University of Art and Design Linz

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The University of Art and Design Linz (Kunstuniversität Linz) has its institutional and programmatic roots in the "Kunstschule" (Art School) of the City of Linz, which was founded in 1947, assigned academy status in 1973 and finally made a fully-fledged university in 1998. The institution was conceived as an explicit statement to signify dissociation from the National Socialist era's previous art policy. This is, in particular, exemplified by its emphasis on the fundamental values of freedom of art and research, its commitment to modernism and contemporary art, and the positioning of the University at the interface of free-artistic and applied-economically oriented design. In the past, as in the present, these values form the basis of the fundamental essence and identity of Kunstuniversität Linz.
Since 1 January 2004, the University is constituted as a "corporation under public law" according to the new Universities Organisation Act of 2002 and hence enjoys far-reaching autonomy.
In the context of the regional and international frame conditions within which Kunstuniversität Linz operates, three main orientations were evolved over the past few years. Going beyond specialist competencies per se, they are of particular importance for artistic development, research, and teaching and reflect the University's unique profile.
This term describes the Focus on the artistic, scientific, and general knowledge transfer-related potentials inherent in media and the work with media. Within the University, intermediate, on the one hand, stands for the communication of broad media skills in all courses and, on the other hand, embodies the building of an internationally leading, top-level center of research, education, and information in the arts as well as in science and business. Towards this purpose, Kunstuniversität Linz co-operates closely with other regional and international institutions and, in particular, with the Linz-based Ars Electronica Center.
Based on excellent technical skills training in the individual courses, Kunstuniversität Linz is above all committed to the interfacing of architecture, design, urban and regional planning, ecology, and the media. Accordingly, concrete artistic-scientific projects and research activities provide a basis for developing students' cross-sectional skills and competencies spanning the different disciplines, thereby affording them a broad perspective and teaching the required flexibility.
As Kunstuniversität Linz unites practical, creative work and scientific research, applied and free artistic design under one roof, artistic-scientific research ranges among its curricular core activities. Both from a methodological point of view and where knowledge transfer and education are concerned, the challenging relationship between science and art calls for extensive research and development of the arts in one single process. Accordingly, the profile of Kunstuniversität Linz comprises cultural studies and art theory, media theory, educational outreach, and communication strategies, as well as gender studies in the context of actual artistic production.
The Library is a public service facility of Kunstuniversität Linz, and its collection reflects the curricula offered by the University. The Focus is on the artistic and cultural production of the 20th and 21st century, especially in Fine Arts, Applied Arts, Media Art, Industrial Design, Architecture, Media Theory, Art History, Cultural Studies, Gender Studies, and Art Education. Also, a comprehensive range of current journal titles is available.
The bachelor program provides artistic and technical skills in the field of graphic design and photography. Students engage over six semesters both with analog and digital media, develop and implement visual ideas into practice, and are thereby enabled to combine the two artistic directions uniquely.
The process of continually advancing our society's digitization is generating new interfaces for the design of words and images. Accordingly, the two-year master's degree course engages with *Visual Communication* using innovative methods and approaches to encourage personally motivated artistic research between experimental form and conceptual content. Students develop projects independently with analog and digital media, taking into account transmedial narrative forms in graphic design and photography. The degree course explores the interfaces between content and form, text and image, and theory and praxis. Students engage with issues that promote conceptual thinking, enabling them to develop design processes in open, practice-oriented projects. An understanding of media and formats and a feeling for the differences in materiality in each media format are the bases for training in visual communication. The scope of the projects ranges from personally motivated artistic research to applied design praxis.

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