Seeing in the Phonocene
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General
Course Long Title
Seeing in the Phonocene
Subject Code
FWNT
Course Number
528C
School(s)
Academic Level
GR - Graduate
Description
"What does a loud -crack- outside your door sound like, and what does it sound like to your neighbor? We are constantly transformed by the sonic vibrations of our urban and natural environments. Sounds are not exclusive to the experiences in our ears--they lay a path in our subjective memory.
Taking from concepts of sound ecology and the provocation that we could live in the "Phonocene" (a vision of the future that emphasizes sound and active listening theorized by Donna Haraway), this four session course offers students the opportunity to produce a sound and image work as a collective. The students will practice deep listening and will learn to identify "the gap between our two eyes that sound accounts for" (Michel Chion). This course encourages collaboration between schools across CalArts, and for artists to take the prompt they receive as an opportunity to work in their preferred medium, or break from their comfort modes.
In the first session, we will engage in an active listening exercise, and collaborate in the creation of a sound map. Moving image and sound works will be presented as inspiration. In the second session, students will submit a sound or music piece (of field recording, instrumentation, synthetic sound, or somewhere in between) that will be exchanged with another student in class (anonymously), and used as a prompt for the creation of an audio/visual "exquisite corpse". In the third session we will share our works in progress, and work collectively to curate these works into a multichannel, sound focused installation and performance, which we will present on campus in our final session. As a description for the performance and installation, students will write a manifesto for active listening.
Examples of work we will be viewing:
"The Diary of the Sky" - Lawrence Abu Hamdan (2024)
"Preemptive Listening" - Aura Satz (2024)
"Dissonant" - Manon De Boer (2010)
Examples of writing that influences the course:
"The Gender of Sound" - Anne Carson
Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World - R. Murray Schafer
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals Emergent Strategy Series: 2 - Alexis Pauline Gumbs
A Worm's Eye View from a Bird's Beak - Raven Chacon
Taking from concepts of sound ecology and the provocation that we could live in the "Phonocene" (a vision of the future that emphasizes sound and active listening theorized by Donna Haraway), this four session course offers students the opportunity to produce a sound and image work as a collective. The students will practice deep listening and will learn to identify "the gap between our two eyes that sound accounts for" (Michel Chion). This course encourages collaboration between schools across CalArts, and for artists to take the prompt they receive as an opportunity to work in their preferred medium, or break from their comfort modes.
In the first session, we will engage in an active listening exercise, and collaborate in the creation of a sound map. Moving image and sound works will be presented as inspiration. In the second session, students will submit a sound or music piece (of field recording, instrumentation, synthetic sound, or somewhere in between) that will be exchanged with another student in class (anonymously), and used as a prompt for the creation of an audio/visual "exquisite corpse". In the third session we will share our works in progress, and work collectively to curate these works into a multichannel, sound focused installation and performance, which we will present on campus in our final session. As a description for the performance and installation, students will write a manifesto for active listening.
Examples of work we will be viewing:
"The Diary of the Sky" - Lawrence Abu Hamdan (2024)
"Preemptive Listening" - Aura Satz (2024)
"Dissonant" - Manon De Boer (2010)
Examples of writing that influences the course:
"The Gender of Sound" - Anne Carson
Soundscape: Our Sonic Environment and the Tuning of the World - R. Murray Schafer
Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals Emergent Strategy Series: 2 - Alexis Pauline Gumbs
A Worm's Eye View from a Bird's Beak - Raven Chacon