The MediaEcologies master’s degree program at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar addresses these connections. It conceives of media not merely as forms of representation, but as ecological structures that actively co-produce experience, sociality, and environmental relations.

The two-year, English-language program explores, on the one hand, the role that media—from photography and film to computer models—play in the emergence and development of the three ecologies. At the same time, it examines media as ecologies, i.e. as machinic assemblages of bodies and architectures that increasingly surround, envelop, and control us (e.g. Virtual Reality, self-driving cars, Smart Cities).

Based on extensive research on planetary experiments, vitalist Marxism, and Institutional Psychotherapy, the program includes course modules on the Anthropocene, Theory and History of Ecology, Planetary Media, MediaNatures, and Future Environments. Additional modules can be selected from all courses offered at Bauhaus University, particularly in the faculties of Art and Design or Architecture and Urbanism. Another module can be chosen from the German language courses offered by our Center for Language and Cultural Learning.

The MediaEcologies master’s degree program is designed for small cohorts of students (15-20) and is free of tuition fees. We seek applicants who have a background in Media Studies, Cultural Studies, and related fields—whether directly following a bachelor’s degree or professional experience—and are keen to join us in a critical and creative environment for exploring diverse ecologies of media as well as the media of ecology. For application requirements, please see here.

Weimar is a small, green, and culturally rich city in the heart of Germany. Known as the birthplace of the so-called Weimarer Klassik—with Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller, Johann Gottfried Herder etc.—it was also a formative hub of ecological thought. In the early 20th century, with the founding of the Bauhaus by Walter Gropius in 1919, Weimar became a laboratory of modern design. Under the guidance of teachers such as Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, László Moholy-Nagy, and Gertrud Grunow the Bauhaus was dedicated to discovering connections between the body, art, technology, and the environment.

MediaEcologies builds on these at once classical and innovative resources and recombines them in contemporary contexts:  as the study of transversal interconnections between ecological, social, and mental media aspects that responds creatively and with steadfast commitment to the challenges of the present.