Media Futures

Here we track different kinds of media knowledge and media making across our departments, schools, centers and student groups, considering the history of popular culture as well as new media innovation.  How are old and new media joined, scaled, iterated, fortified, or redefined to ensure a robust public culture at Berkeley and beyond?

UC Berkeley student Heidi Dong sitting next to the art installation she co-created at the Albany Bulb.

Cal students build artistic ‘monument to extraction’ at Albany Bulb

Dhyana Levey, Berkeleyside

Much of the Bay Area’s history exists out of sight. Or at least out of notice.  

Outside of the Graduate School of Journalism's building.

Berkeley Journalism lecturer, students and alumni honored in 2021 Pulitzer Prizes

UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

The work of a Berkeley Journalism lecturer, five students and two alumni was honored in the 2021 Pulitzer Prizes, in the Breaking News, National News and Public Service categories, Columbia University announced.

Installation

UC Berkeley alumnus’s engineering company announces grant program to fund artistic sculptures

Ashley Tsai, The Daily Cal

Rbhu, an engineering company created by a UC Berkeley alumnus that specializes in large scale artwork and entertainment sculptures, is launching a new round of grants to donate to artists.

Three graduate students pose for a photo.

Environmental Design gift gives students debt relief, path to public service

Sarah Fullerton, Berkeley News

UC Berkeley’s College of Environmental Design (CED) today (June 10) announced a transformative $5.3 million gift, from Berkeley alumnus Jon Stryker, that will fund a four-year fellowship program aimed at providing debt relief to more than 100 graduate students.

Artist and UC Berkeley engineering professor Ken Goldberg

Art on the Blockchain: Are NFTs a game changer for the San Francisco art market?

Jenny Jedeikin, SF/Arts Monthly

Three months ago, Nyan Cat, a popular meme and YouTube video of a cat with a pop-tart body trailing a rainbow, was turned into a digital NFT token and sold by the SF-based digital gallery Foundation for $590,000, fetching a windfall for the creator who had yet to realize any economic benefit from his popular work created in 2011.

Outside of the Valley Life Sciences Building at UC Berkeley

‘Own a part of history’: UC Berkeley to sell nonfungible tokens of scientific discoveries

Vani Suresh, The Daily Cal

UC Berkeley will auction two nonfungible tokens, or NFTs, relating to Nobel Prize-winning inventions for the funding of future research and innovation.

Four students are spotlighted on a Zoom meeting.

Theater, Dance and Performance Studies’ ‘Newsflash! A Mini Musical’ channels graduation anxieties

Grace Orriss, The Daily Cal

It’s appropriate that “Newsflash! A Mini Musical” is virtually premiering in May, because its subjects — collegiate high achievers who are now desperately scrambling to succeed in the real world — will likely resonate with a portion of this year’s senior class of UC Berkeley undergraduates.

Small model of the campanile sits atop a table with other design materials.

Summer 2021 Courses in the Arts + Design

Berkeley Arts + Design

Immerse yourself in Berkeley's creative landscape by enrolling in a summer course.

a faded sepia image of clouds in a sky.

Lift Our Gazes: UC Berkeley Summer Reading List for New Students, 2021

UC Berkeley Summer Reading

Dear New Cal Students,

The Kramlichs, known as Pam and Dick, on a monumental staircase that connects the underground galleries and a mezzanine to the glass pavilion.

Illuminating the Arts on Screen: Kramlich Art Foundation supports media art education

Soomin Suh, Berkeley Arts + Design

After taking a class that introduced her to a wide range of art and design forms represented at Berkeley and beyond, interdisciplinary studies student Michelle Williams ’22 began cataloging the legacy of her own family’s art collection. “My mother was a prolific fine artist.… The slides alone are in the thousands!” says Williams. “What has moved