This graduate seminar investigates noise, sound and experimental music in the context of new media art. On the intersection of sound and image, the course introduces artistic strategies, compositional methodologies, and structures for the creation of interactive sound installation, sound sculpture, and live performance projects. A series of readings provides the conceptual and historical background to research topics, such as sound art, experimental music, phonography, audio-visual art, and visual music. Participants will explore analog (low-level) techniques of sound creation using electronics, as well as (high-level) visual software for real-time sound/image programming. The course begins with a theoretical examination of sound in the arts accompanied by introductory workshops to MaxMSP. During the second section of the course, participants will create handmade electronic musical devices using custom-built and reappropriated circuitry. The final section of the course will expand into the visual realm exploring translations from image to sound, and sound to image, including graphical notation systems, visual music, audio-visual art and VJ culture. This section is accompanied by an introduction to real-time image manipulation using Jitter and Processing. The seminar concludes with a collaborative public demonstration of the musical instruments and visual works as the final project for the course as part of the School’s year-end show at the end of the Spring semester
Evaluation + Attendance
Work will be evaluated based on its originality, conceptual depth, the integration of artistic goals, and the quality of its implementation. Text presentations and written reading responses are evaluated based on how participants connect the text to personal work, other class readings, and research outside the course trough supporting materials in form of text, images, video clips, films, newspaper articles, etc. Student Texts are writings (max. 25 pages) that have been provided by the individual students in preparation for a presentation of their own work. Student Texts must be submitted as .pdf (to the instructor) or hard copy no later than one week before the work presentation (by 9 am). Text should be selected carefully. Text quality/usefulness will be evaluated in the context of work presentation. The text can also be chosen in conjunction to the general context of the course. Active contribution during class and attendance is required. All assignments must be completed in order to pass the course. Late assignments will reduce the assignement’s grade
proportionally. Two unexcused absences (without notification of the instructor before the class meeting) will reduce of the final grade by 1 letter grade; Additional unexcused absences will drop the final grade by an additional letter grade. It is generally recommended to drop the course with more than three absences. There will be a sign-up sheet for each meeting as the basis to evaluate attendance.
The numeric breakdown for the final grade is as follows:
15%: 40 min. Text Presentation (20 min) + Leading of Discussion (20 min), reading list provided by instructor.
15%: 40 min. Presentation of individual student works + selection/discussion of Student Text
15%: Participation in class discussions and attendance
15%: Reading Responses in class blog (min. 400 words for each text, and one example outside the text)
40%: Final Project (implementation, participation in final demonstration, project description)
Materials + Production
- The course requires the use of the visual programming software MaxMSP/Jitter. One license is available for use in
the DVL labs (iMac, room 3325). It is highly recommended however to purchase a 9-month student discounted
license.
- Latest version of Processing (free, cross-platform, B135), available at http://processing.org/download/
- Access to room 3364 (CVRA) through Jefferson Hall
- Access to DVL lab (submit name and netID to instructor if you have not used the labs before)
- For the electronics workshops, it is recommended to purchase parts individually.
Textbooks (available at UIC Bookstore):
Collins, Nicolas. (2006). Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking. New York, London: Routledge.
Kahn, Douglas. (2001). Noise Water Meat. Cambridge, London: The New Press.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ml0jeLoR8mUC
Introductory Reading (due Jan. 23):
Faulkner, Michael. (2006). The Roots of VJing. In B. Crevits (Ed.), Audio-visual Art and VJ Culture (pp. 14-19). London,
UK: Laurence King Publishing Ltd.
http://books.google.com/books?id=H6thUebmIWwC
Kahn, Douglas. (2001). Introduction. In D. Kahn (Ed.), Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts (pp. 2-19).
New York, London: The MIT Press.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ml0jeLoR8mUC
Collins, Nicolas. (2006). Foreword and Introduction. In N. Collins (Ed.), Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of
Hardware Hacking. (pp. iX-XV). New York, London: Routledge.
Text Presentations:
Varese, Edgar. (2007). The Liberation of Sound. In C. Cox & D. Warner (Eds.), Audio Culture: Readings in Modern
Music (pp. 17-21). New York, London: continuum.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC
Kahn, Douglas. (2001). The Sound of Music. In D. Kahn (Ed.), Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in the Arts (pp.
101-122). New York, London: The MIT Press.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ml0jeLoR8mUC
Stockhausen, Karlheinz. (2007). Electronic and Instrumental Music. In C. Cox & D. Warner (Eds.), Audio Culture:
Readings in Modern Music (pp. 370-380). New York, London: continuum.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC
McLuhan, Marshall. (2007). Visual and Acoustic Space. In C. Cox & D. Warner (Eds.), Audio Culture: Readings in
Modern Music (pp. 67-72). New York, London: continuum.
http://books.google.com/books?id=FgDgCOSHPysC
Kahn, Douglas. (2001). In the Wake of Dripping: New York at Midcentury. In D. Kahn (Ed.), Noise Water Meat: A
History of Sound in the Arts (pp. 260-288). New York, London: The MIT Press.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ml0jeLoR8mUC
Brougher, K. (2005). Visual-Music Culture. In K. Brougher, J. Strick, A. Wiseman & J. Zilczer (Eds.), Visual Music:
Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900 (pp. 89-179). New York, NY: Thames & Hudson. [length bonus]
Walters, J. L. (1997). Sound, code, image. Eye, 26, 24-35.
[In combination with excerpts from]
Johnson, R. (1981). Score: An Anthology of New Music. London, UK: MacMillan Publishing Company.
Peacock, Kenneth. (1988). Instruments to Perform Color-Music: Two Centuries of Technological Experimentation.
Leonardo, 21(4), 397-406.
Kahn, Douglas. (2001). John Cage: Silence and Silencing. In D. Kahn (Ed.), Noise Water Meat: A History of Sound in
the Arts (pp. 101-122). New York, London: The MIT Press.
http://books.google.com/books?id=ml0jeLoR8mUC
Additional Readings:
Adorno, Theodor. W. (2002). On the Fetish-Character in Music and the Regression of
Listening. In R. Leppert (Ed.), Essays on Music: Selected (pp. 288-315). : University of California Press.
Adorno, Theodor. W. (2002). Music in the Background. In R. Leppert (Ed.), Essays on
Music: Selected (pp. 506-509). : University of California Press.
Altman, Rick. (1992). Material Heterogenity of Recorded Sound. In R. Altman (Ed.),
Sound Theory/ Sound Practice. : New York: Routledge Press.
Altman, Rick. (1992). Afterword: A Baker’s Dozen Terms for sound Analysis. In R.
Altman (Ed.), Sound Theory/ Sound Practice. : New York: Routledge Press.
Attali, Jaques (1985). Noise: The Political Economy of Music. : University of Minnesota
Press.
Baume, Nicholas. (2001). The Music of Forgetting. In N. Baume (Ed.), Sol Lewitt:
incomplete open cubes. : Hartford: Wadsworth Atheneum Museum of Art.
Branden,. Joseph. W. (2003). Introduction: The Art of the Assemblage. In Random
Order: Robert Rauschenberg and the Neo-Avant-garde. : Cambridge: MIT Press.
Bruch, Noël. (1985). On the Structural Use of Sound. In E. Weiss and J. Belton (Eds.),
Film Sounds: Theory and Practice. : New York: Columbia University Press.
Cage, John (1961). Silence . : Hanover: Wesleyan University press/University Press of
New England.
Cavell, Stanley. (1969). Music Decomposed. In Must We Mean What We Say? A Book of
Essays. Cambridge: University of Cambridge Press.
Higgins, Dick. (1994). Intermedia. In Horizons: The Poetics and Theory of the Intmedia
(pp. 18-28). : Southern Illinois University Press.
Higgin
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