Discussion: Review of course objectives, readings, assignments, projects, and grading. Blogging as a medium for research, discourse, and documentation. Sign-up on Blogger.com. Max/MSP/Jitter from Cycling '74: resources, listserve, software. Demonstration patches.
Reading Assignment: Dick Higgins, Intermedia
Discussion: The intermedial is the medium that lies between pure media, that connects the media, that reveals relationships between media, and the way in which media interact with one another. Overview of data translation, control strategies and algorithmic composition.
Lab: Overview of Max/MSP/Jitter, algorithmic, object-oriented multimedia software.
Mini Assignment for Monday, Jan. 29: Sound Poem
-- create a simple patch with a recording of your own voice speaking a sentence
-- setup keyboard triggers that "window" specific words
-- play the sentence so that you can change its meaning, a poetic remix
1/29 - Complete Sound Poems, Review Jitter
Overview Jitter objects for movie playback
Assignment: Review Golan Levin's "Messa di Voce." Look at the documentation examples for 2/1
2/1 - Discuss sound-image interaction, begin intermedia project
In the context of Golan Levin's "Messa di Voce," discuss algorithmic composition and intermedial interaction between sound and image. Data translation of an audio signal into amplitude values. Algorithmic composition and visualization of data as a control for manipulating live video and graphics.
Begin Sound/Image Indeterminacy projects.
Lab: Complete Indeterminacy projects
Critique: Presentation of projects
Discussion: Media art challenges the traditionally passive relationship between audience and artwork, introducing a participatory role for the viewer. The experience of the work results from the interaction with its elements and processes.
Reading: Fantasy Beyond Control, Lynn Hershman
Lab: Review of the mousestate object for continuous interaction and control of parameters.
Project II: Exploration of viewer interaction and its impact on the conceptualization, creation and experience of the work. We will map the computer keyboard to an interactive experience.
Discussion: Building an interactive environment that is intuitive and engaging. The viewer-participant will interact with the work such there is logical gestural movement through video frames, sound and the manipulation of parameters.
Lab: Animation & compositing
Lab: Real-time video switching
Midterm essay assignment: Write a short blog essay (approx. 300 words), discussing concepts in real-time multimedia.
Critique: Presentation of Project II (The Participatory), and the Midterm essay.
In preparation for the undergraduate Studio Art exhibition, we will concentrate on an "open project" this week. Works can be a refinement of the previous "participatory project" or a new one. All projects must be completed and ready for submission by Thursday, March 22nd.
Discussion: Real-time video tracking using the camera as a sensing device for interaction.
Discussion: Discussion: The technique of the recombinate work or collage, in which various texts and image are combined or "recombined" in a discordant, nonsensical or random manner, involves the the juxtaposition and transformation of sound and imagery, and often the appropriation of mass media. Composition strategies for the appropriation of mass media and the development of narrative based on their unfolding juxtaposition.
Reading: The Future of the Novel, William Burroughs. Prepare the reading with two questions for discussion.
Project III: The Recombinate - Re-Searching the Net. This project will involving the collection of sounds, images, and video based on keyword searches, which deconstruct the way we use the system of the Internet to search for information and meaning. The project will serve as an alteration and juxtaposition of the media elements as commentary on the significance and irony of the Web as a global database, a world-wide repository. 1st Assignment, choose a set of keywords around a single theme such as: religion (apocalypse, preacher, sermon, holy), politics (speech, election, stump, impeach) or the environment (global warming, rain forest, ozone, Al Gore). Be sure you have a few words that will lend themselves to broad and sometimes ironic interpretation. After conducting a search on Google, MySpace, Flickr, etc., download images, texts, sounds, video, etc. and organize your elements for review in class on Thursday.
Lab: Max/MSP/Jitter Tutorial patches.
Dicussion: Update on projects, collection of found material
Lab: Digital Delay - review of live signal processing using delay techniques.
Review of Max interface techniques: fpic, ubutton, pcontrol, vpicture, pict slider, etc.
Discussion: Net artist Mark Napier and his on-line works that explore the recombinate, the remix, and real-time net appropriation.
Work on recombinatory projects.
Discussion: An artwork in the electronic domain need no longer be static, it can achieve qualities of evolution, transformation, change over time. This process can be predictable or unpredictable according to the indeterminate nature of its construction.
Work on Recombinate projects.
Discussion: Review final assignments
1. Summary of Beral Madra's lecture: Art as Mediation (blog entry)
2. Summary of exhibition: Capturing the Capital / Multimediale (blog entry)
3. Summary of exhibition at AU: Multimedia installation by Christopher McClelland of Sonic Arts Research Centre (blog entry)
4. Final project
Lab: Work on Participatory projects.
Final Critique: Presentation of projects