IMMERSIVE MEDIA

Entry requirements

MA applicants are normally expected to have an undergraduate degree at 2:2 or above. However, the strength of your creative practice and other forms of experience will be taken into account at the interview stage and we encourage you to start a conversation with us.

Months of entry

October

Course content

Our Masters programmes offer you an intensive personal programme of creative and stimulating study within a supportive critical and practical framework that enables you to examine, interrogate and reflect upon the nature and role of your chosen practice.

MA Immersive Media prepares students to translate their creative knowledge and digital skills into engaging immersive content and public media experiences for diverse audiences in this exciting and rapidly growing sector. Learning is conducted through our unique partnership with Real Ideas Market Hall in Plymouth, home to Europe’s largest Immersive Dome.

Led by expert staff and creative practitioners with pioneering experience in immersive media and digital world building, students on this course learn to develop original digital content for public spaces, including for a 360-degree dome optimised for audience engagement.

Working within this state-of-the-art dome facility, student projects are created for 8k visual projection and a 19.1 audio speaker array. In addition to developing media for fully contained immersion, students are introduced to a wide range of related technologies and approaches to frameless media, including Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR) and Mixed Reality (MR), experienced through passive and interactive formats such as animation, game environments, spatial audio, 360 recorded and real-time video content, among other forms.

Combining academic excellence with teaching from highly experienced industry specialists, MA Immersive Media will enable students to make engaging immersive content and media experiences for diverse audiences in the rapidly growing creative and digital sector in Plymouth and the South West. Through a sequence of three 60-credit units over the year (or over two years part-time), students will develop an individual or collaborative research project, realised through the taught use of immersive technologies, to production standards that will fully prepare them for employment in any of the many sectors now embracing this emerging cultural form.

Arts University Plymouth has primary expertise and research focus in immersive genres that have emerged from fine art, games, film and animation, and which conceptually intersect around practices such as installation art, 360 degree filmmaking, critical digital culture, social gaming and worldbuilding. The university’s background and historical commitment to social justice infuse our teaching of these creative practices with a focus on the shared, public contexts of immersive media, allowing students to develop their ideas beyond mere technical know-how, to develop media which meaningfully impacts human relationships and our relationship to the environment. With this focused expertise and opportunity to develop immersive media within a social context through our partnership with Real Ideas as a social enterprise, MA Immersive Media is a crucible for aesthetic innovation that is uniquely attuned to the human aspects of immersive experiences that will give graduates a unique advantage within this industry.

Applications explored and possible outcomes for immersive media include those in: games and entertainment industries; museums and heritage sectors; marketing, advertising, and tourism; art and architecture; product development; data/information design; science education and visualisation; medicine and and healthcare.

Information for international students

Our International Fees* are very competitive and are less costly than many of our competitors – yet our facilities are world-leading.

*Excluding costs for international students who need a pre-sessional English course and ongoing in-year English language support.

Visa information

Fees and funding

Read more on Arts University Plymouth funding here

Masters degree and MA by Research (UK students)

Full-time - £8,900

Part-time - £4,985

Masters degree and MA by Research (EU & International students)

Full-time - £16,500

Part-time - £8,800

Alumni Progression Award: 15% discount on MA or MFA fees for Undergraduate, Pre-Degree and FAD graduates who go on to postgraduate study with us.