The Visual Media Center explores
material culture, vision, media, and pedagogy in the broadest
sense
to connect faculty research and student learning through the
creative
application of technology.
Our goal is to examine and extend the ways of interpreting images,
objects, buildings, and sites and to reinforce Columbia’s
historic strengths in core education for undergraduate students,
graduate student training, and faculty research. Our specialized
facilities and personnel serve the closely related fields of
Archæology, Art History, and Historic Preservation. There
are natural affinities with Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory,
Teachers College, other Arts and Sciences departments, and the
schools of Architecture, Engineering, Journalism, and International
and Public Affairs.
Art Humanities and the Core Curriculum continue to inform and
inspire what we do. Special productions focusing on individual
works of art bring fresh insight from our best faculty to the
broadest university audience of 1000 undergraduate students
annually. These programs are also building a legacy of scholarship
and teaching for future generations.
We want to maintain support for field study with faculty and
students, whether at the Dakhleh Oasis in Egypt, the Bourbonnais
in France, or The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. Such
expeditions are distinctive of the VMC’s work. We are
able to open up these global opportunities, identify the
means
of support, coordinate scientific studies, create course
materials,
and distribute content.
A motivated group of faculty principal investigators work with
the VMC to develop, conduct, and administer their projects
in the study, interpretation, and conservation of works of
art, monuments, or heritage sites. We have opened up communication
for these issues through the University Seminar on Historic
Sites and Monuments.
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| Gary Schneider, Hands,
1997. |
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