MA Concept Art

University of Hertfordshire

In this module, you will develop your knowledge and understanding of current practitioners, processes, techniques, and the scope of your chosen award field. You will become aware of contemporary activities and of where your interests and professional aspirations might fit within current practices and developments. You will develop your independence and autonomy through a series of projects which develop your own voice or style, exploring the particular issues, processes and ideas that interest you. You will also document your creative work and then use reflection to become aware of personal creative methodologies and of new learning.

This module aims to provide you with a range of conceptual, critical and research skills suitable for postgraduate-level study in media while supporting you in developing a personal resource of key texts and theories through which you can articulate and locate your own individual practice and its significance. The module views creative practices as research processes and helps you locate your own work within contemporary, advanced-level practice in your discipline and to critically evaluate the bodies of practice and ideas that sustain them. Module delivery includes a range of critical and theoretical methodologies through which the experience of media artefacts may be examined and discussed along with the development of key academic skills including research management, critical evaluation, and creative practice as a research methodology. The skills gleaned on this module will provide you with a platform for research for the remainder of the programme and in your future career.

In this module you are required to relate your own practice and learning to developments and emergent activities in their chosen field. In particular, you are asked to challenge your preconceptions of the boundaries, traditions and conceptual paradigms associated with your award field and to work innovatively both within your chosen field and in interdisciplinary contexts. The module is typically delivered in two phases; an interdisciplinary group project which allows you to learn and reflect on group processes and interdisciplinary creative practices and an individual portfolio of projects which is concentrated on creative innovation and those planning processes and documentation strategies appropriate to your own practice. You will continue with the personal blog you began in previous modules and produce an evaluative commentary which identifies the forefront of your field and explores the relationship of your own practice to this work.

The Exploring Professional Practice module enables you to plan and manage a small-scale research project that explores an issue or theoretical/critical approach relevant to the professional practice of your individual specialism. The module is delivered through a series of lectures and workshops examining the social, political and economic dimensions of creative digital media practices within professional contexts. You negotiate a topic and approach with your tutor and then carry out an enquiry which must include at least one interview with an appropriately informed professional practitioner. The outcome of this enquiry is an artefact with commentary or video essay equivalent to around 4,000 words. This negotiated outcome may take a variety of forms but usually will draw on or relate to the professional practices or contexts of your award field. The module equips you with the skills, knowledge and understanding to be an authoritative, informed and principled professional practitioner.

This module offers an opportunity for you to undertake a substantial project in one or more of the specialist areas within Concept Art, the project can be completed as an individual or in a group. You are required to demonstrate knowledge of the traditions and antecedents in your chosen area(s) of practice and to successfully handle the processes of visual and technical research, project and self-management and working with others that are required for the project. You are also required to relate your own practice and learning to developments and emergent activities within the broad field of contemporary Concept Art. Through this you are looking towards the forefront of practice and knowledge in the field and at the enterprise and employability opportunities offered within contemporary practice.