Institutional Presentation Statement 

CCCB Auditorium, June 14th Session: Art schools

Keywords: Arts Education, Digital Arts, Digital Media, Cinema Studies, Art and Technology

This is a presentation of the new Department of Digital Arts and Cinema of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece. It briefly discusses the aims and educational objectives, its curriculum, personnel and infrastructure. It also briefly presents examples of artistic classes as examples of the educational approach adopted.

The Department of Digital Arts and Cinema of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece is a new department that focusses on the common ground between the hybrid field of film practices and cinema studies, on the one hand and electronic, digital, immersive and interactive arts, on the other. It was founded in 2019. The creation of this new department addresses the need for the provision of quality education, artistic innovation and practice-based research in the multidisciplinary field of interactive arts, working at the intersection between film and cinema studies and digital art in Greece.

The primary aim of the department is to fill a need for audiovisual and film production in Greek higher education by being one of the first departments to bridge the gap between established film-making practices, combined with the use of digital tools for high-quality artistic production. Its innovation lies at the fact that it transcends the boundaries of a traditional film school as it brings forward the interconnection with a wide range of contemporary digital forms of expression and multimedia. In order to appropriately support the above, the department’s infrastructure includes five educational laboratories focusing on supporting the following creative activities: Multimedia technologies lab, Film-direction and audiovisual production, Film and video editing, Sound recording and editing, Digital Art and installations, Virtual and extended reality laboratory, Ubiquitous, physical computing and 3D printing.

The curriculum provides students with both a theoretical grounding and a practical skill set pertaining to the above-mentioned fields. The two main corollaries of the curriculum are cinema studies and digital arts; a key identifying characteristic of the department is the interplay between these two basic pillars in an attempt to provide a holistic coverage of this emerging area. https://en.dcarts.uoa.gr

• Dimitris Charitos (1965) is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Communication and Media Studies and the Head of the Department of Digital Arts and Cinema, of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece, where he teaches human-machine communication, interactive design, digital art, virtual environment design and visual communication. He studied Architecture at the National Technical University of Athens, and C.A.A.D. at the University of Strathclyde (Glasgow). He holds a PhD in interactive and virtual environment design. As a researcher or coordinator, he has participated in more than 15 research projects (funded by Greek and European programs) on the subjects of virtual reality, interactive design, locative media, mediated/hybrid cities and digital art. He has more than 100 publications in books, journals and conference proceedings. Since 1983, his artistic practice includes electronic music (1983-1993), audiovisual and interactive installations and virtual environments (1997- to the present). He has participated in 15 exhibitions in Greece, the UK and Cyprus. http://spatialmedia.ntlab.gr
• Charalampos Rizopoulos, University of Athens (Greece)
• Anna Poupou, University of Athens (Greece)