Course Syllabus

Course Information Fall 2011 ATEC 6335-501 Research in Sound Design Wednesdays 7pm- 9:45pm Sound Lab: ATEC 1.103

Professor Contact Information Frank Dufour Frank.dufour@utdallas.edu 972 883 4129 Office hours: Mondays 10 am-11:30am Fridays 9am-11:30am And on demand

Course Pre-requisites, Co-requisites, and/or Other Restrictions None

Course Description

Description of the class: This class is an introduction to Sound Art that aims to address this topic for various audiences and at different levels: -For musicians and music producers: one of the goals is to provide them with new tools and concepts applicable to their practice in composition, music analysis and performance. -For visual artists: one of the goals is to identify various relationships between sound, music and images. -For sound designers: one of the goals is to develop and extend their practices in sound creation and sound design. -For all audiences the class will provide students with hands-on practice and experimentation in: sound recording (musical instruments, objects, voices, ambiances); sound processing and real-time sound processing (using Soundtrack Pro, Audacity, Photosounder, Spear, Pure Data, Logic Express); and sound diffusion. For all audiences, the class will be the place for developing a consistent and documented collaborative exchange on the musical and sonic experience from the listeners standpoint. For this purpose, and to alleviate the differences in students background regarding musical theory and analysis, the class will use 2 non-conventional systems to analyze music: The framework designed by Dr. Mary Mountain (Concordia University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada) with the Interactive Multimedia Playroom,

The system of Time Icons (Units Smantiques Temporelles) designed by the laboratory Musique et Informatique de Marseille. These 2 systems allow for description and analysis of musical constructions and musical qualities accessible to non-specifically trained students. Because of the broad conceptual definitions of the terms used in these systems, they can be applied to conventional musical construction as well as to non-conventional musical construction. These 2 systems also explore the question of the annotation of digital streams of media, should they be visual, auditory, or audiovisual and the general question of delinearization of temporal objects. A special attention will be given to Noise and Silence considered as sonic materials.

Objectives of the class: Developing a consistent theoretical approach to Digital Arts, Media Arts, Electronic Arts, Web Art based on the analysis and understanding of temporal dimensions of these expressions Developing an individual practice of Digital Arts focusing on the use of sound Developing a good understanding of Sound Art, including knowledge of the history of this type of expression, and of the main schools and trends in this domain Developing an individual appreciation of sound and music as they are used in Digital Arts in general Acquiring knowledge of the existing technical solutions available for the creation and diffusion of the sonic components of various types of digital works of art: installations, multimedia linear and interactive presentations Exploring the relationships between sound, music, and images The class will also explore the question of Sound Design for non-linear audiovisual contents and will aim at: Providing the students with a significant experience in the design of non-linear audiovisual contents Providing students with a better understanding of the representations of Time and Space involved in filmmaking and in the functions assigned to image and sounds in this representation Developing new applications and practices of digital technologies aiming at the valorization of the audiovisual heritage The class will question in what sense can digital technologies and practices contribute to the emergence of a translation or new interpretation of existing audiovisual contents.

Student Learning Objectives/Outcomes -Knowledge and Analytic capacities: History and Aesthetics of Sound Art and Digital Arts in general. Students will describe and analyze advanced concepts, theoretical perspectives, and historical and latest trends in digital content design and development. -Design and Operational capacities: Students will create original digital works that demonstrate their artistic and technical skills and reflect a high degree of individual expression. Students will acquire the ability to use systems, software and equipments for their personal artistic expression.

Class Methodology The class will use lectures and debates; exercises and experimentations (described hereafter as activities); sessions of critical listening; a final project.

Activities Defining qualities of sound objects or sound effects. Given a set of sound effects or sound objects identify qualities relevant to the different sounds. Support for this activity: Morphology of Sound

Defining qualities of complex sounds: sounds composed of a succession of sound objects. Given a library of sounds, collectively identify sets of parameters that would allow for the classification of these sounds. The goal is to be able to create consistent groups of sounds, or families, or categories. Example of parameters: Happy/sad; Quiet/agitated; dense/sparse; complex/simple; familiar/strange; organized/chaotic; organic/formal; etc Once sets have been identified, sort the sounds in 3D spaces generated by these parameters. Observe proximity and distance of the sound clips.

Defining qualities of images. Can we use identical descriptors for sounds and images? Given a library of video clips classify the clips using the same spaces than the one used to classify the sound clips. Using QuickTime pro, combine together video and sound clips form identical regions of the spaces and from diagonally opposed regions of the spaces. Then classify these audiovisual clips in the spaces.

Segmentation of auditory stream. The same piece of music is assigned to all students, they are asked to segment this piece of music in units. The definition of unit for this activity is: a segment of the musical stream that conveys the feeling of a temporal or structural identity that remains unchanged when extracted out of the stream. The units are discussed collectively and validated. Support for this activity: the time-Icons Qualification of the units resulting from the segmentation How to name and describe the units from the previous activity?

Supporting the musical analysis activity with visual components using the Acousmographe (a piece of software developed by the IRCAM for musical analysis) and other representations of sound qualities. Comparing the results obtained with Acousmographe, Photosounder, FFT and waveform views in Audacity and SoundTrack. Creating your own visualization of a sound piece. Results from the previous activities are applied to students works.

Listening to a soundscape. Describing the soundscapes: the origins of the sounds, their distance to you as you listen, their relative intensities, their spectrum, their variations. Understanding how the evaluation of these qualities changes depending on your intention. Proposing a visual representation of the soundscape and of its components: comparing the pros and cons of space based and time based representations. Recording this same soundscape and documenting it with the same parameters used to document the live experience. Comparing the results. Using the analysis and representation of the soundscape to re-create it from discrete components in a linear way using Soundtrack Pro. Re-create the soundscape in a non-linear way using FMod Designer and the Sandbox tool. Creating an imaginary soundscape by replacing the discrete component of the realistic soundscape with non-realistic components. Discuss and analyze the rules for the replacement. Create a sonic self-portrait:

Listening: Listening 1: Otto Luening ,Low Speed (1952) Listening 2: John Cage, Williams Mix (1951) Listening 3: Karlheinz Stockhausen, Studies II (1954) Listening 4: Edgar Varse, Pome Electronique (1958) Listening 5: Gyrgy Ligeti, Artikulation (1958) To be presented with the animated score The content of the remaining listening sessions will be decided in class depending on the students needs and interests.

Software instruction:

QuickTime player Pro Objectives: -Reading and understanding information about multimedia files (sampling rate, compression, number of channels) -Exporting files and converting formats -Performing basic editing -Combining multimedia files (video and sound, image and sound, video and text) Soundtrack Pro Objectives: Editing and processing sound files in the audio file window Combining sound clips in the multi-track project window Using automation to apply real-time settings of amplitude and pan Using automation to apply real-time changes to effects settings Exporting in stereo and surround format Synchronization with video Spear Understanding the FFT display (Fundamental, Harmonics and partials) Selecting partials Synthesizing sounds Audacity Editing and processing sound files Combining multiple tracks Mixing and exporting

Logic Express Manipulating a MIDI music file: reorganizing the tracks, modifying the arrangement, changing the parameters of the virtual instruments, editing, manipulating timing and tempo Using advance music-for-picture feature Pure Data Creating simple patches combining pre-existing objects Using and manipulating existing complex patches

Lectures and debates: 1: On sound art, noise, sound and silence (Introduction to the class) Document: Varse on Sound Machine. 2: On the levels of listening, the sound object, concrete music, the phenomenological and ecological approaches References: Schaeffer, Pierre, Trait des Objets Musicaux Husserl Edmund, On the Phenomenology of the Consciousness of Internal Time Schafer, R. Muray, The Soundscape Document: Morphology of Sound (FD) 3: On Ecology and the Soundscape Document: Schafer: The soundscape 4: On visualization of Music and Visual Music Document online: Portraits Polychromes 5: On the Time Icons Document: the Time-Icons (FD) 6: On digital sound (Technical and theoretical aspects of digital sound) Document: Digital Sound (FD) 7: On sound design for film: the concepts of acousmatrix, off-screen space, and the relation between sound, movement, and space in film References: Chion, Michel, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen 8: On the Auditory Scene Analysis: presentation of Bregmans standpoint on listening. References: Bregman, Albert, The Auditory Scene Analysis, The Perceptual Organization of Sound 9: On New Interfaces for Musical Instruments 10: On Thresholds, Noise and Silence: psychoacoustics, description of the hearing system 11: On the perception of Timbre and other qualities of Sound 12: Acoustics of rooms: some concepts about the interactions between sound waves and architectural environment 13: On Sound Art 2: Presentation of major sound artists and their works

Grades: Two types of grades are used in class: Local grades: these are used to assess individual achievements of activities. They do not directly impact the final grades as an average but will be used to understand individual students progression throughout the class and possibly adjust the final grade. Final grade: this grade reflects the overall participation and level of achievement of the final project. 100 90 A 89 80 B 79 70 C 69 60 D 59 - 0 F The evaluation of the assignments and of the projects is based on a list of criteria that will be presented, discussed, and explained during the class.

Recommended readings and Suggested Course Materials:

Books: Bregman, Albert, The Auditory Scene Analysis, The Perceptual Organization of Sound, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1990. Chion, Michel, Audio-Vision: Sound on Screen. Translated by Gorbman Claudia. NewYork: Columbia Press University, 1994. Emmerson, Simon (editor), The Language of Electroacoustic Music, London: Macmillan Press, 1986. Gibson, James, The Ecological Approach to Visual Perception, Hillsdale, NJ: LawrenceEarlbaum Associates, Inc: 1979. Hugill, Andrew, The Digital Musician, New-York: Routledge, 2008.

Websites: A website dedicate to the publication of International conferences on Media Art The Archive section contained very interesting articles, as of today, the links are broken: check soon as this will certainly be fixed. You can access the publication through the Conference Series http://www.mediaarthistory.org/ The sound section contains and presents a lot of artists works and projects. The ArtBase section is searchable by active terms such as : sound art, digital The database is updated regularly. http://www.rhizome.org/ The website of the Ars Electronica Festival. Check the Prix section and Winners http://www.aec.at

A very detailed article on Media Art and cyber art http://193.171.60.44/dspace/bitstream/10002/313/1/DDomingues.pdf

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