Fine Art: Computational Arts

Computational arts is a field that explores what happens when artistic practice and digital technology become genuinely inseparable, not simply using computers as tools to produce traditional art forms but treating code, algorithms, data and emerging technologies as media in their own right. It invites fundamental questions about authorship, process, interactivity, materiality and the nature of the image when the computer becomes both studio and collaborator. As a fine art discipline, it insists that technical mastery is not enough: work must carry conceptual intention, aesthetic conviction and critical awareness of the contexts in which it is made and received.

At the University of the Arts London, this three-year full-time degree gives you space to develop a distinctive art practice at the intersection of digital media and other fine art disciplines including sculpture, painting, photography and installation. You will work with software, electronics, networked environments and emerging technologies, exploring how these can be used to make work that is meaningful and formally rigorous rather than merely technically impressive. Critical and historical frameworks run alongside studio practice, grounding your work in an understanding of the traditions from which computational art has emerged.

The degree includes a sandwich year and work placement opportunities, giving you the chance to situate your practice within a professional environment. Typical entry is around 168 UCAS tariff points.

Graduates from this programme go on to careers as artists working with digital and interactive media, as creative technologists in design studios and cultural institutions, as researchers in emerging technology and creative practice, and in roles across games, film, advertising, software and digital product design where the ability to think artistically about technology is increasingly valued. Many graduates exhibit independently and internationally, develop teaching careers in art and technology education, or continue to postgraduate study in computational arts, interaction design, sound art or related practice-based research.