Digital creativity and transdisciplinarity at postgraduate level: the design and implementation of a transdisciplinary masters programme and its implications for creative practice

Abstract

This article investigates how transdisciplinary approaches to curriculum design on a taught masters programme in creative technologies enhance digital creativity in students. Drawing on the experience of developing and running the Masters in Creative Technologies (MA/MSc) at the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University, Leicester, we explore a number of areas relating to transdisciplinary teaching and learning in higher education, including: how digital technologies enable students to work in a transdisciplinary manner; how working creatively with technology enables transdisciplinary modes of working; and the ways in which transdisciplinarity, enabled by digital technologies, has affected the creative practice of learners. The article discusses how the programme has developed a climate for creativity, and outlines how the knowledge and skills gained during a creative technologies-related transdisciplinary programme meet the needs of a changing workplace.

Keywords:

• transdisciplinary
• digital
• creativity
• Institute of Creative Technologies
• masters

Notes

₁ This refers in general to UK universities created in 1992, mostly from the former polytechnics.

Additional information

Andrew Hugill is the former Director of the Institute of Creative Technologies at De Montfort University. He is a transdisciplinary researcher in music, literature and computer science. His compositions have been performed worldwide. Monographs include The Digital Musician (Routledge, 2008/2012) and Pataphysics: A Useless Guide (MIT Press, 2012).

Sophy Smith is a research fellow at the Institute of Creative Technologies, De Montfort University, Leicester, where she leads the innovative transdisciplinary Masters in Creative Technologies. Her research, primarily in but not restricted to professional arts practice, focuses on inter/multi/transdisciplinary collaboration, and her book Hip-Hop Turntablism, Creativity and Collaboration was published by Ashgate in 2013. Sophy also works extensively as a composer and performer on professional collaborative arts projects both nationally and internationally.