ART 1604 CASE STUDY 2: Acoustic Time- Soundscapes & Audio postcard samples of prompts and student works.
2016: Ears do not blink project.
John Cage. 4’ 33”. Silence fallacy.
Two options:
• Constructed foley soundscape
• Sound Walk field recordings
Constraints:
• Students must record all assets.
Deliverable:
70-90 Seconds of audio.
.wav file.
Sound Unit Outcomes: 2016
This group took to the challenge well, making meaningful pieces the whole way through.
In fall 2016, the class spent 3 weeks on sound and went deep with daily listening and reflection exercises. We began the unit with a listening exercise in the perform studio. We went back 3 weeks later for critique.
Sound Unit Outcomes 2017
Sound-driven video poems.
VIDEO + SOUND
For this assignment, you will first create an abstract sound project that is a minimum of 90 seconds and a maximum of 3 minutes long. You will then attempt to visualize or extend the impact of that sound using video and animation in the second part of this project.
Rules: You may only use field recordings that you yourself capture, or sounds that you record and create. You may not use music, narration, or dialogue as a part of this project.
Sound Unit Outcomes 2020
Audio Postcards: Dispatches from strange places.
Exploring liminality as a location.
Sound Unit Outcomes 2021
Audio Postcards and First Person POV Audio.
Prompt 1: Audio Postcard: Engage with sound through the filter of a specific (real or fictive) place and time, possibly an event. Use found and invented sound artifacts and documentary audio techniques to weave a convincing account for the listener. The listener is outside of this experience, listening in. There is no narrator, we are witnessing a fabricated situation.
Prompt 2: Guided soundscape. Create an environment that a listener is engulfed by and traverses. This environment is not only conceivable as a place and space, but also participatory, in that the listener perceives themselves inside of the experience, as opposed to listening from the outside, or retrospectively, as they do in the Audio Postcard/Documentary. The environment may even respond (or be perceived as responding to) the listener herself. Think guided meditation where the listener is actively aware of being addressed in the expansive moment you've created.
Notes/The fine print for students:
• TL;DR Get weird, don't make music for this project. You have one job- be bold and interesting.
• If you're feeling scared by an idea- guess what? GO FOR IT!
•You know how I feel about music. If you use music, you have to write it and perform it, but it is best avoided.If you think I'm a harsh art critic, I'm a savage music critic. :P
Aim to explore beyond conventional tropes like a song or a linear narrative. Components may be disjunctive, disjointed, or non-sequiturs; however, the composition as a whole should transcend the sum of its parts. Inclusions of absences, emptiness and the most subtle of nuances may contribute unexpectedly to communicative possibilities. Don't overlook the power of an awkward pause. Remember that the human voice might commonly convey semantic cues (language), but also form which may be used abstractly.
Poetic logic (associative use of sound elements and principles, audible materiality, and narrative strings) should drive cohesion within your composition.