Sculpting with Sounds, Images, and Words

Throughout history and from East to West, cultures abound in multimedia forms. Whether in Coldplay's Music Video or Fantasia, Pepsi TV adds or Wagner's opera, Miyazaki anime or traditional Noh Theater of Japan, the three modes of expression (sounds, images, and word) are interwoven in distinctive ways. What are their individual and combined powers? How can one harness them in an online context? Can Web be a stage for multimedia theater? What is unique about the poetry of intermodal metaphor? The course will be an opportunity to face these questions in creative web-based projects as well as through in-class viewing of multimedia works, analysis and debates, readings, and student presentations. The seminar will be taught at the Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics where students will have access to new media technologies. Prior experience in music, literature, art practice or computer programming is welcome but not required.