Art of the MOOC: Experiments with Sound

Art of the MOOC: Experiments with Sound

This course is part of Art of the MOOC: Art, Culture, and Society Specialization

Instructors: Pedro Lasch

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8 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

77 reviews

Beginner level

No prior experience required

1 week to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

8 modules

Gain insight into a topic and learn the fundamentals.

77 reviews

Beginner level

No prior experience required

1 week to complete

at 10 hours a week

Flexible schedule

Learn at your own pace

Skills you'll gain

Details to know

Shareable certificate

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Assessments

8 assignments

Taught in English

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This course is part of the Art of the MOOC: Art, Culture, and Society Specialization

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There are 8 modules in this course

Students of this course may try their hand at their own sound interventions and musical compositions, or simply focus on learning more about diverse musical traditions, sonic experimentation, and acoustic phenomena in everyday life. Designed by artist and Duke professor, Pedro Lasch, and UdK composer Mathias Hinke, this course is also co-taught by scholar and musician Jace Clayton (DJ Rupture) and curator Candice Hopkins (Documenta 14). The lectures link major artistic developments of recent decades to wider ideas about sound in specific social and spatial contexts.

Also included are guest presentations from key thinkers and practitioners, like: Christopher DeLaurenti, Jen Delos Reyes, Tina Haver Currin, Quran Karriem, Christina Kubisch, Thomas Kusitzky, Scott Lindroth, Mark Anthony Neal, Bill Seaman, and John Supko. As the ‘ART of the MOOC’ title implies, learners and participants are encouraged to treat the MOOC itself as a public art medium. This happens mostly through the course’s optional practical components, local project productions, global exchanges, and critical feedback. While no prior sound production or musical experience is required, projects also offer challenging options for advanced learners. For other course offerings or language versions in this series, just search 'ART of the MOOC' in the Coursera catalog.

This module introduces the four co-teachers of the course (Lasch, Clayton, Hinke, Hopkins), along with five analytical concepts that we will use throughout its sections and projects: Frequency, Perspective, Material Frame, Time Frame, and Concurrency. These concepts are designed to encompass a wide range of acoustic phenomena within spatial and social experience.

What's included

2 videos3 readings1 assignment

This lesson expands on specific terms or ‘sound elements’ that include tuning, resonance, silence, improvisation, rhythm, synchronization, duration, and timbre. It also addresses traditional tools in sound production, from musical instruments to sampling, auto-tunes, and other more recent technologies. The module concludes by exploring the role of sound in specific non-musical social settings and practices, such as clapping, fan culture, sports, traffic jams, mass demonstrations, and more.

What's included

10 videos1 assignment

10 videos Total 110 minutes

Archeoacoustics, Resonant Frequencies & Silence 10 minutes
Silenced Voices, Improvisation & Instruments 12 minutes
Timbre, Rhythm & Synchronization 8 minutes
Duration, Streaming & the Studio as Instrument 10 minutes
Demonstrations & Fan Culture 13 minutes
The Sound of Athletes & Traffic 10 minutes
Social Conventions & Sound Rules 10 minutes
Air Horn Orchestra with Tina Haver Currin 9 minutes
Bands & Socially Engaged Art with Jen Delos Reyes 12 minutes
Sound Art & Protest Recordings with Christopher DeLaurenti 16 minutes

1 assignment Total 30 minutes

Elements of Sound and Social Practices 30 minutes

The practical component of this section is optional, asking learners to choose a space with specific ‘sound rules’ and change or alter these rules through actual experimentation.

What's included

1 video1 reading1 assignment

This lesson begins by focusing on the relationship between experimental practices and scores or notation systems. It also examines how sound has been used and understood by artists in specific urban contexts, such as ports, train stations, and airports, as well as rural settings, including forests, gardens, and the wider landscape. We conclude with an examination of how sound and music travel, be it through the populations who produce it, or the objects and digital files that are used to record and share it.

What's included

8 videos1 assignment

8 videos Total 85 minutes

Scores & Notations 14 minutes
How Sound Travels 10 minutes
Buildings & Urban Spaces 15 minutes
Transit Sites & Rural Spaces 16 minutes
The Garage & Found Metal Ensemble with Scott Lindroth 9 minutes
The Sound of Electromagnetic Waves with Christina Kubisch 7 minutes
Materializing & Sonification of Movement with Matthew Kenney 6 minutes
Auditory Architecture with Thomas Kusitzky 8 minutes

1 assignment Total 30 minutes

Notations, How Music Travels, and Public Space 30 minutes

The practical component is optional, inviting learners to ‘erase a sound in space’ through a range of possible strategies.

What's included

1 video1 reading1 assignment

This lesson provides an overview of the methods and ideas from different schools of listening. It also presents a critical examination of the term ‘world music’ and how it has evolved in relation to economic and cultural globalization. With this global perspective in mind, the concluding portions of our lectures are dedicated to acoustic experience and musical experimentation on the net, the radio, cellular networks, and various social media, including all of the glitches, accidents, and failures we associate with these platforms.

What's included

8 videos1 assignment

8 videos Total 98 minutes

Deep Listening, Open Ears & Decolonial Thought 10 minutes
Anthropocene & Listening Case Studies 13 minutes
Global Forms 14 minutes
Sound of the Net, Plunderphonics & Brain Opera 12 minutes
Social Media, GPS, Sonic Bikes & ASMR 13 minutes
Black Culture & Global Music with Mark Anthony Neal 12 minutes
Collaboration & Generative Aesthetics with Bill Seaman & John Supko 15 minutes
"Endings" Project & Interactive Compositions with Quran Karriem 8 minutes

1 assignment Total 30 minutes

Listening as Practice, Global Forms, & the Sound of the Net 30 minutes

The practical component of this module is optional, asking learners to produce their own experiment with media and technical failure.

What's included

1 video1 reading1 assignment

This module is optional and only for those who wish to put what they learned from the course into one final project that is more open and ambitious in scale. Two options are given for this, one being your most ambitious project, and the other based on the creation and use of your own musical instruments.