and some other art schools...
This page lists some observations i made during the course "genres in design". The object of the course was to find similar qualities or characters, amybe a style, within a group of alike websites, cdroms, movies or whatnot. I surfed and browsed the pages of Emma Schools, not always knowing where The Emma-part was, which department or faculty was involved with Emma. Some schools were huge Institutes actually made out of several schools with several faculties with several departments with several studyprojects, others were small and basically everything hanged around with Emma.
Originally the idea was to analyze mediastudents' web sites, but I soon realized most of the students either didn't have webpages or I just couldn't find them. Shame on you! But it is understandable, most emma courses last only for a year and everybody doesn't have time for webpages. Some schools provided portfolios or small clips out of productions made as a final thesis or a studyprogram, or even totally independently of school.
So instead I focused on the schools' sites. I thought: "this is new media, we should know how to make our pages usable, readable, viewable and keep them up-to-date." Somehow I felt this wouldn't always be the case, so I actually wound up finding generic mistakes and errors on the pages.
Dublin Institute of technology
the home page of the school. Couldn't find mentions of EMMA. Found descriptions of Postgraduate courses in School of Media but they didn't have links to any homepages. After a bit of random surfing I found this (under research!):
Ma in interactive Media
Sure wasn't that easy to find. No links to student's (possible) homepages. No mention of EMMA here either.
Oh, wait, there is a description of Industrial and International Cooperation that mentions CITE, which I suppose is an EMMA partner(?) Ok, another one. Maybe this project has got something to do with D.I.T.
Interactive Multimedia Association
"This site is currently undergoing a major overhaul. Drop by soon again"I found this link from EMMA homepage. What is this? No links anywhere. the site was last modified: 10 February, 1999, so I suppose something is happening.
Where are you?
London Institute
The Institute seems to hold many Departments and colleges. Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design seems to offer MA degrees in multimedia and Postgraduate Certificates in e.g computer animations. Ok, here we go.
Central Saint Martins etc.
Interesting interface, kind of reminds me what I worked on with art2 But is it easy to navigate? Well you could argue about that. Designed for the web if you think about download speeds. Maybe too blinky... After all, this is yet another big school with many courses. Let's take a look at PgD/MA Communication Design To be more exact, I'm talking about their Satellite Website. Last changed Feb 21, 1998 The mainpage is not as witty as the CSM etc. was, rather it is a mess with too many gif animations forced to be too big. Anyway, EMMA wasn't home.
Finally I thought I found some student work.
But what is it with you Brits? You always seem to make a same kind of Portfolio of all your students, and use that special green as your background... I've seen almost the same kind of portfolio of fashion students with only one page and a few images devoted per person. Maybe it was the same school? But anyway, where and who are you and really and what you do?
Ok, ok, I'm the one to blame. It was the
The London College of Printing
that was an EMMA school. So you just wanted to mislead me. Lets see what fe find out over here. Index was updated 21 October 1998. The design seems to be more corporate-like than Central Saint Martins was. But ok, this is yet another portal site to departments - you wanted multimedia, we give you
MA Interactive Multimedia
Well what do I get here? A map and an application form. Thanks but no thanks. But hey, they do have a Day Nursery!
Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht
Welcome to the Neatherlands. The HKU site is a bit messy and mixes Dutch and English quite fluently, and has many multimedia and Flash showcases. But after all, ladies and gentlemen, what do I see on the mainpage?
European Media Masters Art Gallery website
This seems to be just what I was looking for. A lot of areas to specialize in, although they are presented in a way that me & my browser almost screamed in terror. No, actually it was quite ok after I learned how to use it and made a few adjustements. The project sites are good, seems to me that quite many know exactly what to do and what not. A lot of stuff in English as well. ...But where are the student websites? And general info seems to be missing about Emma and how this school links to it. Be sure to notice that it reads
Faculty of Art, Media & Technology
on the EMMA gallery mainpage, although there is no link from there, probably because those pages are in Dutch only.
University of Portsmouth
Whop we went straight to the Art, Design & Media Dept. And from there to
student pages
Under which I presume I can find the same ol' English portfolio, aye? Yes, mylord, the same formula of an image or two topped with a short explanation. Not equipped with a clear and functional navigational structure. Nor a good design. Not really student pages, alas. But wait, EMMA is home!
Projects, old ones this time? There is a lot of info about the EMMA Forum in Stuttgart...98. Oh well, be it my opinion, but combining the end "eye" -sequence from Kubrick's Space Odyssey to Beatles' Hard Days Night and adding some phoney text doesn't give me the illusion of speed. Anyway, if you can make an Elvis sighting, what else do you want? Well, it also shows a lot of courage to publish stuff like this and call it an On-line Museum and call your school a school of art, design and media.... Ok ok, it wasn't the EMMA students. Luckily I was curious enough to peep under research and found this lovely lovely website Images in Practice
Critical visual database, international collaboration, digital imagery for image makers, artists, designers, scientists and specialists. Need I say more? Well, not an EMMA project, too bad.
Universitat de les Illes Balears
¡Hola! Here we are, again at the pages of a mammouth institution. And as every heavy institution, it seems to be filled with good old 404 -websites, if you know what I mean. English language can be found ...to a point. Actually there is an interesting mix of using "Neu!" with English text and "New!" in Spanish. Couldn't find students, EMMA or design in these paginas, but if you're in for a HTML course in Spanish, this could be the place
Centre National de la Bande Dessinie et de l`Image, Angouleme
En Français, bien sûr. Interesting, but the English info isn't quite helpful.... They seem to be focused on animation - bande dessineé, the whole site doesn't look like a school at all. But it has a nice cartoonish flavour to it. The EMMA affiliates seem to be in the
Laboratoire d'imagerie numirique
which seems to be under direction of René Laloux, who made that awful animation La Planète sauvage which for some odd reason won the Cannes festival... Well let's not get personal. Anyway they seem to have some staff and a lot of equipment, but no students? Well well that was a bit exaggeration. Hey I know a joke about that: "I've told you a million times: Do not exaggerate!" erm. Students. Yes, here they are, forced to this awful <table> thingy. Quite a few of these European Media masters of art seem to be homepageless. I wonder if there is a paper they can sell to fund their insecure livingconditions? And anyway, I might not know all the secrets of webdesign, and even less webdesigners, but i do know it is not generally wise to use background images that are too small. It's a nice effect, but I got tired to it after two screens. Hmmm. rather strangely, I didn't see the effect anymore on may 17, 1999.
Media Lab
In Finnish I'd say I'm jäävi to talk about these pages, but since most of you don't understand Finnish I guess I have to take a try. Media Lab is a department under a bigger institution, but both of them seem to be quite small comparing to other EMMA schools and Universities. It seems to be the only one having most of it's web pages only in a language other than the native one - unless you consider English as a native language of the web. Howcome every mediaschool want to have something blinking on their homepage? The pages are filled with info to amaze your grandma with, and navigation is quite simple. But who really wants to read all the blah blah blah? where are the students? A-ha,
MA in New Media.
Sounds multimediaish. Oh, blimey, now I got lost! Well, actually I only took a sidestep to read what the MA is all about in Helsinki. Ok, I knew that already. We in medialab are all equal, so that those of us that are more equal than others are on top of the people -page and the rest of us are taking a dip down there somewhere. But what do I see? Loads of homepageless students again!
Universitat Pompeu Fabra
Audiovisual institute.
And yes, there are English pages, the link hidden to the top left corner. Hmmm. what do we got here: Master in Digital arts. I wonder if that's the Emma course. Yes, it says it if you read the smallprint. Nifty and pretty simple to navigate, one can surf with java or decaffenated. Well, the english disappears after a few levels, so se siitä as we Finns say. But there are some studentpages as well! Too bad they are 1997-98... and most of the links are email...Some web pages were quite good, some awful, crappy and buggy. Some both. Favourite quote: "Drugs: just say KNOW" other favourites: The web of the IUA is in a renewal phase. Please come back soon to visit these pages again. Please excuse any inconveniences. Last updated: Fri Dec 11 12:49:11 1998.(happened more than once) Well, as we all know, soon is a very flexible timespan. But yes, they've done a lot of things, as shown in the Production page.
Merz Akademie
Auf Deutsch, and I would say auf wiederschen. Well, anyway their navigation is quite simple, pages are white - nice design c.a. 1997 and yes, in German. The Forum pages are ok and up-to date, and even have some pictures that are interesting to all who went to Stuttgart... The only problem is that they are a year old. Oops! No wonder I couldn't find myself there. The problem -the link from Emma studies to the forum went to the wrong year. Oh well... The new pages have some crappy realplayer video, which almost wouldn't even start on this iMac on the lounge. Why, oh why RealVideo? I hate it I hate it I hate it! Oh well. at least the sound was quite ok.
That's pretty much what I've got to say about Merz. Small, simple, German.
Emma home
Last - and least(?) The worst of them all? last modified 19 September 1996. It tells you what courses are offered in 1996-97, which include basically everything but the kitchen sink. Is there a newer EMMA site? Please tell me.
Graphically the schools represent very different styles. Some are old, plain html, which works if the links and navigation is ok. Some use quite heavy mediaelements, we are, after all, talking about new media. There is always a touch of authority involved, we are, after all, talking about schools, universities and institutions. Sometimes the schools tend to forget their students, and think that the web is for them only. But it is also a window to the world, and students should be the main thing outsiders see when they look through the window (what an awful metaphor!). So you have two things: info to others who are interested, maybe to show what has been going on here and info for your people, maybe to show what's going on here now. None of the schools really divided those parts in the interface, in the graphical style, in the structure. And should they be divided? Maybe it's impossible. But thinking of those two areas could provide some valuable suggestions / solutions.
Keeping a website up seems to be hard business even for those who teach, study and live new media. Broken links, fascination with blinks and tweeps, old info (f)lying around, obscure navigation, the way content is divided may be weird, huge infrastructure falling on you... But almost everywhere else is the same problem. Maybe we've become used to the fact, that oh well, it doesn't work. Maybe it's like dialing to a wrong number (luckily you do it more often with your browser than with your phone).
These opinions belong to me and I use them as I will. Please don't get upset, but go home, fix your stuff and send me and my scribblings to hell. I've deserved it as much as you.