The Art of Noise
Week 2: August 22 - 28
Noises and their instabilities as material and process for sound composition. How do we think about noise as musical? How do we accept all sounds as potential elements of the work? How do we produce noise, both intentionally and accidentally, to explore new sonic territory? We will investigate these questions in the pursuit of adventurous noise terrain and an appreciation of the everyday sounds around us as exquisitely made for composition. There will be a discussion of Luigi Russolo, his manifesto "The Art of Noises, " and the Futurists as pioneering noise makers. (Max/MSP)
Intensities and Textures
Week 3: August 29 – September 4
Sound can be thought of as artistic material with its own qualities of texture, form, shape, and line. We will explore sound in its various manifestations of textural quality, its dynamics and intensities. In this way, we will learn to create specific sonic shape over time, exploring sonic contour, peaks, silences, and abrupt juxtapositions. There will be a discussion of the work and ideas of French composer Edgard Varèse, whose compositions departed from traditional musical structure to explore sound as materiality and texture. (Max/MSP)
Indeterminacy
Week 4: September 5 – 11
We will explore the random, chance occurrences of algorithmic composition. How can we generate sound in ways that transcends predictability and taste? There will be an overview of techniques for building indeterminate sound results that are generative in nature, following the trajectory of mathematical and sequential permutations. We will discuss the music of John Cage, whose works ran the gamut of prepared piano, chance composition, graphic scores and indeterminate structures in the composition of sound and silence. (Max/MSP)
Interaction
Week 5: September 12 – 18
A study of interaction in sound art involving the compositional process, the performance, the space, and the listener.There will be a discussion of the work of Bill Fontana, whose pioneering sound installations were seminal. We will explore the virtual controls for audio-visual shaping and effects manipulation using the various sliders and knob controls in Max MSP.
Performance & Review
Week 6: September 19 – 25
We will have a discussion/summary review of the work of Janet Cardiff as well as concepts discussed throughout semester in preparation for the Hyperessay assignment. Lab work on real-time realizations of the Digital Landscapes project.
Tim Nohe, Guest Artist & Project Presentations
Week 7: September 26
Timothy Nohe is an artist, composer and educator engaging traditional and electronic media in civic life and public places. His work has been focused upon sustainability and place, and musical and video works for dance and live performance.
Desktop as Narrative Space I
Week 8: October 10 – 16
This week we will begin research towards the final project: Desktop Landscape. This research will involve shifting our focus from the exterior landscape to the desktop as an environment for sound exploration, narrative, interaction, and audio-visual composition. It is on the desktop where we have come to live an alternative life, where we conduct our daily business of email, social media, generating documents, and consuming information. The desktop space is an active one, where we are constantly alerted to the incoming/outgoing traffic of messages, updates, and operating system activity. It is a world where life is circulating at our fingertips, increasingly occupying our attention.
Desktop as Narrative Space II
Week 9: October 17 – 23
For the second week of Desktop as Narrative Space, we will explore ways in which the desktop recording can be altered and manipulated using OBS as our platform for desktop transformations. These alterations of the desktop are intended as material of "found" digital objects. We will also conduct another project in which dialogue via the third space (shared networked space) might be used as narrative material for the final project.
Rhythmic Loops
Week 9: October 24-30
We will explore how to incorporate low frequency oscillations (LFOs) to create rhythmic correspondences between sound and image. LFOs offer a rich palette for controlling and shaping the ongoing flow and contour of the audio-visual using the various waveforms such as sine, cosine, sawtooth, triangle, random, etc., to dynamically manipulate the audio-visual signal.
Effects Processing
Week 11: October 31 – November 6
We will continue our work with Ableton Live focusing on extending the possibilities and variety of effects processing. We will continue to work with sounds recorded in OBS in order to develop additional sounds for the final project.
Preparation for Final Projects
Week 12: November 7 – 13
The class will organize, prepare, and edit work created for the final project: Interior Landscape, using sound and visual media to artistically and critically explore the virtual environment of our desktops.