New Centre for Media and Performance

Lancaster University has launched the first phase of its new Centre for Media and Performance.

The Centre will improve and centralise the practical facilities that support new courses, such as the Music Technology degree (which had its first intake of students in October this year) and the Film Studies degree (to be offered from 2004 in combination with Cultural Studies, Philosophy or Sociology), and will allow the partner Departments of Music and Theatre Studies, the Institute for Cultural Research and Lancaster University Television to develop courses based on the use of new technology and digitisation in the media and the arts.

Specialist equipment to support the Centre includes a new 22-machine multimedia lab located in the Language Centre (the ‘Roundhouse’); five small screening rooms for viewing videos and DVDs; a lab of eight music technology workstations located in the Music Building; portable TV recording equipment; and studios for sound recording and composition, to be completed by October 2004. In addition, the audio-visual equipment in Cartmel Lecture Theatre has been enhanced.

The project will in due course benefit other departments in the University, for example the Department of European Languages and Cultures which offers European Cinema options; screenwriting options in the Department of English and Creative Writing; and courses on American popular culture offered by American Studies (which has recently merged with the Institute for Cultural Research).

The second phase of the Centre is still under discussion, but will eventually form an integral part of new teaching facilities to be provided at the North end of the campus.