studies (35%)

Over the course of this class you will be assigned a sequence of seven short applied studies (5% each) to practice engaging analog and digital audio and video technique and the theories and threads of audio-visual art. These studies will be complete independently and critiqued collectively and between individual peers.

These studies are as follows:

  1. À la Lumière

    Using a stationary video camera (or phone), record one minute of footage in a natural environment that contains some movement. Natural, here, means an environment that isn’t significantly constructed or designed (e.g. a designed set), but rather is found. Additionally, use camera settings that are comparable to the human eye (not overly exposed, too zoomed in, etc.).

    After you’ve recorded your minute, first, strip the video of sound (or mute it). Then, take your minute of footage and edit it down to 10 seconds, using only basic editing techniques (see below), and, at most, 10 edits. Your scene might not be very visually active, but explore movement, rhythm, color, etc. as best as possible. Make every edit count.

    Submit an SD (strictly less than 1000 x 1000) version of your 10 seconds to the Box account, in the Study 1 - À la Lumière folder in a folder with your name. Additionally, include a PDF describing where you shot your footage, your strategy for making your edits, and how successful you felt your edits were. If you have any questions about your process or product, include those as well.

    Basic Editing Techniques

    YES: Trim, cut, copy, paste, reverse, varispeed

    NO: video effects or transitions, opacity changes, multiple simultaneous videos

  2. Jack Foley’s Lunch Break OR The Acousmatic Film Editor

    Jack Foley’s Lunch Break: Record the foleys (performed diegetic sound design) for a film (choose strictly from one provided below) without editing. You may do multiple layers of sound (one for each type of foley, for example), but cannot significantly edit the timing of the recordings or put them in one by one (“spot” them). You may change gain and add things like reverb/echo, for example, but cannot alter the timing of the recordings. You may go for realism, hyper-realism, or pure surrealism, but your end result should have a tight synchronicity between the action onscreen and the foleys you record.

    Jack Foley’s Freelance Project Portfolio:
    Animals.mov
    Food.mov
    Sports.mov
    Tools.mov
    Walking.mov

    NOTE: Each video has two shots; considering creating foley for each separately. Additionally, consider slowing down/speeding up footage and creating foley to the time-altered version, if needed. Final version should be at original speed.

    OR

    The Acousmatic Film Editor: Edit a film using its sound alone. This means having the audio and video linked in software, but being unable to see the video as you edit. Editing the audio, strive to create interesting rhythms, transform the sound using basic editing, and engage musicality, (much as you would do when editing sound alone), all while not seeing the video. Consider working with a video that has a significant amount of diegetic sound (particularly sounds of actions) or spoken or sung words. Your final edit should be between 20 to 30 seconds long. REAPER is a good tool for this assignment, as it allows you to edit a video without (by default) seeing it, and additionally has good audio-editing capabilities.

    Submit your video to the Box account, in the Study 2 folder in a folder with your name. Additionally, include a PDF describing which Study 2 option you chose, any difficulties you overcame, and how successful you felt your final work is. If you have any questions about your process or product, include those as well.

  3. Flip Book

    In order to explore visual design out of the context of a computer, create a flip book with at least 20 frames. This can be made by hand (with paper and pencil), or by using an animation software (but not one that significantly alters the manual labor required to create a flip book frame-by-frame). Depending on your artistic ability, you’re welcome to tell a story with or without characters, or simply play with shape/color/form, or explore gestalt principles, and/or cartoon physics.

  4. Montage Study

    This study applies Eisenstein’s Montage Theory. Using shot or found footage, create a 30 second video with at least 7 edits. An edit is defined here as a cut from one video to another video, so you must have at least two different videos as source materials (but will likely have more). In your video, make direct use of at least two Montage editing types (e.g. metric and rhythmic, or rhythmic and tonal, etc.). Sound is optional. You’re welcome to go silent, include the natural sound of the material you use, create foley, and/or add any kind of music. If you do have sound, make sure it doesn’t distract from your edits, the focus of this study.

    While creating this study, you’re welcome to focus on metrical and rhythmic edits, but if you want to challenge yourself, strive to create edits that generate the dialectical collisions that were the original goal of Eisenstein’s theory: juxtaposed shots that demonstrate emergence, that have more meaning together in sequence than separately. When used responsibly, this can be a very powerful visual (and sonic) tool.

    Submit your video to the Box account, in the Study 4 folder in a folder with your name. Additionally, include a PDF describing where you shot/found your footage (and/or sound, if applicable), which two (or more) Montage editing types you used, any difficulties you overcame, and how successful you felt your final work is. If you have any questions about your process or product, include those as well. Additionally, clearly disclose any content warnings.

  5. Medium-Mapping

    Program a system in Max or pure data that generates sound give an image or generates visuals given sound. This need not be complex, but should, ideally, go beyond a simple one-to-one relationship (e.g. loud sound <-> bright visual). The emphasis here is on getting experience medium-mapping and real-time digital audio and video. This study is extended in the real-time audio-visual system project (see below).

  6. Computer Animation (Processing)

    Picking up where we left off in Study 3, create a short (60 frame) or infinite animation using Processing. This may be either fixed and narrative (with sequential instructions for drawing) or generative (via an algorithm that procedurally generates visuals). It should not be interactive. Templates for each will be provided.

  7. 3D Modeling (Blender)

    Using Blender (or another 3D modeling programming), create either a single frame or a short animation. There’s a tendency when working with 3D modeling at an early stage to work in an exaggerated realism aesthetic (a la Cool 3D World). You’re welcome to do this, but also consider switching things up and using the environment of 3D modeling as a way to explore movement, texture, and light in ways not possible (or much more difficult) in another software environment. 3D modeling can be subtle!

VIdeo Artist Profile (15%)

Choose a video artist from the list below, or propose someone not on the list and we will discuss them as an option. Identify two to three audio-visual works by your video artist(s) to analyze and discuss (you are welcome to consider and refer to additional pieces, but focus on two or three). For each piece, identify and discuss one or two particularly striking features, in addition to discussing the piece as a whole. Where possible, include in your research texts that accompany the pieces and scholarly texts about or by your video artists(s) and/or others.

As a final product of your research, you should produce the following:

  1. A biography of your video artist, including a brief contextualization of their practice, and a set of selected works (with descriptions)

  2. An analysis of the two to three works you have chosen from their oeuvre, that engages the following:

    • Technique, technology usage, concepts engaged with, and/or place within history (impact on the genre)

    • Construct comparisons and analytical frames from works and theories discussed in class, or others

    • Include pictures, diagrams, and/or linked media as needed

  3. The biography should be around 500 words (a page). The analysis should be from 1000 to 2000 words (2 to 4 pages).

Video artists from which to choose:

Nam June Paik | Tal Rosner | Joan Jonas | Bill Viola | Pipilotti Rist | Bruce Nauman | Vito Acconci | Gillian Wearing | Chris Cunningham | Cory Arcangel | Christian Marclay | Miwa Matreyek | Hannah Black | Andrew Thomas Huang | Tal Rosner | Jesse Kanda | David O’Reilly | Julian Glander

Or propose one of your own!

Audio-visual final project (25%)

As a final project for this course you will be asked to create an audio-visual work. If this work is fixed, it should be from between one to three minutes in duration. If unfixed, we will discuss how best to bound the work so as to be completed within the short time frame allotted. This project will be created (and graded) in four stages:

Out of 100%:

  • Proposal (10%) - due 11/17 @ 11AM (defined during private meetings)

    • Your proposal should discuss the technology you will use (software, hardware), the Study you will use as a jumping off point (conceptual or actual), and the relationship between sound and image you will be exploring.

  • Draft/First Steps (25%) - due 11/24 @ 11AM

    • Your draft, or first steps, should be some progress made to your final project. This might include material you’re recording to then edit, a collection of libraries you’ve sourced to do certain tasks in software, or other pre-work that comes before the compositional part of audio-visual work. It need not be substantial, but should be somewhat significant.

  • Final Piece (50%) - due due 12/15

    • This should be a final version of your audio-visual piece. Either a video file, code + instructions for running, or some other effective representation of your project.

  • Self-reflection (15%) - due 12/15

    • In 500-1000 words or so, contextualize your piece as a work of audio-visual art. Discuss how it resonates with the tools, movements, concepts, and theories we’ve discussed in the class.