Some 50 youths aged 13-18 arrived on the Ithaca College campus June 30 to participate in the School of Media Arts, a four-week program that will help them develop their talents in video, film, photography, and computer graphics.
Converging on Ithaca from across the state, the teens have already demonstrated substantial achievement in media arts production. Robert Harris, artistic director of the school and an assistant professor in the television-radio department at the Roy H. Park School of Communications, says the goal is to give these students further opportunity to explore their potential. "The students will be introduced to creative work and to people that it's very rare for a young person to be exposed to," says Harris. "It's like going nightly to the philharmonic and talking to the composers and musicians."
Among the school's faculty this year is Raymond Ghirardo, an associate professor of art at Ithaca College who will teach computer arts. Hank Rudolph, programs coordinator at the Experimental Television Center in Owego, is responsible for instruction in video. Photography will be taught by Mildred Selendy, who is working in the areas of photography and computer arts at Cornell University. Harris, a nationally known media artist, will co-teach the film course in addition to overseeing the entire program.
Harris says the school gives the teenagers "unique exposure to an artistic process" as well as instruction in techniques and tools of media production. The school also offers experiences that can help students plan for careers in the media arts.
The media arts school is one of eight components of the New York State Summer School of the Arts, which was founded in 1971 with the stated goal of providing "intensive, preprofessional training programs for New York State's most gifted and motivated young artists." In addition to media arts, other summer schools are devoted to ballet, choral studies, dance, jazz studies, orchestral studies, theater, and visual arts.
Entering its 22nd year, the media arts school has been directed by Harris at Ithaca College since 1992.