Introduction
None of the great artists of the past have lived in the kind of information society we have today.
Digital technology has expanded to create limitless possibilities in the modes of expression available to the artist, including images, sound, shape, and color. The futuristic realm of art made possible through electronics is expanding before our very eyes.
The problem, through, is people.
People have not been able to keep up with the kind of progress being made in the world of technology. What does technology do to creative individuals? Will art be enriched? These are the kinds of questions that are just now starting to be addressed.

Graduate School of Arts at the Tokyo Polytechnic University aims to serve as a creative center for media art, approaching its three media art research programs in Photography, Imaging Art, and Design from the perspectives of artistic creation as well as image processing. Tokyo Polytechnic University stands alone as Japan's only institution of post-graduate education that strivers to provide a scholarly approach to media art and to train researchers in this field.

Objectives
1. To take a scholarly approach to media art by taking a more intensive approach to next-generation media theories.
2. To train highly creative and talented researchers through concentrated research on media art.
3. To train media artists who take an integrated approach to media art and who are equipped with a palette of advanced and specialized knowledge and skills suitable for the diversified media environment.

Systematize and Construct Theories of Media Art -
Three research areas of Photography, Imaging Art, and Design are offered borderless

Masters' Course
Admission: 12
Art programs focused on Photographic Media, Image Media, and Design Media Fields.

The goal of the Graduate School of Arts is to systematize and construct theories of the field of media art as a whole in ways that cannot be done at the undergraduate level.
For that reason, we have taken three programs for the fields of photography, imaging art, and design, and combined them into one graduate program, the Media Art Program. This lowers the walls between each field, and makes it easier to complete courses in diverse fields. It also allows students, under the counsel of their advisors, to shift into a research area they want to pursue that may be different from the one they pursued as an undergraduate.
It is within this kind of borderless research environment that we are able to train media artists and media researchers who can take an integrated approach to media art and who are equipped with a palette of advanced and specialized knowledge and skills. People who have acquired systematic artistic techniques in media art are in high demand in the current innovation-driven field of media creation.
Many lucrative paths are open to graduates of this program.

Doctorate Course
Admission: 2
The opportunity to pursue further research in Media Art Studies.

With the advances in technology, a "new wind is blowing in the art realm." Utilizing various technologies, media art is extending the possibilities of creative expressions. In Japan, the academic study of this specialized field of media art can only be pursued here at the Tokyo Polytechnic University, Graduate School of Arts. This program is aptly suited for the needs of the era.
The doctoral program aims to achieve even greater familiarization with media art through technical research of media, and experimentation and theoretical research of the potential for expression. This prospect for further research into media art provides the opportunity to shake up the artistic culture and to train the people who will be the pioneers.

Develop comprehensive course curriculum according to scientific and systematic theory.

A goal of the doctoral program is to develop theories regarding media art from the perspective of balance between people, the environment and art. Building on the four areas of study covered in the masters' course, research is advanced further.
Examples of research topics include the investigation of a new language that enables image expressions to change from physical labor to intellectual labor, visual computing that processes and analyzes human visual information and broadens the range of that information, and research that deals with human communication while emphasizing creative activities.
In the rapidly evolving multimedia and information-intensive industries, there is a need for qualified workers who will contribute on par with technical-oriented specialized engineers and researchers. The active participation by these media art researchers is anticipated.

Education at the Faculty of Arts
The basic educational concept at the Tokyo Polytechnic University places emphasis on " confronting, contemplating and transmitting the human essence." The goal of fusing art and technology requires that even the use of the latest high-tech equipment should not be accepted as merely a technology-related act, rather, one should attempt to sublimate that experience into art and create an outstanding object that demonstrates the splendor of human emotion and sensitivity. Each faculty member is an artist possessing an abundance of individuality. The campus has a vibrant atmosphere, filled with the resonance of instructor and student artistic sensitivities. Our objective is to ensure that students acquire the timeless elements essential to creative expression, which will remain valid regardless of the society, and to cultivate media artists who will become leaders of the next generation.

The unique Faculty of Arts comprises of five departments;
Department of Photography centered on photography, Department of Imaging Art focused on films and television, and Department of Design for graphic and product design, as well as Department of Media Art that centered on computer technology and Department of Animation. Each Department in the Faculty of Arts is introduced in the following pages.

The Faculty of Arts, which aims to become the standard bearer for education in the field of this new "media art," has a "wedge-shaped" curriculum designed to provide initially a broad base of knowledge and then more focused, specialized skills. Students in their first and second years of study acquire a basic grounding for creative expression by studying Fundamentals of the Arts and Liberal arts subjects.
For the compulsory subjects of language, students from abroad will choose from either Japanese or English language courses. Additionally, beginning in their first year, students begin studying specialized subjects of various departments and have the opportunity to create works of art through practical training.

A curriculum for accredited university degrees consists of minimum 124 units in total.
Basic Subjects: 37 units (Fundamentals of the Arts, Introduction to Liberal Arts)
Specialized Subjects: 65 units
Optional Subjects: 22 units (Elective from Basic and Specialized subjects)