associates
relationships between people and things. Students will use their own Award for Commentary, Free Press Association; Katie Award for global creative director, Gong Szeto
experiences as the starting point for this exploration into the lived- Sem Devillart Commentary, Press Club of Dallas; Media Fellow, Hoover Institution,
meaning of individual brands and their collective role in the con- Co-founder, managing partner, Popular Operations Stanford University
Starbucks; global creative entrepreneur; lecturer.
struction of modern personal identity. Education: MA, Domus Academy; Universität Tübingen Website: www.dynamist.com director, Lego; creative Formerly, director of design
Clients have included: Christian Dior, Camper, Daimler, L’Oreal, director, Nike and product design, PEAK6
Practices in Design and Market Research Johnson & Johnson, PepsiCo, Philips Design, BBC Richard Shear Investments; designer,
Brands have historically relied heavily on marketing techniques to help Founding principal, creative director, The Shear Partnership; author, Jonah Lehrer
establish and strengthen their presence. That is changing quickly, as Dan Formosa The Package Unseen editor, Wired; author, How OptionsHouse
instant global communication and various forms of social networking Consultant, product design and design research. Formerly, Education: BFA, Tyler School of Art We Decide, Proust Was a Rob Walker
have replaced the need for consumers to rely on brands for confidence co-founder, Smart Design Professional experience includes: Officer, founding board
in a purchase. In this project-based course, students will learn how to EDUCATION: BFA, MA, PhD, New York University member, AIGA Metro-North Chapter; president, Package Design
Neuroscientist author, Buying In: The
create a research plan, find participants, and integrate research meth- CLIENTS INCLUDE: Johnson & Johnson, OXO Good Grips, XM Council; past president, AIGA Brand Design Association; Grant McCracken Secret Dialogue Between
ods in the context of a specific branding project. Some of the topics Satellite, Hewlett-Packard, SmartGauge Clients include: Ahold, Coca-Cola, Hasbro, IBM, Johnson &
educator, author What We Buy and Who We
explored will be qualitative, quantitative, online and ethnographic books INCLUDE: co-author, Baseball Field Guide Johnson, Pernod Ricard, Procter & Gamble, Duracell, Motorola, Are; writer, The New York
interview techniques, video and photo documentary, immersion, par- COLLECTIONS INCLUDE: Museum of Modern Art Kraft, Estée Lauder
ticipant-aided data gathering, prototype assisted observation, methods Awards and honors include: Gold Medal, San Francisco
Times Magazine; founder,
for organizing data, finding patterns and distilling insights that lead to Tom Guarriello World Spirits Competition; AIGA; CLIO; Graphis; Industrial Murketing
actionable and inspiring design directives. We will also explore the dif- Chief idea officer, principal, TrueTalk, Inc. Formerly, clinician Designers Society of America; Pentawards
ferences between market research and design research, and understand EDUCATION: MA, University of Dayton; PhD, Duquesne University Website: www.shearpartnership.com
the goals and appropriateness of each.
Scott Lerman
A Unified Theory of Branding Chief executive officer, founding partner, Lucid Brands
Leading the definition and evolution of a world-class brand requires Education: MFA, The Cooper Union
more than intellectual rigor and insight. You must unify and lever- Professional experience includes: President, Siegel+Gale; presi-

age the expertise and efforts of an astounding array of people—lead-
ers, followers, scientists, artists, magicians (consultants), engineers,
establishmentarians and revolutionaries. In this course, you will learn
to use powerful frameworks that harmonize and focus the efforts of
diverse teams as they develop ambitious brand programs. Using real-
world case studies—including Caterpillar, Bank of America, DuPont,
Harley- Davidson and National Semiconductor—we will look inside
the processes that enable organizations to define the future of their
brands. The course will provide you with a unique perspective of how
research, strategic definition, identity, expression, communications and
behavior are shaped into great brands.
Contact Us
dent, chief executive officer, Enterprise IG (Americas)
Clients have included: America’s Second Harvest, The
Weather Channel, LYCOShop, Click Radio, TreasuryPoint, Kodak, Tel: 212.592.2719
NationsBank, PNC Bank, Caja España, Bayer, Golden Books, Good
Housekeeping, Xerox E-mail: branding@sva.edu
Publications include: Design Management Journal, Wall Street
Journal, The New York Times, Identityworks, Revolution
Website: www.lucidbrands.com
www.sva.edu/grad/branding
department site: branding.sva.edu
Come to our Departmental Information Session or contact us directly for more information.

Departmental Information Session: Saturday, November 5, 2011.

All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit

To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact the
Office of Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.

Branding 92 93 www.sva.edu/grad/branding
MFA XX Goal of the program is developing artists who will produce significant creative

Computer Art
work throughout their careers and become leaders in their chosen field
XX Faculty is comprised of internationally renowned artists, curators, critics,
theorists and industry professionals—a who’s who of New York’s art world
XX Recently renovated, state-of-the-art facilities; named one of top ten digital art
www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
schools in the world
department site: mfaca.sva.edu

The mfa Computer Art program continuously redefines itself through creative experimentation and
the discovery of new uses for today’s technology. Our approach is multidisciplinary and each student
pursues a course of study that is individually tailored. The largest graduate department at sva, we
offer more than 40 courses per semester in state-of-the-art facilities, which were completely renovated
in 2007. Creativity and the development of a personal artistic style are the program’s cornerstones.
Our greatest strength is our faculty, a literal who’s who of the New York art world, composed of inter-
nationally renowned artists, curators, critics, theorists and industry professionals.
Recently named one of the “Top Ten Digital Art Schools in the World” by ImagineFX magazine,
the mfa Computer Art program was also ranked fifth in Multimedia/Visual Communication by U.S.
News & World Report in 2007. Graduates of the department are employed by the most prestigious digi-
tal studios: Industrial Light & Magic, Pixar, DreamWorks, Disney, Sony Pictures Imageworks, Rhythm
& Hues, Digital Domain, Blue Sky Studios, mtv and Electronic Arts. Other alumni choose the entre-
preneurship of their own businesses. Those who pursue fine art careers exhibit their work in museums
and galleries, including: Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, p.s.1/moma, Whitney Museum of American
Art, Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Smithsonian
American Art Museum and Tate Online.
Students come from around the world to study in our program, and the international representation
provides unique perspectives that offer different cultural approaches to the creative process. First-year
courses in studio, art history, computer systems and programming build the foundation for second-
year thesis work, which is supported through weekly critiques and related advanced areas of study.
The digital art seminar series, software workshops, guest lectures and visiting artist program provide
in-depth exposure to all areas of digital art.
Awards have been bestowed upon our students by major international competitions, including
Student Academy Awards (2004, 2007, 2008 and 2009); Adobe Design Achievement Award (2006);
YouTube Award (2006); Prix Ars Electronica; siggraph Electronic Theater and Art Show;
Webby Awards; isea; and the Leonardo Award for Excellence. Student works have appeared in such
acclaimed film festivals as Cannes, Tribeca and Sundance, and animation film festivals in Annecy,
Ottawa and New York, among dozens of others. The goal of our program is to develop artists who will
produce significant creative work throughout their careers and become leaders in their chosen field.

Bruce Wands, chair

95
Creative
Career
Change
Alumni Profile:
Myung Lee Myung Lee (MFA ’04), in her cubicle at Charlex,
a major digital design studio in New York.
The company designs and produces commer-
cials and movie trailers. Its services include
3D, effects, graphics, and branding.
 The career path of Myung Lee, a graduate of the MFA Computer Art program, is as close to an
American parable as you’re going to get. She was raised in South Korea and traveled frequently due to
her father‘s career as a diplomat. She then attended school in Paris and later Georgetown, hoping to
Lee stands in front follow in her father’s footsteps by studying political science and international relations. But longing
of the job board. She
supervises dozens for something else, she decided against taking the Foreign Service exam and ended up doing paralegal
of digital artists in the work. “I could envision a life in law, but it just wasn’t creative enough,” she recalls.
3D department. Lee had always painted, but never considered something artistic as a viable career. After all, what
would her typically doting Korean parents think? But after taking a continuing education class in 3d
Animation at sva, she was “blown away.” So, after a meeting with department chair Bruce Wands,
and without any formal art training, she applied for the mfa program. “The only thing I knew
about computers was WordPerfect,” she laughingly admits. While mom and pop preferred her to attend
nyu, she chose sva. “nyu didn’t have sufficient 3d teachers that had experience in the field. And
sva’s labs updated their equipment and software every year. Staying up-to-date with the latest technology
was really important to me.”
As a testament to her studies, her collaborative thesis short film, Cold War, was a finalist in the
2004 Student Academy Awards. And her instincts about the faculty were dead on: an alumni con-
nection landed Lee her first job at Nickelodeon, which defined her career.
Fast-forward to today, and Lee is working as a cg supervisor of over 30 artists at Charlex,
a 200-plus-person production house that creates everything from TV commercials to music videos.
While she admits her experience at sva was a challenging one, Lee wouldn’t trade it for anything.
In fact, she gives her alma mater the highest honor. “sva turns out the best students because they
have the most prepared skill set,” she says. “That’s why I recruit from there today.”
And her parents? “They don’t worry anymore.”

Walking through the 3D department,

she passes the animation room. She
previously worked at Nickelodeon
Digital as a lighting technical director.
 Lee works with the talents in the animation
department on their projects. On the back
wall are sketches of fellow employees, drawn
by the animators, all in good fun.

Lee sits in one of Charlex’s client

review rooms, working with the
computer program Maya. This room
is frequently used to work directly
between clients and animators,
designers, and editors.
 The MFA Computer Art Department provides students with
chair interview exclusive 24/7 access to 75 networked Macintosh and PC workstations,

Bruce Wands
divided among five classrooms, an AV studio, a high-end HDTV/
surround-sound edit room, two edit rooms attached to a sound recording
booth, a video transfer/edit room and a computer art lab. We also have a
“My first exposure to computer graphics was in 1976,” recalls Bruce Wands. “I was studying televi- Chelsea studio/gallery space and workshop for those focusing on digital
sion and radio at Syracuse University, making my living as a musician, and I took some courses in fine art and installation. Students can sign out laptops, HD cameras, light
the experimental studio which taught computer graphics. We began by programming the university’s kits, tripods, audio recorders, musical instruments, DSLR cameras and a
mainframe to make art, and I could see then that computers were going to be a major force, particu- wide variety of other equipment for their creative work outside the lab.
larly in terms of graphics and networking. That perception redirected my whole career.”
“The program continually
“Computer Art is the largest graduate program at sva,” Wands expands. “The program is multidis-
evolves,” Wands says,
ciplinary, but animation has always been the core of the department. We’ve won six Student Academy
“and there’s virtually no
Awards. There is always a group of students who focus on fine art, and we have studio space to sup-
technology in our lab

On any
port them. The other parts of the program alter according to shifts of emphasis in the art and business
that’s been here for more
worlds. In recent years, for example, there’s been an increasing interest in digital video and motion
than five years.”
graphics. We maintain a diversity of courses because our students’ creativity is stimulated by interacting

given day...
with people working in different areas.”
“The program continually evolves,” Wands says, “and there’s virtually no technology in our lab
that’s been here for more than five years. Our curriculum and equipment choices are based on what
the faculty do in the professional world. My relationships in the industry, tours of studios, discussions
with faculty and visits to trade shows and conferences all help determine how we equip ourselves. We’ve
always been forward-looking in terms of both the curriculum and the technology.”
Are incoming students already technically adept? “Yes, they are,” Wands replies, “but the program 9am  Student arrives early in the lab and has access to several computers, noon – 6pm  Classes: Video Art and Beyond with Barbara London,
is still very challenging, and students focus more on developing their creativity, rather than just becom- and gets to work in a quiet environment. Video Curator at the Museum of Modern Art; Sound Design with
ing technical wizards. One of the challenges of working in the way we do is to make the technology Edgar Grana; Animation Culture with Trilby Schreiber; Stereoscopic

become almost invisible, so that the end result is more about the content than the way it was produced.”
How do students apply what they learn in the program? “Many of those who focus on animation go
on to work for feature film companies like Industrial Light and Magic, DreamWorks, Pixar and Sony
Pictures Imageworks. A fair amount stay in New York and work at the commercial production houses.
We have students who go on to successful fine art careers. Several graduates are now working at the
American Museum of Natural History, supporting its multimedia environment. We have one or two that
go on to PhD programs each year, plus others that go into teaching. So there are quite a variety of options!”
“The most important part about what students do here is to express their creativity and develop
an individual vision and style as an artist. We don’t focus too much on slotting people into an industry,
because ultimately creativity is the most valuable commodity. One of the things I really try to instill in
students is that they should pursue their own personal creative work throughout their entire career. That’s
something that they’re in control of, something that brings them joy, and something that people in
the industry hold in high regard. They won’t burn out if they continue to create and enjoy what they do.”
10am  Student returns HD camera, light kit and laptop he or she signed 3D with Gerald Marks; Visual Effects for Video and Motion Graphics
out of the library. with Eric Eiser.
10am – noon  Staff arrives. Students ask systems administrators for 6 – 8pm  Check out Canon 5D Mark II camera to photograph New York at
help with some of their technical issues. Students meet with our advisor night while visiting Chelsea galleries as part of Digital Art Seminars II.
Hsiang Chin Moe to discuss their class choices and possible internships Attend free workshop on ZBrush, then go to Greenwich Village to see
over the summer. The director of operations, Diane Field, checks in newly some live music.
arrived equipment. Students meet with Bruce Wands, chair, to discuss
their thesis ideas and progress. Students meet with Bruce Wands,
Diane Field, and Hsiang Chin Moe for monthly Student Representative
meeting to discuss how things are going, plan workshops and discuss any
software or hardware needs.
Get together with classmates in the lunchroom to talk about classes,
events and life.

Computer Art 102 103 www.sva.edu/grad/computerart

SVA Spaces
Students log in to the wireless
network in the computer art
lab, and exhibit their creative work
in the hallway gallery (right).
The Program  The mfa Computer Art program is multidisciplinary and features several areas of Sample Program: Installation Art / Digital Fine Art / Performance
concentration: animation, motion graphics, digital video, installation and digital fine art, interactive media, and
performance. The following courses are required of all students: Digital Art Seminars I and II, two art history first year
courses, two programming courses, Computer Systems I, Thesis I and II, and Thesis Research and Writing I and II. FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

The remainder of the program is individually tailored to each student’s interests through meetings with the Computer Systems I 3 3D for Fine Artists 3
Digital Art Seminar I 0 Contemporary Voices 3
department advisor. The first-year curriculum strengthens and broadens the students’ knowledge of and creative
History of New Media in the 20th and 21st Centuries 3 Digital Art Seminar II 0
approach to digital art in preparation for the thesis year. The second year revolves around the thesis process—the
Programming for Artists I 3 Max/MSP/Jitter I 3
completion of a body of creative work, combined with academic research and an artist’s statement. Critique and Sound Workshop I 3 New Forms in Video 3
the refinement of a personal aesthetic vision are the two most important elements of the second-year curriculum. Video for Computer Artists I 3 Physical Computing I 3
The first- and second-year academic programs are supplemented by workshops, visiting artists, guest lectures and
outreach opportunities. Degree candidates must successfully complete 60 credits, including all required courses,
and maintain a 3.0 grade point average. A matriculation of two academic years is required. In the final semester,
second year
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
students complete their thesis project and participate in a public presentation. The project must be reviewed and
Digital Sculpture I 3 Digital Sculpture II 3
approved by the thesis committee and the department chair in order for the student to be eligible for degree
Max/MSP/Jitter II 3 Max/MSP/Jitter III 3
conferral. Although most students earn their degrees in four semesters, some find it necessary or desirable to study Physical Computing II 3 Physical Computing III 3
for five or six semesters before completing the thesis process. Extended study is determined on an individual basis Thesis I 6 Thesis II 6
and important considerations such as course work, visa extension and financial aid must be resolved before Thesis Research and Writing I 0 Thesis Research and Writing II 0
extended study can be approved. Decisions concerning transfer of credit and course exemptions are made by the
committee on graduate admissions. Graduate students are also allowed to audit four undergraduate or continuing
education courses at no charge.
Sample Program: Interactive Media

Sample Program: Animation first year

FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

first year Computer Systems I 3 Digital Art Seminar II 0

FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

Digital Art Seminar I 0 Multimedia Studio II 3

3D Modeling and Animation 3 Advanced Modeling and Rigging Concepts 3 Multimedia Studio I 3 New Media Theory 3

Animation Culture 3 Character Animation I 3 Networked Media Seminar 3 Physical Computing I 3

Computer Systems I 3 Digital Art Seminar II 0 Sound Workshop I 3 Thesis Development 3

Digital Art Seminar I 0 Ecstasy and the Apocalypse 3 Web Programming I 3 Web Programming II 3

Story Structures I 3 Technical Direction 3

UNIX3 Thesis Development 3
second year
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

second year Game Design 3 Advanced Interface Design 3

Interface Design 3 App Culture–The New Medium of Mobile Software  3
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
Production Issues: Interactive Media I 3 Production Issues: Interactive Media II 3
Character Animation II 3 Production Issues: Animation II 3
Thesis I 6 Thesis II 6
Dynamics and Particle Systems 3 Seminar in Musical Choices 3
Thesis Research and Writing I 0 Thesis Research and Writing II 0
Production Issues: Animation I 3 Stereoscopic 3D 3
Thesis I 6 Thesis II 6
Thesis Research and Writing I 0 Thesis Research and Writing II 0

Computer Art 106 107 www.sva.edu/grad/computerart

Course Descriptions
3D for Fine Artists
This course will introduce the possibilities, techniques and strategies
of incorporating 3D animation and modeling software into a contem-
porary fine art practice. It is intended for students who are not neces-
sarily pursuing 3D animation as a specialization. Maya will serve as
the exploratory platform and will be introduced through a series of
lectures and assignments. The course will also survey the historical and
contemporary use of 3D computer graphics in fine art. Assigned proj-
ects will include both still and time-based imagery.
Advanced Interface Design
Strategies for interface design will be explored within a conceptual
framework of content, usability and visual design. This course will
investigate the development of interactive media content and informa-
tion architecture as it applies to user-centered design and the specific
ways of building usable, effective and meaningful interfaces. Concepts
and design strategies that incorporate layout, color, graphics, symbols,
grids and typography will be the foundation for producing interface
designs for the Web, mobile devices and kiosks. Students will create
content and design interfaces for a variety of media.
Advanced Modeling and Rigging Concepts
Creating animated characters is one of the most challenging aspects
of contemporary filmmaking. In this course, students will learn how
to create 3D characters from design to modeling and setup through
the development of a character pipeline. Considerations in charac-
ter design and how to develop a flexible nonlinear work flow will
be covered, as well as issues such as geometry types and topology.
Rigging topics will include inverse and forward kinematics, expression
and binary nodes, joint placement and orientations, and binding and
deforming skin geometry.
Advanced Video Projects
After mastering the basics of creating, editing and compositing digital
video image sequences, the issues of refining a directing style and con-
tent choice become relevant. Students will produce short video projects
and/or webcast programs that will be presented for group critique.
Lecture topics will include directing styles, editing philosophies and
advanced topics.
Computer Art
Animation Culture
Why do we love animation? What is it doing for us—or to us? This
course will explore the impact of animation on our perception and
culture through screenings, discussions and written work. We will
discuss how pervasive animated worlds influence people through
entertainment, games, advertising, broadcast media, medicine, law and
architecture. The use of animation as commentary on topics such as
politics, emotional life and intimacy will be considered. The culture of
animation itself—as represented by legendary companies, people and
practices of this multifaceted art form—will also be addressed. Guest
speakers and field trips are included.
App Culture: The Medium of Mobile Software
This course is an introduction to designing and programming apps
for mobile devices, such as the iPhone and iPad. We will examine the
iPhone application development process using Cocoa Touch/Objective-C
within the X-Code IDE, and students should be comfortable with the
fundamentals of programming. Lectures will address writing software
code and include a larger discussion on app culture. The steps in devel-
oping an app are traced from Interface Builder to deployment in the App
Store. Each student will produce an app for the final project.
Art, Technology and the New York Avant-Garde
Computer technology in this course will be examined in the context
of the artistic New York avant-garde. We will delve into discussions of
essential Dada and neo-Dada concepts, procedures and artists relevant
to computer technology (e.g., interactivity, hypermedia, immersion,
virtual reality and other aspects of digital art). Audio art and multi-
media will be examined in detail in this context as will the impact of
digital technology on the practices of poetry, painting, sculpture and
architecture. Students will be assigned weekly readings and must com-
plete a research assignment. Content will be divided into four major
topics that reference the history of the New York avant-garde and its
relevance to digital culture.
108
Character Animation I & II
These courses are designed to deepen students’ understanding and
skills in 3D character animation through lectures, critiques, tutorials
and short projects (including team assignments). One of the impor-
tant elements of character animation is developing a character that
is believable through giving the character a strong personality and
focusing on the character’s (and animator’s) acting performance. In
Character Animation I, students will study model rigging, animation
techniques, camera angles, texture mapping and other topics central
to the practice of character animation. Character Animation II will
focus on the critique of student work. Advanced animation techniques
such as inverse kinematics, model deformation (morphing), lip synch
and facial expressions will be explored.
Computer Systems I & II
These courses will demystify hardware and software components of
computing systems in general, and will empower students with practi-
cal decision-making skills of a technical nature. Lectures will cover the
user-interface, operating system, CPU technology and bus architecture
of the platforms in the MFA Computer Art Lab and other studio
computing environments. We will undertake a comparative study of
programming languages. Further discussion will include mass storage,
input/output devices and networking. In addition to lectures, field trips
will be made to state-of-the-art facilities.
Contemporary Voices
Guest artists will discuss their work with the class in a forum designed
to help students understand the work of their contemporaries. By
exposing students to a spectrum of computer art-making possibilities,
this course inspires creative work and provides an opportunity to meet
prospective thesis advisors and professional digital artists.
Digital Art Seminars I & II
These seminars address many aspects of digital art history and theory,
including the evolution of digital technologies through an examina-
tion of the key theorists and practicing artists who have defined the
digital media field. The primary goal is to expose students to the broad
range of ideas and forms of expression that the digital arts encompass.
Students will clarify and expand their personal creative niche within
the context of contemporary art and culture, through research, short
written assignments and creative experimentation. This series offers
a historical and theoretical foundation in the digital arts, along with
establishing a familiarity with contemporary art in New York City
through gallery visits, artist talks and guest lectures.
109
Digital Compositing
This course will survey a range of aesthetic issues, practical techniques
and software applications used for digital compositing. The role of
compositing in feature film and television commercial production will
be examined in depth through practical examples. Students will be
assigned short projects that reflect the ideas and techniques discussed
in class and will present their creative work for critique.
Digital montage
The theoretical function of montage will be investigated by examin-
ing how digital compositing tools and techniques have impacted the
creation and perception of still and temporal imagery. The history
of montage will also be explored through selected theoretical read-
ings that will help students to place their personal practice within the
broader context of digital art and culture. Work will progress from the
creation of still imagery to motion graphics using Adobe Photoshop,
After Effects and other software. Class time will be divided between
critical discussions and studio projects.
Digital Sculpture I & II
In these courses, students will learn several methods of virtual to digi-
tal output. While in the past, high-end fabrication techniques and tech-
nologies had been far from the artist’s reach, the machines, software
and work flows that only industry had access to are now available to
digital artists to plug into and produce their own creations. Weekly
assignments will familiarize students with 3D scanning, 3D printing,
laser and CNC milling and cutting machines, and other techniques.
The classes will cover all the software programs that are needed to suc-
cessfully translate artistic ideas into a file format that the machines will
use to print, cut or machine build the project. This software includes,
but is not limited to Solidworks, Rhino, Modo, Sketchup, Sculptris,
Adobe Photoshop, Adobe Illustrator, Geo Magic, Master Cam, Vcarve
Pro and Cut 3D. The work of well-known artists using these tech-
nologies will be reviewed, as well as the history of this type of artistic
production. After having mastered the basics of digital and mechanical
methods of making art, students will begin to work on advanced proj-
ects in the second semester. Class time will include individual, as well
as group critique and discussions on the evolving aesthetics of this type
of work. Students will be expected to produce several projects during
the course of the semester, or may use these classes as an adjunct to
fabricating their thesis project.
www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
Dynamics and Particle Systems
Particles and dynamics will be used in this course to explore a variety
of special effects families, including: explosions, chemical reactions,
flocking animals, complex morphing, meteorological phenomena,
glows, magical effects, dust and tornadoes. The effects will be built
from scratch and then we will identify, refine and control the most
essential aesthetic parameters. Topics will include: particles, fields,
goals, collision detection, the instancer, springs, paint effects, hard and
soft bodies, deformer interaction, shader networks, glows, software
and hardware render compositing, and lighting. Students will develop
a strong foundation in MEL (Maya Embedded Language).
Ecstasy and Apocalypse
In this course, we will study selected science-fiction utopias and dys-
topias in popular culture, literature, cinema and theoretical writing
from the 19th century to the present. We will begin with the question,
“Why is science fiction our political theory?” in order to use the genre
to analyze relations of power and control; capitalism and the media;
ethics and freedom; and definitions of gender and race in an increas-
ingly bioengineered world. Among the texts will be George Orwell’s
1984, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and
Crake, as well as essays by Donna Haraway, Tom Moylan, Frederic
Jameson, Scott Bukatman, Allucquére Rosanne Stone, H. G. Wells,
Samuel Delany and Jean Baudrillard. Students will have the choice of
writing a seminar paper or creating a serious critical work in another
medium for their final project.
Game Design
The study of interactive design is at the core of what is unique to cre-
ating art on the computer. Game design is the creation of interactive,
self-contained systems of rules that usually contain a challenge and a
victory condition. This course is geared not only toward those inter-
ested in the game industry, but also toward those interested in creating
compelling and meaningful interactivity. This goal will be met through
the exploration and critique of the work of interactive artists and
commercial game designers. The course will include guest lectures by
artists and game designers; readings; hands-on assignments to conceive
and create paper prototypes for games, and critique of student assign-
ments, commercial games and fine art games. Students are expected
to research and play games that lie outside the course syllabus and to
share those experiences in a thoughtful and meaningful way.
Computer Art
History of New Media in the 20th and 21st centuries
This course will explore artistic developments in new media over the
past several decades, with a particular focus on artistic practices that
examine or embrace new circumstances in the media and technologies
of our time. Key works will be presented and discussed in light of the
evolution of creative expression. Students will also research and discuss
the concepts presented by critics and theorists. The term “new media”
will be treated broadly to include developments in contemporary art,
interaction, Internet-based work, film, photography and radio, as well
as the beliefs and expectations that accompany new technologies.
Independent Study
Independent study is granted to students who wish to pursue a spe-
cial project not covered by the parameters of the course curriculum.
Students work independently, under the tutelage of an appropriate
faculty member or professional sponsor. Prior to beginning indepen-
dent study, students must submit a detailed proposal that outlines their
goals. At the end of the semester, a summary of the completed work
is required. Independent study proposals must be approved by the
departmental advisor and the department chair.
Interface Design
This course will examine advanced issues and techniques of user-
centered design. In addition, a general approach to interface design
will be explored through review of other interactive environments and
kiosk-based works. Students will be challenged to achieve unique and
workable design decisions and will test their projects with prototypes.
Field trips and guest lectures by leading interface designers will provide
a forum for discussion.
Internship
Students can gain valuable professional exposure and experience
through an internship project with a professional sponsor or an
employer. The department advisor and department chair can assist in
locating internships that reflect individual student goals. To receive
credit, students must get departmental approval in advance, begin the
internship by the third week of the semester and receive a positive
evaluation from the sponsor/employer at semester’s end.
Max/msp/Jitter I, II & III
Max/MSP is an object-oriented programming tool for creating interac-
tive environments with MIDI (Max), real-time audio processing (MSP),
and real-time graphics and video processing (Jitter). Max can be used
for developing interactive installations and improvisation/performance
systems. The first semester will cover the fundamentals of designing
programs in Max, as well as how to integrate simple hardware systems
and the basics of real-time sound and video processing. In the second
semester, topics such as audio and video analysis, application develop-
ment, generative sound and 3D graphics will be covered. Max/Jitter III
is geared for students working on thesis projects in the areas of instal-
lation art, interactive video, sound art and performance, and will focus
on advanced features and application development using Max soft-
ware. Topics will also include real-time 3D graphics, improvising with
algorithms and using Max with a network.
110
Motion Graphics I & II
Encompassing drawing, two- and three-dimensional animation, video,
stop motion, photography and typographic elements, motion graphics
extend beyond the commonly used methods of frame-by-frame anima-
tion and live action and create a conglomeration of multiple visual
styles. Motion graphics can be used to creatively go beyond the rules
of representation, thus augmenting the various ways that media art-
ists can delve into their imaginations and express unique visual and
aural works. While the primary software for this course is Adobe After
Effects, students are strongly encouraged to explore the creative soft-
ware available to them, as well as experiment with traditional media.
Project critiques will be given to develop an informed sense of refined
creative expression. Motion Graphics II is intended to develop creativ-
ity and a personal style, as well as hone professional and artistic skills.
It will focus on an innovative approach to producing motion graphics
projects, including crossover (designers as artists, artists as designer),
inspiration, osmosis and looking beyond the screen to the world
around us. The art of title design for opening sequences will also be
addressed. Self-directed short- and long-term projects within an artistic
design framework will be supported, and group critiques will help to
develop communication and visual analytic skills. Reel building will be
examined to further professional development. This course is for flex-
ible, open-minded thinkers who want to explore their creative vision
and learn the art of communication through moving imagery.
Multimedia Programming I & II
Multimedia programming concepts using Flash Action­Script as a
foundation will be introduced in the first semester. Topics include
variables, data types, scope, conditionals, loops, functions, and pro-
gram flow. Similar compatible languages, such as JavaScript, PHP and
Processing, will be discussed briefly, with an emphasis on language
similarities and differences. Additional technologies, such as audio,
video, XML, authoring for mobile devices and external sensors and
controllers, may also be explored. These comparative looks at pro-
gramming approaches will help students determine which will be
most useful during thesis development. Multimedia Programming II
focuses on producing highly interactive creative work, such as games,
installation art and rich media websites. Advanced programming top-
ics related to the design and creation of interactive media as well as
object-oriented programming and design will be explored through a
series of short assignments.
111
Multimedia Studio I & II
Offering a context for producing multimedia and addressing issues
relating to audiovisual production and aesthetics, these courses will
give a solid grounding in the design and execution of multimedia,
including interactive and network-based media artworks. In addi-
tion to lectures, discussion and group critique, students will work on
short creative assignments as well as a personal project. Multimedia
is assumed to be a time-based concentration; therefore, assignments
will incorporate audio, synchronization and motion graphics elements.
Emphasis will be placed on studio practice using Adobe Flash. The
second part of this course will focus on the conceptualization and
production of interactive and networked media artworks. Emphasis
will be placed on studio practice using Flash ActionScript as the pri-
mary exploratory platform. Topics will focus on advanced interactivity
using database and rich media structures to incorporate video, audio,
graphic imagery and typography for stand-alone, networked, and
mobile creative solutions. The course will consist of lecture, discussion,
several creative assignments, and group critique.
Networked Media Seminar
Students will be introduced to the history and critical theory surround-
ing artworks that utilize computer networks and interactive telecom-
munications technologies. The course will also outline the history of
tele- and network communications and basic Internet technologies as
well as the forms and concepts of interaction and participation related
to them. We will examine aesthetic and technological possibilities for
artworks in networked environments ranging from the Internet and
networked installations to locative media projects using mobile devices
such as PDAs, cell phones and GPS. Through readings, discussions and
written assignments, class members will learn to articulate their inter-
ests and concerns as artists working with these technologies.
New Forms in Video
A half century ago, video was only available through the medium of
television. Today, it is accessible through the Internet, installations,
sculpture, performances, mobile phones, etc. The objective of this stu-
dio course is to investigate multiple means of creating and distributing
video art. Gathering imagery using both lens-based and non-lens-based
technologies will be explored, including various types of video cam-
eras such as “pinhole” CCD cameras that are used for surveillance
applications, stop motion and time-lapse techniques. Interactive forms
of video will be examined. We will also explore the many ways that
video can be displayed and acted upon, such as projection and LCDs.
Alternative distribution technologies will be covered. Students will be
assigned a semester-long project to be completed in at least two of the
following media: Internet, installation, performance, interactive screen-
based application, sculpture, DVD or hybrid.
www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
New Media Theory
The history and theory of new media from aesthetic, cultural and politi-
cal perspectives will be outlined in this course. Key texts from science,
technology, cultural theory and philosophy will be used to illustrate
how mediation in various forms has impacted perception, communica-
tion, information systems and cultural production. Prominent theories
will be referenced to trace the development of the term “new media.”
Other topics include the logic of the database as a new cultural form
as well as notions of software and the power of code’s structures and
rules. How networks affect cultural production—from social network-
ing to semantic filtering to intellectual properties and urbanity—will be
explored. Through lectures, reading assignments and discussions, new
media will be positioned in this larger cultural context.
Physical Computing I, II & III
Through lectures, demonstrations, critiques and field trips, these
courses will examine artworks and technologies that interface com-
puting with objects and spaces in the physical world. In Physical
Computing I, students will become familiar with basic electronics,
sensing technologies, simple microcontrollers, and computer-controlled
motors and other actuators. Installations, robotics, telepresence and
network-based projects that utilize these technologies will be exam-
ined. Physical Computing II will offer an in-depth examination and
discussion of available technologies for creating interactive artworks
and installations. Physical Computing III will focus on exploring
solutions for individual student projects. While the emphasis of these
courses is highly technical, the development and realization of art-
works will be the primary focus.
Production Issues: Animation I & II
Through an examination of the production of animation projects,
these courses will explore such topics as animation choreography, cam-
era and character motion, texturing, lighting, visual effects, rendering
and compositing. The main focus will be the creation of thesis projects,
with the aim of teaching production methods as they are practiced in
the professional world. Assignments focus on the conceptualization,
design, scheduling and techniques of animation production.
Computer Art
Production Issues: Interactive Media I & II
These courses will examine the production process in detail, including
concept development, design, budgets, contracts, scheduling, staffing,
testing and postproduction. Emphasis will be placed on student thesis
projects, with the aim of teaching production methods as they are prac-
ticed in the professional world. By gaining a thorough understanding
of these practices, students will be prepared to make the transition from
the academic to the professional environment. In the second semester,
advanced programming techniques in Java­Script, ActionScript and
Lingo, as well as audio and video issues will be covered.
Programming for Artists I & II
Through lectures and short weekly assignments, students will explore
various applications of computer programming and discuss their
advantages over commercially available software products. Topics
will include understanding computer architecture, basic program-
ming constructs, a survey of languages and their applications, proce-
dural vs. object-oriented programming, and graphics programming,
as well as an introduction to the Processing programming language
and environment. Programming for Artists II concentrates on object-
oriented and graphics programming, and will introduce the Java
programming language and environment. Understanding computer
architecture, 2D and 3D image processing, intermediate program-
ming constructs and rich media Web solutions will be addressed.
Seminar in Musical Choices
Guiding students toward a process for designing a sound environ-
ment that is properly connected to their visual concept is the premise
of this course. The process will provide a sound accompaniment to
help students better realize the story line and the motion of characters
involved in their animations. website designers and installation art-
ists can achieve a strong musical reference point in order to formulate
a soundtrack that parallels to their visuals. Students will learn how
to make music choices for projects that will guide artistic vision or
enhance what is already conceived.
112
Social Change in the New Media Age
Rather than simply looking at a series of ‘political artworks’ or
‘political artists,’ this course aims to encourage students to reflect on
political and ethical judgment within the terms of our contemporary
cultural condition. It is organized around a series of key political and
philosophical issues such as the public sphere, social media, intellec-
tual property, privacy, technology, the nation-state, genetics and the
environment. We will consider the fate of these concepts within an
evolving social space increasingly re-defined by new technologies of
communication, circulation and retrieval. The course will ask what
role art might play in charting new social, political and ethical frame-
works to address present circumstances.
Sound Design
The fundamentals of sound design will be the focus of this course.
Underscoring the visual image and how the principles of music work
with time-based and interactive media will be addressed. Topics will
include: selection and use of prerecorded material; creation of music
and audio content; music and sound production time constraints for
animations, websites, DVDs, videos and other digital media projects
and developing the final track. Discussions will center on the differ-
ences between working with sound in a narrative and an interactive
environment. Projects will be presented for in-class critique.
Sound Workshop I & II
Intended as an introduction to the creative possibilities of the medium
of sound, Sound Workshop I gives equal emphasis to conceptual ideas
relating to sound composition—structure, form, texture—and technical
considerations in gaining competency with the equipment. Concepts
relating to the physics and biology of sound, as well as the history of
sound recording technology, are included. The focus is on creating and
refining “sound art” compositions. Students will also learn the process
of “sound design” that refers to creating sound to accompany video or
film imagery. Sound Workshop II will introduce conceptual and tech-
nical contexts for the composition of music. Course work will include
creative projects, in-class listening, critique, lecture and discussion.
Digidesign Pro Tools will be the primary digital audio editing soft-
ware/hardware em­ployed. Music composition using MIDI sequencing
and real-time “surround-sound” mixing is included.
113
Stereoscopic 3D
Stereoscopic 3D, which provides separate images for each eye, has
been part of imaging since the dawn of photography. Working with
stereo imagery has become increasingly valuable in entertainment and
the arts and sciences. It also offers a window into visual perception
and the opportunity to re-examine many of the techniques and issues
confronted in conventional image work. This course will cover all of
the diverse methods and artistic possibilities for producing and display-
ing stereo imagery. Students will produce several projects using video,
still images or animation.
Story Structures I & II
Story Structures I will study the structural elements underlying animated
entertainment, visual music and experimental linear and nonlinear art
forms. Traditional story and musical structures will be examined to
discover what kinds of experience can be conveyed within electronic
entertainment and art. Story Structures II will focus on honing the craft
of writing the screenplay and storyboard structure. Students will further
develop concepts such as the central dramatic question, inciting incident,
idiosyncratic characters and environments, conflicts and needs, mount-
ing tension, turning points, reversals and denouement. Throughout both
semesters, students will develop an original story concept or adaptation
realized as an animatic with sound.
Technical Direction
A technical director manages the relationship between software
options and computational processes in the animation production
pipeline in order to achieve optimum visual results using the most eco-
nomic means. This course will study script-based approaches to model-
ing, rigging and constraints, texture mapping and shaders, illumination
algorithms, renderers and rendering, compositing and other 3D anima-
tion tools and techniques. Shell scripting, MEL and the Maya expres-
sion language will be examined in detail.
www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
Theory, Criticism and History of Time-Based Media
As the first time-based medium, film quickly became a primary means
of cultural expression and an icon of popular culture. Early works by
Thomas Edison included live action, stop motion and animation, lay-
ing the groundwork for digital video, motion graphics and computer
animation. Although digital projection, 3D and Web-based technologies
have begun to supercede the film medium, its history, including video
and animation, provides a wellspring of ideas and practices that demand
theoretical and critical analysis. This course will address the vocabulary,
grammar and syntax of experimental and mainstream film language,
while examining and analyzing basic film constructs, genres and forms.
Focusing on these issues from an international perspective, students
will explore time-based media through the works of theorists, critics and
practitioners. Reading and writing assignments will be complemented
by student presentations, guest lectures and discussion.
Thesis I & II
The thesis project is the body of creative work students produce to
earn their degree. In Thesis I, students will finalize a written thesis
proposal, conduct research and begin their creative work. Students are
expected to present their work and attend group critiques on a weekly
basis. Thesis II will guide students in the final stages of thesis produc-
tion by providing a forum for discussion and critique of work-in-prog-
ress. Students will work closely with their thesis group leader and meet
with the department chair throughout the process. Guest critics will
also be brought into the thesis classes to provide additional input. At
the end of the year, students will present their completed work to the
public at the MFA Computer Art thesis presentations, giving students
the opportunity to present their work to professionals and recruiting
companies. The thesis exhibition at the Visual Arts Gallery in Chelsea
provides a venue for exhibition in a gallery setting.
Thesis Development
Intended to assist students in the defining and production of a thesis
proposal, this course will examine approaches to clearly articulate
the central concept of the thesis and the implementation of idea to the
creative process. Through short readings and written exercises that
introduce students to the major texts and resources in their chosen field
of interest, we will focus on initial research strategies for the develop-
ment of a thesis project. Students will undertake a series of short
projects that include documentation, proposals, book reports and pro-
totypes. Students will also gain experience presenting and discussing
their creative ideas in class.
Computer Art
Thesis Research and Writing I & II
Intended to help students to better articulate thesis ideas, concepts and
context, this course will focus on preliminary research, finalizing the the-
sis proposal, and writing the research paper. Students will meet with the
instructor in groups and individually. In the second semester, an artist’s
statement, project description, resume and short biography will be writ-
ten. These materials, along with the thesis proposal and research paper,
will prepare the student to enter the professional world.
3D Modeling and Animation
The technical concepts of creating computer-generated 3D imagery as
well as the application of the aesthetic concepts of traditional animation
to 3D animation will be examined in this course. Geo­metric construc-
tion techniques, surface texturing, scene illumination and cameras will
be covered. Techniques such as squash-and-stretch, anticipation, fol-
low-through, overlapping action, arcs of motion, exaggeration, staging
and appeal will also be explored. Assignments will integrate technical
and aesthetic information into short, creative 3D animation projects.
UNIX
The UNIX operating system remains an essential tool to the computer
artist. This course will strive to prepare students to go beyond the
basic functionality of UNIX and into the realm of scripting—where the
real power and flexibility of the operating system lies. Along the way,
we will explore topics that will help students to understand and con-
trol the environment in which they work, and learn the tools that will
help achieve goals more quickly and efficiently.
Video Art and Beyond
This course begins by examining the emergence of video art in the
1960s, through structuralist films and the freewheeling days of “feed-
back” and “real-time” manipulation of the analog electronic signal.
Students will examine how the barriers between artistic disciplines
broke down as artists took up portable video cameras, experimented
with installation, staged actions and went outdoors to build land art.
Works of contemporary video artists who move freely between paint-
ing, sculpture, photography, film, performance and other media will be
discussed, as well as the contributions by musicians toward developing
new working methods. The course will consist of weekly screenings,
analysis of installations, readings and written assignments.
114
Video for Computer Artists I & II
In the analog and early digital eras of video technology, working with
video as an artistic medium was expensive and complicated. Now,
however, video literacy is becoming a skill set for millions of people
every year. This entry-level studio course will cover video produc-
tion and postproduction from a self-reliant standpoint; being able to
acquire and edit video imagery without the need for a huge budget,
cast and crew. Students will learn to use various types of SD and
HD camcorders, microphones, lighting, Final Cut Pro and various
hardware and software resources. Video for Computer Artists II will
center on further exploration of the conceptual and technical possibili-
ties inherent in creating video artworks. Students will have creative
latitude to pursue subjects that interest them, culminating in a final
project of their choosing. In addition to learning more about produc-
tion and postproduction, we will examine modes of distribution, such
as preparing video for Net-based, optical media-based or installation
art projects.
Virtual Reality Seminar
This course is designed to investigate the theoretical and historical
bases of immersive virtual reality (VR) art. It will primarily do so by
investigating immersion, the experience considered as the indispensable
characteristic of VR. Lectures, readings and discussion will demon-
strate that immersion into virtual electronic space is the cornerstone
to understanding contemporary VR culture, as well as certain key
aspects of previous cultures. This investigation will lead the student
to the formulation of an aesthetic theory of immersive consciousness,
indicative of immersive culture, by joining choice examples of simula-
cra technology into mental connections, with relevant examples from
art and architecture, as well as technology, myth, space, gender studies
and philosophy.
115
Visual Effects for Video and Motion Graphics I & II
The field of visual effects continues to evolve as an important creative
cornerstone of film and video production. Increasingly being used to
create a montage of live action, 3D animation, 2D animation and stop
motion, it has spawned a new creative discipline called motion graph-
ics. In these courses, students will learn live action camera techniques,
lighting, motion capture, editing and compositing, in order to incor-
porate live video into synthetic virtual environments, and vice-versa.
From the basics of how to prepare and design a scene for a chroma
key shot, to creating the digital elements that blend with the live
action, students will become adept at seamlessly integrating live and
digital elements. Students will work as a team, as well as be assigned
individual projects. In the second semester, experimenting with
advanced techniques, strengthening design, work flow, scheduling and
software skills will be demonstrated in concert with in-progress thesis
projects and class assignments. Industry experts will guest lecture,
show their work, answer questions and lead discussions on the current
trends and commercial aspects of film/video production, animation
and motion graphics, as well as critique student work.
Web Programming I & II
Students will be introduced to the Web programming software used
by professional design firms as well as the concepts used to create
dynamic content for the Web. The course will cover HTML code and
Adobe Flash. JavaScript will be used for client-side dynamic pages;
CSS, XML, JSP and introductory database techniques will be explored
to add functionality to a Web application. How to learn new software
as it becomes available and how to modify existing codes will also be
examined. Integration of browser-based scripting and server-side tech-
niques will be covered in depth. A technical foundation for meaningful
interactivity using the Internet will be the primary goal of the course
and students will conduct research into the programming techniques
demonstrated. Topics will also include: coordinating the use of various
languages, such as JavaScript, HTML, PHP and ActionScript; debug-
ging of programs; the Document Object Model that underlies Dynamic
HTML; application servers; file and socket operations; and ECMA
script and databasing.
www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
Professional Faculty
Barbara London, associate curator,
Department of Media and Performance
Art, Museum of Modern Art, walks through
the MoMA interior. London teaches the
Video Art and Beyond class at SVA. (left)
The Abby Aldrich Rockefeller Sculpture
Garden at MoMA.
Faculty
Bruce Wands
Chair, MFA Computer Art Department, director of computer
education, School of Visual Arts; artist/writer/musician; producer/
director, Wands Studio; director, New York Digital Salon
Education: BA, cum laude, Lafayette College; MS,
Syracuse University
Author: Art of the Digital Age, Digital Creativity
Group exhibitions include: Art in the Digital Era, Tampa, FL;
D-ART Online Digital Art Gallery; Computer Graphics Invita-
tional, Greeley, CO; Electronics Alive III, IV, V, Tampa; Creativity
& Cognition, Goldsmith College, London; International Digital
Media and Arts Exhibition, Florida; First Beijing International
New Media Arts Exhibition; ASCI Digital 01 Exhibition, New
York; Art and Science International, National Museum of Fine Art,
China; SIGGRAPH Art Gallery; Hong Kong Arts Centre; Museum
het Toreke, Tienen, Belgium; New-York Historical Society
Conferences include: Victoria & Albert Museum, London;
British Computer Society, London; University of London Inter-
national Conference on the Arts in Society, Venice; International
Conference on Interaction Design, Tsinghua University, Beijing;
ISEA, Singapore; College Art Association
Grants include: National Endowment for the Arts; Rockefeller
Foundation; New York State Council on the Arts; National En-
dowment for Science, Technology and the Arts (NESTA, U.K.)
Awards and honors include: National Science Foundation
panelist; New York State Council on the Arts panelist; “One of
the 99 People to Watch in 1999” Time Out New York; “Top Ten
Digital Arts Schools in the World” ImagineFX, U.K.; Depart-
ment Website named “100 Best Sites of 2002” for Best Original
Web Art, Yahoo Internet Life; Gold Medal, Chicago Film Festi-
val; Silver Medal, New York International Film and TV Festival;
Silver Award, Art Directors Club; NCGA Educator’s Scholarship;
National Safety Council Award for Excellence. Board of directors,
NYC/ACM SIGGRAPH; advisory board, 3D Design Conference;
Keynote speaker: University of London, Wabash College
Website: www.brucewands.com
Timothy J. Anderson
Audio editor, sound designer, composer
Education: BM, Berklee College of Music; MFA, New York
University
CLIENTS INCLUDE: Splash Studios, Flea Theater, Manhattan Ensemble
Theater, Berkshire Theater Festival, Marymount College, Toshiba/
EMI, Douglas Cuomo, Miller Music
Films and video projects INCLUDE: Dark Days, Let it Snow,
War Zone, Kill by Inches, Tomorrow Night, Greener Grass, The
Adulterer, Edge City
Computer Art
Robert Bowen
Principal, Robert Bowen Studio. Formerly, director, RGA Print, RGA
Digital Studio
Education: BA, St. Lawrence University; MFA, Pratt Institute
Clients include: Adobe, Disney, Intel, Kodak, AT&T, American
Express, Coca-Cola, Silicon Graphics, Bacardi
publications include: Cabinet, Camerawork, Afterimage,
Pinhole Journal
exhibitions include: MF Adams Gallery; Haim Chanin Fine Arts;
SIGGRAPH; Vanderbuilt University; 55 Mercer; Collective for Living
Cinema; Paulo Salvador Gallery; Boston Museum of Science
collections include: Museum of Modern Art, Whitney Museum
of American Art, Brooklyn Museum
awards include: Best Computer Graphics, Best Digital Photography,
Best in Show, Kodak VIP Image Search; Gold Award, special effects,
Advertising Photographers of America; Gold Award, International
Film and Television Institute
Ed Bowes
Video producer, director, writer
Education: LeMoyne College
Film and Video Works include: Producer, Fatachee. Producer,
director, writer, Picture-Book; Spitting Glass; How to Fly; Better,
Stronger; Romance. Director of photography, Split Britches, Two
Moon July, Everglade City, Born in Flames. Writer, Nets; Oh, No,
Paula; Headlands; Angles
Awards and honors include: New York State Council on the
Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, Jerome Foundation, New
York Foundation for the Arts, Rockefeller Foundation, Art Matters
Inc.; Distinguished Artist-Teacher Award, School of Visual Arts
website: www.edbowes.org
118
Kathy Brew
Producer, curator. Formerly, co-director, Margaret Mead Film &
Video Festival, American Museum of Natural History; director,
Thundergulch/Lower Manhattan Cul­tural Council; senior associate
producer, City Arts, WNET
Education: BA, cum laude, Middlebury College
video projects include: Regret to Inform; ID/entity: Portraits in
the 21st Century; Paradise Now: Picturing the Genetic Revolution;
Penetration and Transparency: Morphed; Mixed Messages
Curatorial consultant: Scanners: The New York Video
Festival; “Engaging Characters,” Art Interactive, Cambridge,
MA; Reel New York, WNET; ReFrame; Tribeca Film Institute;
Redhouse Cultural Center
Publications Include: Women, Art, and Technology;
Documentary; Civilization; High Performance; Art Coast; Shift
Awards and honors include: Emmy Award, CEC ArtsLink
Fellowship
Todd Brous
Co-founder, Untwist Technology, LLC
Education: BS, Tulane University; MFA, School of Visual Arts
Clients include: Morgan Stanley/Dean Witter, Nickelodeon Digital,
Mass Illusion Visual Effects, WCBS-TV, Quiet Man
Kevin Brownie
Layout and storyboard artist
Education: BFA, Concordia University, Montreal
TElevision and film Projects include: Beavis and Butt-Head,
Bugs Bunny’s Lunar Tunes Invasion of the Bunny Snatchers, An
American Tale II, Heavy Metal, The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin,
Dennis the Menace, Meerkats, C.O.P.S., TV Funhouse (Saturday
Night Live)
Group Exhibitions include: Puchinello Gallery, Toronto; Galerie
Monk Breton, Montreal; Village by the Grange, Toronto; Ottawa City
Hall; Musée des Beaux Arts du Quebec
Michael J. Connor
Curator. Formerly, head of exhibitions, British Film Institute;
curator, FACT, Liverpool
Education: BA, with honors, University of North Carolina,
Chapel Hill
Curatorial projects include: “Screen Worlds,” Australian
Centre for the Moving Image, Melbourne; “1001 Nights,” Postmasters
Gallery; “The New Normal,” Independent Curators International/
Artists Space; “Tiny, Funny, Big and Sad,” British Film Institute;
“JODI: Computing 101B”, “Welcome to the Infinite Fill Zone,”
FACT, Liverpool
Publications include: RealTime, Austin Chronicle, AlterNet.
org. Exhibition catalogs include: DIVE; The New Normal; JODI:
Computing 101B; Marina Zurkow
119
Joshua Davis
Principal, Joshua Davis Studios
clients include: Bad Boy Online, Sony, Nike, Barney’s New York,
PS1/MoMA, Motown Records, Canon, Whitney Museum of American
Art, Diesel
Awards include: Golden Nica, Prix Ars Electronica
Andy Deck
Media artist; co-founder, Transnational Temps
Education: BFA, BA, University of Michigan; MFA, School of
Visual Arts; Post-diplôme, École Nationale Supérieure des Arts
Décoratifs, Paris
Exhibitions include: Peer2Peer, Los Angeles; Telspan,
Washington, DC; “Copy It. Steal It. Share It.,” Istanbul; Social
Capital; Net_Condition, Karlsruhe; Ciberart, Bilbao; “Andy Deck
Retrospective,” Furtherfield.org; “Conexion Remota,” Barcelona;
Ars Electronica, Linz; “Medi@terra 2000,” Open Source Lounge,
Athens; Glimpses, Athens; VIDA 4.0, Madrid; Mejan Labs, Stockholm;
Artport, Whitney Museum of American Art; P.S.1/MoMA; Machida
City Museum, Tokyo; Moving Image Gallery; Postmasters Gallery;
Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; ZKM Center for Art and Media,
Karlsruhe, Germany
Publications Include: From Technological to Virtual Art; Internet
Art; WWW.Animation: Animation Design for the World Wide Web;
Net_Condition: Art and Global Media; Art of the Digital Age
Awards include: First Place, Shift­Space Commission
website: www.artcontext.net
Carl Edwards
Computer graphics animator
Education: BA, University of Illinois, Chicago
Clients include: Sam Edwards Editing Group, Inc.; Lester Weiss
Computer Animation and Data Motion Arts; Doros Motion; Magno
Sound & Video; Transcom Media; Digital Animation; PM Audiovisual
Thyrza Nichols Goodeve
Producer, writer. Formerly, research associate, Whitney Museum of
American Art
Education: BA, Sarah Lawrence College; MA, New York University;
PhD, University of California, Santa Cruz
Books and Anthologies include: How Like a Leaf; Ellen
Gallagher, A Painter in III Acts; Peter Halley; Louise Bourgeois;
The Monster’s Progress: The Art of James Barsness
Publications include: Artforum, Parkett, Art in America, The
Village Voice, Guggenheim magazine
www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
Edgar David Grana
Composer, music consultant
Education: BA, Washington & Jefferson College; MFA, University of
Iowa; MM, Juilliard School
WORKS INCLUDE: Moments: A Tribute to José Limón, Lincoln Center;
Six Pieces for Piano, Symphony Space; Stones, Time and Elements:
A Humanist Requiem (with Kurt Vonnegut and Michael Brecker),
Newport Classics; Lyric Episode for Orchestra, Bedford Springs
Arts Festival, PA; music for Budd Schul­berg’s On the Waterfront;
String Quartet No. 2
AWARDS AND GRANTS INCLUDE: Chicago Film Festival; First
International New Music Festival; Platinum Record, Winger
In Pyo Hong
Computer graphics animator
EDUCATION: BS, Kwang-Woon University;
MFA, School of Visual Arts
Group Exhibitions and screenings include: Holland Animation
Festival, Hawaii International Film Festival, San Francisco Asian
American International Film Festival, Sedona International Film
Festival, NY Asian American International Film Festival, Puchon
Interna­tional Fantastic Film Festival, Japan Digital Animation Festival,
New York Digital Salon, Art for Healing
Clients include: CBN Network, Sci Fi Channel, Credit Suisse,
Starbucks, Kenny Scharf Studio, Matrix Art Collective
Awards and honors include: Grand Jury Prize, New York
International Film and Video Festival; Best Animation, Long Island
Big Fish Film Festival; Best Animation, San Diego Asian Film Festival;
Lyon Asian Film Festival
Everett Kane
Education program director, Location One; game designer;
3D character modeler/rigger; programmer
Education: BA, Princeton University; BFA, with distinction,
MFA, Art Center College of Design
Clients include: Klasky Csupo, Pixel Blocks, DZI, California
Institute of Technology, Weiden & Kennedy, Vogue (Europe),
New York Festivals
Exhibitions include: Los Angeles Arboretum; Vinoli Gallery,
Los Angeles; Vincent Gallery, Los Angeles; Art Center College of
Design, Pasadena, CA; Pillers Gallery, Los Angeles; Schkolne
Projects, Los Angeles
website: www.homepage.mac.com/everettkane
Jeannie Kang 
Senior user experience design consultant, Adobe Systems Incorporated  Nikita Mikros
Education: BA, Ewha Womans University;
MFA, School of Visual Arts
Professional experience includes: Art director, Digitas;
designer, R/GA
Publication: W.E.B. (Korea)
Website: http://www.jeanniek.net
Computer Art
Russet Lederman
Digital artist
Education: BA, Sarah Lawrence College; MFA, School of Visual Arts
New media exhibitions include: New York Digital Salon, Prix
Ars Electronica, Lab 01, Cast 01, Neovideo International Film Festival,
ISEA, Sonar, Graz Biennial on Media and Architecture, European
Media Art Festival, Docs Online, Remote Lounge, Rotterdam
International Film Festival, Stuttgarter Film Festival
Publications include: Leonardo, The New York Times, Circa,
HOW, New Art Examiner, Art Journal
Collections include: Swiss Federal Office of Culture; Smithsonian
Institution, Washington, DC; Rhizome Artbase
AWARDS AND HONORS INCLUDE: Smithsonian New Media/New
Century, Prix Ars Electronica, HOW magazine interactive, File
New Media Festival
Boaz Livny
Owner, Vision Animations Inc.
Education: MA, Bournemouth University
Clients include: Plus et Plus, The Wilderness, Beverage Media
Group Ltd., Iceberg Vodka, Suzy Systems, Walsh Family Media
Author: mental ray for Maya, 3ds Max, XSI: A 3D Artist’s
Guide to Rendering
Barbara London
Curator of Video and Media, Museum of Modern Art
Education: BA, Hiram College; MA, New York University
Curatorial works include: “Masters of Anima­tion: Hayao
Miyazaki and Isao Takahata”; “TimeStream”; “Music and Media”
Publications include: Leonardo, ARTnews, Shisedo, Art in
America, Camera Obscura
Awards and honors include: National Endowment for the Arts,
CAC, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Locarno Video Festival,
Asian Cultural Council
120
Jarryd Lowder
Media developer; systems administrator, MFA Computer Art
Department, School of Visual Arts
Education: BFA, University of Iowa; MFA, School of Visual Arts
Clients include: MTV, Organic, Nickelodeon, Luaka Bop, Tommy
Hilfiger, Pseudo.com, Nuforia, Splash Studios
Performances include: NTT/ICC, Tokyo; The Cooler;
Postmasters Gallery; Roulette; Circulo de Bellas Artes, Madrid;
Abstrakt Future Lounge; Transmedia Festival, San Francisco; Knitting
Factory; Tonic; National Museum of the American Indian; Prix Ars
Electronica Recombinant, Linz
Awards and honors include: Roulette Emerging Artist
Commission
Robert Mahoney
Art critic
Education: BA, College of the Holy Cross; MA, University of
Wisconsin at Madison
Publications include: Time Out New York, Art in America,
ARTnews, Art on Paper, D’Art International, Tema Celeste, Artnet
Gerald Marks
Video director, printmaker, digital artist
printed editions for: Helen Frankenthaller, Roy Lichtenstein,
Andy Warhol, Marisol, Robert Indiana, Alan D’Arcangelo, Red
Grooms, Leo Castelli Gallery, Tibor de Nagy Gallery
Clients include: The Rolling Stones, Sony, Nashville Ballet,
American Cinematographer, Atlantic Records, Metropolitan Transit
Authority, Scholastic Publications
Exhibitions include: Metropolitan Transit Authority; Sony
ExploraScience, Beijing; Alternative Museum, New York Hall of
Science, American Museum of Natural History
awards and honors include: Visiting scholar, Spatial Imaging
Group, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; artist-in-residence,
Exploratorium, San Francisco; artist-in-residence, Mid-American
Museum, Hot Springs, AK; design award, Villager; set design award,
Public Theater/New York Shakespeare Festival
Adam Meyers
Producer
EDUCATION: AD, Full Sail University
Clients include: Saturday Night Live, MTV, Bravo, Nickelodeon
Group exhibitions include: Pegasus Galleries, Next Gallery,
Maxwell Gallery, Park Galleries
Software developer; consultant; partner, Flying Mikros Brothers
Education: BA, Queens College; MFA, School of Visual Arts
Clients include: Public Health Research Institute, France
Telecom, Association of American Publishers, SIGGRAPH,
Pandemonium magazine
121
Federico Muelas
New media artist
Education: BFA, Universidad de Castilla;
MFA, School of Visual Arts
Group exhibitions include: Ars Electronica, Linz; Stuttgart
Filmwinter Festival, Germany; PS122; Japan Media Festival, Tokyo;
Metronom, Barcelona; Location One; Electrohype Biennial, Sweden;
ARCO 2005, Madrid; PikseliACHE Festival, Helsinki; New Jersey
Film Festival; Cuban Digital Salon, La Havana; Katzen Arts Center,
American University, Washington, DC
Awards include: New York Foundation for the Arts, Life 7.0,
SGAE, La Caixa, Spanish Cultural Council, UNESCO, Experimental
Television Center
Publications include: NYARTS, Rhizome Digest, Neo2
Magazine, Tentaciones, El Pais, Metro, El Ciberpais, untitled art
magazine, Art of the Digital Age
website: www.federicomuelas.com
Joseph Nechvatal
Digital artist, writer
Education: BFA, Southern Illinois University;
MFA, Cornell University
One-person Exhibitions include: Galerie Mabel Semmier, Paris;
Galerie Karin Sachs, Munich; Galerie Antoine Candou, Paris; Galerie
RLBQ, Marseilles; Moving Image Gallery; Brooke Alexander; Galerie
Berndt, Cologne
Books include: Selected Writings, An Ecstasy of Excess, Excess in
the Technomediacratic Society
Collections include: Israel Museum, Jerusalem; Los Angeles
County Museum of Art; Weatherspoon Art Gallery, NC; Museum of
Modern Art; Musée Leon Dier, La Reunion, France; Moderna Museet,
Stockholm; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; National
Gallery of Art, Washington, DC
Awards and Honors include: Massachusetts Council of the Arts;
National Endowment for the Arts; New York Foundation for the Arts;
Foundation for Contemporary Performance Arts, Inc; Pollock-Krasner
Foundation Award; CAPS. Artist residencies include: Cité des Arts
Internationale, Paris; Foundation Claude-Nicolas Ledoux, Arc-en-
Seine, France; Arbois, France
www.sva.edu/grad/computerart

Kurt Ralske
Video artist, composer, programmer
Education: BA, Hunter College
Performances and Exhibitions include: Bronx Museum of
the Arts; Guggenheim Museum Bilbao; Prague Biennale; Contem­
porary Art Museum, Istanbul; Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary
Art; Montreal Museum of Contemporary Art; Palais des Beaux Arts,
Brussels; De Singel, Antwerp; SelfWare, Graz; American Museum of
the Moving Image
Author, programmer: Auvi (http://auv-i.de)
Awards and honors include: First Prize, Transmediale
International Media Art Festival, Berlin; National Science Foundation;
Renew Media Arts Fellow, Rockefeller Foundation
Steve Rittler
Animator, illustrator
Education: MFA, Pratt Institute
Clients include: Cyclotron, GLC Productions, Blink.fx, Disney
Interactive, Image Design, Manhattan Transfer, W.W. Norton and
Co., Image Interactive, Image Entertainment, Van Nostrand Reinhold,
Columbia University Law School, Crozier Keystone Health Service,
W.B. Saunders Medical Publishers, Dismar Corp., Century 21 Real
Estate, United Steel Workers
Publications and films include: Nor Gloom of Nyght,
ARTBYTE, Morrigan, The Art of Three-Dimensional Computer
Animation and Imaging, Principles of Three-Dimensional Computer
Graphics Animation, JASTA
Exhibitions and screenings include: Anima Mundi; Toronto
Worldwide Short Film Festival; Philadelphia Festival of World Cinema;
California Sun International Animation Festival; East Lansing Film
Festival; Folioscope; Mendrisio Cartoon; Denver Underground Film
Festival; Short Pictures International Film Festival; Los Angeles
International Short Film Festival; SIGGRAPH 2003 Art Gallery, San Diego
Awards and honors include: Vancouver Effects and Animation
Festival, Annecy Animation Festival, Motion Art Festival, WorldFest
Houston, Canadian International Film & Video Festival, Chicago
International Television Competi­tion, Brooklyn Film Festival
Trilby Schreiber
Designer, illustrator, writer, producer
Education: BA, Harvard University
Clients include: Playboy, Cartier, Global Finance
Honors include: Vice chair, program chair, NYC/ACM SIGGRAPH
Richard Shupe
Principal, FMA, New York
Education: BS, Lehigh University
CD Projects include: All Access: The Horde Tour; Freak Show;
The Gingerbread Man; Bad Day on the Midway; Society of Mind;
The Complete Maus; Site kiosks, Ad Club of New York
Clients include: Gotham Group; Barnett Group; Barry Blaue;
iVillage; LPNY; Simon & Schuster, Inc.; Prentice Hall; MTV;
IBM; WGMS-FM; Sullivan & Co.; WNEW; Showtime; mFactory;
MacDirectory; WPLJ
Computer Art
John F. Simon Jr.  Michele Thursz
Digital artist  Curator; producer; consultant; director, founder, Post Media Network;
Education: BA, BS, Brown University; MA, Washington University;
MFA, School of Visual Arts
One-person exhibitions include: Collezione Maramotti, Reggio
Emilia, Italy; Galeria Javier Lopez, Madrid; Gering & López Gallery;
Sandra Gering Gallery; University Art Museum, SUNY Albany;
Knoxville Museum of Art, TN; SITE Santa Fe, NM
Group exhibitions include: Digital Art Museum (DAM),
Berlin; iMAL Center for Digital Cultures and Technology, Brussels;
Museum of Contemporary Art, Cleveland, OH; Shanghai Zendai
Museum of Modern Art; Museo Extremeño e Iberoamericano de Arte
Contemporáneo, Badajoz, Spain; Tweed Museum of Art, University of
Minnesota, Deluth; Museum of Contemporary Art Taipei; Opelousas
Museum of Art, LA; Visual Arts Gallery; Dunedin Public Art Gallery,
New Zealand; Seoul Museum of Art, Korea; Stedman Art Gallery,
Rutgers University, Camden, NJ; University Museums, University of
Richmond, VA; Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art, Ridgefield, CT
Collections include: Museum of Modern Art; Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum; Whitney Museum of American Art; San
Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County Museum
of Art; Brooklyn Museum; Ulrich Museum of Art; Progressive
Corporation, Cleveland, OH; Ackland Art Museum; Albright-Knox
Art Gallery
Publications include: Art of the Digital Age, At the Edge of Art,
New Media Art, Creative Code, New Media in Late 20th-Century
Art, Art in America, Artforum, The New Yorker, ARTnews, The New
York Times, Forbes, ArtByte, Wall Street Journal, New York maga-
zine, Art & Auction, Time
Amresh Sinha
Filmmaker
Education: BA, Patna University; MA, Jawaharlal Nehru University;
MA, SUNY at Buffalo; PhD, York University
director: Convict & the Trial, Quit India Movement
publications include: Connecticut Review; Spectacular Optical;
The Making of Modern Bihar; Patriot; In Practice: Adorno, Critical
Theory and Cultural Studies; Lost in the Archives; German Culture
and Society; The Review of Education, Pedagogy, and Cultural
Studies; Subtitles: On the Foreignness of Film; Film-Philosophy;
Colloquy: Text, Theory, Critique; Scope
Kurt Teske  Exhibitions include: PS122; Executive Gallery; P.P.O.W.;
Writer, producer, director  Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo, NY; A.I.R. Gallery;
Education: BA, Harvard College; MS, Columbia University
Professional experience: Executive producer, Soodalter
Associates / Sam Edwards Group; Harold Friedman Consortium
Author: Feng Shui for Success. Plays include: The Exarch of
Buffalonia; The Heiress from Adesando; The Escape from Television
City. Screenplays include: Full Ratchet, Blindsided, Rumspringa
Film and television projects include: Via Crucis, Tree
Connections. Producer of animation, graphics and editorial for com-
mercials, including: Snickers, Citibank, Pepsi, General Mills, Kodak,
American Express, AT&T, Lever Bros., New York Lottery, Frito-Lay
Awards and honors include:  CLIO; Film Grant, CUNY
122
Professional Opportunities
Graduating students present their thesis work at the end of the
academic year in the SVA Theatre. Students also exhibit at open
studios, the Visual Arts Gallery and on the department’s Web
site. These events provide an opportunity for students to show their
work to recruiting companies, curators and gallery owners.
In addition, our students have received internships and employ­
ment with animation, video, interactive media and Internet
production facilities that include DreamWorks, Industrial Light
& Magic, Pixar, MTV, Nickelodeon, Rhythm & Hues, Disney,
Sony Pictures Imageworks, Charlex, and the American Museum
founder, Moving Image Gallery of Natural History. Graduates have been awarded artist residencies
Curatorial projects include: “They Always Say That Time and exhibitions at Eyebeam, Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum,
Changes Things...,” Armand Hammer Museum of Art, University Whitney Museum of American Art and the Lower Manhattan
of California, Los Angeles; “Inflatable Architectural Body,” Andrew Cultural Council, as well as grants from the New York Foundation
Edlin Gallery; “Meme: Romanticism,” EFA Gallery; “public.exe: for the Arts and the Picasso Foundation.
Public Execution,” Exit Art; “Democracy is Fun?,” Whitebox; “Copy
it, Steal it, and Share it,” Borusan, Istanbul
Publications include: ArtByte, Forbes.com, Wired, ARTnews
website: www.michelethursz.com
Erik Wesselak 
Animator, programmer 
Education: BS, MS, University of Illinois
Professional experience includes: Senior technical director,
California Academy of Sciences; production programmer, American
Museum of Natural History; technical director, Blink.f
Grahame Weinbren
Filmmaker; interactive cinema producer; film and video editor; princi-
pal, Typhoon Sky Inc.; editor, Millennium Film Journal
Education: BA, University College, London; PhD, SUNY Buffalo
group Exhibitions include: Whitney Museum of American Art;
Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum;
Fogg Art Museum, Cambridge, MA; Museum of Contemporary Art,
Los Angeles; The Kitchen; Zecher Sollern, Dortmund, Germany;
NTT/ICC, Tokyo
Interactive cinema installations include: Frames, The Erl
King, Tunnel, March, Sonata
Awards and honors include: Massachusetts Council on the Arts
and Humanities, Arts Council of Great Britain, New York Foundation
for the Arts, National Endowment for the Arts, New York State
Council on the Arts
website: www.grahameweinbren.net
Ada Whitney
Creative director, Beehive. Formerly, art director, Broadway Video
Education: BA, Beloit College
Clients include: HBO, Showtime, ABC, ESPN, HGTV, PBS,
Disney, MTV, NBC, Spike, AMC, Comedy Central, Time Warner
Cable, Quicksilver, Sundance, TNT
P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center
Publications include: Res, Communication Arts, Shoot,
Millimeter, Film & Video
Awards include: Gold Award, International Monitor; Promax;
Broadcast Designers Association; Communication Arts; Print;
Creativity; Art Directors Club; Type Directors Club
123 www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
Guest Lecturers
Cory Arcangel
new media artist
Benton-C Bainbridge
video artist, musician
Tamas Banovich
curator, owner,
Postmasters Gallery
Molly Barnes
art consultant, author,
curator
Howard Beckerman
animator, author
Zoe Beloff
stereoscopic projection,
performance and
installation artist
Jonah Brucker-Cohen
researcher, networked
media and installation artist
Nancy Burson
photographer, writer,
inventor, artist
John Canemaker
filmmaker, writer, animator,
animation historian, artist
Jim Casey
entrepreneur; founding
partner, Rare Medium, Inc.
Shu Lea Cheang
multimedia artist, filmmaker
Sarah Cook
new media curator,
co-founder of CRUMB
(Curatorial Resource for
Upstart Media Bliss), UK
Computer Art
Lauren Cornell
executive director,
Rhizome; adjunct
curator, New Museum
of Contemporary Art
Matt Costello
game writer; consultant;
author, 7th Guest, 11th Hour
Greg Dinkins
3D photographer;
president, NY Stereoscopic
Society
Diana Domingues
virtual reality artist,
educator, researcher
Toni Dove
virtual reality, installation,
and performance artist
Shelley Eshkar
digital artist
Xarene Eskandar
author, vE-JA: Art +
Technology of Live
Audio Video
Mary Flanagan
digital artist, writer,
researcher, educator
Adam Frank
installation artist
Lucien Harriot
director, principal,
Mechanism Digital
Tali Hinkis
video and new media artist,
co-creator of LoVid
Kenneth A. Huff
digital artist: print and
installation
Yael Kanarek Jillian Mcdonald Rich Quade Vivian Selbo Victoria Vesna Jody Zellen
new media artist; digital video artist, educator supervising animator, network media artist new media artist, researcher networked media and
founder, Upgrade! Asif Mian Pixar Animation Studios Robert Michael Smith Chiake Watanabe installation artist
John Klima director, visual artist Michael Rees sculptor, digital artist visual music artist Hui Zhu
installation artist digital sculptor, animator, director
Paul Miller Kenneth Snelson Barry Weiss
Ken Knowlton a.k.a. DJ Spooky programmer sculptor, digital artist, writer sr. vice president, Eric Zimmerman
artist, writer, DJ, artist, writer Don Ritter Animation Production, game designer; writer;
Nina Sobell
computer scientist Mark Napier interactive installation and new media artist Sony Imageworks co-founder, Gamelab
Myung Lee network media artist, performance artist, writer Maciej Wisniewski Lori Zippay
Wolfgang Staehle
computer graphics programmer Ben Rubin networked media artist, executive director,
executive director,
supervisor, Charlex Ben Neil media artist The Thing programmer Electronics Arts Intermix
Phoebe Legere musician, multimedia artist Lillian Schwartz Michael Wright
Mark Tribe
composer, performer, Bill Nelson artist, writer, research founder, Rhizome.org digital artist, painter
painter scholar
entrepreneur, painter,
Camille Utterback
Zachary Leiberman founding partner, Rare
installation artist
performance, installation Medium, Inc.
and online artist
Barbara Nessim
Golan Levin computer artist, illustrator
artist, educator, researcher
Carsten Nicolai
Peter Levin media installation artist, DJ
producer, sound designer,
Brad Paley
president, Splash Studios digital artist, programmer
Patrick Lichty Nina Paley
digital artist, writer, curator, animator, filmmaker
Tel: 212.592.2778
Contact Us
activist, educator
Carol Parkinson
Margot Lovejoy executive director, Fax: 212.592.2509
artist, author, educator
Harvestworks E-mail: mfaca@sva.edu
Kristin Lucas Debbie Pashkoff
digital, video, performance, art director, www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
intervention, sculpture,
installation artist
Rhythm & Hues Studios department site: mfaca.sva.edu
Jonah Peretti
Kevin & Jennifer McCoy viral media artist; founder,
We strongly encourage applicants to visit our department prior to submitting application materials.
interactive media, film,
Buzzfeed; co-founder, Come to our Departmental Information Session, or contact us directly to schedule a tour.
performance and Huffington Post
installation artists Departmental Information Session: Saturday, November 12, 2011.
Bill Plympton All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit.
director, animator To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact the Office of
Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.
124 125 www.sva.edu/grad/computerart
MA Critical Theory
XX Focal points of the program in 2012-2013 are the Proseminar on the “Convergence
of the Arts in the 21st Century,” and the Serious Times Lecture Series, which will
pose the question “Why doesn’t the United States make social progress?”

and the Arts
www.sva.edu/grad/cta
department site: cta.sva.edu
XX Fourteen students are selected annually by the Committee on Graduate Admissions.
Graduates of the MA in Critical Theory and Arts become ongoing members
of the Serious Times Lecture Series and the program’s intellectual community.
Critical Theory and the Arts is a closely organized, yearlong study in critical social theory that focuses
on the arts in the broadest sense—inclusive of the visual arts, literature, music, dance, performance
and new media.
The program responds to a need: For thinking about art has never before been so protean, so
broadly inventive and urgently central to the whole of social, philosophical and political reflection.
Every major area of thought now turns considerable attention to art in expectation that art will
provide the key to solving its central questions.
At the same time, in art itself, every aspect of its reality presents dynamic conflicts and puzzles that
demand theoretical reflection. Those directly involved in the arts can no longer imagine that artists
proceed naïvely, mixing passion with thin air. While artists of earlier generations once struggled
to disguise the thinking labor that went into their work, today art theory has become part—often an
explicit part—of all art-making. To an unprecedented degree, developments in art theory can can
and do directly transform art.
What the arts once were, they soon enough will no longer be; in large measure, they have already
been irreversibly transformed. For artists and graduate students from several fields of inquiry, the need
collaboratively to understand what has happened, what is happening and what is at stake is salient.
The ma in Critical Theory and the Arts program thus engages a vital century-long reflection on
the arts through a curriculum modeled on the interdisciplinary framework of the Frankfurt School
of Social Research. Here “interdisciplinary” is not an approach that ignores the boundaries between
disparate fields. Rather, real criticism of the boundaries of knowledge takes its lead from the demands
of the problems in which the interdisciplinary work is integrated.
Key works of critical theory are therefore studied in conjunction with the philosophical,
sociological, political and art historical background that is needed to engage these works meaningfully.
An expert and collaborating core faculty draws on the breadth of thought and research from the
several fields needed for understanding the problems of art where they are tense with the complexity
of our own concerns for contemporary reality and the arts.
The focal points of the program are the Proseminar and the Serious Times Lecture Series. The
Proseminar in 2012–13 on the “Convergence of the Arts in the 21st Century,” broaches critical issues
in society, culture and the arts as an open forum. Students develop and experiment with the material
presented and attend discussions with leading New York City intellectuals and internationally ac-
claimed visiting artists. The Serious Times Lecture Series poses the question, “Why doesn’t the United
States make social progress?” Students engage in presentations and discussions of the most urgent
social problems facing us today. The program is completed in three consecutive semesters that conclude
with the Comprehensive Thesis.
Several teaching assistantships are available. Fall 2012 begins the program’s inaugural year.

Robert Hullot-Kentor, chair

127
 chair interview

Robert Hullot-Kentor
“Students have an urgency about themselves these days that must be taken seriously.” Robert Hullot-Kentor,
chair of sva’s new ma degree in Critical Theory and the Arts, is emphatic about the program’s timeliness.
“These are serious times, to say the least.” When asked if this is why the program includes the Serious Times
Lectures Series, he nods, “Yes, certainly. And what has so impressed me over the past number of years is how
many very bright, talented and capable students there now are who are more than ready to engage what is go-
“Students have ing on in art today in a way that involves the entire history of art and society and the most important questions
an urgency about we have about our lives. While the value of higher education is being challenged by one part of society, there
themselves these are many students who are very ready to dig in, and feel they need to—when they can find real education.”
days that must be The program, Hullot-Kentor explains, is a yearlong involvement in the study of “the arts in the

On any
taken seriously.” broadest sense, the questions of understanding art and the puzzles in making art today.” He empha-
sizes the range of works that students will study, including materials drawn from “social theory, social
history, aesthetics, and a living art history.” That’s a lot for one year, isn’t it? Hullot-Kentor agrees, “It

is. And it is exactly enough time to get enough of a grip on the reality of the issues to be able to pursue
them when the year is over—whether as artists, as public intellectuals or as writers.”
Playing devil’s advocate, I ask Hullot-Kentor why art is so central to the course of study he has
mapped out? Hullot-Kentor seems to have a strong sense of humor and finds the question funny, or in
any case, he is smiling, “You know, there is no sense marching around waving a banner for art, ‘Go,
art!’ You can’t root for art. I’m not about to argue for art. At the same time, what is more important to
study than art? It is the most important thing we make, and what most of us want to make. Suzanne
Langer said it a long time ago, art is how we shape import. We have no other way to do it. Art works
ask us to think about the import that they shape. They urge us to think about them in a way that noth-
ing else does. In serious times, they get us to the heart of the matter.”
Hullot-Kentor spent many years in graduate school, starting at the Iowa Writers Workshop, then
doing graduate work in Clinical Psychology and studying philosophy and literature in Europe before
he finished his doctorate, and he has taught at Boston University, Harvard and Stanford. So he isn’t
being immodest in pointing out that he has designed the entire program from top to bottom drawing on
his own lengthy experience in the arts and education. “It’s rare — almost unprecedented — to have the
chance to make something like this out of whole cloth.” What pleases him most in what he’s designed,
I wonder? “That the program makes sense as a whole. The parts illuminate each other meaningfully;
they stand in a dynamically tense relationship to each other. Students will realize this right away. There
is of course almost an endless amount to learn in the program, but still it isn’t about setting out to learn
given day...
“On any given day…” in the program in Critical Theory and the Arts, some
students may be working early in the department’s library, preparing for classes.
And it is also imaginable that…
…at 11 a.m., artists Paul Chan and Jessica Stockholder join a
discussion with Robert Hullot-Kentor’s aesthetics class on the kinds of
problems that contemporary visual artists have in figuring out when a work
is complete; when it is “done.” The conversation turns to why this problem
first emerged so drastically only in 20th century art, and what this has to do
with why some artists today insist that one can no longer hope to make a
“masterpiece.” The idea that “masterpieces” may now be impossible
seems absurd to one group of students, but the other side of the table
insists to the contrary. Looking for answers the discussion turns to
questions of Cézanne’s unfinished canvases, and whether or not they are
“masterpieces.” But what about Chan and Stockholder’s work? Are their
…at 7:30 p.m., that evening, the Serious Times Lecture Series hosts
essayist, Eliot Weinberger—who has been named one of the 100
“most innovative thinkers” in the world. Weinberger leads a discussion
on the challenges he faced in writing What I Heard About Iraq,
recognized as an “International Book of the Year,” by the Times Literary
Supplement. The discussion becomes a consideration of the long term
implications of the 9/11 attack and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan—
and the implications for the situation of artists as well. The students try
to talk Eliot Weinberger into coming back to join them all for dinner
one evening soon, only to discover that people who actually make
things spend considerably less time going out to dinner than one might

everything. It is a matter of gaining a capacity for binding insight. The program wants to provide what works complete; would they hope to make “masterpieces”? imagine. Or, perhaps it turns out differently.

students need for thinking that knowingly, capably, strikes flint on stone. And I have brought together an
exceptional group of faculty who are mutually aware of how the year fits together and are interested in
collaborating with each other and with the students.”
What haven’t we touched on? “Lots. But one thing special about the program,” he mentions, “is the
Graduate Associates. These are students who are advanced in—and sometimes finishing—graduate
programs in philosophy, sociology, music, history, and studio art. They’ve been invited to participate in
the program because they’re really interesting people and deeply involved in their own studies. They’ll
participate in the different seminars, and they will help students get a sense for where their own work
might go. It’s important that younger people are part of this faculty.”
Hullot-Kentor will draw on the program’s New York City context and location by inviting a remarkable
group of visiting artists and lecturers, both senior figures in their fields and key younger contributors.
A few final words? “I’ve said it elsewhere, but at the end of the year, students in the program will
…at 3:30 p.m., the composer, pianist and distinguished musicologist,
Stefan Litwin returns. Earlier in the week he presented a discussion-
performance dealing with sections of T. W. Adorno’s Philosophy of New
Music. This afternoon he meets with students to talk about the idea of
musical space, and the transformation of musical space in modern music.
Students become curious about the ways in which these developments in
music can, or cannot, meaningfully be compared with spatial transforma-
tions in the visual arts. Late in the discussion a student wonders out
loud—thinking back to the morning discussion—if the problem of finishing
work in the visual arts is also a problem in modern music. Litwin, a
composer, talks about the kinds of problems that he must deal with in just
this regard, and the ways in which this situation has changed in music since

still recognize themselves in the mirror, but much else will have changed.” the first part of the 20th century.

Critical Theory and the Arts 128 129 www.sva.edu/grad/cta

The Program  The program is unique in presenting the philosophical, sociological, political, art and
social historical contexts with which a student needs to be familiar to meaningfully pursue the questions that the Course Descriptions
contemporary situation of art poses. Society and art are studied in their actual tension, without reducing art to
society, or pretending, narrowly, that society amounts to the world of art. To emphasize this tension, the curricu-
lum is organized between two focal events of the year, the Proseminar—a forum devoted to a critical development
in the arts—and the Serious Times Lecture Series. ¶ Degree candidates are to successfully complete 36 credits
with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0.
Library and Research Resources
Art Theory and Aesthetics I and II
The Visual Arts Library contains approximately 65,000 books, 400 current periodical titles and 160,000 The motivating concepts and history of aesthetic theory that continue
slides. Electronic resources supplement these holdings with more than 30 online indexes and databases. These to shape contemporary thought is the focus of these courses. We begin
with a review of the Platonic and Neo-Platonic concerns with represen-
include periodical indexes that allow users to search for magazine and journal articles owned by the library and tation and the social as well as epistemological status of the artwork.
to access full-text information from more than 17,500 periodicals not found in the physical collection. Electronic An understanding of the developments that led up to Kant allows the
class to closely study Kant’s Critique of Judgment, which continues
resources include jstor. Other resources include image databases and online encyclopedias. In addition to the to be a basic work of reference in all thinking about art. This is fol-
research materials housed in the Visual Arts Library and the program’s own library, students in Critical Theory lowed by an investigation of the philosophical complex of thought
that Kant’s aesthetics spawned in the writings of Friedrich Schiller and
and the Arts have access to the Bobst Library at New York University and its more than 3 million volumes. G.W.F. Hegel. The first semester aims to provide an historico-philo-
sophical undergirding for the theoretical and art historical work that
Teaching Assistantships follows. The second semester is an intensive study of contemporary
A small number of teaching assistantships is available. thought in aesthetics and art theory that concentrates on the major
developments of the 20th and 21st centuries, including, for instance, the
writings of Phillip Guston, Barnett Newman, Francis Bacon, Willem
de Kooning and Jacques Rancière. T.W. Adorno’s Aesthetic Theory is
closely read throughout the second semester.
Curriculum
The Arts, Their History, and the United States I and II
This year-long course is organized around four studies of consider-
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
able importance, heft and renown: Arnold Hauser’s Social History of
Art Theory and Aesthetics I 3 Art Theory and Aesthetics II 3 Art, Erich Auerbach’s Mimesis, Walter Benjamin’s Origin of German
The Arts, their History, and the United States I 3 The Arts, their History, and the United States II 3 Tragic Drama and Alex de Tocqueville’s Democracy in the United
States. Together they provide historically substantive and highly
Proseminar I  2 Proseminar II 2
nuanced approaches to art, culture and society. In mastering these four
The Serious Times Lecture Series 1 The Serious Times Lecture Series 1 works, students come away with a broad understanding of the entire
Social Theory, Social Criticism, and the Arts I 3 Social Theory, Social Criticism, and the Arts II 3 history of the visual arts; the single most reputed history of literature
and its techniques from Homer to Virginia Woolf; a penetrating and
unprecedented theory of art—Walter Benjamin’s—that continues to
SUMMER Semester Credits
hold a central role in contemporary thought; and knowledge of the
Comprehensive Thesis  12 most important work written about the United States, whose insights
are far from exhausted.
Critical Theory and the Arts 130 131
The Comprehensive Thesis
The MA in Critical Theory and the Arts is completed in the third
semester with the Comprehensive Thesis. It is the occasion for can-
didates for the MA to establish meaningful coherence in their year’s
work, to continue to develop and integrate their thinking and research,
to find new problems to investigate, and to sketch out plans for their
future with faculty and mentors.
Preparation for the Comprehensive Thesis
Preparation for the Comprehensive Thesis begins with the student’s
application to the program. Prospective students are asked to describe
the issues, problems, experiences or conflicts that motivated their
application. On acceptance into the program, students begin to expand
on these motivations, with the intention of developing four topics that
they craft and assemble in preparation for the summer semester work
for the Comprehensive Thesis. Students are encouraged to formulate
these topics in a way that builds directly on what they have been
intensely studying for two semesters. It is an opportunity to remember,
organize and develop important thoughts that have arisen during the
year, whether in course discussions, readings, or in the student’s own
reflections and research. In one of the four topics the student is asked
to set out plans for future work, whether it is scholarly or artistic, and
thoughts about “what is next” in a way that the faculty can be of help
in considering and discussing those plans.
Fulfillment of the Comprehensive Thesis
Once a student has completed the statement of the four topics along
with a brief supporting bibliography of the work to be undertaken,
and a faculty member has reviewed the statements favorably, the stu-
dent is ready to spend the final semester preparing research. During
this period, the student consults with his or her faculty advisor for
advice and direction. Over the last two weeks of the semester, students
present the Comprehensive Thesis through written response to ques-
tions formulated as ‘prompts’ on each of the first three topics.
www.sva.edu/grad/cta

Proseminar I and II
The current topic of the Proseminar is The Convergence of the Arts in
the 21st Century.
The convergence of the arts may be the most striking aspect of art
in the late 20th century and the 21st century. Today, artists, almost
as a rule, combine their many talents in hybridizing permutations:
music is combined with sculpture, architecture with performance art,
photography with painting and video with installation. This involves a
complex dynamic. Because at the same time as the arts are converging,
radically modern art has been marked by a strong tendency toward
autonomy: just as the realm of art as such has tended to assert its sepa-
ration from the rest of society, so the various arts have tended to assert
their distinction from one another. In the first semester, we explore
this central dynamic of the arts of our own moment, considering how
the imperative toward what Clement Greenberg called “self-definition
with a vengeance” came to take hold, and how the countertendency
toward the mixing of the arts has been shaped and shadowed by the
drive toward artistic autonomy.
The discussions involve all aspects of the year’s studies—in social
theory, social history, aesthetics, and art history—and become the
focus for our understanding of the current crises in the arts. Contem-
porary artists and critics are frequent visitors to help us understand
what it is that the arts face today in the struggle to make new work.
Critical Theory and the Arts
The Serious Times Lecture Series I and II
Rather than reducing art to society, or society to art, the program in
Critical Theory and the Arts is organized at every point to maintain a
mutually illuminating dual focus. Thus, along with the Prosesminar,
the Serious Times Lecture Series emphasizes the program’s other focus
on social reality. Participants in the series read the work of a guest,
who leads the discussion.
In 2012, an election year, a fierce preoccupation with who is win-
ning and who is losing will obscure the shaping, expression and dis-
cussion of almost all real problems and concerns. The work of our
seminar is, by contrast, to keep our minds on the hard questions by
asking, “Why doesn’t the United States make social progress?” For
while there is no doubt that considerable technical progress is made,
and while there are certainly achievements in social equality—we
have an African-American president, for instance, and have ended the
military’s “Don’t ask, don’t tell” order—the society itself, as a whole,
fails to progress. The real problems—why 10 million homes have been
foreclosed, why the jobless recovery, why this is the nation with the
largest prison population, why the continued degradation of the envi-
ronment—are going unanswered. What vantages can we find on the
question—“Why doesn’t the United States make social progress?”—in
the midst of the election year pressures? And how does understanding
the structure of these problems help us understand the election itself?
Participation in the Serious Times Lecture Series is reserved for stu-
dents in the program and invited guests. Graduates of Critical Theory
and the Arts remain permanent members of the lecture series and of
the program’s intellectual community.
Social Theory, Social Criticism and the Arts I and II
In these courses, the structure of contemporary society is presented and
carefully explicated, drawing on close readings of the seminal texts of
modern social theory and philosophy. Students develop in-depth com-
prehension of contemporary society and of the traditions of thought
that have considered how its antagonistic elements can be explicated
and critically presented. The first semester focuses on the fundamental
concepts of the founders of sociology in Émile Durkheim and Georg
Simmel and on what distinguishes modern society from other social
structures as understood by Max Weber and Karl Marx. The second
semester examines particular aspects of contemporary society in light
of the principal debates in current social and critical theory. We con-
sider the interconnection of economic and political forms, of modern
commerce and the state. And we ask how social relations and indi-
vidual comportment are interrelated. What is the function of culture,
media and the culture industry in contemporary society? Readings
include Freud (selections), Adorno’s and Horkheimer’s Dialectic of
Enlightenment, Heidegger’s The Question Concerning Technology and
Luhmann’s The Reality of the Mass Media. The overarching question
is how social structure at once makes the arts possible and no less
structures their crises.
132
Faculty
Robert Hullot-Kentor
Chair, Critical Theory and the Arts, Master of Arts degree program,
School of Visual Arts; Philosopher
Education: BA, Marlboro College; MA, Goddard College; PhD,
University of Massachusetts
Author: Things Beyond Resemblance: Collected Essays on Theodor
W. Adorno; Ice Flow: Essay and Commentary on David Salle; Terra
Infirma: The House that Mowry Baden Built
Editor: Current of Music: Elements of a Radio Theory; editor,
translator, Philosophy of New Music; Aesthetic Theory; Kierkegaard:
Construction of the Aesthetic
Awards and honors include: DAAD; Orion Visiting Artist,
University of Victoria; J. Paul Getty Resident Scholar; J. Paul Getty
External Scholar; Mellon Faculty Fellow, Harvard University and
Boston University
Devi Dumbadze
Social philosopher, sociologist
Education: BA, Ivane Javakhishvili Tbilisi State University; MA,
Ruhr-University Bochum
Professional experience includes: Visiting scholar, The New
School for Social Research; scientific assistant, lecturer, Institute
for Media Studies, Ruhr-University Bochum; lecturer, scientific
editions coordinator, Department of Philosophy and Social Sciences,
Ilia Chavchavadze State University of Language and Culture
Books include: Co-author, Towards Organizational Management:
Manual on Management. Co-editor, Critique of Political Philosophy:
Society, Contract, State II; Knowledge and Critique: Contemporary
Positions. Translator, Schemezneba da interesi
Publications include: Festschrift für Burkhard Mojsisch, Tbilisi;
Limes: Rivista Italiana di Geopolitica; Netgazeti; Jungle World;
Zeitschrift für Medienwissenschaft; Matsne: Series in Philosophy
and Psychology
Awards and honors include: Open Society Georgia Foundation;
Munich Grant, Goethe-Institut; DAAD; Freedom Support Exchange
Program, United States Information Agency
133
Ellen Levy
Writer
Education: BA, magna cum laude, Princeton University;
MA, Columbia University; PhD, Vanderbilt University
Author: Criminal Ingenuity: Moore, Cornell, Ashbery, and
the Struggle Between the Arts. Contributor, Encyclopedia of the
New York School Poets
Presentations include: John Ashbery in Paris International
Conference, Paris; American Literature Association Conference,
Boston; Modernist Studies Association conferences in Victoria, BC;
Long Beach, CA; Nashville; University of Chicago; University of
Wisconsin, Madison
Publications include: Modernism/modernity; Literary Imagination;
Tikkun; New York Review of Books; Raritan; Parkett; Dissent; The
Nation; Critical Texts: A Review of Theory and Criticism
Awards and honors include: Associate fellow, Robert Penn
Warren Center for the Humanities, Vanderbilt University; Francis
LeMoyne Page Creative Writing Award, Princeton University; Morris
W. Croll Poetry Prize, Princeton University
Tom Huhn
Chair, Art History Department and BFA Visual and Critical Studies
Department, School of Visual Arts; coordinator, Honors Program,
School of Visual Arts; philosopher; critic
Education: AB, Sarah Lawrence; MA, PhD, Boston University
Books include: Imitation and Society: The Persistence of Mimesis
in the Aesthetics of Burke, Hogarth, and Kant; The Cambridge
Companion to Adorno; The Wake of Art: Criticism, Philosophy, and
the Ends of Taste; The Semblance of Subjectivity: Essays in Adorno’s
Aesthetic Theory
Publications include: New German Critique, Art & Text, Oxford
Art Journal, British Journal of Aesthetics, Art Criticism, Telos,
Eighteenth-Century Studies, Journal of Aesthetics and Art Criticism,
Oxford Encyclopedia of Aesthetics, Philosophy and Social Criticism,
Art Book
Curatorial works include: “Ornament and Landscape,” Apex
Gallery; “Still Missing: Beauty Absent Social Life,” Visual Arts
Museum and Westport Arts Center, CT
Group exhibition: Triple Candie
Awards and honors include: Getty Scholar; Fulbright Scholar;
First Prize, American Society for Aesthetics Essay Contest; New York
State Council for the Humanities
www.sva.edu/grad/cta
“The program is unique in presenting the
philosophical, sociological, political, art and social
historical contexts with which a student must be
familiar to meaningfully pursue the questions that
the contemporary situation of art poses.”
-Robert Hullot-Kentor
Graduate Associates Guest Lecturers

Jacob Blumenfeld Jeremy Cohan Cory Arcangel Shierry Weber Nicholsen

Social philosopher Sociologist computer programmer, composer, digital artist psychoanalyst, author
Education: BA, with honors, Vassar College; MA, The New School Education: BA, with honors, University of Chicago; Education
for Social Research Certificate, Pace University; New York University Mowry Baden Spyros Papapetros
Conference presentations include: New School Graduate Awards and honors include: Henry McCracken Fellowship, sculptor author
Student Philosophy Conference; Hannah Arendt and Reiner New York University
Schürmann Symposium in Political Philosophy; University of Paul Chan Moishe Postone
Minnesota; CUNY Graduate Center Nora Griffin installation artist; writer historian
Awards and honors include: Dean’s Prize, The New School Painter, writer
for Social Research; Philip Nochlin Prize, Vassar College Education: BA, with honors, Oberlin College; MFA, Columbia Ben DeMott Robert Paul-Wolff
University writer; editor; co-founder, First of the Month philosopher
John Clegg One-person exhibitions: Abaton Garage Gallery, Jersey City, NJ;
Economist, sociologist Fisher Gallery, Oberlin College, OH Martin Jay Jay Sanders
Education: BA, with honors, M.Phil., with honors, University Group exhibitions include: Fisher Landau Center for Art; Janet historian; author curator; writer; editor; co-organizer, 2012 Whitney Biennial
of Sussex; New School University Kurnatowski Gallery; Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery,
Professional experience includes: Editorial assistant, Pluto Columbia University; Camel Art Space; Denise Bibro Fine Art; Pace Dani Leventhal Gedi Sibony
Press; researcher, Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science; co-editor, Gallery; A.M. Richard Fine Art video artist sculptor, installation artist
Endnotes (UK) Publications include: Brooklyn Rail, Artcritical
Conference presentations include: Marx and Philosophy Awards and residencies include: Dong Kingman Fellowship, Stefan Litwin Jessica Stockholder
Society, Joe McCarney Memorial Conference, London Knowledge Columbia University; CUE Art Foundation; Vermont Studio Center composer; pianist sculptor, installation artist
Lab; Annual Institute on Culture and Society Conference, Portland
State University; Postwar Economy and Culture Conference, University Robert Wood Molly Nesbit McKenzie Wark
of California, Berkeley; Historical Materialism Conference, SOAS, Musicologist author; contributing editor, Artforum; author
University of London Education: BM, University of Rochester; CUNY Graduate Center co-founder, curator Utopia Station Eliot Weinberger
Awards and honors include: Dean’s Prize Fellowship, Presentations include: “Varèse, Contact, Sound,” Yale Graduate
New School University Music Symposium; “Edgar Varèse and the Beyond of Science,” essayist, editor, translator
American Musicological Society, Greater New York Chapter
Award: Doctoral Student Research Grant, CUNY Graduate Center

Tel: 212.592.2172

Contact Us
Fax: 212.592.2168
E-mail: theoryart@sva.edu
www.sva.edu/grad/cta
department site: cta.sva.edu
Come to our Departmental Information Session, or contact us directly to schedule a tour.

All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit.

To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact the
Office of Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.

Critical Theory and the Arts 136 137 www.sva.edu/grad/cta


MFA Design
Designer as Author
www.sva.edu/grad/design
department site: design.sva.edu
XX We emphasize entrepreneurship as an alternative to conventional practice,
and as a means to raise the level of design expertise and achievement.
XX We teach a broad set of visual, verbal and textual approaches as foundation
for design.
XX We focus on creation to optimize the designer’s abilities to rise to the next
professional level.
As a profession, graphic design weds art and commerce, form and
content, and aesthetics and function. It began in the late 19th
century as a service-oriented field with a few visionary practitioners
emerging in each generation who set the standards and styles and
established its philosophical underpinnings. For more than a decade
advances in media have created many new creative opportunities,
changing the role of graphic designers by forcing them to go beyond
simply framing ideas into content development. Although produc-
tion skills are necessary, graphic designers are increasingly in
demand to contribute original “design thinking” into such fields as
branding, publishing, editorial, packaging and products.
The floodgates were opened with the advent of the computer;
graphic design has been a component of a larger creative practice ever
since. At this crossroads, designers were given the choice to become
glorified production “artists,” framing and finessing others’ ideas,
or building upon their expertise, develop concepts integral to the
success of a client’s wares. The mfa Designer as Author program
was the first in the country to emphasize an entrepreneurial course of
study that raises the level of design expertise and achievement.
The quintessential mfa Designer as Author student comes to
this unique program with the desire to extend his or her practices
beyond conventional graphic design into distinct realms of content
creation. For the past decade we have made students into authors,
producers and entrepreneurs of their own ideas. We believe that the
danger in having unprecedented access to new and future media is
that graphic designers could be edged out of the creative process.
Authorship and entrepreneurship are viable alternatives and this
program is predicated on the increasing need for designers to apply
their wits and skills as providers throughout all the visual media—
from print to digital.
The concept of design authorship is, first and foremost, rooted in
the independent creation of ideas. Developing concepts and finding
the best forms to express and package them through design is
key. Our students are form-givers and thus committed to original-
ity. The outcome of the program is to develop and promote new
products of value that are responsive to the needs and wants of a
society in flux and to contribute objects and campaigns of worth
139
that integrate the best in design and design thinking. The opportu-
nity to build design skill and confidence through making a unique
product is in itself a valuable process.
Students must be fluent in the languages of graphic design and,
particularly, typography, and increasingly more adept in motion and
sound as well. They must be able to explain their ideas verbally
and visually, for a good idea is nothing if it cannot be well articulated.
We do not teach students how to design, but rather how to optimize
their abilities to rise to the next professional level. In addition,
we welcome those who have backgrounds in other fields and media.
We believe it is important for the designer of the present and future
to be thoroughly integrated into many communications platforms,
if only to command the options that are and will be available. Our
students are encouraged to draw inspiration from other visual and
communication arts that share authorial practices. In this way,
the program has not been restricted to the conventional curriculum.
Instead, we embrace a broad set of visual, verbal and textual ap-
proaches as the foundation for student—and professional—activity.
Our mfa studio is accessible 24 hours a day, and is designed
to simulate an operational design/media firm with spacious work­
stations that allow for individual and collaborative work. Students
also have unlimited access to high-end editing rooms, a conference
room, a design library (with 2000 current volumes) and a student-
run exhibition gallery. Students also direct “Crit,” the graduate
student design blog, and create websites to showcase our annual
exhibitions. The program remains connected to the professional
world while being in the academic one.
mfa Designer as Author is tailored for students and profession-
als with backgrounds in graphic design, and we encourage those
with environmental, product, Web, interaction design, film and
photography backgrounds who are interested in further develop­ing
their skills in unique and progressive ways.
Steven Heller and
Lita Talarico, co-chairs
The Five Most Students in the Design program at SVA aren’t taught by “those who can’t” types; they’re led by legends. We asked celebrated

Important Things
graphic designer, New York magazine co-founder and sva acting chairman Milton Glaser: What are the five most important things
designers learn in school? 

1. While it may not be like studying art history, design has a long 4. Hold your beliefs lightly and remember that belief is usually

You’ll Learn
and illustrious past—from the Vienna Secession to the Private a sign of a closed mind. Examine your assumptions and never stop
Press Movement—that goes back far more than 10 or 20 years. re-examining them.
This will help you build your awareness of the meaning of forms.

About Design
2. You’ll learn both to make things clear and the nature of ambiguity,
and that using both can help you communicate.
Faculty Profile: 3. Style should come out of expressive content, and not as an
Milton Glaser addition or an outside idea; it isn’t opposed to content, it emerges
from it. It’s not just a layer added on afterwards.
5. Be generous with ideas. They are meant to be given away and
shared. Ideas are not property—you can reap great benefits when
they’re experienced and used by others. In our society, our notion
of the personal ownership of ideas becomes a great hindrance to
our sense of a common purpose.

A study for a 3D puzzle,

designed by Mr. Glaser,
later manufactured by
George Beylarian.

Milton Glaser, the foremost artist and designer

in his field, has been with SVA since 1960.
Mr. Glaser’s exciting and innovative work has
earned him an international reputation.
Glaser continues to work to this day in his East 32nd Street office in
Manhattan. He once said of his profession, “I have always believed
that there is a psychological and ethical difference between those
who make things and those who control things.… Linking beauty
and purpose can create a sense of communal agreement that helps
diminish the sense of disorder and incoherence that life creates.”
Explaining Yourself
Scott Stowell (standing) teaching his
class, Explaining Yourself. Stowell is
the proprietor of Open, an independent
design studio in New York City.
Stowell has students share a
personal aspect of their lives
through information graphics.
Students are required to chart
or graph key moments in their
lives using scientific means. 
 The MFA Designer as Author studio was designed to replicate
chair interview (and in its own way is) a professional design firm. Each student has a

Steven Heller and

workstation that is wired for the latest technologies. In addition to
individual projects, the open environment encourages collaboration.

Lita Talarico
While classes are held in two classrooms and one conference room,
the studio is continually abuzz with individual and group activity. Students
have 24 hour access, seven days a week, to all the facilities. And many
“I knew Lita from when we worked together at American Illustration,” explains Steven Heller. use this secure space as their second home. 

“But co-chairing the program was kismet; we ran into each other, I asked her whether she was looking
for a new job, she said yes, and we’ve been working closely ever since.” “Everything I’d done in my
career in New York led to this job,” Lita Talarico confirms. “I have taught in design programs and
have worked as a design and architecture consultant, organized conferences, and coordinated architect
selections, all of which equipped me for this role. Ten years on, the program remains exciting and

On any
continues to move forward.”
“No one was doing anything like this program when we started,” Talarico continues. “You have
to wait a few years to see how things really work, and we’ve found by now that graduates have been

given day...
“The program is extremely happy with what they’ve received from the program. A large number of them are working in
very clear and jobs directly related to their studies—even though they’ve also learned to be very independent-minded.”
very structured. “When we began,” Heller recalls, “there was a buzz about something called the ‘designer as author.’
It’s about being a Magazines like Eye were publishing intelligent design writing and Print had a critical column, which
practitioner and I helped found, called ‘Cold Eye.’ So our idea was that if designers were going to be writers, they could
creating something also be auteurs. The program suggests that if designers can write and think academically, then they
of value…” can apply these skills commercially. I wanted an mfa that wasn’t overly theoretical, but which raised In the 24/7 MFA Design studio students arrive early—assuming they
the educational bar and was about entrepreneurial thinking too. We decided that our thesis projects— ever left the night before. Their day starts by working on assignments.

and this is key to the whole enterprise—should result in products that the designer could actually take
to market. Students must find an audience for their ideas, determine a need, create a value, and get them
out into the world.” “The program is very clear and very structured,” adds Talarico. “It’s about being
a practitioner and creating something of value, even if it isn’t aimed at a mass audience.”
“Endemic to everything we do,” Heller explains, “is the play principle, Paul Rand’s idea that designers
play with form as well as create it, and work both rationally and instinctually. Designers solve puzzles,
and sometimes they do that by throwing spaghetti against the wall and seeing what sticks. Graphic design
is an essential rubric too, but we deliberately omitted the word ‘graphic’ because we were aiming at a
more integrated program. We encourage students to do things that work in motion on screen and in the
three-dimensional world, as well as in print.”
Talarico describes one course that demonstrates this unique approach: “New York Stories is a delight-
ful class,” she smiles. “It started in a Greenwich Village nursing home, where each student got to work
on a design project that reflected a patient’s life. Another project involved students packing life stories
Today, the first-year students scurry to finish off a Milton Glaser poster
advocating an act or event that will impact their neighbors in the City; the
second-year students finish preparation for the next stage of their thesis
by preparing pitch presentations to the thesis consultant faculty.
Time for reflection and peer review is an important part of their process,
yet tackling the deadlines at hand fill their early afternoon hours.
In the late afternoon, students attend a weekly guest speaker session.
This week it is Michael Bierut, who hosts the class at his Pentagram office.
Maira Kalman is also giving the first part of her New York Stories class,
where students create stories about their favorite New York characters.
First-year students return to the studio just in time to polish off their

into suitcases. And one year they baked cakes…. Every time, I just know it’s going to be one of the most assignments, then a three-hour class in which intensive crits are the order
of business. An exhausting but exhilarating day.
interesting experiences that those students will have. There’s always some amazing twist.”

Design 148 149 www.sva.edu/grad/design

SVA Spaces
The main studio contains 45 workstations
for 40 students and visiting faculty. Students
have access to the lounge, editing room,
departmental library and gallery spaces. 
The Program  In the first year of the program, students are given advanced instruction in a variety of
authoring skills such as writing, editing, criticism, typography as a visual language, film and new media directing,
visual journalism, and book and magazine publishing. Along with these skills-based courses, classes in marketing,
research, advertising, promotion, publicity, intellectual property and networking will be offered. ¶ The goal of the
second year is product-oriented. Participants are required to devise and develop a viable idea for a specific market.
Students will write and design a proposal for a product that will be presented to a panel of guest faculty who will
decide whether it has enough merit to progress to the developmental stage. At the developmental stage, students will
produce a prototype for backers, publishers, producers or distributors. This final proposal, dummy or prototype
will be professionally produced for presentation purposes. Typographic expertise is key to course completion. ¶
The core faculty consists of distinguished contributors to the field of design and is supplemented by faculty from
the fields of graphic design and multimedia. Lecture series, guest speakers and off-site visits to studios and firms
are regularly scheduled throughout the academic year. ¶ Degree candidates must successfully complete 60 credits,
including all required courses, with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0. A residency of two academic years is
required. In the final semester, each student completes a thesis, which must be reviewed and approved by the thesis
advisor and the department co-chairs in order for the student to be eligible for degree conferral.
The Design
Entrepreneur Thesis
The sva mfa Design thesis requires that students prove that a well-designed
product of their own conception and making is viable for a mass market or limited
audience. The students determine what the product will be. They develop the con-
tent. They create the form, framework and selling materials. They make it unique
through a combination of creativity and marketing savvy. The thesis can be anything
from a physical product to a print or motion campaign, and more. Functionality,
usability and salability are key. The goal is to be practical yet novel, accessible yet
unprecedented. This is not easy to achieve. To earn the Master of Fine Arts degree, it
is expected that the thesis be produced at the highest level of design standards.

Where Are They Now?

Alumni of the mfa Designer as Author program work at some of the most
Sample Program significant design firms and businesses in the country. Here is a partial list:

first year Ande La Monica Johnson & Johnson Random House

FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits Arnell Group Khiel’s Real Simple magazine
Can Design Touch Someone’s Heart? 3 The Book—From Idea to Package 3 Bloomberg KidRobot RED: Rogers Eckersley
Design and Intentions 3 to Consumer Bloomberg Media L’Oreal Design
Designing in Three Dimensions 3 Crossing Disciplines: Authorship and 3 Brooklyn Botanical Garden Landers Miller Rizel Studio
Just Type 3 the Web—New Venues, New Ideas Buchanan-Smith LG Shu Uemura
Paul Rand Lecture Series 0 Explaining Yourself 3 C&G Partners Loaded Barrel Studios Spoolia Design
Writing and Designing the Visual Book 3 New York Stories 0 Carbone Smolan Louise Fili Ltd SpotCo
Thesis Introduction 3
Cheil Worldwide (Samsung) Martha Stewart Omnimedia Tarek Atrissi Design
Three-Dimensional Product Reality 3
Citizen Scholar Men’s Vogue Target
Comedy Central Metropolitan Museum of Art TAT Studio
second year El Jefe Design Milton Glaser, Inc. Trix & Me
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits Empax MTV Trollback+Co
Intellectual Property and the Law 3 Seminars3 ESI Design Mucca Design Victoria’s Secret
Introduction to Design Criticism 3 Thesis Consultation (Pitch and Presentation) 3 ESPN Museum of Modern Art Wolfsonian Museum
Seminars  3 Thesis Consultation (Production) 6
Findyourcraving.com New York City Ballet
Thesis Consultation (Preparation, Research and Writing) 6 Thesis Video Installation 3
Food & Wine magazine The New York Times
Funny Garbage Nick Jr.
Future Brand Nokia
GamersFirst/K2Network Number 17
Harry N. Abrams NYC+Company
I.D. magazine Ogilvy
Issac Mizrahi Open
Jazz at Lincoln Center Pentagram
Jennifer Panepinto, LLC Pixelmedia Inc.

Design 152 153 www.sva.edu/grad/design

Course Descriptions
The BOOK—From IDEA TO PACKAGE TO CONSUMER
The student as author of a book (and related products) is the goal
of this course. A range of book and product formats and genres will
be discussed, including illustrated books, children’s books, interac-
tive and non-illustrated books, as well as calendars, stationery and
other product spin-offs. The “book” will be discussed and scrutinized
from editorial conception to design to production to the marketplace.
Throughout the course, students will develop a commercial book,
providing all content, as well as creating related ancillary products.
Creating a proposal to “sell” or pitch the book to a prospective pub-
lisher is included.
Can design touch someone’s heart?
It is widely assumed that movies, literature and music get to our emo-
tional core. At the same time, it seems to be more difficult for design
to achieve that same effect. In this course, students will explore how to
achieve this with three individual assignments.
Crossing Disciplines: Authorship and the Web—New Venues,
New Ideas
This course will present students with the challenge of authoring a
strong Web experience. Focusing on how content can be handled effec-
tively, students will work on a semester-long project that will take them
through all phases of producing a website—pitching ideas, making an
information architecture document, gathering content and site naviga-
tion. The final project will be an Adobe Flash/HTML hybrid and will be
presented as a real pitch. Guest lecturers will share their experiences of
creating and working in the interactive realm.
Design and Intentions
Structured to help students examine their assumptions about their
work, this course begins with a restaurant project, where many design
considerations intersect, such as communication, service, interior
spaces, lighting, color and comfort. The course continues with a series
of exercises that intends to disrupt or support the students’ working
methods. Ultimately, the objective is to develop an awareness of what
they are already doing.
Designing in Three Dimensions
Designing with honesty and passion is what makes a project success-
ful. In this interactive course, we will explore the development of
product concepts. With a series of benchmarks, students will pitch
their ideas, research the respective markets and create prototypes
as their final designs.
Design
Explaining Yourself
How do you use design to tell engaging stories? How can you help
people understand something new and communicate clearly and/or
appropriately—both in your work and about your work? This isn’t a
public-speaking course, but you’ll do some. This isn’t an information-
design course, but you’ll make some. And it isn’t a portfolio course,
but you’ll think about your work and how others experience it. During
the course, we’ll work on projects with different sets of constraints,
hear from guest speakers with different points of view, and think
about speaking to different audiences through (and about) design.
Intellectual Property and the Law
The general concepts of law and intellectual property law as they apply
to the practice of design will be examined, including basic legal issues
of contract and property law, within the creative context. Among the
topics explored will be the work-for-hire agreement, the consignment
agreement and the agency agreement. The law of copyright, trademark
and patents will also be explored. Issues such as registering a copyright,
copyright infringement, registering a trademark and trade dress infringe-
ment and patents (in particular, design patents) will be examined from
the perspective of the professional designer. In addition, design and
information issues presented by new technology, such as the Web, will
be included throughout the course.
Introduction to Design Criticism
The purpose of this course is to introduce students to the complex
issues and ideas that are essential to understanding what is happen-
ing in the graphic design field today. The course is designed to give
students the linguistic tools they will need to decipher the various and
often conflicting cultural, philosophical, historical and political trends
that impact the way we think about design. Among the topics we will
explore are arcane subjects such as semiotics, structuralism, Marxist
theories and postmodern analysis, as well more pragmatic fields of
inquiry such as branding, marketing, visual research and brainstorming
techniques. Though this course deals with abstract theories, it is hands-
on, interactive and practical, with constant references to how the ideas
discussed in class can help students shape their thesis projects and
transform them into viable products.
Just Type
Just Type is an exploration of contemporary and classic typefaces that
students will apply to 10 short projects over the course of the semester.
Every week, students will be given a font to research and work with on
a specific project. In some cases, students will work on cutting and past-
ing printouts during class. At the end, a type catalog of the fonts used
will be compiled with class projects shown as examples of the typefaces
in action. There will be no images, color or devices used—just type.
154
New York Stories
In this collaborative workshop, each student will select an individual
and tell his or her story in a variety of design media. Students will be
required to develop a humanistic interpretation of their subject. Some
classes will take place off campus.
Paul Rand Lecture Series 
These lectures address various aspects of the history of graphic design
over the past 150 years, including movements, pioneers and icons as
well as issues and events. Lectures focus on 19th-century premodern
practice, early and mid-20th-century orthodox modernism and late
20th-century postmodernism. Themes include racism and design, sym-
bolism and the swastika, type and culture, politics and propaganda,
modernism and Art Deco, and avant-garde magazines of the 20th
century. Students are expected to engage in critical and analytical dis-
cussions that relate design history to current communication practices.
Seminars
To enrich the program and bring students into contact with a
significant number of working professionals, a series of workshops will
be scheduled each semester. Seminar topics will change from year to
year, based on student interest and shifts in the overall field.
Thesis Consultation (pitch and presentation)
In this intensive course, students will develop a viable and professional
pitch book to use as a tool to bring their thesis product to potential pro-
ducers, investors and the market. In addition, they will be given tutorials
on how to deliver a verbal pitch to potential backers and clients.
Thesis Consultation (Preparation, Research and Writing)
This course will assist students in the preparatory research to identify
a product suitable for full-scale development. The semester is divided
into proposal writing and editing; designing; marketing options; busi-
ness plan conception; e-commerce and e-ideas; material research and
development; and media exploration. In addition, there will be numer-
ous off-site visits to related exhibitions and resource centers, discus-
sions on the theory of design and the making of design objects, as well
as advice on producing a viable and marketable thesis project. The end
result is a written, edited and designed proposal book.
Thesis Consultation (Production)
With the aid of a faculty advisor, students will complete a thesis proj-
ect ready to be marketed. Students will be required to make a final
presentation to the thesis committee for its approval.
155
Professional Opportunities
MFA Design students are given a first-year exhibition in the
SVA Gallery as well as small student-curated shows in the MFA
Design Gallery. In addition, students exhibit their work on
the department’s website. At the conclusion of the program, a
thesis video installation is mounted at the Visual Arts Gallery
to which members of the design field are invited.
Students and graduates have won the following awards
and competitions: International Contemporary Furniture
Fair, Critique, Art Directors Club, :Output, CMYK,
Guttenberg Global competition, Print, Aquent design award,
Nagoya International Design Competition, Type Directors
Club, Adobe Design Achievement Awards, Sappi, Gracie
Allen Awards, Grammy, Housewares Design Contest and
the $25,000 Buck Scholarship.
Students and alumni have had interviews, articles and
designs published in I.D., Step Inside Design, The New York
Times Magazine, illywords, AIGA Journal, Print, Graphis,
Metropolis, Crain’s, HOW, Interior Design, Glamour and
GOOD. Their work has appeared on UPN, Oxygen, Extra,
Today, ABC Eyewitness News, Fox 5, Nick Jr. and Daily Candy.
MFA Design students have worked at Pentagram, Doyle
Partners, Sagmeister, The New York Times, Kid Robot, Open,
SpotCo, Number Seventeen, Milton Glaser, Inc., Trollbäck
+ Company, Bloomberg, Funny Garbage, FSG and Random
House, among others.
Thesis Introduction
This course will introduce students to faculty thesis consultants who
will offer exercises that are designed to initiate research and develop-
ment and jump start a conceptual process for the thesis project. By the
end of the course, students will have identified at least two areas of
interest that will be further explored as the final thesis.
Three-Dimensional Product Reality
A course devoted to the how in the question: How do I begin to cre-
ate a “prototype” model of my product idea? This course will devote
attention to each student’s product prototype and its development.
By exploring different materials available and demonstrating methods
of working with those materials, students will reach the final goal of
a finished product.
Writing and Designing the Visual Book
This course combines design and literature to create integrated and
meaningful expression. Students will develop their creative writing
skills through a sequence of exercises in continuous writing, obser-
vational writing, titling objects and images, theatrical improvisation,
storytelling, writing from different points of view, structuring a narra-
tive, and reworking and editing. Selected texts from writing exercises
are then set into a variety of book formats using any combination
of typography, images and symbols. Emphasis is placed on finding
a visual form that emerges out of the meaning, feeling and inherent
shape of an original text. Historical and contemporary examples of
“visual text” will be presented.
www.sva.edu/grad/design
Faculty
Steven Heller, co-chair
Special assistant to the president, School of Visual Arts; program
co-founder, MFA Design Criticism Department, School of Visual Arts;
editor, Voice: AIGA Online Journal of Graphic Design; contributing
editor: Print, Eye, Baseline, I.D.; contributing writer: Metropolis,
Grafik, Step; Visuals; columnist, The New York Times Book Review.
Formerly, art director, The New York Times Book Review
Education: New York University, School of Visual Arts
Books authored, co-authored or edited: More than 100
books on graphic design, illustration and political art, including Paul
Rand; Merz to Emigré and Beyond: Avant-Garde Magazine Design
of the Twentieth Century; Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic
Design, Second Edition; Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in
the Digital Age; The Education of a Typographer; Graphic Design
History; Graphic Style: From Victorian to Postmodern; Typology:
Type Design from Victorian to Postmodern; The Education of a
Graphic Designer; Italian Art Deco: Graphic Design Between the
Wars; Faces on the Edge: Type in the Digital Age; French Modern:
Art Deco Graphic Design; Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the
Wars; Cuba Style; The Savage Mirror: The Art of Contemporary
Caricature; Texts on Type; Graphic Humor: The Art of Graphic
Wit; Citizen Designer; Seymour Chwast: The Left-Handed
Designer; Innovators of American Illustration; Art Against War;
The Push Pin Graphic: Twenty Five Years of Design and Illustra­tion;
Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and
Conceits; The Anatomy of Design: Uncovering the Influences and
Inspirations in Modern Graphic Design
Curatorial works include: “Simplicissimus, Germany’s Most
Influential Satire Magazine,” Goethe House; “Political Art, Ten Years
of Graphic Commentary,” AIGA; “Typographic Treasures, The Work
of W.A. Dwiggins,” ITC Center
Introductions and forewords: Tibor Kalman; Rebelling
Against Rockwell (Pictures for the American People); Barbara
Kruger: Graphic Designer; Alex Steinweis; American Advertising of
the 30s, 60s, 70s, 80s
Awards and honors include: Special Educators Award, Art
Directors Club; AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement; National
Endowment for the Arts; Hershel Levit Award, Pratt Institute;
Outstanding Client Award, Graphic Artists Guild; Masters Series
Award, School of Visual Arts
website: www.hellerbooks.com
Design
Lita Talarico, co-chair
Writer, design and architectural consultant
Education: BA, Empire State College; MFA, School of Visual Arts
Professional Experience: Advisor, design competition/Charrette,
U.S. Port of Entry at Massena, NY; architect selection consultant:
Cleveland Museum of Art, National World War II Memorial Design
Competi­tion; project director: Whitehall Ferry Terminal Design
Competition; Pritzker Architecture Prize Annual Jury Meeting; proj-
ect coordinator, Italian Manifesto Confer­ence, International Design
Conference in Aspen; advisory board member emeritus, Adobe
Partners by Design; visiting scholar, American Academy in Rome
Publications include: Co-author, Design Career: A Practical
Guide for Beginning Illustrators and Graphic Designers; Design
Schools Confidential; Design Entrepreneur; co-editor, Graphis
Publica­tion Design; associate editor, New York Observed, Art
Against War. Formerly, reporter-at-large, Italian Design, Graphis;
founding managing editor, American Illustration & Photography
Gail Anderson
Education: BFA, School of Visual Arts
Books include: New Vintage Type; Graphic Wit: The Art of
Humor in Design; The Designer’s Guide to Astounding Photoshop
Effects; American Typeplay; The Savage Mirror: The Art of
Contemporary Caricature
Publications include: Step Inside Design, DesignNet (Korea),
Identity (Russia), Show People, Paper, Graphic Arts (U.K.), Baseline
Collections include: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum;
Library of Congress
Awards and honors include: AIGA, Society of Publication
Designers, Type Directors Club, Art Directors Club, Communication
Arts, Print, Graphis
Ken Carbone
Partner, Carbone Smolan Agency
Education: BFA, University of the Arts
Professional Experience: Signage and wayfinding systems, Le
Louvre, Paris; identity program, Sesame Street Workshop; international
display system, Tiffany & Co.; global prototype retail environment,
HMV Record Stores; worldwide identity and display system, Christie’s
Clients include: Morgan Stanley, Quick & Reilly, Musesum
of Modern Art, Hartford Stage, Woodruff Arts Center, High
Museum of Art
Allan Chochinov
Partner, Core77; editor in chief, Core77.com
Education: BA, University of Toronto; MID, Pratt Institute
Professional Experience: Editor in chief, Coroflot.com,
DesignDirectory.com
Clients include: Herman Miller, A.C. Nielsen, Kodak, Oral-B,
Federal Express, Johnson & Johnson, Crunch Fitness
Awards and honors include: I.D., Communication Arts, Art
Directors Club, The One Show
156
Brian Collins
Chairman, chief creative officer, COLLINS:
Professional Experience: Former chairman, chief creative offi-
cer, Brand Integration Group, Ogilvy & Mather Worldwide; founder,
Designism: Design for Social Change, Art Directors Club
Clients include: BP, Coca-Cola, Hershey Foods, NYC 2012,
Mattel, Tribeca Film Festival, Motorola, American Express, Johnson
& Johnson, Kodak, Lionsgate Films, New York Public Library, Dove,
Rainforest Alliance, Al Gore’s Alliance for Climate Protection
Books include: Brotherhood, The Ecology of Design
Publications include: The New York Times, Wall Street Journal,
Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Fast Company, Business Week,
Architecture, Graphis, Print, I.D., Creativity
Awards include: AIGA; I.D.; Graphis; Communication Arts;
Print; Type Directors Club; Art Directors Club; The One Show;
Fast Company Peak Performer in American Design; Distinguished
Alumni Award, Massachusetts College of Art & Design; National
Organization for Women, the Dove Campaign for Real Beauty
Milton Glaser
President and creative director, Milton Glaser, Inc.; acting chairman
of the board, School of Visual Arts. Formerly, co-founder, Push Pin
Studios; co-founder, New York magazine
Education: The Cooper Union; Academy of Fine Arts,
Bologna, Italy
Graphic and Architectural Commissions: “I Love NY”
logo; complete graphic and decorative programs for the World Trade
Center restaurants; design of the Observation Deck for the World
Trade Center; redesign (architectural, interior, packaging and adver-
tising design), Grand Union supermarket chain; redevelopment of
the Rainbow Room complexes, Rockefeller Center Management
Corporation; design of an international AIDS symbol, World Health
Organization; logo for Tony Kushner’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play,
Angels in America; identity and interior elements, Rubin Museum of
Art and the SVA Theatre. More than 400 posters for clients, including:
Carnegie Hall, World Health Organization, Lincoln Center
Exhibitions include: Cloister of Voltorre, Varese, Italy; Nuages
Gallery, Milan; The Atelier; Gallery 138; Avram Gallery, Stony
Brook Southampton, NY; Museo Civico di Palazzo Chiericati,
Vicenza; Galerie Martel, Paris; Emzin Institute of Creative
Production, Slovenia; Society of Illustrators. One-person exhibi-
tions include: Museum of Modern Art; Art Institute of Boston;
Philadelphia Museum of Art; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris
Publications include: Graphic Design, Art is Work,
Drawing is Thinking
Awards include: 2010 National Medal of Arts, awarded by the
National Endowment for the Arts; Hall of Fame, Art Directors Club;
Illustrators Hall of Fame, Society of Illustrators; Fulbright Scholarship;
Honorary Fellow, Society of Arts, England; Augustus Saint-Gaudens
Award, The Cooper Union; Masters Series Award, School of Visual
Arts; AIGA; Urban Visionary Award, The Cooper Union; Cooper-
Hewitt Lifetime Achievement Award. Honorary doctorates: Moore
College of Art; Philadelphia Museum School; School of Visual Arts;
Minneapolis Institute of Fine Art; Queens College; Accademici
Clementi, Bologna; Royal College of Art, London
157
Keith Godard
Graphics and exhibition designer
Education: BFA, London College of Printing and Graphic Art;
MFA, Yale University
Exhibitions include: Lubalin Center Gallery, The Cooper Union;
Rosenwald-Wolf Gallery, University of the Arts, Philadelphia; Musée
des Bastides, France
Clients include: United Nations, Bank of America, J. Paul Getty
Museum, Metropolitan Transit Authority, University of Virginia,
Unicef, Empire State Building
Author: This Way That Way, Sounds, Glue Glue, Holdup, Itself,
Spacescape, Make Your Own Museum, A Little Night Book
Publications include: Signs and Spaces; Baseline; Masters of the
20th Century; Typojanchi: Seoul Typography Biennale; Idea; All Men
Are Brothers (Designers Edition, China)
Collections include: Library of Congress; Museum of Modern
Art; Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; Bibliothèque
Nationale, Paris
Awards include: Gold Award, Graphis; World’s Most Memorable
Poster, UAI; Bronze Medal, Czechoslovakia International Graphic
Design Exhibition, Brno; member, Alliance Graphique Internationale
Martin Kace
Founder, CEO, Empax.org; CEO, Bakunin Brothers; owner,
co-founder, Area Inc.
Education: BA, Hebrew University; MA, M.Ed.,
Columbia University
Professional Experience: Branding advisor to President Shimon
Peres of Israel; CEO, Joe Boxer Corp.; CEO, Phat Farm
Maira Kalman
Author, illustrator
Education: New York University
Professional Experience: CEO, vice president
and secretary, M&Co; art associate, National Lampoon
Clients include: Museum of Modern Art, Kate Spade, Mark Morris
Dance Group, Isaac Mizrahi, Vitra, The New Yorker, The New
York Times
books include: Max Makes a Million; Fireboat; What Pete Ate
from A-Z; (un)FASHION, with Tibor Kalman; The Elements of Style
Illustrated; Principles of Uncertainty
One-Person Exhibitions include: Ginza Gallery, Tokyo; Children’s
Museum of Manhattan; Julie Saul Gallery; Armory Show; Normal
Rockwell Museum, Stockbridge, MA
Jennifer Kinon
Founding Partner, OCD
Education: BFA, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor;
MFA, School of Visual Arts
Professional experience: Senior designer, Pentagram; art direc-
tor, Graphis; design director, NYC2012, New York’s Olympic Bid
Committee; brand consultant, Martha Stewart Living Omnimedia, Inc.
Clients include: Saks Fifth Avenue, IMG Fashion Week, Gehry
Architects, New York Jets, Museum of Sex, Stanton Shade Inc.
www.sva.edu/grad/design
Warren Lehrer
Designer, typographer, author, performer
Education: BFA, Queens College; MFA, Yale University
Books and plays authored and designed: Crossing the
BLVD: strangers, neighbors, aliens in a new America; The Portrait
Series: a quartet of men (Brother Blue, Charlie, Nicky D. from
L.I.C., Claude); FRENCH FRIES; versations; I mean you know;
GRRRHHH: a study of social patterns; TYPE DREAMS; A Tattle
Tale; Denial of the Fittest; The Whole K’Cuffin World; Social
Security; the life and times of Eugene Soloman; The Search for IT
and Other Pronouns
Collections include: Museum of Modern Art; Los Angeles County
Museum of Art; Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; Walker Art Center,
Minneapolis; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; Tate Gallery, London;
Jean Brown Archive; Franklin Furnace Archive; Yale Art of the Book
Room; Philadelphia Museum of Art; Getty Museum, Los Angeles; The
Sackner Collection
Awards and honors include: National Endowment for the Arts;
New York State Council on the Arts; New York State Foundation
on the Arts; Ford Foun­dation; Puffin Foundation; AIGA; Prix Ars
Electronica; Type Directors Club; Rockefeller Foundation; Greenwall
Foundation; Furthermore Foundation; NY Book Show Best of the Best
Award; Media That Matters Award
Frank Martinez
Trademark attorney, The Martinez Group
Education: BFA, Pratt Institute; JD, Hofstra University
Professional Experience Includes: Design patent examiner,
United States Patent and Trademark Office; design production direc-
tor, The Schechter Group, Landor Associates
Publications include: Regular contributor, I.D., Print
Kevin T. O’Callaghan
Chair, 3D design program, BFA Advertising and Graphic Design
Department, School of Visual Arts; 3D designer and illustrator; princi-
pal, O’Callaghan & Co–Art for the Film Industry
Education: BFA, School of Visual Arts
Clients include: MTV Networks, Toyota, Warner Brothers
Records, A&E Networks, The History Channel, ABC Pictures
Publications: People, US, Graphis, Playboy New York, The New
York Times, Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times
Curatorial Work includes: “Skeleton,” Whitney Museum
of American Art; “What Makes Them Tick?” Art Directors Club;
“YUGO Next,” traveling exhibition; “The Turn of The Century:
A Carousel,” traveling exhibition to Grand Central Terminal, Union
Station, Washington, DC, and Union Station, Chicago
Awards include: Distinguished Artist-Teacher Award, School of
Visual Arts
Design
Andrew Pratt
Creative director, Funny Garbage; owner, creative director,
Andy Pratt Design
Education: BFA, Rochester Institute of Technology
Clients include: Bloomberg, Cartoon Network, CBS, Crayola,
FedEx, Lego, National Geographic Kids, Noggin, Star Trek, Teen
Nick, PBS Kids, Smithsonian Institution, Turner, Veer, Viacom,
Wenner Media, Xerox
Publications include: Becoming a Graphic Designer: A Guide to
Careers in Web, Video, Broadcast, Game and Animation Design
Awards include: Gold and silver Mark Awards; Emmy Award;
Global Media Award; Webby Award; “Top 50 Websites,” Time;
Creativity; Print Regional Design Annual; Interactive Media Award;
Communicator Award
Website: www.andypratt.net
Howard W. Reeves
Senior vice president, publisher, Abrams Books for Young Readers,
Amulet Books
Education: BA, Wake Forest University
Professional experience: Alfred A. Knopf, Inc.; Buena Vista
Publishing; Rizzoli International Publications, Inc.
Awards for books edited: Caldecott Honor Book; Michael L.
Printz Honor Book; gold and silver medals, Society of Illustrators;
Silver Medal, Parents’ Choice Award; The New York Times Best
Illustrated; Coretta Scott King Honor Book; Art Directors Club;
Boston Globe/Horn Book Award; AIGA 50 Best Books; ALA Notable
Books; Reading Magic Award, Parenting magazine National Parenting
Center Seal of Approval
Stefan Sagmeister
Graphic designer, founder, Sagmeister Inc.
Education: MS, Pratt Institute; MFA, University of Applied
Arts, Vienna
Professional Experience: M&Co; creative director, Leo
Burnett Hong Kong; art director, Sagmeister Graphics; designer,
Schauspielhaus Vienna; designer, ETC. magazine, Vienna
Clients include: Rolling Stones, David Byrne, Aerosmith, Lou Reed,
Pat Metheny, Muir Cornelius Moore, Parham Santana
Publications include: Rolling Stone, The New York Times
Awards and honors include: More than 200 design awards,
including: The One Show; Art Directors Club; Communication Arts;
D&AD; Grand Prix, Moscow Art Directors Club Hall of Fame
Jeff Scher
Experimental filmmaker
education: BA, Bard College; American Film Institute
Films include: Whiplash, a film by Warren Sonbert, completed after
the filmmaker’s death; Yours; Trigger Happy; Bang Bang; Turkish
Traffic; Stand Clear of the Closing Doors
exhibitions include: Museum of Modern Art, Solomon R.
Guggenheim Museum
Collections include: Museum of Modern Art, Academy Film
Archives, Pacific Film Archives
158
Scott Stowell
Deborah Buck
Lecturers
Seminar
Proprietor, Open
Education: BFA, Rhode Island School of Design owner, president, Buck
Professional experience: Art director, Colors Magazine; House and The Gallery at
senior designer, M&Co.
Clients include: American Museum of Moving Image, art:
Buck House
21, Bravo, EarthAction, MTV, The Nation, Nick at Nite, PBS, Stephen Doyle
Smithsonian Folkways Recordings, Trio, Wieden + Kennedy
Publications include: Creative Review (UK), Critique,
creative director,
Communication Arts, Eye (UK), Grafik, HOW, Metropolis, Doyle Partners
I.D., +81 (Japan), Print, STEP Inside Design
Awards and honors include: American Center for Design,
Louise Fili
AIGA, Art Directors Club, Broadcast Designers Association, Type designer and president,
Directors Club, Society of Publication Designers Louise Fili, Ltd.
Véronique Vienne Edwin Schlossberg
Writer; creative director; president, Young Vienne, Inc. president, ESI Design
Education: École des Beaux-Arts, Paris
Professional experience Includes: Contributing editor,
House & Garden; creative director, Cato Gobe; director of busi-
ness development, Yves Saint Laurent Parfums, NY; founding art
director, Parenting; founding editorial director, Mode; art direc-
tor, Interiors, Image, Self
Author: The Art of Doing Nothing; The Art of Imperfection;
The Art of Growing Up; The Art of Expecting; Something to
Be Desired: A Collection of Essays on Design; Chip Kidd, a
Monograph
books edited and co-edited: Fresh Dialogue Three;
Fresh Dialogue Four, New Voices in Graphic Design; Citizen
Designer: Perspectives on Design Responsibility; The Education
of an Art Director
Publications Include: Martha Stewart Living, Town &
Country, House & Garden, InStyle, Mirabella, Redbook, Spa
Finder, Metropolis, Graphis, Print, Communication Arts, Eye,
American Photo, AIGA Journal, Etapes Graphiques
Ada Whitney
Co-founder, creative director, Beehive. Formerly, director,
designer, Broadway Video
Education: BA, Beloit College
Clients include: HBO, Showtime, ABC, ESPN, HGTV, PBS,
Disney, Nickelodeon, MTV, NBC, Spike, AMC, TNT, Comedy
Central, Quicksilver, Sundance, Time Warner Cable
Exhibitions include: PS122 Gallery; Executive Gallery;
A.I.R. Gallery; Hallwalls Contemporary Arts Center, Buffalo,
NY; P.P.O.W. Gallery; P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center;
Civilian Warfare
Publications include: Res, Communication Arts, Shoot,
Millimeter, Film & Video
Awards include: Gold Award, International Monitor;
Promax; Broadcast Design Association; Print; Art Directors Club;
Communication Arts; Type Directors Club; Creativity
159 www.sva.edu/grad/design
Guest Lecturers
and Advisors

Kurt Andersen Hillman Curtis Robbin Gourley Julie Lasky Mark Randall Fred Seibert Jakob Trollback
Studio 360, WNYC, New York Hillman Curtis, New York Farrar Straus Giroux, editor, Change Observer World Studio, New York Frederator, New York Trollback and Company,
Philippe Apeloigh Eames Demetrios New York Tod Lippy David Rees Bonnie Siegler New York
designer, Paris Studio of Charles & Ray Robert Greenberg Esopus, New York cartoonist, New York Number17, New York Erik Van Blokland
Dana Arnett Eames, Los Angeles R/GA, New York George Lois Vivian Rosenthal Esther Smith Letterror, Holland
VSA Partners, Chicago Barbara De Wilde Rodney Alan Greenblat adman, New York Tronic, New York Purgatory Pie Press, Just Van Rossom
Randy Balsmeyer Knopf, New York Rodney World, New York Ellen Lupton Jason Santa Maria New York Letterror, Holland
Big Film, New York William Drenttel Ric Grefe Cooper-Hewitt Museum, Happy Cog, New York Andy Spade James Victore
Jim Biber Winterhouse, AIGA, New York New York Paula Scher Andy Spade Inc., New York Victore Design Works,
Pentagram, New York Falls Village, CT Jessica Helfand Ross MacDonald Pentagram, New York Ethan Trask Brooklyn

Michael Bierut Dorothy Dunn Winterhouse, Brightwork Press, J.J. Sedelmaier Helicopter, New York Khoi Vinh
Pentagram, New York The Glass House, CT Falls Village, CT Newtown, CT J.J. Sedelmair Productions, The New York Times,
Arem Duplessis Drew Hodges Bernard Maisner White Plains, NY New York
Matteo Bologna
Mucca Design, New York The New York Times, SpotCo, New York letterer, New Jersey Eric Zimmerman
New York Jonathan Hoefler Richard McGuire founder, GameLab,
Paul Budnitz New York
KidRobot, New York Alan Dye Hoefler Frere-Jones, illustrator, New York
Apple, Cupertino New York Adam Michaels
Ralph Caplan
writer, New York Stewart Ewen Joe Holtzman Project Projects, New York
Hunter College, New York Nest, New York Debbie Millman
Michael Carabetta
Chronicle Books, San Stephen Farrell Alexander Isley Sterling Brands, New York
Francisco type designer, Chicago Isley Design, CT Susan Mitchell
John Carlin Pablo Ferro Hjalti Karlsson Farrar Straus Giroux,
Funny Garbage, New York Pablo Ferro Productions, Karlsson-Wilker, New York New York
Los Angeles
Tel: 212.592.2600

Contact Us
Matthew Carter Joyce Rutter Kaye Mitch Nash
Tobias Frere-Jones Print magazine, New York BlueQ, Pittsfield, MA
Carter + Cone, Boston
Hoefler & Frere-Jones, Fax: 212.592.2627
Lenny Kaye Christoph Niemann
Sue Coe
artist, New York
New York Patti Smith Group, illustrator, Berlin E-mail: mfadesign@sva.edu
Janet Froelich New York
Robbie Conal Real Simple, New York
Gary Panter www.sva.edu/grad/design
Art Attack, Venice, CA Jeffrey Keyton comics artist, Brooklyn
John Gall MTV, New York Phil Patton
department site: design.sva.edu
Tad Crawford Vintage Books, New York
Allworth Press, New York design critic, New Jersey We strongly encourage applicants to visit our department prior to submitting application materials.
Carin Goldberg Rick Poynor
designer, New York Come to our Departmental Information Session, or contact us directly to schedule a tour.
design critic, London
Departmental Information Session: October 1, 2011.
All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit

To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website or contact the Office of
Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.

Design 160 161 www.sva.edu/grad/design

 XX Contribute to the public discourse on design
XX Take a part in shaping this rapidly growing discipline
XX Study with and among the best critics and thinkers in the field
XX Join one of the only programs of its kind in the U.S.

The mfa in Design Criticism at the School of Visual Arts is an innovative two-year program that
trains students to research, analyze, and evaluate design and its social and environmental implications.
Students are taught by some of the best design writers and thinkers of our time, including “Studio 360”
host and author Kurt Andersen, moma’s design curator Paola Antonelli, former editor of I.D. maga-
zine Ralph Caplan, Metropolis contributing editor Karrie Jacobs and author and essayist Akiko Busch.
sva’s mfa in Design Criticism—the only one of its kind in the United States—seeks to cultivate
design criticism as a discipline and contribute to public discourse with new writing and thinking that
is imaginative, historically informed and socially accountable. Drawing on the broadest possible defini-
tion of design, the curriculum includes graphic, Web and product design, as well as fashion, urban
planning and networked systems.
It also considers the multiple implications of design beyond the object. In addition to object analysis,
therefore, the program offers methods for the study of designed environments and systems, and the
larger social and political contexts in which they operate.
The course of study couples a theoretical framework with significant opportunities for practical
experience. In addition to their written assignments, students produce tangible documents of their critical
practice, such as podcasts, books, blogs, documentaries, course syllabi, conferences and exhibitions.
In providing the tools for researching, analyzing, evaluating and chronicling all aspects of design, the
program will prepare students for careers as design critics, journalists, editors, curators, educators
and design managers.
The Design Criticism department (or D-Crit for short) has its own newly designed floor in an sva
building in Manhattan’s Flatiron District, well within walking distance of some of the world’s best
design collections, libraries and archives, and also very close to many of New York’s design studios and
publishing houses. Classes meet in the department; weekly field trips and site visits take place at various
locations. Students are designated their own desk space within an open plan workspace whose layout
is modeled after a magazine’s editorial office.
We welcome students from a range of academic backgrounds whose diverse perspectives and
experiences enrich the debate. The program is equally well suited to designers, who want to hone

MFA
their skills in writing and critical thinking, as it is to journalists and writers, who wish to enrich
their understanding of design.
Design criticism is a rapidly growing academic discipline and field of practice. In addition to its

Design Criticism
increasing territory in the national press, new journals, awards programs and conferences have been
initiated, dedicated to fostering the genre. It’s an exciting time to be involved in design criticism;
students in this program are instrumental in shaping its formats, directing its priorities, and negotiating
the ways it is encountered by its many publics.

www.sva.edu/grad/designcriticism Alice Twemlow, chair

department site: dcrit.sva.edu

163
 Design Is
Everywhere:
On Location
Students in the D-Crit program learn different
in Times Square
Student Profiles:
methods for evaluating design in the capital Frederico Duarte & Angela Riechers
of American architecture, media and design:
New York City.
The TKTS booth in Times Square has sold more than 47 million
discount theatre tickets since it was first built in 1973. In the late
1990s a competition was held to redesign the booth. The response
was unprecedented in the history of design competitions in New
York City, with 683 entries from 31 countries. The winning entry
came from Australian architects John Choi and Tail Ropiha. The
architecture firm Perkins Eastman ultimately built it.
At SVA, we’re very lucky to have New York City as our campus. Recently we eavesdropped on
two mfa Design Criticism students who were discussing an assignment set by Justin Davidson,
architecture and classical music critic at New York magazine, which took them to Times Square.
Part public space and part architectural statement, the shimmering roof of the recently built tkts
booth in Times Square sits vulnerable to the same fierce criticism as all projects in New York. Two stu-
dents enrolled in the Design Criticism program, Frederico Duarte and Angela Riechers, toured the
area for one of their classes, exploring the continual lightning rod of debate that is the Great White Way.

AR: In class we talked about defining the booth and figuring out what it does for the streetscape.
My observation was that it’s really a stage in itself, where you can observe Times Square as if you were
at the theater or seen as being on stage yourself. I’m one of the people that really liked the booth,
but personally I don’t like Times Square. I don’t like crowds and push, and Times Square is the center
of crowds and push.

FD: I liked it, too. It’s a monumental staircase to nowhere. Climbing it is one of the great things about
it. When you get to the top you see the Coca-Cola sign—it’s your reward for reaching the top. While
it doesn’t go anywhere, it’s a vantage point. In a way, it’s part of the stage and you become part of that.
It’s also a kind of bleacher, so you’re looking out at Time Square, seeing the whole landscape.

AR: I’d never seen Times Square quite like that; here you are in the middle of traffic and you can see
the traffic flowing down past you, the river of yellow taxis and all those people. It’s really beautiful.
Normally you can’t really see it, because you’re always being moved along, you’re part of a human river.

FD: Also fascinating is the fact that the building is inconveniently jammed behind the statue of Father
Duffy, a landmark that couldn’t be moved to accommodate the plan. In a way, this is a symptom of
New York urban design. There’s always someone who wants to keep the status quo. It’s sort of ironic—
here’s this great new building in the City, but it’s a victim of politics.
That reminds me—during election night one of the big gathering places in the City was Times
Square, and someone in class said that they couldn’t remember when that space was last used as it
should be, as a place where people congregate naturally and uncontrolled. However, the stairs were
roped off for corporate use. And it makes you question whether or not this is a truly public space.
In a way, it’s true to Times Square in that it’s yet another urban oddity.

AR: Like it or not, Times Square is a reflection of our culture and what’s important to us, how we get
information, and how corporations want us to get that information. And to try and make it anything
more than that…. I can’t imagine what that would look like. We’ll just have to let it stand there, almost
like a mirror, and ask, “Do you like what you see?”

From atop the staircase that houses the

TKTS booth, MFA Design Criticism students
Frederico Duarte and Angela Riechers cast
a critical eye over New York City’s bustling—
and highly designed—epicenter.

Design Criticism
MFA Design Criticism students investigate the
structures and infrastructures that define the city
on field trips to sites both time-honored (such as
the Statue of Liberty or Queens Botanical
Gardens) and brand-new, like the Times Square
TKTS booth, One Bryant Park or the High Line.
 The MFA Design Criticism Department has its own floor in a
chair interview beautiful building in the Flatiron district of New York City. Students work

Alice Twemlow
in a custom-designed studio environment with personal workstations and
Internet networking, accessible 24 hours per day, seven days per week.
The D-Crit floor is the center for studying and socializing, but regular field
“The discipline of design criticism is at a very exciting stage,” Alice Twemlow observes, “because there trips ensure that the classroom extends far beyond the D-Crit depart-
are a lot of commentators out there, but the field has yet to be molded into a substantial academic ment’s walls. The following represents a day in the life of a D-Crit student.
discipline. At first I thought it was a challenge to start a humanities-based program in the middle of an
art college, but then I realized it was actually a fantastic advantage and I decided to make it practical.
Instead of just discussing the theory of design criticism, we provide the opportunity for students to apply
“The list of faculty is pretty
the critical tools they learn. What we do is really a form of social criticism that uses design as a way
incredible. If you know
in. We’re looking at designed objects, but also at infrastructures, and that’s new territory. There are
the field, you’ll know that
elements of visual culture criticism, art criticism and architecture criticism in other programs out there,
we have the crème de

On any
but no one else has framed the discipline of design criticism as emphatically as we have.”
la crème. And students
“SVA has a tradition of holding classes toward the end of the day in order to capitalize on teachers
will build lasting contacts
who are also working professionals,” Twemlow explains, “and our program is no exception. This means
from that list.”

given day...
we can get people at the top of their game. There’s no fear of ever getting a jaded old professor! I wanted
to do a class on design curation, for example, so we went straight to MoMA and straight to their senior
curator of design…and she’s doing it! The same happened with our radio workshop class; we asked Kurt
Andersen from pri’s “Studio 360.” The list of faculty is pretty incredible. If you know the field, you’ll
know that we have the crème de la crème. And students will build lasting contacts from that list.”
“Our students come from a wide range of backgrounds,” Twemlow says. “Most have worked for a
bit though, and are here to hone their practice and to learn new tools. Right now we have someone who 9am  First-year students meet at Glenn Horowitz’s antiquarian book- 2pm  Thesis Consultation: Second-year students meet with Andrea
was an editor at Chronicle Books, others from curatorial and editorial backgrounds…. Students have store to pore over his private collection of first editions, manuscripts and Codrington to review their thesis topics and discuss research strategies.
come from industrial design and graphic design undergraduate programs, as well as English literature letters. They are led by their early-rising instructor Steven Heller, who
and philosophy. In fact, we’d like to expand that base further. I can see students of anthropology, teaches a class on how to research and construct narratives about objects 4pm  Radio and Podcast Pitch Meeting: First-year students pitch radio

psychology, history or American studies being interested in what we do. Our students feel very invested
in the program and they give us a lot of valuable feedback. And they’re interested in developing extra
things, too, like a D-Crit Road Trip for the summer months. They’re really fun!”
“The D-Crit diaspora has begun,” Twemlow concludes. “Many alums are writing and editing at
titles such as Etsy, Design Observer, Architizer, Architect’s Newspaper, Metropolis, Icon and for firms
such as Pentagram, OMA in Rotterdam, International Flavors and Fragrances and Sylvia Harris
Design; some have given lectures for AIGA NY, Royal College of Art in London, and run a workshop
at the Canadian Center for Architecture; others are teaching at universities throughout the country,
and consulting for the Museum of Art and Design. What unites them is a desire to communicate what’s
interesting, important or problematic about design and architecture to as broad an audience as possible.”
without resorting to Google. Second-year students take a field trip to
Philip Johnson’s Glass House in New Canaan, CT, for a private two-hour
tour of the buildings and grounds conducted by Dorothy Dunn, director
of Visitor Experience and Fellowships.
10am  First-year students meet at the Museum of Modern Art for
their Exhibition & Collection Curation class, led by Department of
Architecture and Design curator Paola Antonelli.
noon  Students break for an informal lunch in the D-Crit kitchen
area, where they are joined by Dutch designer and writer Daniel van
der Velden.
story proposals to Kurt Andersen, D-Crit teacher and host of PRI’s
“Studio 360.” Then they work with Leital Molad and David Krasnow,
“Studio 360’s” senior producer and senior editor, to edit and refine their
ongoing stories.
6pm  Guest Lecture: Gary Hustwit, independent filmmaker and director
of Helvetica and Objectified talks to the students, faculty and visitors
about the power and shortcomings of documentary filmmaking as a criti-
cal tool. First year students are responsible for introducing Hustwit and
launching the Q+A. A drinks reception with snacks follows the talk, allow-
ing students the opportunity for informal discussion with the speaker and
other influential lecture attendees.

1pm  In his class, The Critical Imperative, D-Crit faculty member Ralph
Caplan hosts a discussion with Rob Forbes, founder of Design Within
Reach, on the evolution of his latest venture, Public Bikes.
7pm  Second-year students join Elaine Louie and architect David
Rockwell at Maialino as part of their Restaurant Design Review Workshop.
8pm  Students head downtown to the Lower East Side’s Hotel on
Rivington for a Surface magazine party celebrating the launch of a new
issue, in which D-Crit students are featured.

Design Criticism 172 173 www.sva.edu/grad/designcriticism

The Program  The focus of the first year is threefold—on design itself, on criticism as a literary genre
and on the range of tools with which to practice design criticism. The second year offers the opportunity for
specialization both in subject matter and format. Students participate in medium-specific workshops devoted
to topics such as producing a radio program or documentary, curating an exhibition or editing a magazine
or blog. They then research and develop a large-scale thesis project that must include a substantial written
component. ¶ The program culminates in an annual public conference, conceived and organized by graduat-
Diverse Directions
ing students, in which they present papers based on their theses, alongside professional design critics and The Design Criticism program provides a supportive learning
thinkers. ¶ Degree candidates must successfully complete 64 credits, including all required courses, with environment and directed instruction for inventive thinking about
design. Yet it is the students’ personal interests and obsessions
a cumulative grade point average of 3.0. A residency of two academic years is required. Students are required that guide the development of their individual voices, approaches
to complete and present their thesis research, which must be reviewed and approved by the thesis committee and ambitions. Armed with a toolbox of research methods
and writing expertise, graduates will be prepared for a panoply
and the department chair, in order for the student to be eligible for degree conferral. of careers in publishing, journalism, broadcast and online
media, curation, education, management and events planning.

Sample Program

first year
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

Architecture and Urban Design Criticism 4 The Blogging Workshop 4

The Critical Imperative 2 Criticism Lab 4
Design History 4 Exhibition and Collection Curation 2
Lecture Series I 2 Lecture Series II 2
Radio and Podcast Workshop 2 Reading Design 2
Urban Curation 2 Researching Design 2
Thesis Development 0

second year
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits

Cultural Theory Meets Design 4 The Design Book 2

Reporting Tools 4 Design Criticism Conference Lab 2
Thesis Consultation 4 Exhibitions and Collection Curation 2
Typologies4 Restaurant Design Review Workshop 2
Thesis I: Research and Writing 4
Thesis II: Applied Thesis Production 4

Design Criticism 174

D-Crit: The Hub
The Design Criticism department is available
24 hours a day, seven days a week, to the
program’s students, who have their own desks
within an open-plan studio-style workspace
as well as access to meeting rooms, a library
and a kitchen.
Course Descriptions
Architecture and Urban Design Criticism
This course will examine the works of 20th-century architecture and
design critics, focusing on individuals from the New York City area
and those published in the popular press. Authors to be considered
include Montgomery Schuyler and Lewis Mumford, as well as contem-
porary critics such as Robert Campbell, Christopher Hawthorne and
Blair Kamin. Several sessions will be devoted to critiques of various
forms of urban design: skyscrapers, parks, museums and design exhibi-
tions, signage and the brand­­ing of neighborhoods. Students will write
short presentations of the sites critiqued.
The Blogging Workshop
The Blogging Workshop is a hands-on introduction to the practice of
blogging professionally. Students will create a new topical blog for
the duration of the semester, structure it editorially and post to it a
minimum of three times a week. Students will also discuss and apply
lessons about writing for online audiences, marketing content, mon-
etization and data analysis. Regular weekly blog posts will be assessed
according to overall quality and traffic.
The Critical Imperative
As society has become more complex and our needs more diverse,
so have the performance criteria for design. The aim of this course
is to equip students to respond critically to design. This entails criti-
cal thinking, critical looking, critical listening and a critical attitude
toward any other components of design that affect judgment. In
researching guidelines for exercising critical capacities, students will
consider such areas as taste, subjectivity, objectivity and “construc-
tive” versus “destructive” criticism. We will study and discuss the
writings of William Morris and John Ruskin, as well as modern crit-
ics such as Gilbert Seldes, Reyner Banham and Edward Kaufmann,
Jr. Contemporary critics that include Ada Louise Huxtable, Martin
Filler and Jessica Helfand will also be read. In addition, this course
will examine criticism in other fields such as literature, theater, art and
music, and the extension of critical analysis to fashion, food, dance,
sports and film, among other aspects of popular culture.
Criticism Lab
Criticism Lab offers students a forum in which to hone the writer’s
voice while being exposed to some of the forms and subject areas typi-
cal of contemporary design criticism. Weekly assignments, ranging
from 250-word statements on new buildings to a 2,500-word essay on
a signage campaign, will be reviewed in groups and individually with
the instructor. The aim is to develop methods of argumentation, com-
fort with the editorial process and familiarity with the range of the art
and the possibilities of the language. The goal is to learn how to wield
language effectively in a variety of circumstances. Special attention will
be paid to eradicating cliché.
Design Criticism
Cultural Theory Meets Design
This course will introduce a range of theoretical models that are use-
ful for framing discussions of design. The aim is to identify when a
theoretical model is in use in a text or another form of criticism and
to evaluate its appropriateness, coherence and value. Theories to be
discussed include: postmodernism, feminism and gender studies, socio-
logical studies of consumption and taste, Marxism, and semiotics and
linguistics.
The Design Book
This course examines book publishing in the design world and commonly
associated quandaries: What role do books serve in the realm of critical
design discourse and how does that role differ from those of magazines,
journals and even blogs? For whom are design books published and
why? Are books simply the longest form of design criticism or is there
something about their content that makes them unique? Assignments will
follow the stages of book production, from crafting proposals, research-
ing a target audience and assessing a project’s commercial viability,
to drafting sample materials. Students will critique each other’s work,
debate strategies and complete research to support their findings.
Design Criticism Conference Lab
In a public conference devoted to design criticism, second-year students
will present papers based on their theses. We will investigate the
conference as a critical medium and analyze some historical examples.
Students will be involved in all aspects of conference planning and,
as a group, will determine the theme of the conference and its keynote
speakers.
Design History
Beginning with an overview of developments arising from the Industrial
Revolution, this survey course will equip students with a solid back-
ground in the history of design. One goal will be to establish a common
language and enable students to identify major touchstones and reliable
reference points as they formulate an accurate chronology of events.
Emphasis will be placed on the changing interpretations of what consti-
tutes modernism during the period from 1918 to 1968. A series of
guest lecturers will address various aspects of contemporary design.
178
Exhibition and Collection Curation
Design curation is a vital and growing area of critical design discourse.
This course provides an overview of how design has been collected and
presented in museum and exhibition contexts to date, and introduces
some of the alternative approaches currently being practiced. Focusing
on the design collections and exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art
in New York, students will analyze various curatorial strategies, from
the research phase to the structuring of content through narrative, chro-
nology or themes, and the final set-up in the gallery space.
Lecture Series I & II
Visiting scholars, journalists and critics will discuss topics of impor-
tance, while introducing students to research methods. Some lecturers
will discuss practical aspects of their critical endeavors and others will
focus on intellectual issues. The aim is to bring students in contact
with a wide variety of professional perspectives and to introduce them
to experts in the field.
Radio and Podcast Workshop
Can the subtleties of design be successfully communicated through
a non-visual medium? An increasing number of producers, writers
and hosts who create radio programs addressing design believe it can.
This workshop introduces students to the variety of programs cur-
rently on air, ranging from focused documentaries and magazine-style
formats to host and interviewing situations. Students will produce their
own programs in the form of podcasts.
Reading Design
Students will investigate popular national media, with a focus on
how design contributes to so many of the events that shape our times.
Newspapers have home and style sections, but the noteworthy design
stories also tend to be found elsewhere: in politics, finance and even
sports articles. Readings extend to essays, fiction, nonfiction and
poetry—narratives in which design also plays a significant part—rein-
forcing a comprehensive and critical understanding about design that
goes far beyond the styling of consumer products.
Reporting Tools
This course will begin with the art of the interview, sampling a range
of effective interviews in a variety of forms and formats: question and
answer, written narrative profiles based on interviews and, most impor-
tantly, on-camera interviews. Through an examination of both written
and visual sources, this course will analyze the techniques that evoke
the answers an interviewer is seeking, as well as those he or she never
expected to hear. The second half of the course will address investiga-
tive reporting, and explore the tools and inspiration for probing a jour-
nalistic subject. Students will read writings on design and social change.
The authors of exemplary works will visit the class to discuss their
strategies and experiences in getting the story. Other sessions will be
devoted to research sources and methods, both traditional and new.
179
Researching Design
The ability to conduct extensive and finely honed research is one of the
design critic’s richest resources. This course explores the interrelated
processes of uncovering, collecting and categorizing data. Working
directly with primary sources such as correspondence, institutional doc-
uments and promotional materials, students will test a range of meth-
odologies derived from disciplines such as anthropology, sociology and
material culture. Visits to a selection of New York’s most significant
and intriguing public and private archives, collections and libraries, as
well as online and database research, are included.
Restaurant Design Review
Students will take field trips to different Manhattan restaurants and
experience each venue. This will be followed by interviews with each
restaurant’s interior designers, owners and guests. Students will then
write reviews that discuss the interplay between food quality, atmo-
sphere, etiquette and service.
Thesis Consultation
Working in close consultation with their advisors, students will
develop detailed research plans, identify useful archives and sources,
and analyze the results of their research for thesis preparation.
Thesis Development
Choosing a topic and format that is appropriate, innovative and rich
enough to withstand extended inquiry is essential to the success of a
thesis. This course will assist in the selection of a topic and a thesis
advisor, refinement of the presentation format and the thesis proposal
preparation.
Thesis I: Research and Writing/thesis consultation
Working in close consultation with their thesis advisors, students will
develop detailed research plans, identify useful archives and sources,
and analyze the results of their research. The next stage will be to
draft, revise and write the thesis, a process that will also be supervised
by faculty.
Thesis II: applied thesis production
Each student will complete and present a final thesis—whether it’s a
video documentary, a website, an exhibition or an audio tour. This
course will assist in choosing the appropriate tools and techniques for
the creation of a thesis project. Students may work in collaboration
with graduate students from other departments for the creation of
their chosen product. The thesis must be reviewed and approved by
the thesis committee and the department chair.
www.sva.edu/grad/designcriticism

Typologies
Philosophers throughout the ages have understood that insights often
derive from analyzing the similarities and differences in categories of
objects. Typologies exist in artworks of Andy Warhol, the photographs
of Bernd and Hilla Becher and the informational graphics of Edward
Tufte—all as a means toward a deeper comprehension. In this course,
students will identify an object, a building or a graphic element, and
assemble and evaluate its variants. By looking at types of design (cof-
fee cup lids, magnetic car ribbons, military unit patches, manhole cov-
ers), students will learn to identify what does and does not change in a
form in order to come closer to its essence.
Urban Curation
In this course, students will act as urban curators, and will consult
writings by innovative urban theorists (such as Henry Adams, John
Ruskin, John Berger, Jane Jacobs, Ian Frazier and Colson Whitehead),
as well as articles from contemporary magazines and websites.
However, the heart of the course will be weekly assignments based
on scavenger hunts: students will be asked to find the most significant
building on a randomly chosen New York City street and make a case
for their selection; find an object on the street that indicates this is
the 21st century and decide what that object says about this moment
in time; go to Times Square and find the best piece of design and the
worst piece of design; visit Crate & Barrel, Muji, and Pearl River,
and decide which one best represents the notion of good design and
why. Students will develop an eye for their surroundings and gain
confidence in their own abilities to identify meaning—perhaps even
beauty—in a cluttered, chaotic environment.
Design Criticism
Faculty
Alice Twemlow, chair
Design writer. Formerly, program director, AIGA
EDUCATION: BA, Bristol University; MA, Royal College of Art/Victoria
& Albert Museum
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: StyleCity New York; What is Graphic
Design For? Essays in: Looking Closer 5: Critical Writings on
Graphic Design; Barnbrook Bible; ELSE/WHERE: MAPPING;
Why Not Associates 2
Publications Contributed to include: Arena; Baseline;
Architect’s Newspaper; Communication Arts; Design Issues; Design
Observer; Eye; Frieze; Grafik; Graphis; I.D.; Step; New York maga-
zine; Paper; Print; Typographic; Varoom; Voice: AIGA Journal of
Design
CONFERENCES DIRECTED INCLUDE: “Being Here: Craft and Locality
in Graphic Design,” “Voice: AIGA National Design Conference
2002.” Co-director, “Looking Closer: AIGA Conference on Design
History and Criticism”
Steven Heller, program co-founder
Co-chair, MFA Design Department, School of Visual Arts; special
assistant to the president, School of Visual Arts; editor, Voice: AIGA
Online Journal of Graphic Design; contributing editor: Print, Eye,
Baseline, I.D.; contributing writer: Metropolis, Grafik, Step; Visuals;
columnist, The New York Times Book Review. Formerly, art director,
The New York Times Book Review
Education: New York University, School of Visual Arts
Books authored, co-authored or edited: More than 100
books on graphic design, illustration and political art, including Paul
Rand; Merz to Émigre and Beyond: Avant-Garde Magazine Design
of the Twentieth Century; Design Literacy: Understanding Graphic
Design, Second Edition; Handwritten: Expressive Lettering in the
Digital Age; The Education of a Typographer; Graphic Design
History; Graphic Style: From Victorian to Postmodern; Typology:
Type Design from Victorian to Postmodern; The Education of a
Graphic Designer; Italian Art Deco: Graphic Design Between the
Wars; Faces on the Edge: Type in the Digital Age; French Modern:
Art Deco Graphic Design; Euro Deco: Graphic Design Between the
Wars; Cuba Style; The Savage Mirror: The Art of Contemporary
Caricature; Texts on Type; Graphic Humor: The Art of Graphic
Wit; Citizen Designer; Seymour Chwast: The Left-Handed
Designer; Innovators of American Illustration; Art Against War;
The Push Pin Graphic: Twenty Five Years of Design and Illustra­tion;
Stylepedia: A Guide to Graphic Design Mannerisms, Quirks, and
Conceits; The Anatomy of Design: Uncovering the Influences and
Inspirations in Modern Graphic Design
Curatorial works include: “Simplicissimus, Germany’s Most
Influential Satire Magazine,” Goethe House; “Political Art, Ten Years
of Graphic Commentary,” AIGA; “Typographic Treasures, The Work
of W.A. Dwiggins,” ITC Center
Introductions and forewords: Tibor Kalman; Rebelling
Against Rockwell (Pictures for the American People); Barbara
Kruger: Graphic Designer; Alex Steinweis; American Advertising
of the 30s, 60s, 70s, 80s
180
Awards and honors include: Special Educators Award, Art
Directors Club; AIGA Medal for Lifetime Achievement; National
Endowment for the Arts; Hershel Levit Award, Pratt Institute;
Outstanding Client Award, Graphic Artists Guild; Masters Series
Award, School of Visual Arts
website: www.hellerbooks.com
Kurt Andersen
Co-creator, host, “Studio 360,” WNYC and PRI; novelist; columnist,
New York magazine. Formerly, architecture/design critic, cultural
columnist, Time; co-founder, editor in chief, Spy; editor in chief,
New York magazine; staff writer, columnist, The New Yorker;
co-founder, Inside.com; creative consultant, Universal Television;
editorial director, Colors
Education: BA, Harvard University
Author: Heyday, The Real Thing, Turn of the Century;
co-author, Loose Lips; Spy: The Funny Years; Tools of Power
Publications Contributed to include: The Enlightened
Bracketologist; Laughing Matters; Minus Equals Plus; Mirth of
a Nation; Pleasure; Profile; Public Relations and the Press: The
Troubled Embrace; Spectacle; Tibor Kalman: Perverse Optimist;
101 Damnations; Architectural Record; Atlantic Monthly;
Metropolis; The New York Times; Rolling Stone; Vanity Fair
EXHIBITIONS CURATED INCLUDE: “Faster, Newer, Cheaper, More:
Revolutions of 1848,” Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
AWARDS AND HONORS INCLUDE: George Foster Peabody Award;
The New York Times Book Review Notable Books of the Year;
“100 People Who Changed New York,” New York magazine;
Associated Press; Newspaper Guild; honorary doctorate, Rhode Island
School of Design; Visionary in Residence, Art Center in Pasedena
Paola Antonelli
Senior curator, Department of Architecture and Design, Museum of
Modern Art. Formerly, editor, Abitare; contributing editor, Domus
Education: Laurea di Dottore, Polytechnico Di Milano
EXHIBITIONS CURATED INCLUDE: “Design and the Elastic Mind;”
“Achille Castiglioni: Design!;” “Humble Masterpieces;” “Mutant
Materials in Contemporary Design;” “Thresholds: Contemporary
Design from the Netherlands;” “SAFE: Design Takes On Risk;”
“Projects 66: Campana/Ingo Maurer;” “Workspheres;” Museum of
Modern Art
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: Objects of Design from the Museum of
Modern Art; SAFE: Design Takes On Risk; Humble Masterpieces:
Everyday Marvels of Design; Design and the Elastic Mind
Publications Contributed to include: Harper’s Bazaar,
Harvard Design, I.D., Metropolis, Nest, Paper , Seed
Awards And Honors include: Design Mind Award, Cooper-
Hewitt, National Design Museum; senior fellow, Royal College of
Art, London; honorary doctorate, Kingston University
181
Michael Bierut
Partner, Pentagram, co-founder, Design Observer
EDUCATION: BS, summa cum laude, University of Cincinnati
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: Seventy-nine Short Essays on Design;
co-editor, Looking Closer: Critical Writings on Graphic Design,
vols. 1 through 5
Publications Contributed to include: Design Observer, I.D.
Awards and honors include: Art Directors Club Hall of Fame;
Medal of Excellence, AIGA; president emeritus, AIGA NY; Design
Mind Award, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum; member,
Alliance Graphique Internationale
Akiko Busch
Author, design critic. Formerly, contributing editor, Metropolis
EDUCATION: BA, Bennington College
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: Nine Ways to Cross a River:
Midstream Reflections on Swimming and Getting There from Here;
Geography of Home: Writings on Where We Live; The Uncommon
Life of Common Objects: Essays on Design and the Everyday
Publications Contributed to include: The New York Times,
Metropolitan Home, Architectural Record, Home, Elle, House
& Garden, London Financial Times, Traditional Home, Travel +
Leisure, Wallpaper
Ralph Caplan
Contributing editor, Print. Formerly, editor in chief, I.D.
EDUCATION: BA, Earlham College; MA, Indiana University
Author: By Design: Why There Are No Locks on the Bathroom
Doors in the Hotel Louis XIV and Other Object Lessons; Cracking
the Whip: Essays On Design And Its Side Effects; The Design of
Herman Miller; Say Yes!
BOOKs EDITED INCLUDE: Design in America, Making More Than
Sense
Publications Contributed to include: Graphis, House &
Garden, Interior Design, Interiors, The Nation, The New Yorker,
Design Quarterly, The New York Times Magazine
AWARDS AND HONORS INCLUDE: Director emeritus, IDCA; writer-
in-residence, Haystack Mountain School of Arts and Crafts; Bronze
Apple Award and honorary member, IDSA
Justin Davidson
Architecture and classical music critic, New York magazine;
Contributor, “Soundcheck,” WNYC. Formerly, columnist, Newsday.
Education: AB, Harvard University; MA, Columbia University;
DMA, Columbia University
Publications contributed to include: New York magazine,
Newsday, E-music, The New Yorker, Salon, Slate, Los Angeles
Times, Opera News, Icon, Travel + Leisure
Awards and honors include: Pulitzer Prize, Criticism; AASFE
Award for A&E Feature; ASCAP Concert Music Award; Deadline
Club Award, Best Feature; ASCAP-Deems Taylor Award for writing
on music; ASNE Distinguished Writing Award; Long Island Press Club
Awards; Newsday Publisher’s Award
www.sva.edu/grad/designcriticism

Russell Flinchum
Archivist, Century Association Archives Foundation, New York
Education: BA, MA, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill;
PhD, CUNY Graduate Center
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: Henry Dreyfuss, Industrial Designer:
The Man in the Brown Suit, American Design
Publications Contributed to include: 2wice, Ergonomics
in Design, I.D., things, American Ceramics, American Craft,
Modern Magazine
Curatorial Works include: “Henry Dreyfuss, Direct­ing Design:
The Industrial Designer and His Work, 1929–1972,” Cooper-Hewitt,
National Design Museum; “Buckminster Fuller/Shoji Sado,” Milton
Academy, Green Library, Stanford University
AWARDS AND HONORS INCLUDE: AIA International Architecture
Book Award for Monographs; Charles F. Montgomery Award,
Decorative Arts Society; Henry Allen Moe Award, New York State
Historical Associa­tion; Samuel H. Kress Foundation; Peter Kreuger/
Christie’s Fellowship, Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum
Janet Froelich
Design director, Real Simple. Formerly; creative director, The New
York Times Magazine and T: The New York Times Style Magazine;
board of directors, Society of Publication Designers; president, New
York Chapter, AIGA
Education: BFA, Cooper Union; MFA, Yale University
Publications Contributed to include: Directed design and
launch of Play: The New York Times Sports Magazine; T: The New
York Times Style Magazine; Key: The New York Times Real Estate
Magazine. Work has appeared in: Graphis, Print, American Photo,
American Illustration
AWARDS AND HONORS INCLUDE: Art Directors Club Hall of Fame,
Society of Publication Designers, Society of Newspaper Designers
Adam Harrison Levy
Documentary producer/director; interviewer; contributing writer,
Design Observer (www.designobserver.com)
Projects include: Hiroshima; The Genius of Photography;
Auschwitz; America: The Story of Us; D-Day to Berlin; 50 Films to
See Before You Die; Hollywood Greats. Producer, Selling the Sixties:
How Madison Avenue Dreamed a Decade; David Ogilvy: Original
Mad Man; Imagine: Chuck Close
Publications include: The Guardian; Daily Telegraph; The
Independent; Art in America; Blueprint; Interview; Projections: A
Forum for Filmmakers; Photo Technique; co-author, Decisive Weapons
Awards and honors include: Olin Memorial Fellowship,
Wesleyan University; Basil Taylor Memorial Prize, Royal College of
Art; Vilcek Foundation Fellowship
Design Criticism
Karrie Jacobs
Columnist, contributing editor, Metropolis; contributing editor,
Travel + Leisure. Formerly, editor in chief, Dwell; executive editor,
Colors; contributing editor, New York magazine; “Public Eye”
columnist, The New York Times
Education: BA, Evergreen State College
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: The Perfect $100,000 House: A Trip
Across America and Back in Pursuit of a Place to Call Home; co-
author, Angry Graphics: Protest Posters of the Reagan/Bush Era
Publications Contributed to include: Adweek, Fortune,
George, I.D., Rolling Stone
website:  www.karriejacobs.com
Alexandra Lange
Contributing editor, New York magazine
EDUCATION: BA, Yale University; PhD, New York University
Publications Contributed to include: New York magazine,
Metropolis, Domino, Journal of Design History, Journal of the
Society of Architectural Historians, The New York Times
Julie Lasky
Editor, Change Observer. Formerly, editor in chief, I.D., editor in
chief, Interiors; managing editor, Print
EDUCATION: BA, Wesleyan University
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: Some People Can’t Surf: The Graphic
Design of Art Chantry. Essays in: Borrowed Design: Use and
Abuse of Historical Form; And Fork: 100 Designers, 10 Curators,
10 Good Designs
Publications Contributed to include: The New York Times,
Architecture, Dwell, Eye, Graphis, Metropolis, The National
Scholar, Grid, Print, Slate, Surface
Awards And Honors include: National Arts Journalism
Fellowship, Columbia University; National Arts Journalism Fellow,
Medill School of Journalism, Northwestern University; Richard J.
Margolis Award; chair, Design Jury, CLIO; Editors’ Jury, ICFF; juror,
National Magazine Awards; juror, Winterhouse Awards for Design
Writing & Criticism
Andrea Codrington Lippke
Visual culture critic; editor, Phaidon Press. Formerly, editorial director,
AIGA; columnist, The New York Times; senior editor, I.D.
EDUCATION: BA, William Smith College
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: Pause: 59 Minutes of Motion
Graphics; Kyle Cooper: Monographics
Publications Contributed to include: The New York Times,
Washington Post, National Post, Elle, Metropolis, I.D., Blueprint,
Eye, Cabinet
182
Elaine Louie
Assistant to the editor, House & Home section, The New York Times;
contributor, The New York Times House & Home, Dining, and
Sunday Styles sections
Education: AB, Brown University; EdM Tufts University
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: The Shun Lee Cookbook; House
Beautiful: Collections on Display; Living with Textiles; Living
in New England; The Art of the Party; Premier Beer: A Guide to
America’s Best Microbrews
Awards include: James Beard Journalism Award, Women’s Sports
Foundation Journalism Award
Matilda McQuaid
Deputy Curatorial Director, Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum.
Formerly, Associate Curator, Museum of Modern Art
Education:  MA, University of Virginia
Books authored include:  Envisioning Architecture: Drawings
from the Museum of Modern Art; Structure and Surface:
Contemporary Japanese Textiles; Architecture: A Place for Women;
and Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance, Shigeru Ban
Exhibitions curated Include:  “Josef + Anni Albers: Designs for
Living”, “Extreme Textiles: Designing for High Performance”, and
“National Design Triennial: Design Life Now”.   Education: BA, Kenyon College. MA, M.Phil, Bard Graduate
Awards and honors include: AIGA/USA award for Best
Architecture or Design Exhibition, Thomas Lee and Ann Tenenbaum
Lee award
Leital Molad
Senior producer, PRI’s “Studio 360”
EDUCATION: BA, University of Texas at Austin; MA, New York University
Phil Patton
Contributing editor, Departures, Esquire, I.D.; contributing writer,
Wired; creator, “Public Eye” column, The New York Times; automo-
tive design writer. Formerly, writer, “Design” and “Living Quarters”
columns, Esquire; reviewer, Artforum
Education: MA, Columbia University
BOOKS AUTHORED INCLUDE: Made in USA: The Secret Histories of the
Things That Made America; Bug: The Strange Muta­tions of the World’s
Most Famous Automobile; Michael Graves Designs: The Art of the
Everyday Object; Dreamland: Travels Inside the Secret World of Roswell
and Area 51; Open Road: Celebration of the American Highway; Razzle-
Dazzle: The Curious Marriage of Television and Professional Football
Publications Contributed to include: Art in America,
ARTnews, Connoisseur, Geo, Harper’s Bazaar, New Republic,
Manhattan Inc., Men’s Journal, The New York Times Book Review,
Omni, Rolling Stone, Seven Days, Condé Nast Traveler, Travel +
Leisure, New York magazine, Vogue, Smithsonian, Washington
Post, The Village Voice
Consulting curator: “Blobjects and Beyond: The New Fluidity In
Design,” San Jose Museum of Art; “Curves of Steel: Streamlining the
Automobile,” Phoenix Museum of Art; “Different Roads,” Museum
of Modern Art. Consultant, contributor, “On the Job: Design and the
American Office,” National Building Museum
website: www.philpatton.com
183
Professional Opportunities
The Design Criticism MFA faculty includes the greatest minds
in the field, while the department’s visiting lecture series brings
its students in contact with an even wider spectrum of experts,
including acclaimed designers, bloggers, filmmakers, design
historians, authors and editors. Located in New York City, a
global hub of design and media, students are encouraged to
forge relationships with these visitors and pursue internships at
institutions, studios or publications. Students have undertaken
summer internships and fellowships at Surface magazine,
LOT-EK, AIGA, Pentagram, Museum of the Moving Image,
Cooper-Hewitt National Design Museum, and the Office for
Metropolitan Architecture in Rotterdam, among others.
Upon graduation, D-Crit students have embarked on careers
in publishing, museums, education and business.
The program places significant emphasis on the practical
application of the many methodologies it teaches. Students write
compelling columns, curate exhibitions, develop book proposals,
record and produce radio stories, edit magazines and build
online forums, assembling a tangible portfolio of their critical
practice. The two-year program culminates in an annual public
conference, conceived and organized by graduating students,
in which they present papers based on their large-scale thesis
project to an extensive audience of professional design critics and
thinkers—their future peers, collaborators and employers.
Shax Riegler
Editor, writer. Formerly, features editor, House & Garden; articles
editor, Martha Stewart Living, associate editor, Travel & Liesure
Center for Studies in the Decorative Arts. PhD Candidate,
Bard Graduate Center
Publications contributed to include: The Magazine Antiques,
Budget Travel, Cookie, Country Living, Elle Decor, House&
Garden, House Beautiful, InSyle Home, Martha Stewart Living,
T: The New York Times Style Magazine
Elizabeth Spiers
Media consultant and writer. Editor-in-chief, New York Observer.
Founder/co-founder, Gawker.com, Dealbreaker.com, AbovetheLaw.
com, Fashionista.com, Flavorwire.com, Halogenlife.com, Unbeige.com.
Education: BA, Duke University
Books authored include: And They All Die in the End
Publications contributed to include: Fortune, Fast Company,
Slate, The New Republic Online, Salon, New York Magazine, The
New York Times, The New York Post
Karen Stein
Editor. Formerly, editorial director, Phaidon Press; managing senior
editor, Architectural Record
Education: B.Arch., Princeton University
AWARDS AND HONORS INCLUDE: Jesse H. Neal Award, American
Business Press; Corporate Achieve­ment Award for Editorial Excellence,
McGraw-Hill Companies; Loeb Fellow, Harvard University; International
Book Award, American Institute of Architects; co-chair, Architecture
and Design Circle, Museum of Modern Art; board member, Architectural
League of New York; jury, Pritzker Architecture Prize
www.sva.edu/grad/designcriticism
Guest Lecturers

Donald Albrecht Dwight Garner Natalie Jeremijenko Geoff Manaugh Jeff Roth Cynthia Smith Lettie Teague Kazys Varnelis
curator, Museum of the book critic, visual artist and engineer, author, BLDGBLOG researcher, curator of socially wine columnist and staff director, Network
City of New York The New York Times Casey Jones; director, Deborah Marton The New York Times responsible design, writer, The Wall Street Architecture Lab, Columbia
Milton Glaser Design Excellence and the executive director, Design Cooper-Hewitt, National Journal University Graduate School
Jake Barton Zoe Ryan
graphic designer Arts, U.S. General Services Trust for Public Spaces Design Museum Meredith Tenhoor of Architecture, Planning,
founder, Local Projects Neville Bryan Curator of
Administration author and Preservation
Eugenia Bell Jamie Gray Cathleen McGuigan Design, The Art Institute of Gabriel Snyder
owner, Matter Ben Katchor arts editor, Newsweek Chicago editor-in-chief, Gawker Edward Tenner Tucker Viemeister
design editor, Frieze
cartoonist author and historian of industrial designer and lab
Ayse Birsel Peter Hall Abbott Miller Katie Salen Lockhart Steele
Stuart Kestenbaum blog publisher and technology and culture chief, Rockwell Group
co-founder, Birsel + Seck design lecturer writer, curator, partner, writer; faculty, Design and
director, Haystack Mountain Pentagram Technology Program, president, Curbed Jane Thompson Pilar Viladas
Andrew Blauvelt Christopher Hawthorne School of Crafts Parsons School of Design design editor, T: The New
design director, architecture critic, Victoria Milne Valerie Steele editor, designer and urban
Emily King founder and editor-in-chief, planner York Times Style Magazine
Walker Art Center Los Angeles Times director of creative services, James Sanders
author, curator, NYC Department of Design architect, author, Fashion Theory: The Journal Masamichi Udagawa and Lawrence Weschler
Chandler Burr Virginia Heffernan design historian documentary filmmaker of Dress, Body & Culture author
and Construction Sigi Moeslinger
author; perfume critic, columnist and television
critic, The New York Times Linda King Bill Moggridge Mark Schapiro Gay Talese partners, Antenna Design David Womack
The New York Times
lecturer in Design History, director, Cooper-Hewitt, editorial director, Center for author, journalist Valerie Vago Laurer design, technology and
Allan Chochinov Jessica Helfand Theory and Visual Investigative Reporting culture writer
National Design Museum Sam Tanenhaus editor, Phaidon Books
co-founder and editor, Core graphic design writer; Communication, Institute
partner, Winterhouse Studio Stephanie Murg Felicity D. Scott editor, The New York Times Daniel van der Velden Susan Yelavich
77; chair, MFA Products of Art, Design and
co-editor, Mediabistro educator Book Review graphic designer and curator, critic, author
of Design, SVA Scott Henderson Technology, Dublin
UnBeige John Seabrook founding partner,
Elaine Lustig Cohen designer and founder, Pat Kirkham
designer, book dealer Scott Henderson Inc. Chee Pearlman author and staff writer, New Metahaven
design and cultural historian
design consultant, Yorker
Brian Collins Glenn Horowitz Melissa Lafsky conference program
chief creative officer, Collins antiquarian book dealer author, Opinionistas blog director
Glen Cummings Jamer Hunt, designer Mark Lamster Tel: 212.592.2228

Contact Us
Martin C. Pedersen
partner MTWTF Big+Tall Design; author and critic executive editor, Metropolis
Daniel D’Oca associate professor of
Cathy Leff
Fax: 212.243.1019
Transdisciplinary Design, Rick Poynor
Georgeen Theodore
Parsons School of Design director, Wolfsonian-FIU author, design critic E-mail: dcrit@sva.edu
and Tobias Armborst,
Vicki Gold Levi
founders, Interboro Gary Hustwit
photographic researcher
Alissa Quart www.sva.edu/grad/designcriticism
filmmaker, Helvetica, author
Stuart Ewen
Objectified Greg Lindsay department site: dcrit.sva.edu
design historian David Reinfurt
Joanne Dolan Ingersoll author; writer, Fast graphic designer, We strongly encourage applicants to visit our department prior to submitting application materials.
Peter Feld Company
curator, Museum of Art, writer, critic
Web editor, blogger Come to our Departmental Information Session, or contact us directly to schedule a tour.
Rhode Island School George Lois Michael Rock
Rob Forbes of Design art director, designer, author All times and locations will be announced online: www.sva.edu/grad/visit
graphic designer and
founder,
Julie V. Iovine Paul Lukas founding partner, 2×4, Inc. To register for a departmental information session, please visit our website
Design Within Reach or contact the Office of Graduate Admissions at: gradadmissions@sva.edu.
executive editor, sports uniform critic, ESPN Laurie Rosenwald
Jason Fulford, Architect’s Newspaper Ellen Lupton author; illustrator; founder,
photographer and
writer, curator, graphic Rosenworld Design Studio
co-founder, J&L Books
designer
Design Criticism 184 185 www.sva.edu/grad/designcriticism
 XX Social Innovation is one of the most dynamic, expansive forces in the world today –
this program is a learning path for designers who want to play a leading role in it
XX For those who wish to turn their good intentions into positive outcomes and use
design to drive innovation within diverse businesses, communities and cultures
XX Two-year program will prepare students to have successful, fulfilling careers through
immersion in the dynamics of social innovation, and mastery of its tools and skills

Social innovation is one of the most dynamic, expansive and exciting fields of endeavor today. It is the
application of new strategies and models to solving the challenges facing the world, and to strengthen-
ing society. In Blessed Unrest, Paul Hawkins describes its remarkable force in the world as “the largest
movement on earth, a movement that has no name, leader or location, and that has gone largely
ignored by politicians and the media. Like nature itself, it is organizing from the bottom up, in every
city, town and culture, and is emerging to be an extraordinary and creative expression of people’s
needs worldwide.”
sva’s two-year graduate program is the first mfa program to help prepare designers to participate
fully in social innovation in all its forms. It will provide students with the design tools, skills and expe-
rience they need to become creative leaders in social innovation—unlocking new worlds of potential
through mastery of design thinking, innovation, social technologies, data visualization and communi-
cation design—at the intersection of business, society and the natural world.
Under the guidance of leaders in social technology, conservation, healthcare, living systems, move-
ment and game design, cognitive science and emergent business models, students in the mfa Design for
Social Innovation Department will work with real clients throughout the program, gaining hands-on
experience with multinational corporations, non-profits and social entrepreneurs around the globe.
The mfa in Design for Social Innovation at the School of Visual Arts is geared toward designers
looking for meaningful and engaging work through which they can make a significant contribution to
society, as well as for graduates in other disciplines who want to learn to harness the power of design
to create positive change and transformation.
The MFA in Design for Social Innovation curriculum encompasses a broad range of issues includ-
ing conservation, health, food and agriculture, poverty, women’s rights, social justice, fair trade,
education and community revitalization.
Graduates of the program will be prepared to work in design firms and advertising agencies, in
corporations both large and small, in non-profit organizations or as social entrepreneurs. They will
be skilled in the design of concepts, communities, organizational models, communication, information
design, mapping and implementation.

Cheryl Heller, Chair

MFA Design for

Social Innovation
www.sva.edu/grad/dsi
187
department site: dsi.sva.edu
 Faculty members Lee-Sean
Huang and Alessandra Orofino
work at Purpose.com, where
they help to create 21st-century
movements for progressive
companies and organizations,
mobilizing large-scale, pur-
poseful actions. Technology is
unlocking transformational new
forms of participation and social
engagement, and Lee-Sean and
Alessandra are at the forefront.

Designing
Democracy
and Justice
Faculty Profiles:
Lee-Sean Huang and
Alessandra Orofino
My Rio: A Movement for and by the People of Rio de Janeiro
Lee-Sean Huang and Alessandra Orofino are the lead designer and strategist on a ground-
breaking program for the city of Rio.
Meu Rio (“My Rio” in Portuguese) is an independent popular movement for and by the
people of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, working to build a more democratic, just and livable city.
The campaigns and tools will help empower all Cariocas to work together to improve the city
they love as they prepare to host the World Cup and Olympics.
Working with local partners to create the identity for the movement, Lee-Sean and Ales-
sandra are developing interactive tools to promote civic participation. The images on this page
illustrate two of the concepts in development.
In the photo opposite, the “Rio Monocle” augmented reality mobile app helps contextual-
ize abstract data and indicators in physical urban space; a user points the app at a local public
school and is able to access data about the ranking, reviews and budget of the institution.
Below, Meu Mapa (“My Map”) is a social map that will help connect residents of Rio to
each other and to the hyperlocal issues that impact their neighborhoods.
 On a floor of its own in the heart of Chelsea, our leed-certified
chair interview space is designed to foster deep thinking, collaboration, connection to nature,

Cheryl Heller
technology and diverse perspectives. In lieu of traditional classrooms, we have
an auditorium where we hear from and are heard by the most fascinating and
innovative people in the world, a play room where action and creativity reign,
Cheryl Heller, board chair of the Poptech organization and chair of sva’s new mfa Design for Social a quiet room for study and contemplation, a computer lab wired with the latest
Innovation program, never intended to become an educator, but a far-sighted colleague encouraged her technology, sound booths for podcasting, and a kitchen to crowd around. Stu-
not to dismiss the possibility. “About five years ago,” she recalls, “Richard Wilde, chair of the Graphic dents have access 24/7, and our space is home to visiting innovators—from this
Design and Advertising undergraduate program at sva, who I met when we were both on the board planet and beyond—who come to stir our thinking and open our minds.
of the Art Directors Club, suggested that I should try teaching. I told him it was a ridiculous idea, that
“We are creating this
I didn’t have the time. But I ended up doing it anyway, and I’ve been teaching the undergraduate Design
program to prepare
for Good course ever since.” It was Wilde too who proposed that the time might be right for a graduate
the next design
program in the same field. “It took a lot of refining and thinking through,” says Heller, “partly because
leaders in social

On any
we are creating a new learning path for designers into this field rich with career potential, but there isn’t
innovation, and
a model of an existing program.”
improve the impact
The lack of examples on which to draw seems strange now, given the popularity of the program’s
of social innovation

given day...
focus. “It’s rare to talk to anyone in business or the non-profit world today who doesn’t want to get
through design.”
involved in social innovation,” Heller reports. “They all want to ‘change the world,’ though they have
many different ways of expressing that desire. What we need now, and what we are aiming for with this
program, is to help students learn to use the process and tools of design to turn those good intentions
into positive outcomes. An abundant and sustainable future won’t be realized through the work of any
single silo of experts, country or generation. It will come from the integration of wisdom from all of
them, from game-changing collaboration between them, and from the creativity and discipline that 8am  First year students meet bright and early in the morning for one 2:30pm  In the afternoon, Francis Cholle, founder of The Human
only social innovation design can bring.” To this end, the mfa is aimed primarily at working design- final rehearsal of their 12:00 presentation to Jeffrey Hollender, the Company, leads a session on play and innovation where students
ers, especially those with a broad outlook. “It’s for those who are interested in more than just self-ex- founder of Seventh Generation and CommonWise. The work includes collaborate on solving real world design problems with a corporate client
pression,” says Heller, “this is for people who are compelled to influence, transform and lead. But we’ll strategy, communication design, and a multimedia campaign for a new who has come to experience first hand the new thinking coming out

also consider designers with related interests—engineering, architecture, science—who understand the
design’s value as a tool within those fields.”
Heller is keen that the program should intersect with sva’s other design initiatives, and that
students should project their studies into the world at large. “Throughout the program, students will
be engaged by real clients to help them solve the challenges they face. They will be taught to use every
relevant design process and medium to succeed, from data visualization, movement design, entrepre-
neurship, living systems and game design. There are studio courses in which students will work with
a widely diverse group of real clients. And there’s a focus too on data visualization, movement design,
entrepreneurship, living systems and game design.” The first year will also expose students to the inner-
workings of corporations, foundations, and not-for-profit organizations, and confront them with issues
around ethics, leadership and collaboration. “You have to understand how to negotiate companies
and work with entrepreneurs. My desire is to give designers the potential to have a voice in that context
and to have what it takes to create profound change.”
green consumer brand that links cooperatively owned businesses of our program.
across the United States. Their work includes a new identity, website,
video campaign and product packaging. 4pm  Eric Hersman is in town from Nairobi to tell us about the latest ways
Ushihidi’s mobile technology and mapping are saving lives and creating
9am  The computer lab is full, with students finishing a social movement communities around the world.
project for the government of Brazil, mentored by instructor Lee-Sean
Huang, creative director at Purpose. Silence reigns in the quiet room as 7pm  That evening during the guest lecture series, Paul Polak tells what he’s
always, with study and serious thinking taking place. learned about “Design for the other 90%”, his vision for creating new markets
by putting design to work for the 90% of the world that needs it most.
10am  Second year students arrive later, having been there until 3:00 am
the night before, and put on a pot of fair trade coffee. They are working
independently or on a shared thesis with a classmate, mentored by a group
of advisors like Dr. Mary Pearl of the Garrison Institute, Lisa Nugent,
Global Creative Director at Johnson & Johnson, or Mark Belinsky,

“My ultimate goal,” she concludes, “is to immerse students in that world the day they start, so they founder of Digital Democracy.

will have accomplished real things by the time they graduate, so that they have both experience and key
relationships. Design isn’t separate from life—neither is social innovation.”

Design for Social Innovation 192 193 www.sva.edu/grad/dsi

Faculty: Despina
Papadopoulos
Despina is a designer of wearable
technologies and a design strategist:
Her clients include IBM, IBM.com and
Pfizer. She’s conducted workshops
for the U.N. on thinking about global
relations in the 21st century. And she
just got back from a full year in
Kabul, Afghanistan–implementing
product development cycles with
other local artists and designers,
helping create an ethical and viable
economic system for that country.
Social Innovation Design has application everywhere innovation is needed, and Faculty member Asi Burak
is co-president of Games for
includes the design of everything: from conversations, communication campaigns, Change, and a world-renowned

experiences, structures, technology platforms, systems, products, business models, game designer and technologist.
PeaceMaker is a news-based video
strategies, art and culture. It has the potential to be the single integrating force we need game that simulates the Israeli-
to take on the challenges we face—systemically and sustainably. Palestinian conflict. Asi’s games
have been sold in over 60 countries
and seen in over 200 media
appearances worldwide including
ABC World News, BBC World, Fox
News, Al-Jazeera, NPR, The New
York Times, Washington Post,
Time magazine, Business Week
and Wired, among many others.

Among many other accomplish-

ments, faculty member Danny
Alexander has been a product de-
signer at Method and collaborator
with IDEO on a project in Kumasi,
Ghana, to research sanitation tech-
nologies and revise the design of
toilets for poor urban households.

Faculty member Lisa Nugent is global creative director of Cross-Sector

Innovation & Design for Johnson & Johnson, part of the Global Strategic
Design Office (GSDO), The “Future Map” here is from a project funded by the
Robert Wood Johnson Foundation called Living Profiles. It is a novel Health
Media Platform for teens with chronic illness, designed for and with teens to
facilitate positive health behaviors. The map reflects a teen’s perceived goals,
obstacles, and life events including college, temptations and travel.

Design for Social Innovation 196 197 www.sva.edu/grad/dsi

The Program  Degree candidates must successfully complete 60 credits, including all required cours-
es, with a cumulative grade point average of 3.0. A residency of two academic years is required. ¶ In the first Course Descriptions
year, students receive a review of social innovation in all its forms, from corporation programs, non-profit
organizations and social entrepreneurship, including the disciplines involved, from mobile and digital tech-
nology to science, conservation, ethics and human sciences. Skills, such as communication design, mapping,
visualization and community design are interspersed with lectures and hands-on assignments for real client
organizations. ¶ Throughout the two year program, the Guest Lecture Series will be delivered live or via
video conferencing from around the world—curated to inspire new thinking and dialogue about the nature of
human societies. Speakers will include business leaders, environmentalists, indigenous people, field workers, Designing Change
This course extends the purview of design to the structure of society,
researchers, academics, shamans, poets, artists, musicians, policy makers, physicians, astronomers, physi- government, education, healthcare and business. Students will be
cists, dollar-a-day farmers, human rights activists and innovators in social issues. ¶ The second year’s goal is provided a thorough grounding in systems thinking and how to iden-
tify leverage points to create change. They will produce designs and
the creation of a thesis, for which, with the help of a team of mentors and advisors, students will identify and models for a new product, as well as its launch and distribution in a
research an issue of their choosing, then develop a thorough understanding of the context and challenges. developing country. Training will also be offered in Positive Deviance,
a change model used with great success in childcare, women’s issues,
They will write a proposal that captures their recommended solution, then design it fully in a form ready to be healthcare and corporate innovation.
implemented. Each thesis must be reviewed and approved by the thesis committee and the department chairs
Ethics and Social Innovation  design for social innovation can take, such as product design, commu-
for the student to be eligible for degree conferral. As designers, we have the ability to change people’s minds, inspire new
behaviors or support existing ones. This is a power we must learn to
use responsibly. Living and working in our society—and truly espous-
Sample Program ing sustainability—is a complex proposition, one that raises conflicts
between our own needs, our clients’ needs, and those of society and
the environment. As we make decisions on the fly—how do we know
first year what’s right, or understand the implications of our decisions? Truth
is sometimes hard to find, and the issues are often complicated. How
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
can designers become partners in helping their employers or clients
Employing Human and Social Technologies 3 Designing Change 3 reinforce an accurate public image that leads to greater success? In this
Global Guest Lecture Series I 3 Ethics and Social Innovation  3 course, students will develop a strong foundation for ethical decision
Introduction to Social Innovation 3 Global Guest Lecture Series II 3 making that will help them “think on their feet” to make ethics practi-
cal rather than intimidating. Models for success will be proposed and
Making Communication Work 3 Introduction to Thesis 3 debated and guests from the design world, nonprofits and industry will
Mapping and Visualization Design I 3 Mapping and Visualization Design II 3 discuss the rewards and pitfalls.
Global Guest Lecture Series
This weekly series—delivered live or via video conferencing from
second year around the world—will be curated to inspire new thinking and dia-
logue about the nature of human societies. Speakers will include
FALL Semester Credits SPRING Semester Credits
business leaders, environmentalists, indigenous people, field workers,
Global Guest Lecture Series III 3 Global Guest Lecture Series IV 3 researchers, academics, shamans, poets, artists, musicians, policy mak-
Leadership3 Mapping and Visualization Design IV 3 ers, physicians, astronomers, physicists, dollar-a-day farmers, human
Mapping and Visualization Design III 3 Social Innovation Impact 3 rights activists and innovators in social issues. Debate and discussion
will take place at the end of every lecture.
Thesis Consultation: Research, Writing, Presentation 6 Thesis: Implementation 6 To have a positive impact on society, designers must evolve beyond
employing Human and Social Technologies
All change, however great or small, begins with conversations among
people. This course will investigate methods for designing successful
Optional Summer Fieldwork human interaction both in person and virtually. Team-building exercises
Students who choose this optional summer program will gain firsthand and processes for developing living human systems will be interspersed
with techniques and practice in building communities with common
experience with the challenges and opportunities of social innovation concerns, using social networks and blogs, mobile technologies, video,
in practice. A selection of corporations and non-profit organizations Twitter and new techniques for fundraising. Each student will design
will be available and students will choose an issue of importance that and implement a communication concept, attract a group that supports
a cause of his or her choice, and hold an event or tweetup.
they would like to explore, from muddy-boots conservation to poverty
alleviation, healthcare or education. Introduction to Social Innovation
This course will provide an overview of the landscape, terminology
and various forms that social innovation can take, and the roles and
impact that design has in each of them. It includes a review of the
history of social innovation, the principles of sustainability (laws of
thermodynamics), systems thinking, living systems and the corporate
Design for Social Innovation 198 199
concept of the triple bottom line (people, planet and profits). Case
studies of social innovation in action, using examples from poverty
alleviation, human rights, environment, climate change, human/wild-
life conflict, aging, women’s rights, food and agriculture, racism, fair
trade, education, community development and health are presented by
leading innovators in these areas, along with demonstrations of how
design was used to solve challenges. Students will consider how each
social problem is connected to the others, what the unintended conse-
quences of change are, how design impacts outcome and what defines
success. The class will examine and evaluate the various forms that
nication design, business model, process, technology and distribution.
After choosing an area of personal interest, each student will develop
a concept and design a process and model for solving a social problem
using at least four types of design.
Introduction to Thesis
Students will be encouraged to experiment with a variety of topics,
researching each to the point of confirming their own interest and the
viability of the concept. Thesis can include any type of social inno-
vation, as long as it demonstrates a positive impact on its intended
audience. Criteria include demonstration of need on the part of the
audience, a clear articulation of the concept, and metrics for success. A
committee of thesis advisors will provide feedback and introductions
to external resources with appropriate expertise. By the end of the
semester, students will have a fully vetted topic for their thesis.
Leadership
A shift to sustainability cannot be affected without a change to the
dynamics of human interactions, values and communities. In this course,
students will explore how to create healthy communities while expand-
ing their capacity for collaboration and their ability to empathize. To
develop leadership skills, students will participate in workshops where
they will lead teams and learn how to build trust among colleagues.
Making Communication Work
design as a form of self-expression and learn to create design that
motivates their audience to action and change. This course combines
rigorous design studio practice with lectures and discussions on brain
science and linguistics, and uses multiple lenses to evaluate the nature
and purpose of communication. In the recent past, the understanding
of how our brains work has made enormous strides, and scientists are
reevaluating how we make choices and what motivates behavior. How
can designers incorporate this new understanding and use it to appeal
to what is noble in our fellow humans? Students will create communi-
cation campaigns and observe them being presented to “focus groups”
in order to experience the gap between intention and the messages
received. The practice of ethnographic research will be studied as well.
www.sva.edu/grad/dsi

Mapping and visualization Design  Cheryl Heller, chair
To visualize information is one way to understand it, and technology
now makes it possible to illustrate and demonstrate concepts of human
behavior and science that were previously too abstract to comprehend.
Students will use crowd sourcing and aggregated data from the blogo-
sphere, as well as other types of social and scientific data, to design
information that informs, provokes and educates. Techniques of visu-
alization design for a variety of applications, including law, science,
social networking and conservation will be examined.
Social Innovation Impact
Students will be briefed by a green start-up business, a corporation, a
social entrepreneur and a non-profit, and will become involved in design-
ing for a real client. The class will collaborate during reviews and discus-
sions, acting as a team to advise one another on individual projects of
choice. Work will include research, collaboration on the ground with the
organization each student has chosen, and the design of a program that
will further that organization’s cause. Formal presentations will be made
to the selected clients at the end of the semester.
Thesis Consultation: Research, Writing, Presentation
With the help of a team of mentors and advisors, participants will
conduct research to develop a thorough understanding of the context,
landscape and challenges of their topic. A compelling presentation
in book form will be created, which brings each vision’s potential to
life through words, images and graphics. Presentation to the thesis
advisory board for approval of the thesis topic is required.
Thesis: Implementation
With the help of thesis advisors, students will complete a thesis and
develop it into a form ready to be implemented. Presentation of the thesis
to the full board of advisors is required, and each thesis will be included
on a dedicated website with links to corporate and non-profit partners.
Design for Social Innovation
Faculty
Chair, MFA Design for Social Innovation; founder, Heller
Communication Design; vice chair, Board of PopTech
Education: BFA, magna cum laude, Ohio Wesleyan University;
School of the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston
Current and former clients include: L’Oreal, Reebok,
Kodak Professional, Bayer Corporation, BlackRock, Mars, Inc.,
Hearst Publishing, Marriott Corporation, Girl Scouts of America,
Hachette Filipacchi, Cemex, Marriott Corporation, Seagrams,
Ford Motor Company, Discovery Networks International, Seventh
Generation, MeadWestvaco, Sappi, Audubon New York, International
Development Enterprises, The Cloud Institute for Sustainability
Education, SafeHorizon, Wings World Quest, Cambridge Programme
for Sustainability Leadership, Joyful Heart Foundation
Professional experience: Chief executive officer, Heller Breene,
Boston; executive creative director, Wells, Rich, Greene; executive cre-
ative director, Siegel&Gale. Former board member: AIGA Executive
Committee, The Cloud Institute for Sustainability Education, Wings
WorldQuest
Publications include: The New York Times, Boston Globe,
Business Week, Graphis, Communication Arts, Design Management
Journal, Adobe Proxy Magazine, Step Inside Design, BSR Magazine,
CRO Magazine, Boston College Center for Corporate Citizenship
Awards and honors include: Matrix Award for Women in
Communication
website: Hellercd.com
Danny Alexander
Design specialist, Catapult Design
Education: BID, with honors, Pratt Institute
Professional experience includes: Consultant, IDEO;
co-founder, Black and Blue Design; industrial design manager,
Method Products; design researcher, Nest
Awards and honors include: I.D. Annual Design Review;
AmeriStar Packaging Award; fellow, The Feast Conference
Website: www.dannyalexander.me
Tracy Brandenburg
Researcher, writer, anthropologist, semiotician; founder, Innovation
Lab, Wells College
Publications include: In Search of the Invisible World: Uncovering
Mesoamerican Pictorial Writing in Contemporary Oaxaca; Journey to
the Centre of Visual Thought; Rap and the Semiotically Real
Awards and honors include: Semiotic Society of America
200
Asi Burak
Co-president, Games for Change
Education: BA, cum laude, Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design;
MS, Carnegie Mellon University
Professional experience includes: Co-founder, chief product
officer, Impact Games; vice president, marketing and product develop-
ment, Axis Mobile; senior art director, Saatchi & Saatchi, Israel;
art director, TBWA, Israel
Presentations for: TEDxGotham, Sundance Film Festival,
Skoll World Forum, Nonprofit Technology Network, World Affairs
Councils of America Conference, South by Southwest, Game
Developers Conference
Awards and honors include: News Game Award, John S. and
James L. Knight Foundation; Best Transformation Game, Games for
Change; Israel Advertising Association
Website: www.asiburak.com
Jane Englebardt
Principal, founder, Upshot Advisors, LLC; Leadership Council of the
Support Center for Nonprofit Management; Advisory Board of the
Bellevue Literary Press (2010 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction)
Education: BA, Connecticut College; MBA, New York University;
professional certificate, Harvard University
Professional experience: Formerly, president, chief executive
officer, Bideawee; executive director, Hasbro Children’s Foundation;
chairman, New York Regional Association of Grantmakers (now
“Philanthropy New York”)
DK Holland
Designer, creative director, teacher, strategist, writer
Education: Parsons School of Design and The New School
Professional experience: Formerly, partner, Pushpin Studio;
consultant, The Foundation Center, the Arts and Business Council
and Echoing Green; collaborator, Fred Friendly, Columbia School
of Journalism; consultant on ethics for IBM, Universal Studios,
Hallmark Cards.
Author: Branding for Nonprofits
Lee-Sean Huang
Strategist, designer, Purpose; co-founder, producer,
Hepnova Multimedia
Education: BA, cum laude, Harvard University; MPS,
New York University
Professional experience includes: Development, outreach
associate, Human Rights Watch; Web, multimedia consultant, Human
Rights Watch; campaigner, Avaaz; co-founder, webmaster, JetWit
Accounts include: Dove, General Electric, LiveStrong, United
Nations Foundation, Global Zero, Conservation International
Publications include: Freedom Vs. Security: The Struggle For
Balance; Gizmondo; PSFK
Website: www.leesean.net
201
Julie Engel Manga
Founder, Leadership Lab; social entrepreneur, Babson College
Education: BFA, School of the Museum of Fine Arts; MA, PhD,
Boston College
Professional experience includes: Business network manager,
Curriculum Development and Delivery, Boston College Center for
Corporate Citizenship; organization development, consultant, Julie
Manga & Associates
Publications include: Talking Trash: The Cultural Politics of
Daytime TV Talk Shows; Off the Couch blog, Skoll Foundation;
Integrating Corporate Citizenship: Leading from the Middle;
Integration: Critical Link to Corporate Citizenship; Enduring
Partnerships: Resilience, Innovation, Success
Lisa Nugent
Global creative director, cross-sector innovation and design,
Johnson & Johnson
Education: BFA, California State University, Long Beach; MFA,
California Institute of the Arts
Professional experience includes: Principal, founder, ReVerb;
grant originator, Living Profiles for Project HealthDesign
Current and former clients include: Hewlett-Packard, Sony
Electronics, Nike, MTV, IBM, Day Corporation, NetAid, Walker
Art Center
Exhibitions include: Le Mois du Graphisme d’Echirolles, Paris;
Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York; Pacific Design
Center, Los Angeles
Collections include: Cooper-Hewitt, National Design Museum;
Getty Research Institute; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
Publications include: Knowledge, Technology and Policy; Type
Directors Club Annual; Vision (China); Design Week (London); I.D.;
HOW; New Typographics 3: Global Vision; Graphis; Metropolis; Los
Angeles Times; Fresh Dialogue 2, New Voices in Graphic Design
Awards and honors include: Chrysler Design Innovation Award;
Good Site, ARCH’IT; Annual 100 Show, American Center for Design
Alessandra Orofino
Lead strategist, Purpose
Education: BA, Barnard College
Professional experience includes: Junior researcher, Center for
Health and Social Justice
Publication: Beyond One
Awards and honors include: Honorary president, Meu Rio;
Fundação Estudar Scholar; social resident, Comunicarte
Despina Papadopoulos
Interaction designer; consultant; founder, Studio 5050
Education: BA, MA, Catholic University of Leuven; MPS,
New York University
Projects include: Moi, Fabrickit
Exhibitions include: Victoria & Albert Museum, London;
Design Museum Holon, Israel; Science Center NEMO, Amsterdam;
Postmasters Gallery; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, American
Museum of Natural History; Limn Art Gallery, San Francisco; Liberty
Science Center, Jersey City, NJ
www.sva.edu/grad/dsi
 Guest Lecturers Advisors

Mary Pearl Marty Anderson Ben Flanner Bill McKibben Ivy Ross David C. Baker, founder, ReCourses, Inc.
Conservationist; scientist; chief executive officer, MBA professor, Babson founder, Brooklyn Grange environmentalist; Author, CMO, Gap
Jesse Dylan, founder, FreeForm
The Garrison Institute College, Extended Nuppu Gävert The End of Nature June Sarpong
Education: BS, PhD, Yale University
Enterprise Management Eric Hersman, founder, Ushihidi
Professional experience includes: President, Wildlife Trust. co-founder, Strategic Borjana Mikic founder, WIE Network,
Co-founder, Center for Conservation Medicine, a consortium of Gregor Barnum Consultant, WeVolve Rosemary Bradford Hewlett Women: Inspiration & Jeffrey Hollender, founder, Seventh Generation
Wildlife Trust with Tufts Cummings Veterinary School, Johns
former director of Higher ‘40 Professor, Director, Enterprise Cheryl Kiser, director, Lewis Foundation, executive
Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, National Center for Edgar Rodriguez
Wildlife Health, Center for Health and the Global Environment at Consciousness, Seventh González Picker Engineering Kevin Starr Director, Babson Social Innovation Lab
Harvard Medical School, Center for Environmental Research and Generation VP market intelligence, Program, Smith College director, The Mulago
Conservation at Columbia University. Board member: Shine Global; Thomas Lockwood, PhD, editor-in-chief,
Elihu Club; Gomez Foundation for Mill House; Institute for Ecological Mark Belinsky Cemex Corporation Aimee Morgana Foundation past president, DMI, the Design Management Institute
Research, Brazil; advisory board, Belizean Grove. Member, Task co-founder, Digital Erik Hersman founder, The N’Kisi Institute Zenia Tata
Force on Environmental Sustainability, UN Millennium Development Democracy Andre Martin, chief learning officer, Mars, Inc.
Goals Project. Former board member, Environmental Enterprises founder, Ushahidi Warren Muir former managing director,
Assistance Fund, Sustainable Travel International, Liz Claiborne/Art Ayse Birsei executive director, Division IDE Warren Muir, executive director, Division on Earth
Noel Hidalgo and Life Studies, National Academies
Ortenberg Foundation co-founder, creative founder, New Amsterdam on Earth and Life Studies, Ville Tikka
Publications include: Discover, Methods and Cases in
Conservation Science, Conservation Medicine, Conservation for
director, Birsei + Seck Ideas National Academies and Nuppu Gävert Milbry Polk, founder, Wings Worldquest
the 21st Century. Associate editor, Ecohealth Brent Bucknam Jo Opot founders, WeVolve. Kevin Starr, director, Mulago Foundation
Awards and honors include: Elected Fellow, American Graham Hill
Association for the Advancement of Science; honorary doctorate,
founder, Hyphae Founder, treehugger.com global vice president Andrew Zolli, executive Director and Curator, PopTech
Marist College Design Labs Business Development,
Jolie Hunt TerraCycle
Marc Rettig
Anne Marie Burgoyne global head of public
Designer, researcher, founder, Fit Associates portfolio director, relations, Thompson Paul Polak
Education: BA, LeTourneau College; New York University Draper Richards Kaplan Reuters founder, IDE; founder,
Clients include: BBC, U.S. Army, Crate & Barrel, Microsoft, Foundation Design for the other 90%
Allstate, Caterpillar, Diamond Partners, Phillips, Texas Instruments Terry Irwin
Author: “The No-Nonsense Guide to Computing Careers,” Ann Christiano head, School of Design, Milbry Polk
Association for Computing Machinery; “Do and Think and Play and The Frank Karel Chair Carnegie Mellon University founder, Wings World
Show and Tell: Artifacts All the Time,” Artifact
in Public Interest Quest; author, Women of
Lina Srivastava Communications at the Emily Jacobi Discovery
Principal, Lina Srivastava Consulting LLC; website author, Strategy University of Florida  founder, Digital Democracy
for Social Change Initiatives; social change strategist, Resist Network;
Jason Rzepka
program evaluator, Chez Bushwick’s Capital B initiative Francis Cholle Grace Kim vice president, public affairs,
founder, Grace Kim Tel: 212.592.2205

Contact Us
Education: BS, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute; JD, New York founder, The Human MTV
University; Hastings Center for Bioethics; Kennedy Institute of Ethics, Company; author, Intuitive Consulting
Georgetown University
Intelligence
Fax: 212.592.2308
Cheryl Kiser