A colleague recently linked me McMaster’s press release on the launch of Eight: The Hamilton Institute for Interactive Digital Media. The announcement was plastered all over the Unversity’s website with each partnered org offering up your typical sound bites. Mac’s President Peter George had this to say:
We want to be known as the ‘8th-art’ university, but to achieve that distinction will depend on effective collaboration with great partners. Capitalizing on one another’s strengths will create unlimited opportunities for research commercialization, education and training, and economic development and job creation for our region.
In the press release they make claim that digital media is posed to become the ‘8th-art’. Really what he’s saying then is that Mac wants to be known as the Digital Media University. Naming digital media as their mountain to climb sucks. It devalues the underlying objectives Peter George names explicitly—but more on that in a moment.
McMaster has put their money where their mouth is; they’ve taken a programmatic approach to scholastic R&D and they have a huge opportunity—and the students fortunate enough to take part—to make a dent in key industries while creating new products and services through successful commercialized research projects. This announcement marks the University’s next steps in forming private-public-partnerships where institutions collaborate at every level. With a number of industrial zones planned, the school has also secured substantial government funding and are certainly on the path to crushing it. As as spectator it’s been really exciting watching a master plan practically executed with such a high-degree of integrity.
Like with my alma mater, McMaster has situated itself as a City Building leader in Hamilton. For those of you have visited Hamilton’s west-end in the last 5 years you may have expected such an announcement. Led by strong relationships with the municipal government, the University secured plots of land previously dedicated to industry and manufacturing. First steps included tearing down existing buildings and converting the various brownfield sites into a viable research research park. Driving into Hamilton on the weekend I saw the development firsthand and it is impressive. What started as an ambitious site plan has turned into a hub for the entire region to rally behind. The planning and execution by Mac has completely revitalized parts of Hamilton that had been considered dead and forgotten.
With Eight however, this emphasis on digital media is a total wank. McMaster, like others, has jumped on the digital media bandwagon. To me digital media is like this cutesy—often ambiguous—qualifier that allows an institution to say ‘we’re trying something new’ and claim that ‘failure is an option’. It sucks. If digital media is art then this whole notion of commercialized research goes out the window also. How can you instill necessary skill sets like innovation and entrepreneurship to a group of students for example, if their work is rooted in aesthetics? As much as I want to regard things like product design, economic development and commerce as art I understand that it’s impossible. Practically applying concepts to any problem/opportunity for the purpose of funding research, driving development and creating jobs is not art—it’s entrepreneurship and innovation.
I get that digital media is a broadly sweeping qualifier and can leave the doors open to many opportunities. I also respect and appreciate the efforts made by Mac but ultimately loathe their branding decisions here. To me the name of any space is the ultimate tell-all. Brand can be a powerful authenticity tool and I think Mac may be setting themselves up for limited success. If it were up to me I would have called the space WEWOGMASOMFUM: The Digital Design and Creation Institute. Silly right? Not when WEWOGMASOMFUM translates to We Want Our Grads to Make So Much Fucking Money.
Personally, I’d much rather climb a mountain called WEWOGMASOMFUM than one called digital media.
