About

ADJACENT is an online journal of emerging media published by the Interactive Telecommunications Program, or ITP.

Its mission is to share research, reflection, observations, and opinions from and for the diverse creators that are exploring the possibilities and directions at the frontiers of media and technology.

Rapid change—whether incremental, sudden, or meteoric—is the air we breathe. Think of all that you take for granted today that hardly existed a decade ago. Imagine what the next decade will bring. ADJACENT is a forum to pause and consider the world we are making. It’s not intended to be a place to show off the latest app/widget/game/device/buzzword tech, but to explore what these new advances reveal about our selves and society, and/or what they might mean.

Emerging media includes expressive technology in programming, video, physical space, music, visual arts, products, entertainment, education, CR, AR, AI…you name it. We feel that emerging media has emerged enough to begin to take it seriously in terms of criticism and research into its effects.

We call the journal ADJACENT because each medium is connected to another, and creators, no matter the medium, are connected to each other, to society, and to the world. We have opportunities and responsibilities. We believe that it’s our adjacencies to diverse media, people, and disciplines that spark creativity. We’re influenced by the term adjacent possible, coined by the biologist Stuart Kaufman to describe how organisms grow and flourish—that is, change—just by existing near entities different from themselves.

ABOUT ITP & IMA

ITP has always been hard to describe, and that’s partly because of our devotion to adjacencies. Our student and alumni body comes from every region of the “Two Cultures.” You never know who you will be sitting next to, who might offer a fresh perspective or see something you never could have seen on your own. Our curriculum changes as technology changes, as seeds of new ideas come into view, when a faculty member or student gets curious about something unknown related to what they already know. We hope to translate that spirit into this journal. Click here to find out more about ITP and our new undergraduate program, IMA.

THANKS

ADJACENT was made possible by a Tisch Faculty Grant. Special thanks to Tisch School of the Arts Dean, Allyson Green, and ITP’s Chair and the Associate Dean for Emerging Media, Dan O’Sullivan for their support.

And ADJACENT is indebted and dedicated to the spirit of Red Burns. She haunts us in the most wonderful way in all that we do at ITP.