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San Francisco Art Institute

DIGITAL SOUND & REMIX: From Bell to PodCasting, Fall 2005

Through assigned readings, discussion and the creation of sound-related projects, this course will explore the historical, conceptual, and artistic aspects of sound and remix. This course will also familiarize students with the basic concepts of audio and current hardware and software.

Generally, this course will weave contemporary art practice with an investigation into evolution of sound art with technology. Starting early with Alexander Graham Bell and continuing with John Cage onto present, this course will survey general trends in order to raise awareness of the field and to encourage creativity within aural practice.

While positing the aforementioned historical framework, the majority of the course will dwell upon contemporary topics such DJ/VJ culture, Internet Streaming Radio, MP3 PodCasting, file sharing, and copyright. Also, contemporary sound artists and their craft will be explored in addition to how to plug into current scenes.

Augmenting the discussion of digital sound will be the concept of remix. The general concept of remix will be explored through the framework of MESH which stands for Mixing, Editing, Sampling and Harvesting of different media into another - a remix. While bricolaging material is not new, or exclusively dependent upon contemporary technology such as the Internet and computing, they allow expansive possibilities for source material, a means for projection of ideas and a medium for transmission of new sound content simultaneously around the world.

This course is project-driven driven and interdependent upon the participants own interests and goals. As such, there is no specific prerequisites in programming, math, or sound engineering. Generally, if one downloads content from the web regularly, has an email address, enjoys audio/music/sound, and/or wants to learn more about these topics, this course will enhance your art practice.

Keywords: audio, sound, digital media, realtime performance, DJ, VJ, Internet Radio, Icecast, Podcasting, Open Source, PHP, RSS feeds, file sharing, media salon, real-time determinism, media theory, media sharing, networking, broadcasting, scrapers, bots, spidering, data feeds, sound art

DVD Authoring Practicum, Fall 2005 and Spring 2006

Leonardo Magazine, with educational partners, the Center for New Media UC Berkeley and SFAI, are co-producing a DVD in connection with the 2006 Inter-Society for the Electronic Arts (ISEA) International Symposium on Electronic Art and ZeroOne San Jose’s New Media Pacific Rim Summit. This DVD and accompanying booklet will be packaged with the print version of Leonardo to be released next year.

Students selected for the Practicum will produce and design both the content on the DVD and its external packaging. This includes internally the interface that includes menus, clips and other dynamic content, and externally the design of the packaging, a small booklet and associated text. Additionally, a trailer for the web composed of DVD excerpts will be produced.

Those accepted for the Practicum should be familiar with Adobe After Effects, Photoshop, Illustrator, Final Cut Pro, and DVD Studio Pro. Students should also be highly motivated to work collaboratively on a DVD design project, be able to work with deadlines, and take direction. An interview will be required prior to registration. Students will receive published versions of the DVD for their portfolio.

Developing a Buzz: Networking, Press and Reviews, Spring 2006

Specifically, this course is to help students develop a project, get more connected - socially and technologically - and promote a project successfully - developing a buzz, getting press and reviews. Through the study of development, networking and publicity there will be an on-line (Internet-based/virtual) and an off-line (physical) emphasis threaded throughout the semester. The study of development will begin the course with a discussion of a student’s selected project’s goals, how to achieve them (development model, fund raising and grant writing), and planning a road map. The participants will then be taught how to set up a web domain (example:www.YOURPROJECTNAME.org), and then put up a basic web site, e-mail accounts, mailing list, blog, and a Wiki.

Afterwards, strategies for networking will be studied. The goal is to grow one’s network on-line by developing an audience and/or community, and then supplement this with real-world relationships between people, affiliations to groups, and connecting one’s resource with resources needed by others and vice-versa.

Publicity will then be studied in order to know how to communicate through different communication media to the developed networks. This will be done with writing press releases, notifying communities (blogs, news sites, prweb.com, etc), developing strong branding (graphics, audio, video), and placing this branding appropriately to achieve a project’s goals (advertisement, tv ads, newspaper, free zine, etc). Also important will be studying public speaking, organizing events (parties, openings, and/or conferences) and how to do effective project releases.

In one semester participants will develop or use a current project for exploration of the concepts in this course. Students will be expected to use in-class discussions and selected readings to achieve self-assigned goals related to their project and the course material.

Take this course if you: A.) Want to make a real project. B.) Want to get press and reviews. C.) Are sick of creating vaporware (projects that never happen or are too grand to be realized). D.) Want to learn practical skills that will help you be on the cutting edge in on-line and off-line worlds. E.) Want to learn how to get multiple people helping you with your work.

World Wide Web Workshop I

This workshop’s primary goal is to empower each participant to construct basic standards compliant web-based media directed towards predefined goals. The course starts at the very beginning with the most fundamental concepts of the World Wide Web which are built upon throughout the workshop. These concepts are explored through direct hands-on construction of simple web pages with HTML markup for content and Cascading Style Sheets (CSS) for visual style, both written in a standard text editor. Next, participants learn how to wield Javascript, a lightweight public standard scripting language, to activate web content, check forms, and build basic on-line applications. Finally, simple database concepts and implementations are explored as a means to store, retrieve, and edit large quantities of data using the PHP programming language, file-based databases, and MySQL binary databases.

All classes are hands-on with only occasional short out of class readings posted on-line which enhance the discussion of large issues, historical reasonings behind the Web, and various strategies for designing and maintaining solid Web-based content.

Emphasis is placed upon application of the concepts learned in this course to other areas of computing and the arts. While this workshop is focused on web media, the basic scripting and programming learned is easily applied to MAX/MSP, Flash Animation, Proce55ing, Dreamweaver and other tools. This high level conceptual and technical re-application is demonstrated during the course.

The primary on-going project for the workshop is to build either one’s own personal website or construct some site for a project, get it hosted on a public website (extra credit for getting a www.YOURNAME.org), manage that site, and
successfully discuss the reasoning and logic for that project with others in the workshop.

After taking this course, participants will have sufficient knowledge to both make dynamic web-based content, earn money building basic web designs, and will be able to take advanced programming and scripting courses.

Let’s Hack: Down and Dirty Problem Solving

Publicly, “Hacking” stereotypically represents an evil deed committed by young “script kiddies” trying to harm other people’s computers, fraudulently seeking passwords in order to steal money. While these weak descriptions are continually perpetuated, this course will teach the art of hacking: down and dirty problem solving by providing a general historical overview of hacking and its intersection with art. It more importantly will focus on how to use hacking in one’s own art practice to quickly solve problems; the ethical and conceptual issues surrounding related topics will also be explored. Please Note: this course will not only present software-based hacking but other forms such as social and hardware hacking. Related projects by Critical Art Ensemble, Bureau of Inverse Technology and Electronic Civil Disobediance will be presented and built upon.