“The Vanquished” is an exhibit by installation artist and Design | Media Arts professor Jennifer Steinkamp.
Courtesy of Jennifer Steinkamp
Although the technology and capability of computers to produce digital art has improved dramatically over the years, the core of Jennifer Steinkamp’s classes has remained the same since the late 1990s.
That’s because it’s not all about the software.
“(It’s) about learning to make art,” said Steinkamp, a professor in Design | Media Arts.
An installation artist, Steinkamp joined the department in 1997 as a visiting professor for 3-D design, modeling and form courses.
Her work takes advanced 3-D modeling technology out of conventional venues and applies it to new settings. In her classes, Steinkamp introduces students to new ways of creating sculptures on computers and projecting them in physical spaces.
While a departure from the traditional lecture, the range of Steinkamp’s work is not unusual for a member of the Design | Media Arts faculty. The courses seem to defy definition even to those working in the department.
David Leonard, a graduate student in Design | Media Arts, described the program as an art and technology hybrid. But Leonard said even saying art and technology is limiting.
“It may be confusing to nail what our department is truly about because it’s the combination of different interests, but that’s what so great about it,” Steinkamp said.
The department draws students from a variety of fields, Leonard said. His classmates’ backgrounds range from film to journalism to biology.
“It’s not limited,” he said. “Someone from (Design | Media Arts) could jump into any other department and find a relevant place.”
As a small department, undergraduate and graduate students frequently collaborate with their professors, said Anna Reutinger, a third-year Design | Media Arts student.
“They get to know our work as intimately as we get to know theirs,” Reutinger said.
With professors such as Steinkamp, who has worked on international projects and art pieces for U2 concerts, Design | Media Arts students have had the opportunity to display their work outside of UCLA ““ including at the J. Paul Getty Museum.
And the work by Design | Media Art’s faculty is not hard to find in public either, Reutinger said. She has, on several occasions, run across pieces by her professors in various modern art museums and other venues completely by chance.