| This Special Topics Seminar will serve as a Laboratory for examining Soundscapes. Through audio recording and editing, students will study and produce environmentally sensitive sound works for creative inquiry. Sound and Field will introduce writings by and about an array of figures using field recording and found sound as research and as raw material to incorporate into artworks. The course will emphasize the importance of careful listening. Students will make field recordings, work with audio editing software, present projects informed by course readings and discussion, and write one midterm and one final paper to be presented in support of projects. Participants will develop field recording strategies, audio editing technique, and construct projects as a basis for giving voice to our local environments.
Orienting our critical inquiry and active investigation in acoustic ecology research we will engage uses of sound as an artistic medium. Students will record, construct and engage with sound environments beginning with sound walks and field recordings, towards developing techniques and ideas for mid-term and final projects. This course will include readings, discussion, listening sessions, guest presentations and independent projects. There will be an emphasis on site-specific projects. Historic and contemporary sound artworks and archives will be presented and discussed, and we will work both in the studio and in the field to consider the soundscapes and aural architectures of our surrounding environments. Students will be introduced to recording and audio editing as entry points to working with found sounds.
We will examine the relationships between location, environment, sound, silence and noise, and test these ideas through research as well as hands-on sound art projects. |
