NodeBox | Studying at the Experimental Media Group

Studying at the Experimental Media Group

NodeBox is one branch of research pursued at the Experimental Media Research Group. EMRG is located in Antwerp, Belgium and part of Sint Lucas Antwerpen - the department of Art & Design at the Karel de Grote University College. Research at EMRG is focused on developing new graphics software tools. Our goal is to allow more people to express themselves creatively regardless of artistic or technological skill, and without being limited to a predefined user interface.

This involves combining expertise from different domains (such as artificial intelligence, computational linguistics, natural and cognitive sciences) into technology that is readily usable by a large audience.

Some of the challenges we meet

What is creativity? What are "the rules" in art and design? Surely, creativity is not a unique talent or gift. What kind of knowledge does a machine need in order to be creative?
What kind of software would enable artists and designers to share their knowledge and skills more easily - collaborate in a social context? Ideally, users are not only creating things with software tools, but are also (as a team) creating and evolving their own tools. What are the dynamics of social environments? How do we create tools that are adaptable and expandable?

How can we translate language to visual output? Computer programming is often hard, graphical user interfaces often limited. Language is arguably our most versatile means of expression. So how do we incorporate natural language in a user interface?

Be part of the research team

At EMRG we not only make software. The research group is part of the Sint Lucas School of Art & Design where we also teach and train students.

Students can participate in EMRG, contributing their vision, helping to attain some of the innovative goals and leading to thesis material as well as new software for the NodeBox family. If you are a graduate student with both artistic and technological skills, and you'd like to come and study with the EMRG in Belgium, please let us know! International exchanges between higher educational institues are supported by the Erasmus programme and quite easy to set up.

Contact Lucas Nijs, head of EMRG at:
lucasnijs at gmail.com

Ideas for students without a technical background who want to participate in other ways:
Thesis challenges