Code: ARTS3028
Credits: 90 ECTS credits
Head of major: Miikka Junnila

Major description: Game Design and Development is a multidisciplinary major that offers a unique mix of technical and artistic aspects of game development. The major produces visionary, out-of-the-box thinkers who have the ambition to push the boundaries in the world of game design. Using a project-based, hands-on with minds-on approach, the major in Game Design and Development cultivates a strong community of students from highly diverse backgrounds. Students can apply for the major with any Bachelor’s degree, and accepted students include programmers, 3D artists, animators, creative writers, architects, and even psychologists.

Graduates of the programme will graduate with a Master of Arts (Art and Media) degree. Aalto University School of Science offers a “sibling major” of the same name that leads to a Master of Science (Technology) degree (diplomi-insinööri in Finnish). The M.Sc (Technology) path is recommended for students with a strong technical background, and students should apply according to the academic degree they wish to have. Content-wise the two programmes are similar and organised in close collaboration with one another. 

Major's intended learning outcomes: Graduates of the Game Design and Development major will be able to:  

1. Design, create, and analyse games from a player-centric perspective, building on latest research findings. Graduates know many scientific approaches to games and can utilize this knowledge in creating compelling experiences for their target audiences. Examples include a research-based understanding of psychological factors such as player needs, motivations, and emotion; mathematical and simulation tools for analyzing and designing game economies and emergent interactions;  understanding how aspects of human perception and motor control affect things like action game reaction time or the ease of use of game interfaces.   
2. Understand games, the games industry, game culture, and their role in society. Graduates understand the fragmented and complex nature of various forms of digital media and technology, and their impact on the society.   
3. Utilize both a broad understanding across disciplines and in-depth skills in their specialisation areas. Throughout their studies, students can both develop their existing skills and acquire new broad understanding of other areas, which helps in developing as a team player.   
4. Apply their skills in creative collaboration, concept development, design, and realisation. Graduates have strong interpersonal skills developed through multiple games created in collaboration with others. Graduates are able to carry out creative work as part of culturally diverse and transdisciplinary teams.  
5. Extend and develop their professional competence throughout their career. Graduates embrace and understand the importance of lifelong learning and curiosity to learn new skills, as the field is ever-evolving and new technologies emerge constantly. 

Major structure on the Finnish site

Code: ARTS3029
Credits: 90 ECTS credits
Head of major: Matti Niinimäki

Major description:

In a technology-saturated world, it is indispensable to understand and study the impacts that technology has on individuals, organisations and society. The New Media major brings together a multicultural group of students with very versatile skills and backgrounds. They all share the same passion of exploring the opportunities and challenges that new and emerging digital technologies, such as artificial intelligence and extended reality, open for communication, art, and design. By exploring the field of new media through various topics, including media art and culture, interaction design, creative computing, and interactive narratives, the graduates of the major have unique competences to take on new and emerging professions within the broad spectrum of the new media industry.

The major also aims to provide a supportive and constructive environment for artistic, technical, and professional development. An environment where learning from failures is just as important as learning from successes. The students are encouraged to step outside of their comfort zones and get familiar with a variety of tools and skills, to understand the characteristics of digital media.

Major's intended learning outcomes:

Graduates of the New Media major will be able to:

1. Understand the complex demands and dynamics of the modern media landscape. Graduates understand the fragmented and complex nature of various forms of digital media and technology, and their impact on society.
2. Analyse and criticize how technology shapes art, design, communication, and self-expression. Graduates critically assess and question the current trajectory of media technology and understand their roles and responsibilities in shaping the future.
3. Apply a human-centric approach to digital design. Graduates are skilled in anticipating user values, translating them into product and service offerings and keeping humans at the center of the design process.
4. Use broad understanding across the field of new media and advance in-depth skills in specialisation areas of their choice. Graduates have the benefits of both breadth of knowledge and cultivation of their research and working methods in the specialisation areas they feel passionate about.
5. Apply their technical knowledge and skills in computational art and design to create new experiences, services, tools, and other creative productions. Graduates are skilled in not just using but also developing state-of-the-art tools for new media art and design.
6. Describe and evaluate how interaction, generativity, and immersion are applied in new media art and design. Graduates identify the possibilities and limitations of developing interactive and generative systems or experiences.
7. Consider and evaluate issues of sustainability, representation, and diversity in the field of new media. Graduates identify the visible and hidden environmental, cultural, and societal impacts of digital media infrastructures.

Code: ARTS3030
Credits: 90 ECTS credits
Head of major: Antti Ikonen

Major description:

The aim of the Major in Sound in New Media is to explore, discover and comprehend the emerging digital technology and its aural impact in society; to find and exploit the possibilities it opens to acoustic communication, sonic interaction and new interfaces for musical expression and to evaluate, understand and deal with the challenges it poses to art, design, and creative production in the auditory domain. Furthermore, the major aims at developing artistic and design thinking, enriching the attractiveness and communicative and aesthetic qualities of applied sound and music.

In a technology-saturated world, it is indispensable to understand and study the impacts that technology has on individuals, organisations and society. The Sound in New Media major brings together a multicultural group of students with very versatile skills and backgrounds. By tailoring the degree according to their interests and choosing from a wide variety of areas, the graduates of the major have unique competences to take on new and emerging professions within the broad spectrum of the field. These areas include sound and music computing, sound art and auditory culture, sonic interaction design, artificial intelligence applied to sound design and music, game audio and acoustic branding. The pioneering work of our alumni is an undisputed manifestation of the impact of the major within the aforementioned areas.

The major also aims to provide a supportive and constructive environment for artistic, technical, and professional development. An environment where learning from failures is just as important as learning from successes. The students are encouraged to step outside of their comfort zones and get familiar with a variety of tools and skills, to understand the characteristics of auditory media. These tools and skills include creative coding, physical computing, digital fabrication, sonic interaction design, extended reality, generative composition methods and other emerging technologies.

Major's intended learning outcomes:

After completing the major in Sound in New Media the graduate will be able to: 

1. Understand the complex demands and dynamics of the contemporary auditory domain. Graduates understand the fragmented and complex nature of various forms of digital media and technology, and their aural impact on the society. 
2. Describe and analyse how technology shapes sound art, design, acoustic communication, and self-expression. 
3. Apply a human-centric approach to digital design. Graduates are skilled in anticipating user values, translating them into product and service offerings and keeping humans at the center of the design process. 
4. Use broad understanding across disciplines and in-depth skills in specialisation areas of their choice. Graduates have the benefits of both breadth of knowledge and specialisation. Possible specialisation areas include sonic interaction design, physical computing, game audio, sound art, extended reality, as well as acoustic branding. 
5. Apply their skills in creative collaboration, concept development, design, and realisation. Graduates have strong interpersonal skills and they are able to do creative work as part of culturally diverse and transdisciplinary teams. 
6. Apply their technical knowledge and skills in sonic arts and sound design to create new experiences, services, and other creative productions. Graduates are skilled in not just using but also developing state-of-the-art tools for sound art and design. 
7. Extend and develop their professional competence throughout their career. Graduates embrace lifelong learning and curiosity to learn new skills, as the field is ever-evolving and new technologies emerge constantly. 
8. Understand and respect cultural diversity. Graduates understand that different cultures and traditions as well as social circumstances and conditions have a great impact on our auditory environment.
9. Apply an in-built sustainable approach to their profession. Graduates see planetary health, society and people as the starting point for successful design. 

Code: ARTS3044
Credits: 90 ECTS credits
Head of major: Donald Weber

Major description:

The Photography major offers diverse and inspiring studies in the fields of contemporary photography, documentary photography and artistic research. In our ambitious and professional community, you will develop your expressive skills and theoretical thinking and also obtain a professional qualification for working in the field. In our major, strong artistic insight and capability of conceptual and critical thinking are key. The studies require a suitable background education and experience from the field as well as personal insight and motivation. The studies enable the life-long development of field-specific professional competence, artistic vision and theoretical thinking.
 

Major's intended learning outcomes:

Graduates of the Photography major will be able to:
1. Work on the highest level of national and international contemporary photography and art, utilizing techniques, tools and materials, working methods and theoretical concepts that support their artistic practice
2. apply various kinds of presentation and installation practices of photography in connection to national and international publishing processes, platforms and audiences
3. practice their critical understanding of the diverse functions and specific characteristics of the photographic medium
4. position and contextualize their own work and practice and operate equally, sustainably and insightfully in their professional fields of contemporary photography, visual arts, media and culture and as active citizens in the society
5. critically assess and use various kinds of source material and apply research-related reading and writing methods to their own qualitative and artistic research
6. build on their field-specific theoretical backgrounds, contribute to photography-related academic discussions and pursue doctoral studies
7. acknowledge the integrity of art and value it as a foundational element of cultures and communities)

Code: ARTS3035
Credits: 90 ECTS credits
Head of major: Rupesh Vyas

Major description:

The Visual Communication Design major (VCD) is an international learning community committed to investigating new modes of action within visual communication. As a critical response to the contemporary conditions, the studies enable you to reconsider the established notions of graphic design. The programme supports you in rethinking and redefining your own design practice, in order to situate it in wider societal and environmental frameworks. With studies in competence areas of information design, visual narratives, and type & written language, the curriculum encourages you to turn your design practice towards the public and the sustainable, and towards multiple and diverse knowledge domains.

Major's intended learning outcomes:

Graduates of the Visual Communication Design major will be able to:

1. Create and manage design projects with a sensibility to both tangible and digital materiality, and experiment with data and computational elements in design projects where needed.        
2. Solve complex issues of different media, aesthetic, context, expression, and convention, when communicating in modes like data, narratives, and/or written language.        
3. Articulate and critically evaluate the traditions, references, and motivations behind their design choices and processes.        
4. Consider issues of representation, diversity, and sustainability in visual communication.        
5. Distinguish your professional role from their consumer role in digital and online environments.
6. Recognize good policies and their rights as a creative professional, and consider their responsibilities of care towards themself, their colleagues, the public, and the environment.        
7. Consider and imagine alternative modes of design practice and work.        
8. Keep discussing, evaluating, and redefining the societal role and the shifting parameters of the contemporary field of Visual Communication Design. 

Code: ARTS3040
Credits: 90 ECTS credits
Head of major: Bassam El Baroni

Major description:

The Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art major welcomes artists, curators, culture-workers and the culturally-curious into a two year programme that is dedicated to transdisciplinary, experimental combinations of practice and research. At Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art major we provide a generous context for you to develop individual practise pathways that are grounded in a combination of art practice, curating and theory, but which extend outside of conventional settings and into an array of social, political, economic, ecological, scientific and technological environments.

The Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art major process is enabled by a supportive community of international students and faculty who view research, practice and teaching in a holistic manner. Central to our aim is to co-craft spaces for learning inquiries that merge, for example: artistic thinking and critical entrepreneurship; material-led practices and theoretical exploration; embodied research and experimental writing—all as much-needed responses to the challenges of contemporary life.

As part of this process, Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art faculty will offer you dedicated guidance on ways to augment your existing skills via working with what may be unfamiliar fields of study and experimental methods of inquiry. Indeed, we actively encourage you to jump into unknown disciplinary waters in order to devise innovative approaches to future artistic research and curatorial work.

When you graduate with a Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art major, you may not be immediately able to change the world, but our community will do our best to offer you the collective competences in critical thinking, curating and research necessary for the reinventions of work and life that we need in order to respond to the immediate social and planetary challenges we all face. The evidence that a ViCCA Major experience does indeed achieve what it says on the package can be found in the ubiquitous and prolific presence of ViCCA graduates in prestigious, award-winning leadership positions in ever-expanding fields of art and culture and society, in Finland, Europe and across the globe.

Major's intended learning outcomes:

A graduate of the Visual Cultures, Curating and Contemporary Art-major:

1. Will have a broad understanding of contemporary and emerging practices, artistic research, relevant theory and debates in the international and expanded field of visual culture as well as contemporary art and curatorial practice.
2. Will be able to contextualize their work in relation to different professional fields, sociocultural phenomena and research frameworks. They have gained seriously-playful, creatively disruptive, agile and social-entrepreneurial attitudes needed for active navigation of creative economies of the 21st century.
3. Will be able to engage in open research processes in multidisciplinary fields with a scope of basic theory, philosophy, aesthetics to practice-based cutting-edge experimental engagements with art and curatorial practice. They have gained versatile competencies and perspectives that might fill in gaps between diverse fields and societal sectors, address new demands or counteract infrastructural constraints in our current landscape.
4. Have a good understanding of the groundings for artistic approaches conversing with the societal, ecological, technological, aesthetic, sustainable and intersectional approaches for rethinking, diversifying and enriching contemporary artworld roles, infrastructures and economies. The ViCCA ‘tool-kit’ enables the graduates to devise, initiate, impact and lead cutting-edge, cultural, sustainable and socially responsive initiatives. 
5. Have obtained rigorous, research-based navigation tools which support a reflection of one’s knowledge and practice and enables one to go further on one’s individual path. They have also learned to appreciate and respect the perspectives and practice of fellow students.
6. Have comprehensive research and writing skills for further academic studies such as doctorate degree.

Students choose 30 ECTS of elective studies. As elective studies, students can complete minor studies and/or take individual courses from other programmes at Aalto University or other Finnish universities, participate in an international student exchange programme, do an internship in Finland or abroad, or take elective courses offered by student’s own programme.

Students can complete a minor as part of their elective studies. Please see all the minors under Minor studies 2022-2024.

Department of Art and Media offers several minors:
3D Animation
Building Virtual Worlds
Contemporary Art Practices and Theories
Critical Pedagogies and Mediations of Art
Digital Fabrication
Game Design and Development
Information Design
New Media
Pack-Age
Sound in New Media
Aalto Math and Arts 
Photography