EXTRA CURRICULAR

Through collaborative efforts various independent Organisations (short and long term) are supported by the Sandberg Instituut. In relation to the two year Masters education, these Organisations consist of projects, programmes, exhibitions, publications and gatherings for both current students, alumni and staff as well as a professional audience and public with an interest in fine arts, design and architecture.

Media Lab

Medialab offers students a space to study, collaborate and experiment with electronic and digital media, and exchange knowledge. Our computer and meeting room is designed to facilitate independent study and focus, as well as collaboration and creative stimulation. At Medialab, we are committed to preserving the identity of the Sandberg Instituut in all our activities. Given the diverse knowledge and needs of the students and departments, it is essential to remain adaptable and responsive to these different requirements.

The staff and specialists at Medialab are themselves former students and each bring their own specialisms and expertises. This allows us to offer a broad range of workshops, both practical and theoretical. Both alumni and students have opportunities to lead workshops and lectures.

We are continuously researching what technologies and associated theories could play a role in shaping the future. We pick up and tap into new technologies based on the needs and direction of the students.

Medialab's staff organises and facilitates workshops, lectures and events, as well as providing audiovisual equipment rentals and technical support for exhibited works during the Sandberg Year Opening, Open Sandberg, Sandberg Graduation, and various other exhibitions and presentations by Sandberg students.

Medialab is located on the 5th floor of the Benthem Crouwel building.

Research

Research at Sandberg Instituut is research that opens the possibilities of imagination. This means that questioning dominant paradigms becomes embedded in the way we approach learning, making and creating. Imagination that is not limited to the way things are but rather to the possibilities of what could be. We conceive of the institute as a place for interdisciplinary research and cross-pollination that exceeds the confines of conventional academic disciplines.

This perspective on research is grounded in a broad and encompassing practice that challenges conventional ways in which knowledges are produced. Drawing on critical pedagogy, critical making and emancipatory research, we give space to an environment that opens itself for different ways of producing and approaching knowledge. We believe in emancipatory research that does not require endorsement from institutions either academic or from civil society but research that operates independently and across disciplines driven by the needs of broad developments. No longer bound by canonical practices that dictate what is proper knowledge, we open ourselves up for the possibilities of the uncharted, those paths that have not yet been forged and do not yet have a space of institutional representation. This intentional subversion of canonical knowledge should not be confused with chaotic or non-rigorous research practices. On the contrary, we purposefully foster rigorous research from an emancipatory perspective based on principles of openness, empowerment, accountability and reciprocity.

In our search for new forms of engagement with research we work through de-centering and dislocating the traditional sources of knowledge to give way to what has always been relegated to the periphery. Knowledge, then, not as a top/down resource that is transmitted through authoritative practices but as part of shared experiences where the emphasis is put in searching together rather than in uncritical dominance.