Music as Noise: Making Sound Art

This subject has the following teaching availabilities in 2015:

170 hours

For the purposes of considering request for Reasonable Adjustments under the Disability Standards for Education (Cwth 2005), and Student Support and Engagement Policy, academic requirements for this subject are articulated in the Subject Overview, Learning Outcomes, Assessment and Generic Skills sections of this entry.

It is University policy to take all reasonable steps to minimise the impact of disability upon academic study, and reasonable adjustments will be made to enhance a student's participation in the University's programs. Students who feel their disability may impact on meeting the requirements of this subject are encouraged to discuss this matter with a Faculty Student Adviser and Student Equity and Disability Support: http://services.unimelb.edu.au/disability

The notion of noise as potential music has been an enduring preoccupation in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. Various contexts for noise-based music include performance works, recordings, installation artworks/sound sculpture, radiophonic works and online. This subject looks at noise art's development from the Futurists through to Cage's and Oliveros's experimentalism, to contemporary postmodern sound art and into the current post-postmodern era. Students will learn how to create a short sound art work in a style of their choosing, and to contextualise their creative approach within the genre's history.

On completion of the subject, students should be able to:

• understand and critically evaluate the history and aesthetics of the phenomenon of noise-as-music;
• demonstrate basic skills in sound art creation; and
• articulate and situate their creative endeavours in this area.

• A short creative recording project (of 5 mins), due at the end of semester (40%)
• A 1,600 word piece of written work reflecting on the student's creative project, due at the end of semester (30%)
• 3 short written projects (300 words each, worth 10% each), due in weeks 4, 8 and 12 (30% total)

Loading the Silence: Australian Sound Art in the Post-Digital Age (Farnham, Surrey; Burlington, VT Ashgate, 2013)

Other readings, available through Readings Online via LMS

This subject potentially can be taken as a breadth subject component for the following courses:

• Bachelor of Arts
• Bachelor of Biomedicine
• Bachelor of Commerce
• Bachelor of Science

You should visit learn more about breadth subjects and read the breadth requirements for your degree, and should discuss your choice with your student adviser, before deciding on your subjects.

On completion of this subject, students should possess:

• a capacity to apply and extend existing skills and knowledge to new expression in creative musical practice.
• the ability to engage with new ideas and respond to them in a thoughtful, critical and presonal way, in both written and creative platforms.
• The ability to communicate effectively.