This is an overview of ArtScience courses given this Academic Year, subject to the ‘ArtScience Courses of Choice’ stated in the curriculum. Some courses are mandatory for students of certain years, which is mentioned with the course description. All courses are open for all students of the Bachelor as well as the Master programme, unless the course is full.
CASS Exchange Workshops are part of the exchange weeks (two weeks after the Autumn Break and two weeks after the Spring Break) between the Creative Departments of the Royal Conservatoire (Composition, Sonology and ArtScience), where all departments offer courses accessible to all of their students.
MasterPrimers are courses on a higher theoretical level. They are focused on our Master students. Bachelor students can attend, though they should realise the level. In cases of a limited allowed number of students to a Master Primer course, Masters will have priority over Bachelors.
KABK IST Courses mentioned here are those courses of the KABK IST programme that are organised by ArtScience.
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the current Covid-19 pandemia, this schedule can be subject to changes over the year. We hope for your understanding.
This list is not 100% complete yet. More course descriptions will be added here in the very near future.
Advanced Research and Writing Skills — Maya Rasker
AI, Machine Learning & Art Methods — Dr. Valery Vermeulen
AIOTMLWTF 0.5a — Arthur Elsenaar
Algorithmic Fitness – Coralie Vogelaars
Art <> Science Methods — Dr. Valery Vermeulen
Bootstrapping Computational Arts — Arthur Elsenaar, Carl Rethmann
Collecting Observations — Marion Tränkle & guests
Communication and equality between sound, text and image — Genevieve Murphy
Dark Skies – Field Station Friesland — Cocky Eek & guest teacher
Data <> Art Methods — Dr. Valery Vermeulen
Excursion – Nele Brökelmann
Fragrance Library – Renske van Vroonhoven
Getting Real: how to present yourself within the art world – Coralie Vogelaar
Hacking Worlds — Katarina Petrović & Eric Kluitenberg
Introduction Research and Writing Skills – Maya Rasker
Introduction to Electronics — Lex van den Broek
Introduction to Programming — Jeroen Meijer
Introduction to Studio Techniques — Robert Pravda
Int(r)o Projection — Kasper van der Horst
Light – Space – Perception 2 — Leandros Ntolas
Lighting Design for/as Performance — Katinka Marač
Math <> Art Methods — Dr. Valery Vermeulen
Matter of Art — Eduardo Mendes, Eric Kluitenberg, Arthur Elsenaar
MAX/MSP — Johan van Kreij
MetaMedia — Taconis Stolk
New Arts & Music Theory — David Dramm, Gabriel Payuk, Eric Kluitenberg & guests
Organization of Knowledge — Katarina Petrović
’Pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions — Matthijs van Boxsel
Physicality of sound and the audience’s imagination — Genevieve Murphy
Practical Perfumery for Olfactory Art — Renske van Vroonhoven, Lauren Jetty
Presentation as Performance — Hilt De Vos
Quick and Dirty — Cocky Eek
RecPlay — Kasper van der Horst, Robert Pravda
Redeconstruct Media — Kasper van der Horst, Nenad Popov
Re-enactment Lab – Arthur Elsenaar
Regenerate – Eric Kluitenberg
RE~SEARCH ~SHAPE ~STORE — Sébastien Robert
Sensors, Actuators & Microcontrollers — Lex van den Broek, Johan van Kreij
Slow Relational Imaginaries — Carolyn F. Strauss
SoundWorlds 1 — Robert Pravda, Milica Ilić
SoundWorlds 2 — Robert Pravda
Strategies for ArtScientists – Taconis Stolk
Taste in Time and Place – Cathrine Kramer & Zack Denfeld
The ‘Other’ Senses — June Yu
The Synaesthetic Universe — Robert Pravda, Kasper van der Horst
The Way of the Octopus — Nele Brökelmann
Writing as/in Research — Maya Rasker
Zaal 3 — Marion Tränkle
Advanced Research and Writing Skills
Maya Rasker
Mandatory for: M1
Type: 8 days over the course of 1 semester, tba
Course Content:
The Course aims at a thorough knowledge and understanding of what theoretical research implies, and how it underpins one’s critical artistic development and growth. By means of reading, writing, reflecting and analysing different resources (textual, but other mediums as well), you learn how and where to find relevant material; how to analyse and apply them for your argument; and how to write critically about them. Next to research and writing skills, the course addresses different elements of the research process, such as ‘concept’, ‘method’, ‘research question’, ‘contextualisation’. Throughout the course you will work towards a mini-thesis.
Please note: although the skills are formal / fixed, your written output is expected to reflect your artistic view and expertise on your subject.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
Upon completion of the Research and Writing Skills course, you
– know where and how to find relevant, including juxtaposing, artistic, and interdisciplinary theoretical / thematic resources;
– are able to use your sources as a means to critically discuss, support and enhance your theoretical research;
– have a good grasp of how to read, summarise, argue, validate, and interweave sources into a textual composition (thesis);
– master conventions of referencing and the application of foot- and endnotes;
– master the art of composing a complex, yet communicative text;
– engage in a self-reflective way with your research processes and writing skills.
Work form:
Handouts (preparation) and lectures on above mentioned topics; in-class and take home reading and writing assignments (reading list to be decided); presenting; listening / giving feedback.
Assessment:
Bi-weekly writing assignments and presentations; end text (mini-thesis).
Criteria: 80% attendance and pass for the reading and writing assignments, including mini-thesis, based on
– Presence & participation: passive / negative —> active / positive
– Conceptual / theoretical research: shallow / conventional —> thorough / original
– Execution (writing, argumentation): simple / superficial —> enriched / profound
– Critical reflection: weak —> strong
– Presentation: anonymous / routinely —> expressive / experimental
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 1 semester
AI, Machine Learning & Art Methods
Dr. Valery Vermeulen
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
Focus of this course is a theoretical, conceptual and practical approach toward artifical intelligence and machine learning , how they can be used for artistic and artscience purposes and how they can reshape the future landscapes of an intersectional artscience practice.
Since the legendary Dartmouth Summer Research Project on Artificial Intelligence in 1957 the development of AI and machine learning has been a journey full of unexpected twists and turns. It is a story with as many AI summers as there have been AI winters. Recent breakthroughs due to highly improved computational power and optimalisation of algorithms have seen unprecedented numerous applications of AI and machine learning. As a result we see new AI systems and software being introduced and widely used at an exponential rate. From ChatGPT4, DALL-E, Stable Diffusion, MusicLM, MusicNet over (open source) libraries and systems such as TensorFlow, Google Cloud AI or Keras; they all show impressive results and an even more impressive future ahead.
But as fast as these new tools are being used, their developement is not completely unexpected. Most AI techniques are based on princples and techniques with roots in information theory, mathematics (linear algebra, probability theory, numerical analysis, statistics) and data science. One of the goals in this course is to teach these fundamental techniques and methods. In this way this course will give you a bottom up and deeper understanding of the various AI models and systems and their possible future evolutions. As such this course will also enable you to design, build or produce blueprints for realising your own AI or machine learning systems in your practice as an artscientist.
Aside from the practical and technical aspect the recent re-emergence of AI also confronts us with the many profound implications in many different aspect of our every day lives. This on it’s own is of course not a new phenomenon, but inherent to every technological revolution. But where it took other technologies such as e.g. the smartphone a couple of year, it is expected that current AI will disrupt various fields in our society at an unseen time span. The next version of ChatGPT (GPT 5) for example is planned for the end of 2023 and is expected to be incomparibly more powerful than the curent version. AI and machine learning hold a huge discruptive potential with numerous ethical and social implications.
We’ll start the course with a historical overview of the development of the first AI and machine learning systems and their connections to the development of information theory and various mathematical tools and techniques. Hereby we aim to present an comprehensive overview of both fields.
Subsequently we’ll focus on the the various basic principles and techniques that lie at the heart of AI and machine learning. These include, but are not limited to; knowledge representation using first order logic, definition of intelligence (Turings test), uncertainty and probability theory, basic elements of linear algebra, working with agents, supervised learning, unsupervised learning, passive and active reinforcement learning, numerical optimalisation and weak versus strong AI. The ethical aspects as well as the social implications of AI and machine learning will also be handled in this part of the course.
In a next section we’ll focus on some recent AI and machine learning techniques with direct practical applications. These include convolution neural networks (CNN), recurrent neural networks (RNN), generative adversial networks (GAN), self organising maps (SOM) and genetic algorithms. You’ll learn the basic principles underlying these techniques and learn how to apply them directly to some real world artistic and/or artscience cases. In this light we’ll focus on building one or more practical applications such as for example neutral style transfer for automatic image generation, building of AR (Augmented Reality) filters, feature detection in video or pictures or automatic music or sound generation. In this process you’ll also be taught how to use and work with the appropriate software.
By this time you’ll have gained a practical working knowledge on AI and machine learning. As a last step in this course you’ll learn how to apply the acquired knowledge to your own artistic practice in the form of a personal project.
As the end of this course you’ll have a deeper understanding of as well as a practical introduction to some commonly used packages and software tools in AI and machine learning. These include R (https://www.r-project.org/), Python (https://www.python.org/), Tensorflow (https://www.tensorflow.org/), Theano (https://pypi.org/project/Theano/), MaxMSP (https://cycling74.com/products/max) or Touch Designer (https://derivative.ca/). Upon the interests of the participants of the course we’ll put focus on particular software tools.
Requirements:
An analytic as well as creative attitude.
Objectives:
– Gained a knowledge of the evolution and background of the recent re- emergence of AI and machine learning
– Have a broad understanding and overview of the different techniques used in artificial intelligence
– Gained a deeper insight into the fundamental principles and techniques used in machine learning
– Have a basic knowledge of different programming languages and libraries used for AI and machine learning
– Gained a practical insight in how to apply AI and machine learning techniques for the audio, visual and language domain
– Have a deeper conceptual understanding of the interplay between AI, machine learning and the fields art and artscience
– Develop a critical and unbiased approach towards AI and machine learning
– Develop a sensitivity and insight in possible social and ethical implications of AI
– Know how to organize the integration of AI and machine learning techniques for use in your own artscience practice
Work form:
– Elaboration of personal project
– Final project as written document
– Group discussion
Assessment:
– Personal project
– Presentation of personal project
– Project proposal and description under the form of a written document
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Grades 1-10
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
AIOTMLWTF 0.5a
Arthur Elsenaar
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: biweekly (Wednesdays), tba
Course Content:
AIOTMLWTF is a roughly biweekly research seminar organized and presented by students. It is a collective learning effort that builds upon the didactic principles of physicist Richard Feynman; i.e. teaching is learning and a radical reduction on the use of jargon.
The aim is to deepen our knowledge and understanding of often used terms and concepts in the realm of artscience. Topics covered in previous years were: computation, machine learning, complexity, cybernetics, autopoiesis, emergence, chaos, randomness, synchronicity, analogue&digital, creativity, etc.
A seminar session is presented by one or two students on a topic they have chosen. The style of the presentation is completely free where we encourage each other to experiment with suitable forms to the topic. There are no restrictions, (no) media, in- or outside of the building, excursions, a visit to a museum, anything goes, as long as it has substance, conveys knowledge and is engaging.
Lastly, how do we know what we know and how does the other know what we think we know?
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
– gain an expanded understanding of named topics and how these relate on one another.
– have learned about the Feynman method and how to put this into practice.
– gain insight in your own practice
Work form:
Seminar
Assessment:
Attendance (min 80%) and peer assessed presentation.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: Every other week over the year
Algorithmic Fitness
Coralie Vogelaars
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
Prototyping a performance or video work by using body tracking tools
In the beginning there was chaos. Code lay scattered on the digital ether. Systems were on the verge of crashing. Protocols hung suspended in precariousness. Logical fallacies abounded. Devices beeped, lights flashed, machines whirred, and all around was anarchy and incomprehension.Then a programmer said, “Let there be an algorithm.” And then the world was made, in a series of steps, sequences, contingences, and conditions. Actions got performed. Tasks got completed. Numbers found home. And for some time, it was good. (Nishant Shah, The NERVE of the Algorithmic: Unmaking Myths to Dismantle Anxiety)
In today’s world there seems to be a lot of algorithms entering our physical world reading our bodies and behavior. Hereby algorithms decide what is a signal and what is noise. What is being measured and what is not being registered. This world of algorithmic logic has even entered inside our bodies with for example health apps measuring our heart beat etc.
In a certain way our bodies are already a construction of assemblages of organic algorithms shaped by natural selection over millions of years of evolution. For example our contracting muscles (little pieces of information), are made concrete via a certain set of behaviors (algorithms = set of rules) and a supporting physical structure collaboration within a complex networked system of other algorithms concerning our metabolism, hormonal reactions, cognitive processes etc.
In this workshop – which will exist out of bodily exercises, experiments and discussions – we will try to view ourselves in a new way. We will be focussing on alienating ourselves from our usual perception and try to see through the eyes of the tracking algorithm and see ourselves in unexpected ways.
In the first week we will focus on possible movement structures and choreographic score making together with guest teacher Marjolein Vogels (dancer and choreographer). We will theoretically talk about different structures that are used by choreographers throughout history. We will show examples and discuss them. Choreographers/artist that we mention (amongst others) are: Trisha Brown, Anne Theresa Keersmaeker, Merce Cunningham, Meg Stuart, Bruce Nauman, Jonathan Burrows en Matteo Fargion, Simone Forti etc.
And we will do exercises together and explore simple structures in a group. NB ! no dancing skill is needed. From this we will learn how the mind & body works and how this can inspire you for your own work.
In the second week we will be using the tactic of quick prototyping with the help of easily accessible open source tools available online, or tools you are already working with. We will work towards a short performance or video work with a certain choreographic structure.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
– You will learn how to do quick prototyping, make variations and train your perception skills and see where things are getting interesting.
– you learn possible choreographic structures and learn to build up tension in a work
– Learn how to stay flexible within the process and stay open towards the unknown.
– Demonstrate ability to create, realise and express your own artistic concepts, consider, analyse, interpret and assess your own work and that of others and to think through the results and develop research methods for the evolution of your work.
Work form:
Experimental learning
Assessment:
Attendance, active participation and presentation of a 5 minute performance or movie by using a tracking tool in combination with (a part of) your own body. Hereby you should challenge or collaborate with the limitation of the algorithm or machine, make use of the structure or try to escape their systematic thinking. The outcome can be seen as a study on the difference of human and machine logic.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Art <> Science Methods
Dr. Valery Vermeulen
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1, online
Course Content:
Main focus of this course is how creativity and creative processes can be used and understood from an artistic, a scientific as well as an intersectional point of view.
When working as a creative mind it is often unfortunately still pre assumed that there is an inherent choice between an analytic and more intuitive approach. The analytic being more associated with a “scientific” approach and the “intuitive” being with a more artistic approach. Recent new developments in the field of artscience try to dissolve and put this dichotomization in a new perspective.
Despite this evolution the missing link between the method and world of the artist and that of the archetypal scientist still persists. This course is aimed at guiding the students to find this missing link in their own work and practice. In doing so we’ll seek to provide guidelines for an intersectional approach to working in the artscience domain.
We’ll start the course by diving into the methods, strategies and techniques that are the driving force of new discoveries in various scientific domains. Domains hereby include mathematics, physics, econometrics, chemistry, biology, psychology, sociology and data science. By studying various examples you’ll learn how to dissect and discover the parallels between “scientific” analytic creative processes and similar processes typically associated with artistic creation. The examples cover a diverse range both on an historical as well as cultural side.
Subsequently you’ll learn how to hack scientific creative processes and ideas and put them into practice in your own work. This is done under the form of a personal project for which you’ll be creating a blueprint and production plan throughout this course. This project can be related to your own work or can be built around a new topic you’re interested in.
As a first step you’ll learn how to find and incorporate the best fitting knowledge resources (literature and online resources) related to your project. A key element hereby is to develop the skill to find resources you can work with using personal background and knowledge that have the necessary scientific relevance.
Moreover in doing so it will also give you an insight into the knowledge and expertise that is out of your personal scope and would require collaborations with external (academic) partners.
In the next step you’ll learn to design an analytic framework around the central question(s) and/or paradigm(s) in your project. You’ll be taught the basic principles of quantitative inference as used in various scientific domains such as data science, statistics, mathematics and information science. This will on the one hand learn you how to transform concepts and questions into a quantitative framework. On the other hand this will also provide you with the necessary knowledge to understand and use the limitations and pitfalls of quantitative methods and inference strategies. Hereby you’ll also learn how to connect the different quantitative methods to an artistic practice and/or point of view.
Subsequently we’ll zoom in on the use of various intermediate disciplines and knowledge fields and their tools in artscience context and your own project in particular. We’ll not only be creating an overview of the different domains from a knowledge point of view but we’ll also focus on the different soft and/or hardware tools and devices that are typically used. As we want to use such tools in an artscience context we’ll also investigate how these can be hacked for artistic purposes. Examples of such tools include R (https://www.r-project.org/), Octave (https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/), Python (https://www.python.org/) or Paraview (https://www.paraview.org/).
Towards the end of the course you’ll have built an overview of the scientific knowledge, tools and/or techniques you’ll need external input. You’ll then learn in a next step how to look for possible scientific partners and the strategies to set up viable collaborations.
To end the course we’ll incorporate the concept of recursiveness in developing a project. This will guide you how to set realizable milestones in your personal project and how to create under various constraints such as time and/or resource limits.
Requirements:
There is no prior knowledge required for this course. Key qualifications of the students are both an analytic as well as creative attitude.
Objectives:
– you will have a thorough understanding of the practical similarities and differences between creative process employed by scientists and artists
– you will have a working knowledge on the different creative processes and analytic strategies used by scientists
– you will acquire the skill how to transform analytic strategies and methods used by scientists for artistic purposes and your own practice in particular
– you will have a thorough knowledge how to create and design a production plan for an artscience project. This includes:
– a thorough understanding how to look for knowledge domains and resources, soft and/or hardware tools for the realization of an artscience project
– the skill to how and where to find the relevant scientific disciplines, how to hack the knowledge in each discipline for use in artistic context
– the skill to work and set up collaborations with external scientific partners
– have a deeper understanding and build a practical experience to incorporate an intersectional approach in artscience context
– have skill to balance between the scientific integrity and artistic interpretation and incorporation of scientific domains in artscience projects
Work form:
Presentation of final project.
Final project as written document.
Literature and knowledge resources review.
Group discussion.
Assessment:
Presentation of final project.
Project proposal and description under the form of a written document.
– 80% attendance is required
Weighting for final quotation:
– Presentation of final project: 30%.
– Project proposal and description: 50%.
– Attendance: 20%.
Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Bootstrapping Computational Arts
Arthur Elsenaar, Carl Rethmann
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
In this super practical workshop we will get you going with programming simple computational artworks. The focus is on learning the basics. Topics might include: recursion, randomness, generative algorithms, rule sets, data processing, web scraping, hacking, text generation, chaotic systems, and some machine learning. We will use the programming language Python, so some experience with programming is required! In the morning we will discuss some theory, and study examples from computer art history. This will take about 1 hour, and will be followed by coding examples and hands-on help on the individual student’s project.
Requirements:
none
Assessment:
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Collecting Observations
Marion Tränkle
Mandatory for: B1, Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
Experimentation – observation – documentation. In this workshop we will cycle through a process of making work, starting from fiddling, free-flow experimentation and rule-based actions to observation and further decision making. Taking the medium of light as our field of experimentation, we will discover how ideas can take shape and how observation and documentation can inform further actions and the sharpening of those ideas.
The workshop claims fiddling as an important tool for art making, and looks for ways to draw artistic consequences from it. Therefore, documentation of and reflection about this process will be an important aspect of the workshop. Please bring your cameras and sketchbooks.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
– Gain basic skills concerning the creative process of art-making
– Get to know each other and discover ways of stepping into the making process together.
– Learn to identify and switch between modes of experimentation and observation.
– Develop a personal vocabulary to capture observations in a diary format.
Work form:
You will work in groups and thus get to know each other. Furthermore, each of you is required to keep an individual record of the working process.
Literature:
– Fluxus Art Movement
Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in group processes, individual report (work diary) at the end of the workshop.
80% attendance, participation
20% self-reflection, individual report
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Communication and equality between sound, text and imagey
Genevieve Murphy
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
Equality between sound, text and image and how to communicate with your audience.
Music can create an environment for text to be presented but text can also emphasise that music is a language of its own.
This course will look at the integration of sound, text and image, their relevance to one another as well as their independence. Once you have decided on the content of your idea, we will focus on how to draw the audience in to your concept and personal fascination.
We will go step by step from how to come up with an idea, to how to realise it creatively and why it is relevant for the viewer / listener / visitor. Forming your own personal voice and artistic approach is crucial when it comes to language in art but how can you trust that the language you are using is truly yours?
This course will be hands on, working and developing ideas rather than talking and visualising. By the end you will all have begun a process that you can choose to continue developing or allow it to contribute to your artistic practice in general.
Assessment:
tba
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Dark Skies – Field Station Friesland
Cocky Eek & guest teacher
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, tba
Course Content:
In a world of change and uncertainty, field research is a crucial part of our cultural orientation. The Field Station Friesland aims at a profound encounter in this focal point where field research in this course lays in direct contact with the dark skies of Wadden area and its impact on the rhythms of the living world down under. The Field Station works from the power of not-knowing and let go of the controlled environment of a classroom or studio. What happens when we open up those walls? Then we suddenly find ourselves in a much larger field. We think and act very differently in the presence of local animals and plants, environmental rhythms and patterns of a place or in the middle of an intense rain shower. What happens when you don’t work from a predetermined plan, but work with what presents itself in the field?
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you
– have learned to do dark sky, in-situ research
Work form:
Hands-on, outdoors, conversations, reading, fieldtrip, mapping, collective research methodologies during a 2 x 1 week course.
The Field Station Friesland sees fieldwork as a method of exploration based on the trust of your direct experience. Often, practicing fieldwork raises completely different questions than the ones you might have thought of at the start. By standing with two feet in the full complexity of a place, you get direct feedback, and you will be challenged to take a stand in the midst of its complexity.
The Field Station assumes improvisational research in a place including all senses that open up to both the complex and subtle qualities of an area. This exploration is based, among other things, on situated knowledge, doing experiments and making prototypes on the spot influenced by local conditions and relations. For this, skills such as adaptability, improvisation, cooperation and powers of observation are essential on many levels.
Public Presentations will be given at the last afternoon of the first week and also on the last day of the second week.
Assessment:
80% attendance, active participation and presentations during the course
Assessment criteria:
Being able to develop works through open-ended processes and in a collective research trajectory and presentation skills
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Data <> Art Methods
Valery Vermeulen
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3, online/physical
Course Content:
In this course we focus on the practical use of data analytics and data science techniques and methodologies for art science practices.
Due to the latest technological and often ideological evolutions, data, with all its faces, has become pivotal in our everyday lives. As never before we see an ever increasing demand for data scientists, data engineers and data analysts worldwide. The impact of this evolution can not be underestimated. It is an evolution that does not occur without serious risks. It imposes
new challenges and problems that need to be addressed if we want data to be used as a tool to improve our society. Because without critical counterweight it risks becoming a new industry that imposes new or reinforces old power structures or could lead to new oppressive structures or mechanisms.
With this in mind this course will be using two viewpoints. One the one hand we’ll dive into the methodological and technical aspect of the subject. And on the other hand in doing so we’ll also focus on what this potentially means in a context of building a sustainable environment and human society.
To start the course we’ll give an introduction into the building blocks of data analytics and data science. We’ll be guided by the historical evolutions which led to the emergence of these recent new fields. Main focus will be set on foundations of both information, communication theory and probability theory.
A subsequent section covers an in depth discovery of the general mechanisms underlying data handling. Topics that will be covered include a critical exploration of data capturing, data storage, data types and formats and data access.
As a next step we’ll handle the technique of data interference, data mining and predictive modeling. This section will be divided into two sub sections.
– The first subsection covers the general framework that is at the heart of data inference, namely that of the general scientific research model. More precisely we’ll cover research models consisting of a data and inference model. The inference model is hereby composed of a knowledge acquisition model based on falsification, the formulation of a quantitative hypothesis, hypothesis testing, and subsequent error and risk handling in decision making. In elaborating this subsection we’ll also zoom in on a critical point of view towards procedures and techniques. In this context we’ll also be talking about data misuse and manipulation, manipulation of decision making and the design of strategies for inclusive data management, processing and inference.
– The second subsection focuses towards predictive modeling strategies in data science. As predictive modeling is a broad and at often cross disciplinary domain we’ll cover some basic rules, principles and techniques. These include the concept and use of big data, predictive modeling based on machine learning and predictive modeling based on A.I. Just as in the first subsection we’ll also discuss the possible implications, limitations and boundaries of predictive modeling in a broader social and environmental context.
By now you’ll already have acquired a thorough background in data analytics and data science ready to be applied in various artistic or artscience contexts. This is exactly what we’ll do in the next session. In this session you’ll learn to design and plan various strategies to use and/or hack methods and techniques from data science in an artistic and/or art science practice. The main strategies that will be considered are data sonification, data visualisation and methods to link data methods to other forms of media. To end this session we’ll focus on how you can use the learned techniques and methods in your own practice.
In the next session we’ll put all knowledge into practice. This means you’ll be given an overview and practical introduction into the most commonly used free software packages to build crossovers between data analytics, data science and art science practice. Tools which will be handled includes include Purr Data (https://puredata.info/downloads/purr-data), R (https://www.r-project.org/), Processing (https://processing.org/) and Python (https://www.python.org/), Purr Data. Upon the interests of the participants of the course we’ll highlight particular tools and or techniques.
To end the course we’ll elaborate a practical example on how to use data in the sonic domain for art science purposes using data sonification.
Requirements:
There is no prior knowledge required for this course. Key qualifications of the students are both an analytic as well as creative attitude.
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you’ll:
– Have a broad understanding and overview of data analytics, data science and related domains such as probability theory, statistics and machine learning
– Have an insight into the connections, importance and practical usage of data analytics and data science in a broad scientific context
– Have a deeper and critical understanding of the potential social and environmental impact, influence en risks of data analytics and data science
– Have a deeper understanding of the interplay between data analytics, data science and the fields art and arts <> science
– Develop a strategy how to hack data science techniques and methodologies to use then in various art <> science contexts
– Acquired the skill to plan how to use techniques and methods from data analytics and data science in your own practice as an art/scientist
Work form:
Elaboration of personal project.
Final project as written document.
Group discussion.
Assessment:
– Elaboration of personal project
– Presentation of personal project
– Project proposal and description under the form of a written document
– 80% attendance is required
Weighting for final quotation:
– Presentation of final project: 30%
– Project proposal and description : 50%
– Attendance: 20%
Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Excursion
Nele Brökelmann
Mandatory for: B3, Elective for B2
Type: three days in block 2
Course Content:
To know your peers, different ways of organising yourself and exploring your field is an important part of developing and professionalising your practice. During the three days we have for the excursion we will visit different locations and speak with artists in the Hague and Rotterdam. We will be visiting, among others, various self-organised communities, (artist-run) studio locations and a relevant exhibiton.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
You will get an idea of
– possibilities of self-organisation,
– get to know your peers in and outside of the ArtScience Interfaculty.
Work form:
– visiting and asking questions on the different locations
– discussions during lunch
Assessment:
– active participation
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECT
Duration: 3 days of 6 hours
Fragrance Library
Renske van Vroonhoven
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: once a week, block 4 (Tuesdays)
Course Content:
Studying the olfactory arts is largely a matter of investing time into getting to know methods and materials.
In ‘The Fragrance Library’ students will have the opportunity to work around much-requested themes.
During 8 weekly sessions, we’ll explore themes such as ‘Scents in the City’, ‘Sex S(m)ells” (As developed with the Institute for Art and Olfaction in Los Angeles), “The Great Outdoors” and “Thunder & Lightning”.
We’ll smell a selection of materials connected to the theme and get a grip on how to establish a formula. After each session, students will leave with a formula and scent they’ve created around the theme.
Requirements:
It is not required but recommended that students have already taken the course The Other Senses.
Work form:
Practica, projects, lectures, assignment
Assessment:
You will be graded on attendance (80% required – 6/7 classes), your commitment to and understanding of the course materials and a final assignment, refining one of the accords into a fully IFRA-compatible fragrance formula, ready for use.
Grading System: TBA
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Getting Real: how to present yourself within the art world
Coralie Vogelaar
Mandatory for: B3, Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
As the Professional Practice Preparation course of ArtScience, this week offers specific training in writing and verbally introducing yourself and focusing on how to be clear about your work for networking, grant applications, catalogues and to sponsors and press. Also we will discuss the different art worlds and what are possibilities in designing your artistic practice now and in the future.
We will start every morning at 10AM with a presentation of the topic of the day and discussion followed by assignments and presentations by you in the afternoon.
The structure of the week is as follows:
Monday: The elevator pitch
Tuesday: The written artist bio
Thursday: Grant or Open Call writing (and if we have time the press release)
Friday: Career opportunities and networking in the different art worlds – group talk and discussion
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
– Demonstrate the ability to write professionally about your work.
– Exhibit teamwork and critically engage with the work of your peers
– Demonstrate the ability to be able to verbally position yourself professionally
– Demonstrate a thorough understanding of the role of the artist in contemporary society, researching, engaging with and reflecting upon actual developments within the arts and sciences as well as technological, and social(-political) developments, creating new presentation methods and innovative projects.
– Exhibit competence in the use of a range of communication and social skills as appropriate to context.
Work form:
Individual verbal and written presentation of a bio. Group discussions
Assessment:
Attendance, active participation and delivery of an individual verbal and written presentation of a bio.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Hacking Worlds
Katarina Petrović & Eric Kluitenberg
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: monthly Thursday meetings
Course Content:
Hacking Worlds is an elective course for ArtScience students, but equally open to all students of the Royal Academy of Arts and Royal Conservatoire in The Hague. Hacking Worlds creates a space for discussion and networking that brings together students and professionals from various fields to share their insights and engage in a conversation about more-than-disciplinary practice and the ArtScience field. The course is led by Katarina Petrović, artist and researcher and ArtScience alumnus and Eric Kluitenberg, independent theorist, writer and curator.
ArtScience is not just an interdisciplinary practice. It faces the same difficulties as such, but aspires to push interdisciplinary thinking to the extreme by playing with the tensions that occur when vastly different cultures begin to directly react upon each other. It is rather an integrative practice where the knowledge, experience and methodologies of the two or more poles lastingly change each other. Thinking such a practice means challenging (and hacking!) the existing infrastructures of culture, technology and society — as well as establishing a new set of criteria for evaluating ArtScience works.
Our goal is to stimulate wide-reaching debate and create a meeting place for the ArtScience community (students, staff, and alumni), and various actors that will, through their diversity, critical and speculative thinking, challenge existing cultural, scientific and socio-political structures. We seek to disrupt the prevalent forms of (capitalist) knowledge production & restriction; traditional notions of discipline, specialisation, and professionalism by critically dissecting the field of ArtScience and re-thinking the future(s) of this practice set ‘in-between’.
Each session lasts three hours, with one hour reserved for presentation by our invited guest(s), followed by a moderated discussion and dialogue about the tools, methods and hacks applied by our guests to develop their practice. The series includes exhibition and studio visits, meeting practitioners on site. With these and other hybrid formats we aim to encourage dialogue and exchange across different domains and practices.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
– Get to know the paths of development from different professionals in the ArtScience field via their personal experience & insider’s view
– Tap into new networks and connect with curators, professional artists, institutes and other professionals in the broad field of ArtScience
– Interact and exchange with professionals, by learning about their practice and engaging in dialogue
– Learn how to speak about your work and interact with professionals
– Learn by listening to another’s experience and sharing work
– Get inspired (from new possibilities & networks)
– Get confident (by learning more about other’s path you help your own)
– See how things work in studios, labs, galleries, institutes and personal careers
– Reflect and write on the position of your own practice in relation to the presentations, discussions and reading materials of the course.
Literature:
Reading materials are provided in a dedicated online resource.
Work form:
Lectures, discussion, participation in debate, exhibition and studio visits, assignment.
Assessment:
– Attendance (min 80%) and assignment.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECT
Duration: 7 classes of 3 hours
Introduction Research and Writing Skills
Maya Rasker
Mandatory for: B3
Type: 8 days over the course of 1 semester, tba
Course Content:
The Course aims at a thorough knowledge and understanding of what theoretical research implies, and how it underpins one’s critical and artistic development and growth. By means of reading, writing, reflecting and analysing different resources (textual, but other mediums as well), you learn how and where to find relevant material; how to analyse and apply them in a discursive fashion; and how to write critically. Next to research and writing skills, the course addresses different elements of the research process, such as ‘concept’, ‘method’, ‘research question’, ‘contextualisation’. Throughout the course you will work towards a mini-thesis.
Please note: although the skills are formal / fixed, your written output is expected to reflect your artistic view and expertise.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
Upon completion of the Research and Writing Skills course, you
– know where and how to find relevant, including juxtaposing, artistic, and interdisciplinary theoretical / thematic resources;
– are able to use your sources as a means to critically discuss, support and enhance your theoretical research;
– have a good grasp of how to read, summarise, argue, validate, and interweave sources into a textual composition (thesis);
– master conventions of referencing and the application of foot- and endnotes;
– master the art of composing a complex, yet communicative text;
– engage in a self-reflective way with your research processes and writing skills.
Work form:
Handouts (preparation) and lectures on above mentioned topics; in-class and take home reading and writing assignments (reading list to be decided); presenting; listening / giving feedback.
Assessment:
– 80% attendance;
– bi-weekly writing assignments and presentations:
Criteria:
Presence & participation: passive / negative —> active / positive
Critical reflection: weak —> strong
– End text (mini-thesis):
Additional criteria:
Conceptual / theoretical research: shallow / conventional —> thorough / original
Execution (writing, argumentation): simple / superficial —> enriched / profound
Presentation: anonymous / routinely —> expressive / experimental
Growth: marginal / invisible –> impressive / integrated
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 8 days over the course of 1 semester
Introduction to Electronics
Lex van den Broek
Mandatory for: B1, Elective
Type: short group sessions, block 3
Course Content:
This is a general introduction to working with electronics. It consists of three introductory classes. After those you are expected to finish your first electronic patch in individual appointments with Lex van den Broek.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
To gain fundamental skills in how to build electronic circuits for artistic purposes
Assessment:
Attendance, assignment, individual appointments with Lex van den Broek
– 80% attendance is reuired
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECTS
Duration: 3 classes of 2.5 hours plus individual appointments
Introduction to Programming
Jeroen Meijer
Mandatory for: B1, Elective
Type: two separate weeks, block 3
Course Content:
This is an introductory course into computer programming, using the Python language. After following this course, students will have a basic insight into computer programming and will know where to start creating digital prototypes for future projects that involve interaction, image, sound, video, networks and electronics.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you
– have gained fundamental skills on computer programming;
– have learnt the basics of computer coding for artistic use.
Assessment:
Attendance, assignment
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 7 classes of 6 hours plus individual appointments
Introduction to Studio Techniques
Robert Pravda
Mandatory for: B1/M1
Type: Introductory Course, block 1
Course Content:
Practicum in usage of the ArtScience studios. The aim of this practicum is that all participants get familiar with the studio environment.
An introduction to basic use of the studios hardware and software such as:
– booking the studios
– mixing desk
– amplifiers, speakers, necessary cables
– recording
– microphone sorts and use: XY, AB, MS, Binaural
– audio interfaces and editing software
– studio ethics
All the students attending the course are expected to accomplish the exercise and be able to use and operate the studio facilities and techniques.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
Learning how to use ArtScience studio facilities.
Work form:
The whole week we’ll work in the artscience studio in the conservatoire doing experiments, most likely also excursions to the coast and dunes.
Assessment:
All the students attending the course are expected to accomplish the exercise and be able to use and operate the studio facilities and techniques.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECTS
Duration: 2 classes of 1.5 hours (for 4 different groups)
Int(r)o Projection
Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
The intention of this course is to experiment in a playful way with projection of image, light and sound in relation to your work.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
You learn to develop a way of playing together as a group as well as performing experiments as an individual.
At the end of this course, you
– think about how to define a space using projection
– have insight in the analog technique of video
– learn how to combine analog and digital video
– use sound in a spatial way in combination with image
– set up a video projection
– play in a live video setup
– look into complex video feedback systems
Work form:
Every day we set up a practicum with a different focus.
Assessment:
As an assignment, you will be asked to make a projection design or sketch that connects with your own work and/or ideas.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Light – Space – Perception 2
Leandros Ntolas
Mandatory for: B2, Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
During this course we will focus on creating more finished and elaborate artworks/experiences/ experiments, taking as a point of departure the content and approaches explored during the Light – Space – Perception 1 course. Light – Space – Perception 2 is a hands-on course. The only lectures taking place will aim at developing the necessary technical knowledge for controlling lights using DMX, with software like TouchDesigner.
Requirements:
You have attended Light – Space – Perception
Objectives:
– to further develop your skills of composing for/with light, space and perception
– to sharpen your visual and embodied perception
– to continue using light as your medium for creating installations
– to learn how to control lights using a computer and DMX technology
Work form:
Lecture, hands-on practice and experimentation.
Assessment:
Assessment of the students’ work will take place the last day of the course
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Lighting Design for/as Performance
Katinka Marač
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
From the seventies on artists as Robert Rauschenberg, Merce Cunningham and John Cage, followed by members of the New York based Judson group, shared a keen interest in working at the intersection of (dance) performance, visual art and technology. They drastically changed theatrical performance, and the role of set and lighting design; freeing it from its former supportive role and incorporating them as equal elements in, or as starting points for performances. During the course we’ll research how contemporary predecessors such as Philippe Quesne, Xavier le Roi, SERAFINE 1369, Mette Ingvartsen, David Weber Krebs and Benjamin Verdonck incorporate lighting design in their works. We use these examples to research which different trajectories we can apply in our own artistic performative works.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
To master theory and practice of basic lighting design for artistic purposes.
Work form:
Workshop, theory and creative assignments.
The course is set up as a creative lab. We’ll start with a short introduction in the various elements of a lighting design, including types of light, angles and colour and an introduction to technical aspects such as patch board, dimmers and the lighting board. We’ll research how lighting design can be used to create, structure and alter content, space and time and will work on lighting design as performance.
Assessment:
attendance, assignments in class, final written assignment (750 words)
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Math <> Art Methods
Valery Vermeulen
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3, online/physical
Course Content:
Main focus of this course is how to realize practical interconnections between mathematics, art and artscience and how these can be used to implement true intersectionality in projects and creative environments.
Throughout history and human culture mathematics has always been at the forefront of shaping the fundamentals of scientific evolution and progress. In this process it’s development was not only motivated to understand and solve real world challenges such as e.g. agricultural planning, sea travel, time keeping or measurements. Besides these practical applications math was and has always been also developed out of sheer fascination for understanding abstract structures, systems and forms. This human curiosity, translated into math, gave rise to the theoretical side of the field. It is a field which inhibits lots of wonderful ideas and concepts that often find very powerful practical applications years after they are first introduced or discovered.
One of the most fascinating areas where mathematics is being developed in every perpetual motion is the field of the arts. Historically the intertwined connection between both creative activities has a long history. In the context of this course we’ll use math to serve as one of the levers to create new possibilities and opportunities in an artscience practice. More specifically, since the rise of digital techniques and tools, mathematics is again at the forefront of numerous new artistic (r)evolutions and developments.
In all of its applications and through all the approaches, mathematics can be seen as a hugely creative activity. Just like any other approach to reality the field of math has its own unique language that is often mis or not well understood. As a result mathematics has gained a often quoted reputation of being complex, difficult to grasp and being far away from reality. One of the goals of this course is to deconstruct this stigma and teach some basic mathematical principles and techniques in a hands on and creative approach with focus towards artscience.
We’ll start the course with a historical overview of the development of mathematics and its connection with the artistic field. Hereby we aim to present a cross cultural and emerging overview of this immensely wide field. During this session you’ll also be introduced into the different subdomains in the mathematical community, and how they are tied together thematically as well as historically.
Subsequently we’ll draw our focus onto various subfields in mathematics which are inherently linked or have efficient applications into the domain of artscience and art. We’ll cover their basic principles and techniques and cover some examples of their various applications. Fields that will be considered include trigonometry, geometry, complex analysis, DSP (Digital Signal Processing), topology, calculus, group theory, machine learning, information theory, probability theory, statistics, machine learning, A.I. and mathematical logic.
In a next section you’ll be presented with some real world artistic problems/ techniques and strategies that involve the use of mathematics. You’ll learn basic problem solving techniques. In this process you’ll also be taught how to elaborate basic calculations by hand as well as digitally with the appropriate software.
By this time you’ll have gained thorough and practical working knowledge into the different links between math, arts and artscience. As a next step you’ll learn how to apply the acquired knowledge to your own artistic practice. Part of this process will mean gaining an overview and insight into the mathematical techniques and theories relevant for your own creative practice.
To end the course you’ll be given an overview as well as practical introduction into the most commonly used free software packages for mathematical modeling and computation. Examples of such tools include R (https://www.r-project.org/), Octave (https://www.gnu.org/software/octave/), Python (https://www.python.org/), Purr Data (https://puredata.info/downloads/purr-data). Upon the interests of the participants of the course we’ll put focus on particular such software tools.
Requirements:
There is no prior knowledge required for this course. Key qualifications of the students are both an analytic as well as creative attitude.
Objectives:
The course enables students to learn fundamental principles and techniques from various fields of mathematics with links to the artscience, how to use those methods and how to incorporate them into their own artistic practice
At the end of this course, you’ll:
– Have a broad understanding and overview of the different subdomains in mathematics, how they are linked together historically, thematically and culturally
– Have an overview and deeper insight into the fundamental analytic techniques and methods used in mathematics
– Have a introduction and basic understanding of the language and formula notations used in mathematics
– Have a broad knowledge of the relevant subdomains in mathematics with respect to art and artscience
– Have a deeper understanding the interplay between several subdomains in mathematics and the fields art and artscience
– Acquired the skill to choose the appropriate mathematical techniques and models for your own artistic and creative process
– Acquired the skill to design a practical plan to start using the most appropriate mathematical models, techniques and software in your own practice as an artscientist
Work form:
Elaboration of personal project
Final project as written document
Group discussion
Assessment:
– Elaboration of personal project
– Presentation of personal project
– The presentation of the projects will be held on
– Project proposal and description under the form of a written document
– 80% attendance is required
Weighting for final quotation:
– Presentation of final project: 30%
– Project proposal and description: 50%
– Attendance: 20%
Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Matter of Art
Eduardo Mendes, Eric Kluitenberg, Arthur Elsenaar
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: tba
Course Content:
Matter of Art is a course that is carried out in cooperation between the Delft University honours programme “Awareness & Culture”, and the ArtScience Interfaculty, University of the Arts, The Hague.
The interaction between highly specialised scientists/engineers and super creative artists is becoming very popular among prestigious laboratories who can afford it. The exchange is, however, not always obvious since both communities (artists and scientists/engineers) are on a first glance “orthogonal” professionals with methodologies and focus that are apparently, opposed.
Matter of Art fills this gap in our education by bringing together these two communities at a very young age. Working on mixed classes with students from KABK and TU Delft, smaller groups of students will work on formulating and executing common art assignments.
For instance, while engineers tend to think about new materials as a function of their new useful properties, artists tend to use materials as canvasses either for aesthetic or meaningful questions of social, personal, ethical, etc, origin.
The same holds for technologies that support the virtual world we are immersed in. Social media that, in principle, connects people to people, are built on machine-machine connectivity of high tech layers beneath the user interfaces, almost taking a life by their own. That “immaterial” world of metadata exchange and signal flow is also an expression of who we are as humans since it is completely imagined and built by human minds, as any concrete wall in your street. Similarly to a wall built on any material, any layer of such virtual world can also be used to express Art or question society or the way we live and are.
In Matter of Art, real or virtual, material or immaterial, everything is canvas.
During the course, short inspiring lectures, papers and videos will be given to the students that are organized in small art/engineers mixed groups. The teachers will then act as coaches to help the students to formulate their own final art assignment, via discussions in groups and/or open class as well as homework.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of the course you should be able to
– reflect on the nature of hybrid art / science / ArtScience project teams;
– work in cooperation with scientific and engineering professionals;
– understand the relation between molecular structure and properties of soft materials;
– characterise properties of soft materials with common techniques;
– define a route to create your own soft material;
– have the skills to anticipate, foreseen other uses for materials that are not directly related to their engineering usefulness;
– communicate technical and artistic knowledge to a non-expert audience.
Work form:
Weekly interactive sessions (debate and seminars) in class and laboratory work
Assessment:
1. Active participation during the group sessions, lab experimentation,
brainstorming, etc. (70%)
2. Final assignment (30%)
– 80% attendance required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 120 minutes per week during one semester, 8 weeks
MAX/MSP
Johan van Kreij
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
An introductory course to MAX/MSP(/Jitter). MAX, MSP and Jitter form a graphic programming environment specifically developed for artistic use.
Objectives:
To learn the basics of MAX/MSP.
Assessment:
attendance, assignment
– 80% attendance required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
MetaMedia
Taconis Stolk
Mandatory for: B1, Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
A work of art does not confine itself to an object, a picture or a sound composition. Especially not in the 21st century, where all kinds of communication technologies and strategies can be used to compose the context of art, or even to create works in disciplines and using methods that were never explored by artists before. In this course, students are given a theoretical and practical framework on how to compose concepts and context. Approaching contemporary art as a conceptual communication model opens possibilities for unusual works of art and a critical attitude towards traditional artistic paradigms, but it also creates a framework for students to develop new and effective strategies for a professional creative position in a media world. Students will create their own metamedial works during the course.
Requirements:
Recommended to first follow Katinka Marač’s course ‘Lighting Design for/as Performance’
Objectives:
At the end of the course, you
– have a more abstract view on possibilities of artistic expression using media that are not normally used in an artistic manner;
– understand the parameters for creative manipulation in any potential medium.
Work form:
General introduction, working groups, individual coaching.
Assessment:
Attendance, developing and presenting a metamedial project during the course.
– 80% attendance required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
New Arts & Music Theory
David Dramm, Gabriel Payuk, Eric Kluitenberg & guests
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Creative Departments Weekly Course, see ASIMUT schedule
Course Content:
This course is offered to all first-year students of ArtScience, Composition and Sonology. It is aimed to nurture an awareness of the possibilities of reciprocal expansion that exist between the domains of theory and artistic practice. The course tackles areas of enquiry that traverse both the substrate of artistic practice and theoretical research, articulated in thematic segments throughout the year. These segments comprise questions on the nature of: Language, Materiality, Media and Technology, Sensation and Affect, Ecology, Culture and the Collective.
These thematic axes promote the familiarisation of the students with recent as well as historical theoretical tools, through an exposure to texts and artistic practices sourced in different traditions and knowledge disciplines. The course includes the participation of a substantial number of guest teachers coming from diverse areas and institutions across the Netherlands (and beyond) including Musicology, Art History, Media Theory, Performance Studies, Cultural Critique as well as art practitioners.
The course aims to foster the receptiveness of students for open-ended and transdisciplinary explorations in which the role of histories and models of thought become inherent in the artistic process.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you have the knowledge and the ability to discuss a wide range of approaches that inform contemporary thought within and in relation to artistic practice.
Nurture an awareness of the possibilities of reciprocal expansion that exist between the domains of theory and artistic practice.
Work form:
Group Lessons
Assessment:
At the end of the course in semester 2 you develop (in groups) and present to the class a plan for a project/prototype/draft of a work that engages with a number of problems/challenges arising from one of the areas of theoretical enquiry developed throughout the year (Media, Sensation and Cognition, Ecology and Collectivity, Materiality or Language).
Assessment criteria:
At the end of the course in semester 2 you develop (in groups) and present to the class a plan for a project/prototype/draft of a work that engages with a number of problems/challenges arising from one of the areas of theoretical enquiry developed throughout the year (Media, Sensation and Cognition, Ecology and Collectivity, Materiality or Language).
Assessment criteria:
– awareness of the utility of a dialogue between artistic practice and theoretical enquiry
– ability to research and account for different theoretical perspectives into specific problems
– ability to express clearly the arguments dealt with in the project presented to the class
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 3 ECTS
Duration: 120 minutes per week during two semesters, 30 weeks
Organization of Knowledge
Katarina Petrović
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange course, tba
Course Content:
The course provides a comprehensive introduction to the history, theory, and practice of organising knowledge from ancient times to the present day. We explore various classification systems by focusing on garden design, encyclopedias and cabinets of curiosities as early, tangible examples of systems thinking and man’s attempt at organising the (natural) world. The course consists of lectures, site visits and readings of literary texts.
The Hague has a rich history in garden designs that are emblematic examples of spatial organisation of knowledge and materializations of world-views. From the human centered design of Hofwijck to the baroque and then romantic garden of Zorgvliet, we’ll learn about different approaches by literally walking through them. In addition, we will visit one more location relating to the Dutch history of Wunderkammers, we’ll do field experiments and readings on site.
Elaborate garden designs, encyclopedias and cabinets of curiosities (wunderkammers) of the Early Modern Europe, are objects that combine discoveries in the natural world with constructs (and inventions) made by architects, artists, poets and engineers. The culture of that period did not make a clear distinction between the practice of art and the practice of science, and the objects and knowledge produced were seen as one, allowing for reflections on morals, spirituality and man’s position in the world.
The division of art and science disciplines that followed right after, is based on the dichotomy between the world imagined and the world discovered. Things are brought into the world with art, while in science they exist prior to their discovery. That’s the basis upon which we can call science objective (relating to the object existing) and the arts subjective (relating to the irreplaceable subject imagining).
With the study of gardens, books and various collections, we will see how the knowledge, imagination and organization of the natural world paved the way to cybernetics, systems theory and art in the 20th century, leading to present day library and information science as well as complexity theory.
The last day is reserved for presentations and feedback, where you reflect on the systems and models you use, encounter or develop in your work and further build on them.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
– Learn about different historical types of organization and representation of knowledge
– Gain basic skills in interdisciplinary and artistic research
– Develop the ability to grasp large amounts of information; converting them into objects and systems
– Observe and reflect on various organizational systems and apply them in your own work/practice
Work form:
We will work in both theoretical (lectures & conversations) and practical formats (visits, experiments & reading). Furthermore, you are invited to reflect on your own practice and apply the systems approach.
Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in group processes, assignments (reading) and individual reflection at the end of the workshop.
70% attendance, participation & reading
30% self-reflection, individual presentation
– 80% attendance is required
Reading Materials and garden visits:
Recommended reading list will be sent in advance of the course.
Schedule for visiting gardens TBD
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 classes of 6 hours
‘Pataphysics, the science of imaginary solutions
Matthijs van Boxsel
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
’Pataphysics is the Science of Imaginary Solutions. ’Pataphysics moves in the quadrant of science, religion, humour and art, four attempts to get a grip on the idiocy of existence.
’Pataphysics was at the root of futurism, dadaïsm and surrealism, but has since developped in the Oupeinpo (Ouvroir de peinture potentielle): with selfimposed constraints pataphysicians develop new forms of potential art.
On the other hand they search for the pataphysical dimension of everday life by means of simple interventions: ’Pataphysics being the science of the exception. Inspired by everything imaginary (islands, languages, calenders, artists!) we try to figure out the pataphysical planet we are living on.
As a source of inspiration, we are studying the morosophers (‘foolosophers’), people with an evidently absurd theory about existence. Unlike the mediocre theories of New Age gurus, astrologers, ufologists and so on, morosophical studies are so queer that they cannot help acquiring a literary quality. Are atoms spaceships? Can the floor plan of the pyramid of Cheops be found in the street plan of ‘s-Hertogenbosch? Is the world entering the Lilac phase? Did abstract thought commence when the clitoris evolved from the inside to the outside? As a rule, a morosopher is somebody whose world has been destroyed by a shocking event. With the help of his theory he constructs a new universe from the wreckage, for the sake not of a higher truth, but of an endurable existence. Unimpeded by any scientific knowledge, their imagination enables them to force their way through to the world of science and technology. From there they design a parallel universe in which the limits of the possible are sought out and transgressed; they enter the area of the wondrous and the monstrous, and discover a world that, like the world of the comic and the fairy-tale, is out of the reach of the physicists. Morosophy is science in wonderland
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of this course:
– You acquire a conscious pataphysical mindset (everyone being a pataphysicien by birth)
– You will be able to recognise the laws of the exception, the aberration
– You will see art from a different, pataphysical angle
– You will embrace the homo ludens in yourselves
– You will hate me
Work form:
Lectures on ’Pataphysics, stupidity, imaginary topography, Powerpoint-presentations, movies: but always interacting with the students, torturing them with questions to get to the core of ’Pataphysics inside of them!
Assessment:
Every day, each student will have to make notes and drawings or pataphysical schemes in a small booklet, which will be judged after the course. (A personal Handbook ’Pataphysics.) And everyone has to present a personal pataphysical answer (in text and image) to an impossible question during the course. I expect a full-time presentation, and 100% selfreflection, ha. In case of absence due to illness, dentistry and the like, the student has to make an additional contribution on paper.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Physicality of sound and the audience’s imagination
Genevieve Murphy
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
We will look at the physicality of sound and integrate this with text and performance as well as research how to trigger the audience’s imagination in a way that alters what they are seeing and hearing on stage.
You can choose to bring in your own approach with regards to materials and how you like to work. We will meet together in the mornings, I will give a short lecture and share my work in relation to the course and in the afternoons you will work on your own piece.
We will gather now and again in the afternoons to share any ideas and to receive feedback. I will also share a specific feedback method that is constructive and unique to your own development.
This course will be hands on, working and developing ideas rather than talking and visualising. By the end you will all have begun a process that you can choose to continue developing or allow it to contribute to your artistic practice in general.
Assessment:
tba
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Practical Perfumery for Olfactory Art
Renske van Vroonhoven, Lauren Jetty
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
Practical Perfumery for Olfactory Art is a practically oriented class that aims to teach students about the making of scent, mainly focussing on artistic practice. We will cover both the theory and practice behind making fragrances and the students will have access to a large number of olfactory materials to develop an olfactory work that fits into their practice.
Requirements:
It is not required but recommended that students have already taken the course The Other Senses.
Objectives:
At the end of this course:
– you will get to know the materials used in perfumery, both synthetic and natural, and how these are extracted or created.
– you will have knowledge of and experience with basic materials used in perfumery
and their application.
– you will understand the relationship between a smell and its context and be able to avoid mistakes applying scent to contextual work.
– you will understand the basic principles of perfumery and lab safety.
– you will be able to write and read a fragrance formula and compound a fragrance correctly.
– you will know which types of extraction methods a perfumer can use and what the limitations of these methods are.
– you will start to form a mental olfactory library of scents.
– you will develop an olfactory project.
There will also be a theoretical part of this class focusing on the application of scent in art, to give context, but since “The Other Senses” covers the theory behind scent as well, we will assume some prior knowledge.
Work form:
Practica, projects, lectures, assignment
Assessment:
60% presentations.
20% attendance, assignments.
20% self-reflection.
– 80% attendance is required.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Presentation as Performance
Hilt De Vos
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
How does an audience perceive you as a human being on stage?
What role does your body play in communication?
What tone of voice will work best in a given context and how to overcome anxiety and a possible nervous breakdown?
You will learn techniques to develop an authentic performance based on your individuality.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
To reach these goals we will do exercises to effectively use your body and voice, while remaining yourself on stage.
Work form:
The format is masterclass which means the focus is on the individual but is also a collective learning experience.
Assessment:
The students will perform and use the techniques they have learned. You will be graded on your participation and progress at the end of the course.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
Quick and Dirty
Cocky Eek
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
Research through play and from not-knowing.
In this course you will be dipped in a method of the making process. The making process by its own nature, offers many surprising, irrational, accidental possibilities that the mind simply cannot predict or imagine.
The class will explore this creative process as a dialogue between maker and matter in diverse mediated forms, in which matter can be interpreted broadly. We’ll do quick hands-on experiments and dirty prototyping, with the aim to train our skills of perception, to trust the process not-knowing, to learn to recognize when/where things get interesting, and to tap in the enormous potential that comes by working open-ended.
You will work on an individual base as well in duos and groups. Documentation will be a helpful tool in the making process.
No Matter – Try Again – Fail Again – Fail Better, Samuel Beckett
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you
– have learned how to master quick artistic sketching methodologies.
Work form:
Hands-on (no-head)
Assessment:
80% attendance, active participation and presentations during the course
Assessment criteria: Being able to develop works through play and improvisation.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
RecPlay
Robert Pravda, Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Weekly Course (Wednesdays in Semester 1 and/or Semester 2)
Course Content:
Since 2001, RecPlay is the ArtScience improvisation ensemble. Some od the research topics that are addressed in RecPlay are multi-layer interfaces, improvisation structures, noise art, feedback in image and sound, realtime composition systems, spatiall compositions and interaction with architectural elements. Its practical focus wll be on developing improvisations and on developing ensemble playing by using conventional and unconventional instruments.
It is possible to join RecPlay in the first and/or in the second semester.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
To learn how to work in an audiovisual improvisation ensemble.
Work form:
Weekly meetings and jam sessions of ca. 2 hours.
Assessment:
Attendance and participation.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS (per semester)
Duration: 1 semester each
Redeconstruct Media
Kasper van der Horst, Nenad Popov
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
In a number of steps, we aim to look a bit into the phenomena of fragmented media. We will look into ways of deconstructing ideas into smaller fragments, or constructing larger structures out of smaller pieces all the while trying to keep the original knowledge(idea) present as long as possible.“Ecological thinking” – we look at the artwork as an ecosystem of ideas: we try to think and find out in which way the fragments interact with each other. During the course, we like to look at media in the broadest (metamedia) sense – for example text, literature, data, music scores, dna, wikipedia articles, pixels, artworks, social interaction, audio and video can all be your point of interest.
A positive artifact of this method is that it helps in cases when we are stuck: it helps find interesting points in an unfinished work, partial idea, and have them mutate into a new work.
The course itself consists of many small self-contained exercises focused on simple outcomes, which can be applied to personal projects that are stuck or moving too slow.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of this course, you will be able to find interesting points in an unfinished works, partial ideas, and have them mutate into a new work
Work form:
The course itself consists of many small self-contained exercises focused on simple outcomes, which can be applied to personal projects that are stuck or moving too slow.
Assessment:
The course consists of a series of simple exercises, starting with the art of abbreviation, gently crossing the media boundaries and then getting into more or less speculative reconstruction methods of media. (veracious or manupilative: redeconstruct) We also look into how the meaning mutates when the artwork passes through multiple minds.
Our objective is to design individual systems, and because we can also design these systems in an artistic way, that is where we will focus on.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Re-enactment Lab
Arthur Elsenaar
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
The scientific demonstration as (performance) art.
“For a proof to prove anything, a public is needed. This public may be restricted to a few colleagues or expanded to the whole world.”
(Latour, Bruno; Weibel, Peter – Making Things Public 2005)
Historic scientific demonstrations often involved spectacular settings. People were suspended on silk wires to demonstrate the then mysterious electric force. An army of soldiers were made to jump up simultaneously by the closing of an electric circuit. Numerous other demo’s were aimed at the notables of the time as a matter of proof and entertainment. How does this practice differ from contemporary art? What happens when we re-enact a historic demonstration?
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
Gain insight in the process and importance of the public demonstration and how both science and art rely on techniques of persuasion.
Work form:
The laboratory starts with a lecture, reading and discussion of various historic scientific demonstrations. Next we have an excursion to a science museum, make plans and finish the workshop with one or more public re-enactments.
Literature:
– Latour, Bruno; Weibel, Peter – Making Things Public
Assessment:
A convincing public demonstration of some sort.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Regenerate
Eric Kluitenberg
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Tuesdays and Thursdays, block 2
Course Content:
The ambition cannot be smaller.
The aim cannot be anything else
than to save the world.
“It is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering”
Lovelock’s Gaia theory has taught us that it is the living entities in the earth-system that regulate the physical / climatological conditions of planet Earth. These are the conditions that have made organic life as we know it now possible, and with that obviously human life. However, the effects of the collective behaviour of the human species – a species whose proliferation has spun out of control (8 billion and counting) – are breaking down exactly those conditions and the living entities that sustain them – the very preconditions that make it possible to sustain human life on this planet (and the life of many other, but meanwhile rapidly dwindling numbers of life-forms).
There would be a definite sense of irony to be gleaned from this paradox, if the breakdown this has evoked was not so dramatic and totalising. If the conditions had not (yet) turned so dire. Science philosopher Bruno Latour observed some time before the C-19 pandemic broke:
“The time is past for hoping to “get through it.” We are indeed, as they say, “in a tunnel,” except that we won’t see light at the end. In these matters, hope is a bad counselor, since we are not in a crisis. We can no longer say “this, too, will pass.” We’re going to have to get used to it. It’s definitive.” (Facing Gaia, 2017)
And equally important: There is no exit, no excommunication, no exile (voluntary or involuntary), there is NO ESCAPE. Again poignantly phrased by Latour: “There is no cure for the condition of belonging to the world”. The AfroFuturist phantasy of an escape into deliverance in outer space must be recognised as exactly that, a phantasy. There is no stealth Mothership (Clinton) / Motherwheel (Muhammad) in orbit around planet Earth to lead at least the Black and Asian human populations out of extinction (and take them into deep-space). We are all tied to Earth, tied to Gaia indeed – time to face it once and for all.
So how to save this world to which we belong? How to face Gaia without being incinerated by her wrath?
If everything is designed (because of the omnipresence of the human species on this planet), and if to change / transform means to ‘redesign’ (Latour), how then does one redesign an earth-system? How indeed does one redesign the entire planet, or at least the critical zone in which all of life, including human, unfolds (the biosphere)? If the current break-down of the ecological system is the result of a collapse of planetary systems, then how does one redesign such systems on a planetary scale?
Finally the most absurd question of them all: What role, besides science, engineering, activism, and politics, has poetics (the arts) to play in this planetary redesign? How does one escape megalomania, messianism, and hubris here?
And yet we want to save this world to which we belong – well at least I want to…
So..?
Regenerate
Sustainability, circularity, cradle to cradle, recycling – none of these still suffice. Reducing emissions, degrowth, grand scale electrification, fossil exit, while all necessary, will not absolve us from the wrath of Gaia – they just won’t cut it.
What will?
Hard to say in a simple sentence (or in a complex one, for that matter). There is no quick fix, but meanwhile time has run out. We can no longer say, ‘if we don’t act this will lead to irreparable damage in the future’ because the damage is already done, that future is already here.
It is no longer enough to stabilise the conditions of the earth-system, we must regenerate the earth-system to save this world that we belong to.
This is the task upon us, as people of this earth, as the ones who belong to this world and for whom there is no escape, no excommunication, no exile, no refuge, for us as scientists, engineers, activists, artists, designers, politicians – yes indeed even for us as ArtScientists, maybe more than ever.
(Sorry for the willing accomplices of global extractivist capitalism – for you there is no place in this world)
Getting Real
There is a growing ‘movement’, without definite form, unifying ideology or predisposition, organisation or fixed structure. It happens all around the planet. They move slow. In small steps. It is local, very local. At times it connects, or perhaps inter-connects. It bears and brings hope, and yet it does not promise ‘a cure’. They tread diligently.
When one wants to transform / redesign the largest possible systems, planetary systems, one needs to scale down, down to the smallest units, the smallest steps, the tiniest gestures, and execute with care: care for detail, care for ethics, care for aesthetics and indeed the poetic, care for the ones we share this planet with – careful design.
This ‘movement’ that is not really a movement, that has no name, that is a practice, or much rather a multiplicity of practices, but most of all an attitude, an approach, to this world to which we belong, is sometimes described as ‘regenerative culture’, which suggests a unity and a solidity that does not, not yet, exist. They come in many guises, some of the better known are ‘regenerative farming’ and ‘regenerative design’, and – does it even exist? – ‘regenerative art’ and ‘regenerative science’?
We are at the very beginning of this new culture which has understood that to balance out, to stabilise at the point where we are, is no longer enough. That the paradigm of sustainability needs to be challenged.
This is what this investigation is about.
However, time has run out. Patience has been lost. We can no longer wait. We have to get to it. We are already too late (for so many). Indeed it is impossible to achieve the aim without suffering.
____________________________
Eric Kluitenberg, March 2023
Specific topics will be announced
Seminar-style discussions / visits / prototyping
“The aim is freedom, conscience, and truth.”
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
– To develop a deeper connection to theory.
– To connect theory (concepts) to experiences and work.
– To discover new connections between things in a co-learning community.
Work form:
– Seminar-style presentation / discussion sessions
– Online reading and viewing materials provided in Stack resource.
– Collective presentation / feedback session.
Assessment:
– 100% attendance (80% absolute minimum)
– Presentation of a designed response to one or more topics covered by the course, or the course / theme as a whole
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
RE~SEARCH ~SHAPE ~STORE
Sébastien Robert
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange Course, tba
Course Content:
Documenting a piece is often a tricky task, but what about the research that led to its creation? Whether tangible (f.e sketches, notes, photographs) or intangible (f.e rehearsals, feelings, memories), a valuable amount of work is too often neglected. Besides offering unique insights on one’s methods in his/her process, these hidden layers can be trans~coded ~posed ~muted into other sonic, visual, sensorial realms, which in return can unlock new creative perspectives.
Requirements:
The students are asked to come with some personal research material that they are willing to share with the rest of the group, as well as their own instrument.
Objectives:
Open-up and deconstruct our working processes and research methodologies (Re~search)
– Collectively develop and present alternative forms of documentation (Re~shape)
– Learn from and enhance each other field of interest and practice within a transdisciplinary context (Re~store)
In this interdisciplinary workshop, we will collectively approach different ways to document both theoretical and practical research through audio, visual and scientific instruments; and explore the new narratives that emerge when blurring the lines between artworks, scores and records.
Work form:
Re~search (~1 day)
After a short introduction to the workshop’s objectives, its development and some academic references, the students will, in an introspective way, draw from their own archives fragments of research linked to unfinished, ongoing or future projects that they would like to open up. At the end of the day, each student will exchange his/her findings with another one without explaining the context surrounding them and form pairs (ideally from different departments).
Re~shape (~3 days)
Each pair will work on each other’s material with the audio, visual and scientific instruments of their choice. Options include to document it, reinterpret it or deconstruct it. Its new shape will be presented to the rest of the group at the end of each day and then exchanged with another student. This process will be repeated everyday so that students encounter as much as possible other working processes and research methodologies. This will result in an archipelago of collective projects in which each student will have put his/her grain of sand.
Re~store (~1 day)
As a final challenge, students will have to find a collective way to document their week of research and experimentation, reflecting and enhancing each other’s field of interest and practice, which could be passed on to next year’s student.
Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in the workshop and final group presentation
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 classes of 6 hours
Sensors, Actuators & Microcontrollers
Lex van den Broek, Johan van Kreij
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, tba
Course Content:
This course is a continuation of the Introduction to Electronics that is given in the first year. It is open to other students who have at least some familiarity with the most basic concepts of electronics. In this course students learn how to understand and build simple setups consisting of a sensor, a controller and an actuator. The concepts behind controllers like the ipsonlab and the Arduino or Wiring board are introduced. The most common types of sensors are introduced and how to connect them and interpret the data they produce. Also, the most common actuators will be introduced.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
To gain more advanced insight in the creation of electronic circuits for artistic purposes.
Work form:
Practical classes, assignments
Assessment:
Participation, assignment during the course, individual appointments with Lex van den Broek or Johan van Kreij.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Slow Relational Imaginaries
Carolyn F. Strauss + guests
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: tba, block 3
Keywords:
Relation, whorling, weavings, worldings, dilations, leaking, thresholds, more-than…, ebbs and flows, presences and absences, thickenings and scatterings, Tout-Monde, fragile tangles, soft practice, wit(h)nessing
Course Content:
This course emphasizes diverse dimensions of ‘Slow research’ (the course leader’s field of expertise), whereby ‘Slow’ is understood not only as a register of speed but as an expanded field of awareness and imagination through which radical transformations of self in/of the world can be forged. Thematically the course is inspired by the Sonic Acts four-year research theme ‘POLLUTION’ with direct links to the 2024 program in Amsterdam ‘Spell of the Sensuous’ that seeks “vibrations, intimacies, resonances, and leakages emanating from our own bodies to the bodies of the Earth.” Through readings, discussions, immersive experiences, speculative exercises, and practices of making, students will explore subtle interweavings of matter and memory; human and more-than-human agencies; patterns and residues of movement; structures of belonging; and thresholds of knowing and not-knowing. The course will be enriched by the presence of guest artists/lecturers who actively work with novel materialities and emerging technologies in their own explorations of the themes described above.
Requirements:
None.
Objectives:
Students will acquire tools for applying Slow thinking and research methodologies not only to projects developed within this course but also to other territories of their praxis. An important philosophical point of departure is the Martinican philosopher Édouard Glissant’s theory of Relation— first introduced in his seminal book Poetics of Relation (1990). Cultivating diverse and nuanced understandings of this concept and seeking to apply them in practice are important objectives of the course.
Work form:
Practice-based research, lectures, readings, discussions
Assessment:
30% attendance, class participation
40% assignments and presentations
30% self-reflection, personal process
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours (week of 29/01 – 02/02/2024, 06/02, 09/02, 13/02, 16/02)
SoundWorlds 1
Robert Pravda, Milica Ilić
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, tba
Course Content:
The theoretical part will cover
– Basic parameters of sound, such as the concepts of sound as change of pressure through the air, waveform and harmonic spectrum of the sound, wavelength, amplitude, frequency and perception of pitch and loudness. Also we will discuss the basics of analog sound, digital sound, synthesis basics (additive, subtractive synthesis, Frequency modulation) and MIDI.
– An introduction to the basics of musical dramaturgy, or “how to organise sound” – historical overview, explaining & exploring different musical tools and their practical use, with the goal of expanding the palette of means that can be used in artistic work which includes sound/music.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
Gaining fundamental insight in the workings of music and sound.
Work form:
During the course we will listen to pieces from important composers and discuss them. We will discuss examples of noise music, musique concrète, soundscapes, electronic music, sound- plays and field-recordings, but also other types of music in order to see how musical systems work.
Assessment:
Attendance 88%, assignment 100%
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
SoundWorlds 2
Robert Pravda
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3
Course Content:
As much as we experience our environment visually, we also have an ability to sense our environment through listening. We sense the spatial attributes through hearing as something parallel to our visual perception. What we hear is a complex mixture of the surrounding sound with its reflections, dispersion, refraction and absorption, all determined by the specific (unique) acoustic character of the space. While listening, we react both to sound sources and to spatial acoustics.
Requirements:
Rounded up SoundWorlds 1 introduction course.
Objectives:
You will gain more advanced knowledge in the workings of sound in its environment.
Work form:
In the two weeks of the course, we will build upon individual ideas, with emphasis on research in materials and techniques for development and hands-on experiments in; how to approach sound organisation for a multichannel sound reproduction, a live performance setup, or a sound installation based on individual artistic ideas of the participants.
Assessment:
Attendance 88%, assignment 100%
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Strategies for ArtScientists
tba
Mandatory for: B1, M1
Type: 2 days, block 1
Course Content:
This course is an introduction to important developments through the history of the arts that are important to the ArtScience domain. Five approaches to interrelate selected art works will be presented in class. The presented works range from realized and unrealized artworks to concepts. The five approaches are chosen in such a way as to trigger discussion and reflection both on existing works and your own work.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of the course students have gained basic contextual understanding of the ArtScience domain: examples of historical intersectional works from different artistic disciplines, idioms and discourses, and working methods of artists working in the domain.
Work form:
Lectures
Assessment:
Attendance, participation
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECT
Duration: 2 classes of 6 hours
Taste in Time and Place
Cathrine Kramer amp;Zack Denfeld
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Course Content:
What does it feel like to eat in outer space, at your childhood kitchen table or inside your favorite video game? Could you compose a single meal that would last an entire lifetime? How should we relate to the changing taste of landscapes disrupted by the climate emergency? Does neoliberalism have a distinct flavor?
The physical act of eating can tether us to the here and now or transport us to distant moments and locations. In this course students will use food as a medium to evoke a particular time or place, or connect us to the time and place in which we exist.
At the start we will conduct a series of short tasting exercises, discuss and debate food as an artistic medium and experiment with perception, memory and terroir.
Then—working alone or in groups of 2-3—students will prototype a food ritual, recipe or tool that relates to taste and a particular time and/or place. These prototypes may require students to identify, assemble and draw on knowledge from multiple domains (including areas such as food science, taste & perception, gastronomy, space science, environmental science etc.), and synthesize these learnings into a coherent artistic project that can be exhibited, eaten or performed during a final public presentation.
In addition to experiments with smell, taste and materiality, students can combine print, sculpture, media and performative elements to create their final artworks.
The course is co-taught by the artist duo the Center for Genomic Gastronomy (Cathrine Kramer & Zack Denfeld) who will introduce students to food as a medium for artistic research and assist them in assembling relevant ingredients, techniques and research during the course.
This course is an introduction to important developments through the history of the arts that are important to the ArtScience domain. Five approaches to interrelate selected art works will be presented in class. The presented works range from realized and unrealized artworks to concepts. The five approaches are chosen in such a way as to trigger discussion and reflection both on existing works and your own work.
Literature:
– The Anthropocene Cookbook: Recipes and Opportunities for Future Catastrophes by Zane Cerpina and Stahl Stenslie (2022)
– The Mushroom at the End of the World: On the Possibility of Life in Capitalist Ruins by Anna Tsing (2015).
– Experimental Eating. Tom Howells. (2014).
– On Food & Cooking: The Science And Lore Of The Kitchen by Harold McGee (1984).
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
FOOD AS MEDIUM
You have explored food as a medium and experimented with creating smells, tastes and textures that can be experienced by others.
TIME / PLACE SCENARIO
You have identified—and are able to articulate—a specific time or place, developing a set of material and metaphoric attributes related to that selection. The time and place might be concrete (New York City in the 1970s) or more abstract (surveillance capitalism).
PROJECT
You have developed a concept, prototyped and refined a final project in the form of a recipe, ritual or tool that can be exhibited or performed in a public venue.
Work form:
At the start we will conduct a series of short tasting exercises, discuss and debate food as an artistic medium and experiment with perception, memory and terroir.
Then—working alone or in groups of 2-3—students will prototype a food ritual, recipe or tool that relates to taste and a particular time and/or place. These prototypes may require students to identify, assemble and draw on knowledge from multiple domains (including areas such as food science, taste & perception, gastronomy, space science, environmental science etc.), and synthesize these learnings into a coherent artistic project that can be exhibited, eaten or performed during a final public presentation.
In addition to experiments with smell, taste and materiality, students can combine print, sculpture, media and performative elements to create their final artworks.
The course is co-taught by the artist duo the Center for Genomic Gastronomy (Cathrine Kramer & Zack Denfeld) who will introduce students to food as a medium for artistic research and assist them in assembling relevant ingredients, techniques and research during the course.
Assessment:
FINAL PRESENTATION
Presentation in the form of an edible or performative project for a public audience at the end of the workshop (50%). This method will be assessed based on: originality, realization of goal and development.
DOCUMENTATION & CRITIQUES
Documentation during the process, with opportunities to reflect and receive critical feedback during 2 in-process critiques (35%). This method will be assessed based on critical awareness, exploration and participation.
WRITTEN REFLECTION
A short written reflection (15%). This method will be assessed based on organization, understanding and reflective skills.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
The ‘Other’ Senses
June Yu
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, block 1
Due to unforeseen circumstances June Yu will teach this course this year.
Course Content:
In this introductory course, we will engulf, submerge, lick and smear the worlds of different senses and explore different ways of sense-making. Taking a non-disciplinary approach, the goal is to speculate, investigate and experiment with how one thing senses another. From familiar ground (human senses) to uncharted territory (machine sensing and intergalactic intelligence), this course will spark and facilitate curiosity into sensing and making sense of the world in and around you. Topics will be touched upon include and are not limited to: sensory organs and neuro-pathways, neuroplasticity, plant and animal senses, machine sensing, intense feelings and body horror, the cultural influence of sense-making, telepathy and shamanism.
Requirements:
An open mind and active engagement
Objectives:
– map out the different ways of sensing and sense-making
– Develop a sense of your own fascination and how to cultivate and enhance your curiosity in a multi-sensorial way
– Reflect on your faculties of sensing and sense-making
– Explore and develop ways of inquiring and engaging in different sense
Literature:
Will be distributed during classes and read together
Work form:
Discussions, introductions, group and individual “game-making”, sharing of experience in individually/group chosen forms
Assessment:
Active Participation
Presentation at the end of the course (Friday afternoon)
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Paas/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours
The Synaesthetic Universe
Robert Pravda, Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, tba
Course Content:
As an important point of departure we are taking the book written by Frans Evers, The Academy of the Senses.
A study of the scientific approaches to synaesthesia, related to the psycho-physical research conducted by Evers during his studies at the university; an alternative art history of the twentieth century based on the double paradigm of Castel’s clavecin oculaire and Wagner’s Gesamtkunstwerk; and a full account of the genesis of the Interfaculty Image & Sound.
To encompass this entire range of subject, Evers coined a new term, “synesthetics,” to denote the experience, creative force, and study of synaesthesia. As the author states; “The Academy of the Senses is a “source book,” a work of inspiration, rather than a rigid account of historical facts. It provides anyone with an interest in the wondrous realm of multimedia arts and synaesthesia as a creative force, whether student or professional, an introduction into the foundations and extensions of seeing sound and hearing colours throughout the centuries.”
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of the course you have looked into the archive of the Interfaculty and examined some of the projects that dealt with the unity and interference of the senses.
Work form:
We will execute small and fast exercises.
As for the final goal we aim to create a multi-sensory (cross-sensory) environment.
There will be a daily group-evaluation of the work’s progress, get feedback on a daily basis and test in practice.
The first week we’ll work in the artscience studio in the conservatoire, doing small exercises and experiments.
In the second week we aim to develop an environment in which perceptual experiences in one modality can give rise to an experience in a different sensory modality.
We will visit relevant locations such as the anechoic room at TU Delft.
Literature:
among others; The Academy of the Senses as a source book
Assessment:
At the end of the second week we’ll evaluate the experiments and the engagement of the students.
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
The Way of the Octopus
Nele Brökelmann
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange course, tba
Course Content:
The eight tentacles of the octopus explore, sense and engage with their environment independently from one another. The information, however, is processed together in the body and leads to decision making. The artistic process is comparable in the way that around a specific interest of the artist, musician, composer, performer, researcher, … everything they explore, sense and engage with influences their (artistic) decisions.
Starting off with something that continues to fascinate you deeply, we will explore what keeps you excited and makes you discover new ways of thinking, making and experiencing.
The biggest part of an ongoing practice is the process from which the individual works arise. Therefore, this course aims to first and foremost find out what keeps you going, and based on that teach you skills to maintain and stay excited about your own process. This entails, for one, the skill to look at a certain phenomenon, composition, rhythm, sound (piece), text (fragment), image, thought, … from several angles and approach it playfully with various strategies. Individually and collaboratively, we will employ different strategies from the domains of research, production, presentation and reflection, and find out how they sustain one another. Additionally, there is a necessity for continuous circular movement around your specific interest, or to speak through a quote from Bruno Latour:
“it is a Circle; it is impossible to trace; it must be traced, however, and once it has been traced it disappears; and we have to all start over again at once …”
(An Inquiry into Modes of Existence, Bruno Latour, 2013, Harvard paperback 2018, p.338)
Requirements:
Curiosity
Objectives:
– exploring and transforming your own fascination into the drive of your artistic process
– developing practical strategies to set up and maintain your ongoing practice
– understanding how collaboration can be beneficial to your own process
Work form:
Individual and collaborative workgroups, presenting to each other, hands-on trial and error explorations with the introduced strategies.
Assessment:
Active Participation
Documentation of the conducted experiments and findings
Presentation at the end of the course (Friday afternoon)
– 80% attendance is required
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 classes of 6 hours
Writing as/in Research
Maya Rasker
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Master Primer, block 1
Course Content:
To write means to allow ideas to come into being, which is why so many fear the act of writing: once written, your thoughts become a reality of their own. During the workshop Writing as/in Research we will investigate what writing means as an act of discovering and unravelling, rather than to fix embryonal thinking.
Point of departure is you: a creative creature that oscillates between who you are, what you do, and where you are heading. Through a systematic analysis of the creative research process you will discover how different writing techniques support and enhance your personal search for artistic growth, independent of your medium or main artistic interest.
Language is our material, which means you will do a lot of hand writing, reading out loud, listening and taking notes. We will work with prose, poetry, letter writing, essayism and other genres. The use of pen or pencil and paper (notebook) is obligatory. No laptops allowed in the classroom.
Requirements:
none
Objectives:
At the end of this course
– you know how to overcome the fear of ‘beginning’ and to start writing.
– you have an idea how to use various writing techniques, depending on your creative process.
– you understand what tools to use for text analysis – either your own or someone else’s.
– you have written in different genres, registers and styles.
Work form:
Classroom lectures and in-class (writing) assignments; take home writing assignments.
Assessment:
In-class writing assignments.
Take-home writing assignments.
Texts (by writers and theorists) to be read, analysed and reflected upon.
An end text, to be presented in class.
80% Class attendence is obligatory. All writing assignments are to be gathered in a portfolio. End text and presentation is obligatory.
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours
Zaal 3
tba
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange Course, tba
Course Content:
tba
Requirements:
tba
Objectives:
tba
Work form:
tba
Assessment:
tba
Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: tba
