This course is an introduction to working with time-based media and sound practices, focusing on the use of video and sound to explore relationships with place. Topics include field listening and recording, basic electronics, sound synthesis, soundscape composition, performance, and video installation. The course includes technical workshops, group activities, discussions, and both collaborative and individual projects. Readings and examples of artists and artworks provide critical context for students’ thinking and making. Assignments include techniques to enhance listening and observation skills, and generative methods that lead to experimental and open-ended projects. The course fosters an ability to think critically about making media and sound art in relation to the places we inhabit.

This is an introduction to working with media and sound that focuses on the relationships between electronic/digital technologies and the material world. Topics include basic electronics, digital fabrication, interactivity, performance, and media installation. Project modules include technical workshops along with readings, discussions, and examples that provide critical and historical context. The output of each module is designed to be flexible, allowing for a range of expressive possibilities. In addition to developing technical skills and projects, we will use our time together to think about making art in our increasingly mediated culture and develop both critical and generative perspectives on media and sound.

This course is designed for students with no prior knowledge of electronics. The course introduces students to Maker and DIY culture practices as they pertain to interactive objects and electronics as new media art and design forms. Students will explore open source software paired with readily available electronic hardware to create programmable objects that make sound, light or movement. The course includes workshops in electronics, circuitry, triggering and control devices, and presentations on artists working in the field of creative electronics. Successful completion will provide a working knowledge of basic electronic applications.

This is a process-oriented course providing an introduction to media installation practices within the gallery setting or public space. Students will be introduced to various contemporary and historical strategies, to produce hybrid media installations. Students may experiment with video, objects, performance or DIY projection technologies, along with relic technologies such as turntables, overhead projectors, zoetropes, cassette decks, slide projectors, film loop and audio tape loop DIY mechanisms. The course will consist of in-class technical workshops, lectures on and discussion of historical and contemporary experiments and installation, projects reflecting the student’s interests, and critiques of student work.

This course is intended for students who wish to continue experimenting with media and sound. Projects provide expanded learning of materials, techniques and processes related to new media and/or sound, such as media installation, performing with technology, and immersive environments. Students continue to refine their understanding of a critical vocabulary through presentations, readings, and group discussions.

This course explores the notion of fabric as a responsive interface. It will introduce students to new material and conceptual possibilities for interactivity: creating embroidered circuits, screen-printing or painting with reactive inks, embedded mobile networks and the potentials of woven electronics. This material and conceptual exploration will be presented within a contextual framework of contemporary practice, and will explore the creation of hybrid works that investigate intersections between art and design, sculpture and performance, fashion and computing, the body and its context, public and private.