UCSB Media Arts and Technology Program (MAT)

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UCSB Media Arts and Technology Program (MAT)

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www.mat.ucsb.edu

Media Arts & Design Minor In MAT, we seek to define and to create the future of media art and media technology.

Media Arts and Technology (MAT) at UCSB is a transdisciplinary graduate program that fuses emergent media, computer science, engineering, electronic music and digital art research. Media Arts and Technology (MAT) at UCSB is a transdisciplinary graduate program that fuses emergent media, computer science, engineering, and electronic music and digital art research, practice, production, and theory. Created by faculty in both the College of Engineering and the College of Letters and Science, MAT offers an unparalleled opportunity for working at the frontiers of art, science, and technology, where new art forms are born and new expressive media are invented. Our research explores the limits of what is possible in technologically sophisticated art and media, both from an artistic and an engineering viewpoint. Combining art, science, engineering, and theory, MAT graduate studies provide students with a combination of critical and technical tools that prepare them for leadership roles in artistic, engineering, production/direction, educational, and research contexts.

10/09/2026

Our next MAT seminar features Semi Ryu — Director of EXE Lab (Embodied XR + Emotion AI), Professor of Kinetic Imaging in the School of the Arts, and Affiliate Associate Professor of Internal Medicine in the School of Medicine at Virginia Commonwealth University.

Voice, Affect, and Healing Ritual in XR,
Monday, Oct.12 at 1:00PM PST | Zoom Only

Register at bit.ly/matseminar.

10/03/2026

Explore art, science, and technology at Brave New Work 2.0, October 6–8 in Santa Barbara!

Join us for artist and technologist panels, concerts, and a MAT Open House with AlloSphere performances. Come to whichever sessions interest you!

UCSB students FREE with valid Student ID.

For more information, visit: https://www.bravenewworksb.org/
Full schedule and locations: https://www.bravenewworksb.org/program

09/27/2026

Our next MAT seminar features Curtis Roads — Professor Emeritus in Media Arts and Technology and in Music at UCSB.

My Compositional Path: A Review,
Monday, Sep. 28 at 1:00PM PST | Elings 2611 & Zoom

Register at bit.ly/matseminar.

07/06/2026

Alumni Weidi Zhang, and Rodger Luo presented “ReCollection”, an AI generated interactive work in which memory is extended through fiction. The exhibition is titled “Silver Egg: The Eros of Media Art” at the prestigious museum, ZKM Center for Art and Media, in Karlsruhe, Germany. Other artists participaing include Gerhard Richter, Richard Mosse, Ryoichi Kurokawa, Stelarc, Jill Scott, Derek Jarman, and others. The exhibition has been curated by Anett Holzheid, ZKM. The exhibition opened on Saturday, July 4, 2026 and will be up until February 21, 2027.

https://zkm.de/en/2026/07/silver-egg-the-eros-of-media-art

https://www.zhangweidi.com/recollection

Attending the exhibition are from left to right: Yuri (Ye Lu, MAT, visiting student from Tongji University 2019), Prof. George Legrady, Rodger Luo, Prof. Weidi Zhang

06/29/2026

MAT EoYS | June 2 & 4, 2026
Re:agency

What does human agency mean in the presence of systems that appear increasingly "agentic" - systems designed to absorb, predict, and appropriate human action? Where does agency reside when power is concentrated in the hands of a few, who unilaterally define what is possible and what will not be tolerated? And what might agency become if we choose, collectively, to reclaim and reassert our capacity to act, shape, and intervene?

Re:agency marks a moment of reckoning. It is not only an invitation to reclaim our sense of authorship, but a demand to exercise it with renewed urgency and intention. Within MAT, we position ourselves not as subjects of technology, but as active collaborators in its evolution - re:imagining, re:purposing, and re:configuring the very systems that threaten our autonomy, and transforming them into tools for creativity.

Video Credit: Shashank Shivashankar

05/29/2026

Our next MAT seminar features Gérard Assayag — Electronic Musician, Senior Researcher at IRCAM & Founder of the Music Representation Team in Machine Musicianship.

Gerard Assayag : Symbolic interaction and cocreativity in the REACH Project,
Monday, June 1 at 1:00PM PST | Elings 2611 & Zoom

Register at bit.ly/matseminar.

05/14/2026

Our next MAT seminar features Andrew A. Watts — Composer, Music Composition Faculty at UCSB College of Creative Studies & Affiliate in Mind & Machine Intelligence.

The Heat Death of the Universe: Approaches to Glitch in Recent Compositions,
Monday, May 18 at 1:00PM PST | Elings 2611 & Zoom

Register at bit.ly/matseminar.

05/09/2026

Our next MAT seminar features Charlie Roberts — Associate Professor of Computer Science, Core Faculty in Interactive Media & Game Development & Director of the REPL Lab, Worcester Polytechnic Institute; MAT UCSB PhD ’14.

Creating Languages for Creativity,
Monday, May 11 at 1:00PM PST | Elings 2611 & Zoom

Register at bit.ly/matseminar.

05/01/2026

Our next MAT seminar features Andrew Culp — Media Theorist, Professor of Media History and Theory & Director of the MA in Aesthetics and Politics Program at the School of Critical Studies, California Institute of the Arts

The Nomadology Visualizer: Four Nomadic Models of Capture and Flight,
Monday, May 4 at 1:00PM PST | Elings 2611 & Zoom

Register at bit.ly/matseminar.

04/24/2026

Our next MAT seminar features Aaron McLeran — Audio Programmer, Musician & Former Lead Audio Architect for Unreal Engine, Epic Games.

Jazz Is a Solved Problem: Improvisation, Feedback, and What Generative Music Systems Get Wrong,
Monday, Apr. 27 at 1:00PM PST | Elings 2611 & Zoom

Register at bit.ly/matseminar.

Address

Elings Hall
Santa Barbara, CA
93106

Telephone

+18058933029

Website

http://www.mat.ucsb.edu/

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