Courses

MM1 Art and the Environment: Studies in the Field
Intensive 2-week course for students concerned with environmental issues.
The course is suitable for students studying fine arts, design, media arts, architecture, engineering, environmental humanities, environmental management. Students can interact with the land that is the focus of the course, directly or produce models, concept drawings, paintings, sculpture, photographs, video or designs. Multi-disciplinarity will be achieved by integrated team working, with participants from a variety of disciplines enrolled in the course.

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MM2
The course is designed to provide a depth of Fine Art experience for 1st year students, linking creative practice and research in particular studio settings. Basic technologies and skills will be taught, critical awareness and interpretive skills developed and the interdisciplinary nature of contemporary art practice will be emphasized. The course explores the creative potential of practice-based research and experimental art making in Painting, Printmaking, Textiles, Photography, Cross Media Arts and/or Sculpture, Performance and Installation.
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MM3
Undertake fieldwork conducted in urban and natural environments to enrich the content of your practice. You will build experiential and academic knowledge of the disciplines Sculpture, Performance and Installation (SPI) Art and their interdisciplinary potential. The issues of identity, social engineering and indoctrination will be investigated. You will investigate environmental sustainability and our relationship to the natural environment in the field, experiment with corporeal action, ephemeral processes, site-specific installations and environmental interventions.
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MM5 Cross Disciplinary Art & Design
This course is the foundation component of the core series of Masters studies online. The course is divided into two areas: an introductory study into cross-disciplinary creative practices; and, approaches and advice on how best to study and learn within a solely online context.
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MM6
Online course follows on from MM5. Develop a deeper understanding of cross-disciplinary practice through researching a series of essays written by a variety of academics and creative practitioners worldwide, about approaches to cross-disciplinary art and design practice.
Produce a rationale regarding relationships and potentials of contemporary cross-disciplinary approaches to your own creative practice.

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MM7 Cross Disciplinary Design 3
Online course follows on from MM5 and MM6. Refine students’ critical thinking skills and capacity for creative problem solving, reinforcing your awareness and appreciation of the diversity of creative approaches across disciplines. Beginning with a rigorous critical reflection of the previous two stages of Portfolio (MM5 & MM6), examine your own creative strengths and weaknesses as revealed by past peer and lecturer critiques and analysis, and identify specific disciplinary strengths.
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MM8
This project is a summary of one of 3 options that students may choose. This integrated project invites 3rd year undergraduate students to engage with the future of food. This project is one of three and focuses on Reframing Food Systems and proposes that the city is “cognitively impaired” in regard to its connection to the land.

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MM11 Project X
This course is available from 2nd year through to masters.
Large-scale outdoor installations, follies, and symbolic structures, have a long tradition of raising public awareness, sending signals, and representing ideas. This project is to develop a Scheme Design for an installation, sculpture or other intervention, which will serve as a symbol an international conference for design education. The outcome will convey the value and significance of both design and design education, and particularly their cross-disciplinary, (or cross-faculty) natures. By carrying out a real design (and construction) project within a 3-Faculty teaching course, we will be celebrating both the design process and the design education process, and both in their cross-disciplinary dimension. Local and international students are welcome to participate from a wide range of disciplines including art, design, engineering, architecture etc.
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MM12 Electronic Technologies
This practical class aims to introduce students to electronics (hardware) and technologies as used in contemporary art making through lectures, demonstrations, workshops, experiential learning and project work. It aims to teach students how to make artwork using innovative applications of new technology. Basic theory of electrical technologies, that is, the basics of how electricity works & how to safely wire up components, will be taught, explained and applied to the individual work of each student as the special requirements of each student’s projects arise.

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MM13
This subject explores the intricate links and parallels between the arts, science, philosophy, architecture, nature, cultural traditions, mysticism, medicine (both western and eastern), law, and economics, through understandings of the human body. The course combines lectures and tutorials with workshops/hands-on approaches in formal and more informal creative applications of theoretical knowledge, as well as student-led collaborative projects.

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MM14
Students broaden their theoretical and practical knowledge of the human body as constructed through discourses across the creative arts, humanities and sciences. Over the semester students attend a programme of 12 events involving lectures, performances, film screenings, and interviews, all directly related to the Seminar topics.
Seminars include both theoretical and practical components, providing opportunities for experimentation with applications of knowledge and process.

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MM15
This unit focuses on experimentation and research. Students are required to form small multidisciplinary collaborative groups. Each group develops its own project on the body related to current areas of social/scientific concern. Groups will receive supervision from staff from the arts, humanities and sciences. Through the development of highly experimental projects, students generate opportunities for interdisciplinary research, leading to new modes of representation, as well as new understandings and strategies for dealing with the complex array of issues and questions surrounding the human body.
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MM16 Developing your Creative and Entrepreneurial Potential
Entrepreneurial practice in the contemporary domain has evolved to encompass a transdisciplinary space where community, creativity and collaboration play critical roles. In this context, traditional notions of ‘impact’, ‘loss’ and ‘business’ are framed by a newly awakened social, cultural and environmental awareness. This course responds to the global demand for these core contemporary attributes by enabling graduates to develop confidence, capacity and capability for creative thinking and entrepreneurship. Students will learn to act in an enterprising manner across a broad range of disciplines and arenas and the course will provide opportunities for personal, professional and social achievement, recognition and satisfaction.
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MM17 Biomimicry in Practice
This unit of study examines how artists are inspired by elements in nature to develop more sustainable approaches to their practice. By exploring materials and processes relevant to your own practice you will develop artworks using new understandings of sustainable art practices using examples of biomimicry and sustainability. These include formal concepts of lightness derived from Haiku poetry, a type of creative minimalist realism that strives to use the least amount of materials and energy to communicate ideas. Through active engagement in studio and research classes, field trips and online image bank collecting and discussion, you will develop a series of individual studio projects, combining your current skills with experiments in new materials and processes, towards the realisation of a final work.
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MM18 Advanced Art and Life Manipulation
Course introduces the basic practical and theoretical working methodologies for the construction of works of art that include living elements. Topics include basic methods of tissue engineering, tissue culture, DNA isolation, breeding principles and genetic engineering. The ethical and aesthetic issues of bio-art are also discussed.
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MM4
This 3rd year unit focuses on the exploration of Sculpture, Performance and Installation Art in all their guises at an advance level. Students design a hypothetical public artwork as part of Sculpture, Performance an Installation Art professional practice strand. Students initiate and research their own project ideas alongside their research & presentation of studio theory.
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MM19 WWW Design
Course will extend a students understanding of the internet as a whole, its structure, history and the relationship between society and technology. Students will learn about strategies for creating and implementing effective web approaches and develop a functional website. This elective unit is available to all students across any year level or degree.
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MM20 Design 3D Fabrication
This three-week intensive and practical unit will explore contemporary techniques for both scanning and modeling 3D forms, as well as staged skill acquisition from concept sketch to 3D model, with subsequent refinement to produce machine ready files.
Students will be exposed to a range of software and processes, but the focus of this unit is not on the training in using a specific software package, but in the application of software to these fabrications devices. Exercises will explore strategies from creating and constructing forms and the preflight checking of files for a variety of print, routing and cutting processes.
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MM21 Studio Art Practice 1
This first year unit aims to begin developing strategies for practice in contemporary studio art as well as an awareness of personal philosophies, to create an integrated and self-sustaining artistic practice. This unit will aid in the development of an enquiry-based, self-sustaining art practice; fostering of appropriate research skills; encouragement of open flexible independent approach to formulating resolutions to conceptual and visual concerns; development of safe workshop practices, safe studio work habits and appropriate professional skills. It includes introductions to technological artforms. It also aims to develop self-motivation, self-reliance, as well as a sense of inquiry and openness to new ideas and experiences.

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MM22 Studio Art Practice 2
This first year unit aims to continue the developing of strategies for practice in contemporary studio art as well as the cultivation of personal philosophies, to create an individual and self-sustaining artistic practice. It also aims to develop self-motivation, self-reliance and collaboration, as well as a sense of inquiry and openness to new ideas, media and studio experiences. All first year Art and Design students are enrolled across the board.

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MM23 Creative Industries
The aim of this unit is to enable you to undertake a supervised project in a team-oriented environment that involves both practical application and critical reflection. The experience and skills gained from this project are designed to contribute towards your increased self-knowledge and confidence as a practitioner in the Creative Industries.

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MM24 Creating Knowledge
Creating Knowledge (CK) is a Vice-Chancellor’s course for talented, inquiring students from all areas of the ANU who are interested in what makes universities tick. A university is one of the places where people gather to make sense of the world and CK brings students from across the ANU together to do just that. It affords students early in their degree the time and the space to consider the nature of academic inquiry and its relationship to other ways of knowing and creating knowledge. Featuring a host of researchers and ideas from different disciplinary and cultural perspectives, CK presents a series of expert panels on the different ways knowledge is constructed across the ANU. In this way, motivated and interested students are given the opportunity to engage with different disciplinary and cultural ways of knowing. The panels, readings, tutorials and workshops are all thought starters – you need to use them as launching pads of inquiry, and not necessarily, final destinations.

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MM25 Unravelling Complexity
Latter year students from any faculty of the university are welcomed to join this unit. The unit will give students the opportunity to explore a series of complex issues. The connections between economic, historical, social, legal, scientific, engineering, environmental and moral dimensions of complex problems will be explored.


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MM26 Mobilising Research
4 week intensive course offered to later year and post-graduate students from any university during the mid year break. The unit requires students to investigate an area of groundbreaking research from their home institution or an institution you regard highly, preferably that began at least 20 years ago. The problem needs to be a cross-sectoral, have societal value, be interdisciplinary in nature and of relevance to the group members. This topic can be in any field, but it should be in an academic area of interest for the student. Participates will use this research project to explore the course themes, and present an understanding of its societal value.

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MM27 Studio Gateway 2
This unit introduces first year students to studio practice in contemporary Art, Media and Design. The course underpins ongoing development as studio practitioners by allowing students to conceptualise and situate their practice through a series of seminars, workshops and projects designed to challenge ideas around practice and creativity.

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MM28
This first year unit introduces students to interdisciplinary approaches to addressing the key challenges facing the global community. Students are introduced to historical and contemporary concepts, ideas, and frameworks necessary for critically reflecting on the impact of globalisation across cultures. Key to this reflection will be the development of skills in understanding institutions, cultures and people across a range of local, regional, and global contexts. The unit will enable students to identify, define and describe key global challenges and to apply the interdisciplinary knowledge gained in this unit to critique and construct knowledge in this area.

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MM29 Producing Digital News
This 2nd and 3rd year unit explores production and design practices in digital journalism, including content management systems used in newsrooms, basic coding for web pages, and photo management and design through the latest software programs. The unit examines the effective use of interactive features for multimedia news production, including polls, maps, sound slides and infographics. Students will learn how to produce visually appealing data through a range of software programs, including Adobe products. They will create web pages that feature rich multimedia content. The successful web pages will be showcased on Monash's journalism website, Mojo, or published on other news websites.
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MM30 Build your Career
This 2nd and 3rd year unit equips students with the capacity to manage their careers lifelong. It contextualises this understanding in the history, sociology, economics and future of work. Work legislation and the role of unions and professional associations also provide a setting for exploration of career concepts and theories and their application to the individual. Students will develop a career plan based on an awareness of their skills and aspirations and an understanding of approaches to job search, career decision making and managing change.

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MM31
This Masters unit advances the student's knowledge of multimedia design principles with a strong emphasis on interface design. Particular emphasis is placed on the role of interactivity, virtual space and multimedia authoring in multimedia design, including the skills and techniques to use these elements in electronic documents. Students undertake project work that explores a wide range of technical skills and conceptual models involved with the production of interactive media. Individual's specialist skills and folio preparation will also be covered.
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MM32 Socially & Environmentally Responsible Design
This 3rd year course provides students with the opportunity for work experience in a design studio setting on projects developed in collaboration with community, local government and the non-profit sector. The aim is to provide a bridge between theory and practice, build understanding and interdisciplinary experience of complex problems and foster the development of reflective practice. Students will gain a refined understanding of what to bring to a complex problem from their disciplinary-specific skills, where to concede to other disciplinary expertise and how they intersect. A Design Futures framework will be used to develop an understanding and assessment of socially and environmentally responsible projects.

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MM34 Advanced Architectural Studies
This 3rd year unit examines issues in architectural production. This unit covers architectural production in relation to a range of historical, theoretical, material and speculative domains addressing diverse social, cultural, technological, and communicative aspects of architecture. Investigations will incorporate various methodologies and points of view. The unit will develop analytical methods for understanding and contributing to the evolving built environment.

Students enrolled in the 3rd year unit were required to develop prototypes in response to the supplied brief and presented these to MONA. MONA selected the final design which was built by Monash students collaborating with engineers at MONA. They developed two structures – one called the Oyster Pontoon located within the River in front of MONA, and the other called the ‘Retaining Wall’, a large public pavilion, built on the MONA lawns to act as a centre piece for the project.

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MM35 Interdisciplinary Design
This 2nd and 3rd year interdisciplinary studio environment unit, provides though team-based project activities and problem-based learning, the application of knowledge and techniques from the students’ individual design disciplines, whilst solving a complex multi-faceted design problem. The unit is run in Monash’s Prato campus and the offshore context requires students to respond in a conscious and critical manner to the local environment, and to exercise entrepreneurial skills to research.
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MM38 Art and Social Change
This 2nd and 3rd year unit looks at key moments in history in which art and artists have actively strived to generate social change. With a particular focus on the late 20th and 21st centuries, Art and Social Change critically explores the dynamic sites in which art, life and activism intersect. Diverse contexts and artistic practices will be examined. Topics include the use of art in political propaganda, culture jamming, identity politics, indigenous art and politics, the environment, art and the impact of global terrorism, and critiques of the art world itself. These thematic weekly study topics will be complimented by discussions of theory from key writers and theorists in the field.
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MM33 Interior Architecture Studio
This unit is available to all 4th year students enrolled in the Interior Architecture Studio. Projects are student-generated and complex, usually addressing specialised contexts. Building code and other statutory requirements are researched and resolution of these issues is required as part of the project requirements. Students undertake research studies in specific contemporary discourses and practices pertaining to their project, which may include interior, environmental and architectural design and related social theory. Students develop and articulate their individual project approaches and design philosophies in studio discussion, whilst planning their design process and scheduling the project demands through the semester.
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MM36 Introduction to Contemporary Practices
This first year unit is the first in a sequence to introduce students to a range of leading contemporary art practices and methodologies. The unit promotes a cutting-edge approach to conceptual and material processes through interdisciplinary transaction, material and fabrication procedures. Associated projects are introduced based on theories of contemporary art practices, collaborative practices and individual modes of research-focused outcomes. Students will develop inventive and sustainable solutions to a series of projects that will enable them to develop a personal methodology and language.
This unit is delivered as a combination of studio teaching, workshops, lectures, independent research activities, field trips and group as well as one-on-one tutorials. It is founded on the prospective development of each student’s independent research skills across studio-based and other enquiry-based learning. The aim of this program is to offer students a number of varied delivery modes to suit differing modes of reception.
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MM37 Drawing
An intensive 1st year program facilitating the acquisition and development of practical and intellectual skills required by art, design and architecture students in the discipline of drawing. Observation, analysis, selection, interpretation and expression are studied through sequential projects. Manufactured and natural forms including the figure and other models are central to the investigation of proportion, structure, volume and space through line, tone, shape, movement and texture. A range of drawing materials and methods are explored.

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