Video + Sound

Understand and utilize current best practices of Video & Sound production to acquire and edit a variety of media. Develop a personal voice and aesthetic through rigor, risk, and experimentation. Complete projects that demonstrate technical skill and conceptual depth.

View the histories of film, video, music and sound art through a stylistic, cultural and critical lens. Understand one’s own work in the context of historical and contemporary examples. Analyze and describe sound and video work using industry-appropriate and medium-specific terminology. Demonstrate the ability to assess one’s own work and the work of others with an understanding of the complete production process. Synthesize concepts into projects through a combination of research and experimentation.

Understand one’s own positionality, developing cultural literacy around diverse practices and perspectives that align with or challenge existing views. Co-create a culture of respect, tolerance, and constructive critique. Center creative and scholarly practices that participate in contemporary culture, student demographics and diverse worldviews.

Cultivate a multi-faceted skill set with the ability to use low-tech or DIY approaches when necessary. Demonstrate self-motivation at all stages of the creative process, including planning, project management, collaboration and distribution. Be able to speak and write clearly about one’s goals in order to build professional networks. Show adaptability to explore diverse post-graduate pathways, including personal artistic work and client-based projects.

Foundation Year

A time to explore

In your Foundation Year, you’ll be immersed from day one in media and making of all kinds from drawing, design, and sculpture, to digital tools, video, and performance. It’s a year of discovery, a time to explore new ways of thinking and making, meet new friends, and get to know your new community.

Thesis

Preparing for graduation

Your senior year is an exciting time of tranistion from student to working artist or designer. The focus of your senior year is conceiving a thesis project of your own design and producing it with the support of faculty, your peers, and a mentor who works with you one-on-one.

Areas of Study

Freedom to focus

PNCA offers ten undergraduate majors, all of which offer you choices in your electives and liberal arts courses. This means that whatever your major, you have the freedom to focus many of your course choices around your particular area of interest. We've outlined the following Areas of Study to give you a sense of the scope of courses available at PNCA.

Liberal Arts

Fortify your intellectual foundation

Liberal Arts courses round out your education, helping you become a more thoughtful, well-rounded artist or designer. Explore widely or select your courses to focus on one of what we call Areas of Study.