SIM Legacy
Founded in 1969 to launch performance art as a genre, SIM remains at the cutting edge of artistic experimentation today.
Learn MoreSIM students form a highly collaborative community that fosters unparalleled creativity and experimentation, unbound by medium or discipline.
Location: On Campus (Boston)
Format: In-person, Full Time
Length of Program: 4 years
Degree Awarded: Bachelor of Fine Arts in Photography
The Studio for Interrelated Media (SIM) celebrates idea-centered experimentation, interdisciplinary collaboration, and self-directed learning. SIM students may be anti-establishment and rebellious, hyper-focused or renaissance thinkers, community organizers and entrepreneurs. All SIM students are eager to discover their full potential as they redefine what art can be, right here, right now.
SIM art overlaps and intersects with many other disciplines to encourage students to develop experimental art forms, new directions, and unusual contexts. Students work with sound, light, motion, digital and experimental media, live performance, public practice, interactive installations, print and spoken word, and event production.
Max Ryan ’23 BFA SIM and Owen Greenfield ’24 BFA SIM, Morris Worm and The Fork, Video Projection and Generative Sound Collage, 2023. Photographer: Nick Ortoleva
SIM Major Studio Class in the Pozen Center.
What You’ll Learn
Through hands-on experimentation and a highly individualized educational path, you’ll create projects that explore the intersections of art, technology, performance, and community engagement.
SIM’s unique, non-hierarchical structure brings Sophomores, Juniors, and Seniors together in a shared studio environment–fostering mentorship, collaboration, and cross-pollination of ideas. The weekly Major Studio is community-driven, allowing you to shape your own learning while engaging deeply with peers and faculty.
You’ll gain experience across a wide range of practices, including interactive media, video editing and production, sound performance, composition, recording and editing, choreography and improvisation, theater production, installation, stage lighting, and event production. With access to specialized facilities—including sound studios and flexible performance spaces—you’ll develop the technical and conceptual skills needed to bring ambitious ideas to life.
A defining experience of the program is the collective redesign of the SIM studio—an evolving, future-focused capstone that challenges each cohort to imagine new models for creative practice, collaboration, and education.
Along the way, you’ll gain hands-on experience curating, designing, and producing, and pursue internships and professional opportunities that reflect the wide-ranging skills you develop at MassArt.
BFA Learning Outcomes
Students who complete the SIM BFA program are expected to be able to demonstrate the following learning outcomes.
- Exercise critical thinking through making and analyzing the work’s role in contemporary contexts
- Acquire the ability to think conceptually across many disciplines
- Acquire the ability to collaborate
- Learn how to articulate artistic goals and concepts, and translate them into actualized projects
- Practice self-study in the skills or topics that the student requires to meet their project goals
- Acquire the ability to respond creatively when the parameters in a given project change
- Use descriptive critique techniques (learn how to ask and formulate questions that will help the artist move forward and how to verbalize one’s perceptions)
- Practice speaking and presenting to the public, whether or not public speaking is an avenue of expression
- Acquire hands-on skills in audio/visual technology, curatorial practice, community building, and interdisciplinary practice
- Learn to connect one’s artistic practice to a wide range of artistic mediums, ideas and practice
- Engage in the cross-pollination of ideas and views in a diverse community
- Mentor and be mentored among students from different cohorts
- Identify one’s strongest interests and seek out opportunities for pursuing them
- Demonstrate a high level of self-motivation, educational agency, and self-imposed standards
- Participate in self-governance
- Engage in the process of deconstructing assumptions about educational systems and work towards making change
- Learn to use the experience of failure as an educative tool
Program Chair
Nita Sturiale
Chair, Studio for Interrelated Media
Career Outcomes
SIM alumni build dynamic careers across art, media, technology, performance, and education. They’ve founded their own ventures, produced innovative work as independent artists, and contributed to industry-leading organizations, studios, and institutions worldwide.
Career Paths
Multimedia Artist, Interactive Designer, Digital Media Producer, Installation Artist, UX/UI Designer, Game Designer, Digital Content Creator, Creative Technologist, Performance Artist, Choreographer, Special Events Planning, Lighting/Video Technician, Motion Graphics Designer, Gallery Owner, Entrepreneur.
Internships
Museum of Fine Arts, Boston, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (ICA), Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, MIT List Visual Arts Center, MIT Media Lab, Peabody Essex Museum, Converse, Massachusetts Film Office, Telluride Film Festival, MASARY Studios, Artists For Humanity, among others.
Alumni Employers
Netflix, World of Wonder, Studio71, WGBH, ZOOM, Harvard University, Stanford University, Carnegie Mellon University, New England Aquarium, Guggenheim Museum, Illuminus Boston, Aconite, CloudKid, Masary Studios, Jibo, Price Intelligently, Dick Lynn Studios
SIM Eventworks
SIM students produce dynamic events, performances, and exhibitions, including the SIM Show and EventWorks productions.
Learn More
SIM Students, Studio for Interrelated Media
SIM TV Episode 13, Video, 2025
Nadia Orcel, BFA ’20, Studio for Interrelated Media
“Metamorphosis” by Nadia Orcel, Film/Video, 2019
Sen Luc Miglin, BFA ’22, Studio for Interrelated Media
Walk Sign Is On, Mixed Media, 2019
Richard Streitmatter-Tran, BFA ’03, Studio for Interrelated Media
Fragile Matter, Photograph, 2013
Nick Ruhlmann, BFA ’15, Austin Carrier, BFA ’15, Studio for Interrelated Media
Performance for All School Show, Performance, 2015
Johnny Chanthavong, BFA ’16, Studio for Interrelated Media
Untitled, Installation, 2016
Alumni Feature
Video directed by Dillon Buss, edited by Jack LeMay, produced by Vagrants.
Sam Okerstrom-Lang (“Samo”)
’14 BFA SIM
Sam Okerstrom-Lang or “Samo” is a Boston-based media artist and designer specializing in 3D animation, video projection design, and live visual environments. After graduating from MassArt, Samo was commissioned to create large-scale public works for the first two Illuminus Boston events. After this experience, he founded Masary Studios with Maria Finkelmeier and Ryan Edwards. Masary Studios creates unique visual and sound experiences featuring original music, performance, and video projection mapping.
