CS 2050-001 Spring 2018 Exploring Digital Media
Making Noise: Sound Art and Digital Media
CS 2050, Spring 2018
Instructor: Erik Brunvand, School of Computing
TA: Jimmy Moore, School of Computing
When: T-Th 2:00-3:20pm
Where: Merrill Engineering Building (MEB) 3147
TA Office Hours: Tues: 12:00 - 2:00 PM / Thurs: 3:20 - 5:20 PM
Note that Jimmy's office hours are held in our lab (MEB 3143). This lab is available to you 24/7 with card access.
The door to the lab has a sign that says something like "Senior Hardware Lab" on it.
Textbooks:
- Handmade Electronic Music: The Art of Hardware Hacking by Nicolas Collins
- Lights! Speed! Action! Fundamentals of Physical Programming for Programmers by Erik Brunvand
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CS/UGS2050 Lab Manual by Erik Brunvand and Nina McCurdy
- For class you'll be required to keep notes/sketches/drawings/responses/etc. in a sketchbook or journal. This will be a record of all the various projects, readings, and listening assignments throughout the semester. We'll hand out journals that you can use, or you can buy your own if you have a preference for a different type or size of journal. Journals should NOT be lined paper. Ideally they should be blank, or gridded. They should be a size that is comfortable for you to carry around with you most of the time. The sketchbook/journals that we will have for your use are paper bound and 5.5x8.25.
In addition to these books, I've put some books on reserve for our class at the Marriott Library that are full of interesting information and essays on the subjects of sound art and audio culture. You can access the reserve list here. These books all have interesting information in them, but I particularly like Audio Culture: Readings in Modern Music by Christoph Cox and Electronic and Experimental Music: Technology, Music, and Culture by Thom Holmes. They include an interesting collection of essays from a wide range of writers/musicians.
What is this class about? Electronic technology is pervasive in our modern world but how it actually works can be a mystery to many people. In this class students will explore the fundamentals of electronic technology with a goal of increasing their “technological fluency.” This class does not assume any specific background in electronics or computer programming. Through hands-on labs and projects students will gain a fundamental understanding of how electronic things work and what are their capabilities and limitations. This will be explored in the context of making art and noise with electronic components, some of which will be built from scratch, and some of which will be discovered from existing cast-off or broken devices. This blending of arts and technology, sometimes called “circuit bending,” involves learning enough about technology to modify simple circuits (that were likely never intended to make noise) to make strange and unexpected sounds. The final project will be to design, build, program, and perform with an electronic musical (or at least noise-making) gizmo that has never previously existed.
Be aware that you've signed up for an experimental course! I have a broad outline of the material in mind, but many of the details will be worked out as we go along. The schedule will almost certainly change as the semester progresses...
General Strategy
This course has three main components:
- Weekly readings and listening assignments
- Four projects that involve sound manipulation
- A final project of your design that integrates previous course material
A few more details:
- Reading and Listening: Each week there are readings and listening assignments. We'll discuss the readings on Tuesdays, and the listening assignments on Thursdays. The readings are related to the history of electronic and experimental music, and sound art, and the listening assignments are designed to give you practice in listening and hearing. These should be reasonably quick and easy assignments designed to keep everybody engaged. Still, I realize that 13 readings and 10 listening assignments is a lot. So, your two lowest reading response scores, and your two lowest listening assignment scores will be dropped.
Reading responses are your reactions and thoughts about the readings. We expect a page or two, handwritten (neatly!) in your sketchbook. Hand in a scan or photo of your response from your sketchbook
Listening exercises should be documented in your sketchbook. Again, hand in a scan or photo of your sketchbook.
- Projects: There are four projects related to sound generation and manipulation. Submissions will involve scans or photos of your sketchbook pages related to the projects, as well as ancillary material related to the project (varies fro project to project).
- Induction coil field recordings - Using an inductive pickup to record electromagnetic noise. Collect and catalog your recordings and organize with a map to your "sound walk."
- Arduino based programmed sound - Write programs that make music/noise. Compose short pieces using programmed algorithms.
- Oscillator circuits - Build oscillators and couple them together to generate more noise. Collect and catalog sounds from your oscillators.
- Toy hacking - Convert a toy to make new and noisy sounds.
- Final Project: This is a project of your own conception and design. It should be related to sound art in some way. The four projects will result in a set of "raw material" that you can use in your final project. I expect you to end up with a good set of sound clips that you can use to assemble together into larger music compositions, and also a set of physical pieces that you can build upon to make your project. The final project will be your own concoction from these materials. You could do a composition using all the sound clips and materials, you could build a new instrument and perform with that instrument, you could assemble a set of circuits and sounds for a sound art installation. There are many possibilities!
Final projects will be presented/performed/displayed in a public showing during our final exam slot: Wednsday, May 2, 1:00-3:00pm.
Academic Integrity
You are expected to do your own work in this class. You can discuss with, study with, and learn from other students in the course, but any work that you turn in should be your own. Here's a link to the School of Computing's Academic Misconduct policy. Please read it, and please don't give any cause for sanctions.
College of Enginering Spring Semester guidelines for add/drop are here
Class Schedule (this will almost certainly change during the semester!)
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Dates |
Subjects |
Links (these will be activated as they become available) |
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Week 1: |
Lecture: Introduction and overview of digital media, electronic and experimental music, and sound art Also start our intro to basic electronics - electrons, voltage, current, etc. |
Intro slides (in PDF) Slides about basic electricity and electronics Some slides about electronics (from a SIGGRAPH course) Some old slides about electronics (mostly for reference if you want more info) |
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Week 2: |
Reading Assignment - Russolo Lecture/Demo: Inductive pickups: electronic sound collecting and field recording
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Audacity is a free open-source sound editing program. Here's a web site with a nice "concise electronics for geeks" explanation Here are some slides about sketchbooks. |
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Week 3: |
Reading Assignment - Westerkamp Lecture/Demo: Continue electronics introduction - Ohm's Law, Kirchhoff's laws, voltage dividers, etc.
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Slides about Sound Slides about Westerkamp and sound walks |
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Week 4: |
Reading Assignment - Varese Lecture/Demo: Simple soldering - contact microphone, music flasher and cigar box amplifier circuit Project 1: Induction coil field recordings due
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Here are some slides on soldering through-hole components. They also include a step-by-step on the music-flashing circuit that you can solder together There are lots of "how to solder" resources out there. This youTube video is a nice basic introduction to simple "through hole" electrical component soldering (the type we'll be doing). Soldering tutorial.
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Week 5: |
Reading Assignment - Cage Lecture/Demo: Programming introduction with Arduino - flashing LEDs and more |
Arduino is an open-source embedded computing platform Slides on programming are here: Programming1.pdf PDF file with information about the resistors used in the Arduino project |
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Week 6: |
Reading Assignment - Xenakis Lecture/Demo: Sound synthesis with Arduino, speakers, and buzzers |
The tone library can be used to output square wave tones on Arduino digital pins Here's another example of using the tone library on Arduino Some examples from me on using the tone library: These examples all use the pitches.h file. See the assignment for details on how to add the pitches.h file to each project. |
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Week 7: |
Reading Assignment - Eno Lecture/Demo: Circuit bending and hardware hacking |
A youTube video showing how I discovered the correct component to replace to hack the clock on a toy from the DI
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Week 8: |
Reading Assignment - Ghazala Lecture/Demo: More circuit bending and hardware hacking |
A youTube about Reed Ghazala: Reed Ghazala, the Father of Circuit Bending: Sound Builders The Circuit Bending project is documented both in our Lab Manual, and in Section III (Chapters 11-17) in our book. This sounds like These slides have some details on the types of components you may see in your circuit bending: components.pdf Slides on Sound Generated Art: Image Glitching, iTunes Visualizer, Cymatics, Reuben's tube/board: SoundGeneratedArt(I).pdf Slides about Ghazala |
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Week 9: |
Reading Assignment - Archer/Richards Lecture/Demo: Simple oscillator circuits |
Tuesday, 3/6: Bring in a toy or two to class. We'll take things apart in class and see what they look like. Some slides that demonstrate step-by-step pitch-bending |
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Week 10: |
Reading Assignment - Ussachevsky Lecture/Demo: Multiple oscillators Tuesday, 3/13: Arduino II in-class demos |
Slides about Ussachevsky |
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Spring Break |
No Class.... |
Enjoy your Break! |
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Week 11: |
Reading Assignment - Oliveros Lecture/Demo: More oscillators |
Here are some slides on oscillator components: Components-Audio.pdf Slides about Oliveros |
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Week 12: |
Tuesday, 4/3: HW Hacking in-class demos
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Week 13: |
Reading: Anne Thurman-Jajes and Max Neuhaus |
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| Week 14: 4/17, 4/19 |
Reading Assignment - Stockhausen Lecture/Demo: TBA Tuesday, 4/17: Oscillators in-class demos |
Slides about Stockhausen |
| Week 15: 4/24 |
Final Project: Work day, project refinement |
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Final Demo |
Class demonstrations / performances of your individual projects |
In our classroom - 1:00-3:00pm |
Some links to additional information pages
- Here's a link to a page with some Sound Art links that we'll explore this semester
- Here's a page with links to many of the musical elements we'll listen to
- Some links to information about female pioneers of electronic and experimental music
Course Summary:
| Date | Details | Due |
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