> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.urgentmatter.press/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # SVA's computer arts MFA turns 40 as two other graduate programs stop taking applications - URL: https://www.urgentmatter.press/sva-computer-arts-mfa-turns-40-as-two-other-graduate-programs-stop-taking-applications/ - Published: 2026-11-01T19:54:26.000Z - Updated: 2026-11-01T19:54:26.000Z - Description: Acting chair José H. Vargas said computer arts has healthy enrollment as its alumni show, "Cybernetic Gems," opens. - Author: Adam Schrader - Tags: Science and Technology, #public-access, Shows and Exhibitions The School of Visual Arts' MFA Computer Arts program opened an exhibition of alumni work Saturday to mark its 40th anniversary, while the New York college has stopped taking applications for two other MFA programs. "As far as I know, there's nothing at risk with our program at the moment," José H. Vargas, who was recently named the program's acting chair, told Urgent Matter in an interview Friday. "We have a healthy amount of enrollment." Vargas, a program graduate who has been part of the SVA community for almost 20 years, said there have been “a lot of changes over the past two years.” “The recent changes that have been done by the administration really make me hopeful that the school in general is going to be able to weather this storm,” he said. [Add Urgent Matter on Google](https://www.google.com/preferences/source?q=urgentmatter.press&ref=urgentmatter.press) Vargas said there is now more transparency into how the school is run since the SVA Alumni Society, a nonprofit, became its owner. SVA's founding family sold the college's educational assets to the alumni society for $1 in a deal completed September 1, 2025, Urgent Matter [previously reported](https://www.urgentmatter.press/school-of-visual-arts-names-interim-president-deficits-deepen/). But the college has stopped taking applications for its MFA Photography, Video, and Related Media program, founded in 1988, and its MFA Art Practice program, the programs' webpages show. Urgent Matter previously reported that the college was [taking Art Practice fully online](https://www.urgentmatter.press/sva-moves-mfa-art-practice-program-fully-online-cuts-tuition/) at about half its former per-credit tuition, and that its [master's program in curatorial practice](https://www.urgentmatter.press/school-of-visual-arts-to-end-its-masters-curatorial-practice-program/) will close in 2027. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/unnamed--20-.jpg) J Agracia (2014), **Sorry Isn't Enough*, ceramic. Photo courtesy of School of Visual Arts SVA's [accreditation self-study](https://www.urgentmatter.press/school-of-visual-arts-names-interim-president-deficits-deepen/) showed a $16 million deficit for fiscal 2026 and a projected shortfall of about $18 million for fiscal 2027. In August, the faculty union, SVA Faculty United, said administrators had canceled courses for the 2026-27 academic year without notice and inserted at-will employment and arbitration clauses into individual faculty contracts. The union, affiliated with the United Auto Workers, said it was [considering an unfair labor practice charge](https://www.urgentmatter.press/sva-faculty-union-weighs-unfair-labor-charge-over-rewritten-contracts/). The show, "Cybernetic Gems," runs through November 23 at the SVA Flatiron Gallery, 133/141 West 21st Street. It is free and open to the public. SVA's event page [lists 23 alumni](https://sva.edu/events/mfa-computer-arts-exhibition-fall-2026?ref=urgentmatter.press) who graduated between 1994 and 2025\. Vargas said the show includes 20 artists, and a pitch from SVA's media relations office put the number at more than 25. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/unnamed--21-.jpg) Maya Ciarrocchi (2002), **Desire Lines*, 4K Video/Stereo Sound. Photo courtesy of School of Visual Arts Vargas said he and his staff chose the work from an open call to alumni. He did not receive any submissions from the 1980s. "At first, I thought we wouldn't have that many people, but I feel like everybody waited until the last minute to submit, and suddenly we had a flood of submissions," he said. "I don't think it's comprehensive enough to be called a survey," Vargas said. "We have so much history." He said the title came from the idea of selecting artists "to represent the crown jewels, in a way," of the department, with "cybernetic" added to tie it to computer arts. ![](https://storage.ghost.io/c/3c/26/3c26cf7a-2384-4a8d-82e1-f44702177698/content/images/2026/11/unnamed--23-.jpg) John Cinco (1998), **Our Mirror,* Photoshop. Photo courtesy of School of Visual Arts Vargas pointed to a golden ceramic bust by Valérie Hallier, a 1994 graduate, that sits on a pedestal with a display on top of its head. "It evokes this idea of the merging of flesh and technology," he said. Antoinette LaFarge, a 1995 graduate, made *Pandemic Portrait 3A* with the programming software Max/MSP. Part of the work is generated in real time, so no two viewers see the same sequence, Vargas said. The piece grew out of LaFarge's interest in the rooms visible behind people on Zoom calls during the COVID-19 pandemic, he said. "It's like paintings, moving digital paintings of Zoom meetings," Vargas said. A multiscreen video by Jessica Reisch, a 2024 graduate, is installed at the front of the gallery, where it can be seen from the street. Reisch makes research-based video work, and her current project draws on data collected in New York City by different departments about nature and soil, Vargas said. Other works in SVA's pitch include Chong Liu's digital print *Future Comfort*, Maya Ciarrocchi's 4K video *Desire Lines*, John Cinco's *Our Mirror*, made in Photoshop, Ash Suh's animation *Coworker Crush* and J Agracia's ceramic *Sorry Isn't Enough*. SVA calls the department, founded in 1986, the first U.S. master of fine arts program devoted to computer art. It has more than 1,400 alumni, and its students have won nine Student Academy Awards, the [program's webpage](https://sva.edu/academics/graduate/mfa-computer-arts?ref=urgentmatter.press) shows. Of computer art already having a 40-year history at SVA, Vargas said, "It feels like it shouldn't." In the program's early years, students wrote their own software to make images because Photoshop and Maya did not exist yet, Vargas said. "I remember seeing thesis projects of people that were basically research papers on how to render a pixel or a shape," he said. The STEM-designated department requires programming, from Python scripting for animators to node-based "creative programming" for students less interested in how the software works underneath, he said. ## Sign up for Urgent Matter This article is provided free with the support of paying subscribers. Not ready for a paid subscription? Sign up for a free account today. Subscribe Email sent! Check your inbox to complete your signup. No spam. Unsubscribe anytime. Vargas said he has read the argument that if you don't understand how software is written, anybody could write software that takes advantage of you. He pointed to dark patterns on websites and social media, such as cancellation screens where the cancel button is red until the final confirmation box, when it turns green. "When you blow it up to our screens now, it looks pixelated and old," Vargas said of early digital work recorded at much lower resolution. After realistic 3D animation became easy to produce, students began using 3D tools to make work that looks handmade or glitchy, Vargas said. The program's webpage says it encourages students to experiment with generative artificial intelligence, compares its arrival to the personal computer in the mid-1980s and the internet a decade later, and calls it "a critical aspect of our current and future creative practice." Vargas said a student who asks a tool to generate a finished image will get a result that lacks the student's experience and adds details the student would not have thought to add. "It creates the most generic possible version of that idea if you use it that way," he said. "But there are other ways to use it where it's augmenting whatever it is that you're doing." With A.I. coding, Vargas said, people can build "their own tools, custom tools that don't exist, that don't make sense for anybody else except you, but it's the thing that you want to do." One staff member, a painter, used A.I. coding to build a tool for himself that draws a fishnet-like mesh he can stretch, set in motion and freeze, Vargas said. The painter uses the frozen frames as references for physical paintings. "We do have camps, obviously. Some people are very anti-A.I. and don't want to use it at all," Vargas said. "Then we have people very comfortable with it who use it and are like A.I. natives." "You hear in the back when you mention A.I., somebody groans," he said. "But it is something people have to engage with because it is just the technology." Vargas said he "would venture a guess" that most of the alumni in the show do not work as fine artists. They work at animation studios, as freelancers and as academics, he said. He said artists need "self-agency" to take the risk of pursuing art without a particular career in mind. "You go into the master's program, and you don't know what the job market will be in two years," he said. "Because of A.I. and things that might have been replaced by other technologies." Vargas noted that the department does not have full-time faculty and that all of its faculty members are working professionals in their field. He said that gives students built-in connections to studios for internships and jobs. The department will screen a selection of student films from its 40 years on November 19 at 6 p.m., Vargas said. "It's gonna be more like a theater kind of thing, where we eat popcorn and drink sodas and watch a bunch of fun shorts, basically," he said. *Urgent Matter is reader-supported. 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