Expression in Convergent Media

Expression

To express something is to figure out something in a structured and communicative way. In the area of game design, it can accommodate anything between 3D simulations, computer games, and computer graphics to visualisation or animation. Communication is a closely related field, but design in converging media rests more on the experience of the image and what that experience communicates. Gestalting is thus meaningful. It is a narrative expression that gives shape and meaning to something. In a shaping process, the viewer is invited to build an interpretation of the image, a whole and a conclusion that is more than the sum of its parts, based on their own experience.

The goal in design is to design a communicative experience with meaning, complexity and depth. The subject rests partly on an artistic basis and as such it focuses on process as well as on results. Its purpose and function is to understand and incorporate intellectual methods for examining and reflecting on design as a process and results, and to provide students with tools to contextualise and describe their own and others' designs.

Convergent Media

Convergent media is the term used to describe the area new media/digital media ie the convergence of multiple media platforms with the support of digital infrastructures. With digitalisation, there is today a common technical environment for creating content, distribution and participation. Thanks to this, technical production is no longer media specific. It enables centrally designed and produced content (intellectual and intellectual property (IP)) that can be used in games, movies and the web with synergy effect as a result.

To prepare students for a diverse and changing media landscape, the subject focuses on idea-driven visual design and student productions are optimised for use on a variety of media platforms. Focus is on interactive 2D and 3D graphics for implementation in gaming engines and on the web. This is often done in the form of character designs, environments and/or other 2D and 3D graphics used extensively in games, and several forms of digital media.

Developments in design in converging media are taking place at an ever faster pace. The convergence of computers, telephones, game consoles etc. creates new conditions but also demands for new skills. At the department, the latest technological developments in visual design, moving 2D and 3D graphics and visualisations are applied. The combination of communication and meaningful expression is a cornerstone of the subject. It requires theoretical knowledge in communication as well as knowledge and skills in the visual and artistic in order to reach a level of work beyond the instrumental and commercial.