This course will ground students in the conceptual foundations and historical claims made by the field of creative and media industries. And it will compare the features of a series of influential global/regional creative and media industries. Students will learn to skillfully reflect on the concepts and methods scholars have developed to analyse these industries and will build a research project addressing a creative industries topic of their own choosing.

The course aims to discover what media industries are, and how to approach them analytically. Matching research questions with businesses, practices, products and difficulties often found in film, television, and other media industries. Looking for revealing camouflage; learning how to approach media industries in the field, reverse engineering provisional theses from traits visible in media products.

This course will introduce students to some of the basic issues they can expect to face if they pursue a career in media industries, and will also delve deeper into select issues in order to encourage ethical reflection. The course will guide students to (1) discuss the basic legal and ethical issues facing the media in Hong Kong; (2) to reflect on current ethical questions relevant to a career in the media; (3) to discuss their views on ethical issues; and (4) to think creatively about solving ethical problems.

The course aims to install a deeper knowledge of Hong Kong as a robust creative and media industries hub in relation to cultural economy, creative talents and new business models. Students will explore key components and major milestones of the relevant sectors as they developed into a crucial part of Hong Kong’s cultural economy and signposts of the city’s cultural landscape.

This course aims to provide students with the opportunity to engage directly with prominent practitioners, artists, and professionals who work in the creative and media industries. Through this course, students will also have the chance to participate in major industrial fairs in Hong Kong, gaining valuable insight into the latest trends and developments in the industry. To achieve this, the course instructor invites experienced media producers and senior managers in media institutes as guest speakers to share their industry experiences and offer practical guidance for students’ career development. Following the guest lectures, students will participate in one‐hour tutorial sessions to discuss their takeaways and relate them to the theories they learn from the MACMI core courses. Additionally, field trips to events such as Art Basel and the Hong Kong International Film Festival will be arranged to enrich students’ first‐hand experiences of Hong Kong’s media and creative industries showcases.

This course will explore the relationship of art and technology through the study of art history from modern art to mixed-media art, net art, digital art, computer animation, CGI, interactive installation, robotic art, biotechnology and so forth. Different artists and their applications of different technologies will be studied to explore their relationship to transforming culture and society. Students will gain broader understanding and critical awareness of different concepts and developments of art and technology from early experiments by futurists and constructivists to most recent practices like interactive games and expanded reality experiments with wearable and portable media. The course will acquaint students with the creative ideas of art solutions related to technology and the overall impact of technology on the arts. It encourages students to analyze and criticize different forms and practices of electronic/media arts from conceptual design to practical applications.

The course aims to provide students with fundamental theories and analytical tools for investigating the role of architectural heritage in creative industries and its potential contribution to the quality of life and economy of the corresponding areas. It also aims to acquaint students with the visual/architectural skills for conducting on-site case studies and composing architectural proposal for creative reuse.

This course discusses some of the central issues that have been debated in contemporary mainstream aesthetics and philosophy of art. The topics covered in the course include: (a) the notion of aesthetic value and its connections with other values (for example, moral or artistic), (b) the nature and structure of aesthetic concepts and the way they are deployed in aesthetic understanding, (c) the mind-dependence (or mind-independence) of aesthetic properties such as beauty, ugliness, gaudiness, elegance and so on, (d) the definition of art, (e) specific philosophical issues related to contemporary forms of art, such as installations and digital art.

This course offers an introduction to the notions of imagination and creativity from the point of view of contemporary philosophy of mind. Among the questions investigated in this course: how is the imagination like and different from belief? How does imagination connect with action? How does imagination function in our engagement with fictions? In this course, we will also consider creativity as it relates to imagination: is imagination necessary or essential to creative thought? Finally, we consider some theories of creativity in the arts.

The course will introduce theories and histories of film conservation and digital humanities. It will show students how to utilise digital technology as a tool for visualisation of knowledge, and processing and analysing digital repositories. In addition, practical and ethical issues derived from digital conservation projects will be highlighted to help students in conducting their case studies.

The course aims to equip the students with the essential ideas about the key issues and agents involving Creative Industries (CIs) and cultural policy. In helping the students become familiar with the particular histories and practices of CIs and cultural policies in East Asia, the course aims to sharpen their critical thinking about the functioning and effectiveness of such practices in these countries. It aims at helping the students better understand the operations and forms of decision-making involving the media landscape across East Asia and beyond.

This is a course partly on visual attention – from the point of view of contemporary philosophy of mind – and partly on art. Some examples of questions to be addressed in the more mind-oriented component of the course: What is the content of visual experience? Can vision be top-down affected/penetrated by expectations/knowledge/ values? What is attention? Some examples of questions to be addressed in the more art-oriented component of the course: To what degree is taste/aesthetic judgment a perceptual (visual) phenomenon? What space is there for objectivity in aesthetic judgment? Do different perceivers (say an expert painter vs. a complete novice) *see* artworks differently?

This course empowers students to apply theories and methodologies learned across the MACMI curriculum to analyse – in depth – a creative and media industries topics of their own choosing. With the supervision of a faculty member with relevant expertise, students will engage in self-directed research and interrogate relevant scholarly perspectives on the object of their study. The capstone project will offer students a valuable opportunity to connect their MACMI scholarship with their future careers.

The course will offer students introduction to the philosophical, ethical, and technical notions required to understand the current debates surrounding AI and its impact in various areas of the creative and media industries. Influential theories and arguments will also be highlighted throughout the course.

Curating is a contested field of practice, mediating the production, circulation and consumption of art and culture, as well as offering a reflection on the social and cultural phenomenon. To enable students’ understanding of curatorial approaches, this course will introduce the histories of curating and curatorial discourses and practices in both Western and Asian contexts. It will focus on key themes and debates within exhibition-making such as the role of curator, boundary-pushing curatorial concepts, curating in and outside the museum and working with communities and other mediums and disciplines. Besides, it provides an experimental platform for students to interpret artworks and design.

This course explores the role of digital technologies in curatorial practice. It aims to provide competent knowledge of various forms of digital media employed by curators in exhibition design and museum management. Digital media provides specific potentials in interactive, participatory, physical or virtual presentations. The course will start with an overview of such development and application in a museum setting. With case studies to different digital tools, students will be familiar with their advantages and limitations, especially to their potentials in narrative, communicative and educational purposes. Students will be guided to identify the media specific properties and based on these, they will plan for an effective strategy to match curatorial objectives.