This course engages the Electro-Acoustic Orchestra as a living, emergent sonic organism. It provides an opportunity for acoustic performers to expand the sonic and expressive palette of their instrumental practice in the context of a mixed electronic and acoustic ensemble, and for electronic musicians to expand their practice into an ensemble performance situation. The orchestra will engage in regular improvisation sessions as a means to further develop attentiveness to all aspects of sound including timbre, texture, blending noise/tone, and blending acoustic/electronic sources in space. Soundpainting-based conducting is a form of real-time composition used by the instructor in order to develop a novel, shared language for musical form and content. Additionally, compositions drawn from the experimental and electroacoustic literature as well as new pieces written by and for the group are regularly performed. The orchestra will present their work in public presentations during the term, in collaboration with the instructor and invited guest artists.
This course prepares students to compose and perform interactive music and sound art using computational means. Students learn the fundamental programming techniques required to realize algorithmic music compositions and interactive performance systems. Following the paradigms of composer/performer and of the composed-instrument, students’ projects focus on writing an interactive composition (solo or ensemble) for their classmates, and developing an interactive performance system for personal expression. Topics include orientation to algorithmic composition principles, sound analysis/processing/synthesis methods, developing new interfaces for musical expression, and fundamentals of acoustics and auditory perception as they relate to computational music and sonic art creation. Contemporary research-creation practices in these ares are introduced, and contextualized relative to the rich historical, aesthetic and conceptual literature in the field of Computer Music.
This course engages the internet as a medium for performance, exploring the concept of remote presence through personal and group projects. Students collaborate on multimedia performance pieces with partner universities in order to develop their own aesthetic vision of this largely-uncharted territory in a way that challenges established notions of audience participation, staging, veracity and inter-performer dialogue. Pressing technical issues related to networking, visual and spatial rendering and audio engineering for telematic performance are engaged in the context of real performance events, bringing together students of both performing arts and digital media development in collaboration. The course accommodates and leverages student backgrounds across disciplines including music, dance, computer science, visual arts, film/video, theatre, engineering and digital media. Network-based multimedia improvisation sessions are used as a resource in project development, as well as critical examination of existing pieces from the telematic performance literature.
This course allows students to apply cutting edge research in machine learning and artificial intelligence to the performing arts, with particular emphasis on music and sonic arts, dance and movement arts, and performance art. Different paradigms for modeling learning and behaviour will be explored (human perception/cognition, artificial evolution, agent-based systems), as well as critical questions surrounding machine creativity and intentionality. Students will have the chance to create software/hardware systems that challenge the boundaries between human and machine expression in performance, and explore pressing questions of knowledge representation and embodiment through creation of works that blend science, engineering and the arts. Systems created during the course will sense and learn human actions (sound, motion, biophysical signals), and will artificially create new content in media that may include sound, visuals, light and haptics. These systems will have the opportunity for application to public and professional performance contexts that equally challenge existing paradigms of music, dance and performance art while exploring new research territories in the area of computational creativity.
This course introduces students to contemporary research problems in Digital Media with real-world applications. Student teams work collaboratively on a large-scale project that tackles a well-defined research problem spanning art and science methods and practices. The problem domain will be defined by the instructor and related DisPerSion Lab context.
This course engages an active Electro-Acoustic performing ensemble as a site for composing interactive media works that may manifest across multiple media including spatialized light, sound, haptics and projected visuals. Students develop an interactive system and iteratively refine this over the course of the term, testing this each week in a performative context defined by rehearsals of the Electro-Acoustic Orchestra. Various sensing, feature analysis and mapping strategies are applied to a variety of signals generated by the ensemble, including audio streams, conductor gestures and new controllers created by students in the course. Techniques explored will include movement and biophysical sensing, sound analysis and processing, cross-media mapping, machine learning for mapping strategies, and the aesthetics of interactive music/media performance practice. Interactive systems from the course will be presented in public concerts each term, both on York campus as well as at venues in downtown Toronto.
Integrated with MUSI/DATT 4071.
In this course, students incrementally develop and refine an advanced interactive system for sound-based performance. Students combine hardware, software and creative strategies that draw on approaches from the fields of electroacoustics, computer music, and the sonic arts. Topics include generative composition, sound analysis/synthesis, machine learning for sound, digital instrument design, acoustics, auditory perception, and digital performance practice. Prerequisite: DATT/MUSI 4071/5071.
This course blends experimental practice and critical studies through the medium of sound. Students partake in various forms of sonic practices, while critically examining concepts as they manifest uniquely within this performance medium. The course is open to both theorists and practitioners, and affords an opportunity to merge these two modes of inquiry within the pervasive and ephemeral domain of sound.
This course engages the internet as a medium for performance, exploring the concept of remote presence through personal and group projects. Students collaborate on multimedia performance pieces with partner universities in order to develop their own aesthetic vision of this largely-uncharted territory in a way that challenges established notions of audience participation, staging, human/agent interaction and inter-performer dialogue. Pressing technical issues related to networking, visual and spatial rendering and audio engineering for telematic performance are engaged in the context of real performance events, bringing together students of both performing arts and digital media development in collaboration. The course accommodates and leverages student backgrounds across disciplines including music, dance, computer science, visual arts, film/video, theatre, engineering and digital media. Network-based multimedia improvisation sessions are used as a resource in project development, as well as critical examination of existing pieces from the telematic performance literature.