The Fine Art and Digital Media degree places you at the forefront of contemporary art practice, where creativity meets rapidly evolving digital technologies. This course encourages you to expand your artistic practice while critically engaging with the opportunities and challenges of digital media.
Working alongside professional artists and digital media specialists, you’ll experiment with new tools, platforms, and ideas, developing a unique voice that responds to the ever-changing relationship between art and technology. You’ll explore how digital processes can transform creative thinking and open up exciting new modes of expression.
With a strong focus on professional experience and transferable skills, this degree prepares you for a wide range of careers across the digital media and creative sectors, equipping you with both creative confidence and industry awareness
Why study Fine Art and Digital Media at Lancaster?
- Work with tutors who are practicing artists and scholars, working with video, 3D, machine learning, environment, temporality, new materialism, participation and socially engaged practices.
- Learn from expert academics who shape conversations in areas such as media power, ethics and AI
- Combine digital art practices with the study of contemporary art and emerging debates in art and media.
- Benefit from our Fine Art studio space, expert technical support, and a fully equipped digital media studio
- As you progress though the course, choose modules from either subject, depending on your own interests
How will I develop my skills in Digital Media Art at Lancaster?
Digital Media Art at Lancaster is about finding your voice and deciding what matters to you in today’s contemporary art landscape. With engaging seminars in art history and theory, we’ll support you in shaping your values and understanding the evolving role of art. As you develop these ideas in your own studio practice, discover how contemporary digital art can be bold, critical and meaningful.
You will broaden your understanding of contemporary Art via hands-on projects, technical demonstrations and skills-based workshops. Experiment with video, digital art, installation, painting, drawing, sculpture, and their many hybrids. Our purpose-built studios include a digital art lab, installation spaces and fully equipped workshops.
What areas of Digital Media will I study?
Developments in digital technology range from overly friendly chatbots to inconspicuous algorithms. But what role do digital media technologies play in our everyday lives, our local communities and cultures, and the global societies we live in?
Our team carries out world-leading research into a wide range of fascinating topics, from artificial intelligence and algorithmic cultures to fandom, sustainability, media activism, gender and sexualities, and more. Our academics consult on key policy debates and bring their expert knowledge into their teaching.
You will learn how digital technologies, in their many forms, function in our everyday lives and the global societies we live in. Through exploring key themes in digital societies, such as social media, digital creativity, artificial intelligence, algorithmic power and surveillance, you will discover how these themes present both opportunities and challenges within our everyday lives and the creative industries.
Your final Digital Media project allows you to pursue your own intellectual interests and creative passion through a piece of original research, and to communicate your conclusions via your choice of media, such as a website, a podcast, a music video, journalistic interviews or a social media campaign.
What opportunities are there to gain professional experience at Lancaster University?
Throughout the course you will have networking opportunities, lectures and workshops with professional artists and industry experts, and field trips. We organise bespoke careers’ sessions on employment opportunities in the arts, media and creative sectors, and we have recently run workshops with journalists from the BBC and podcasting masterclasses.
Gaining professional experience is important, and previous students have worked with arts organisations such as Deco Publique, Good Things Collective, FACT Liverpool, and Lancaster Arts. Tutors draw on a wealth of experience in exhibiting, curating and writing including high profile residencies and commissions in museums, galleries and cultural industries worldwide. They have exhibited at institutions such as the Henry Moore Institute, the Foreman Art Gallery Canada and Hong Kong Art Fair.
You will have opportunities to exhibit your art throughout the course, enabling you to develop the professional skills needed for a career in the arts whilst building your confidence in your work and your own distinct and independent style.
You can extend your creative experience by getting involved with our student media societies which include a television station, a newspaper, a radio station and a cinema. Take a backroom role in marketing, social media or content creation – or try live presenting, if you dare!
You’ll find that Lancaster is a hub of art and cultural activity, home to award-winning festivals such as, Lancaster Words and Litfest literary festivals and the stunning Light Up Lancaster festival of art and light.
Throughout your time at Lancaster, you will build a strong network of contacts and a bank of professional experience that will be invaluable to your future career.
