Workshops

A large number of short, practical workshops are offered in four periods of three weeks, two for each semester. Each of these consists of two full days a week over a period of three weeks. Some of these short and intensive courses focus on specific techniques, skills and practical awareness, such as light, sound, editing, electronics, programming and form studies.

MetaMedia
Sketching Methods
SoundWorlds
Introduction to Programming
Projection
Sensors, Microcontrollers and Actuators
How to Confuse Your Senses? – the artistic use of the smell medium
Research in Motion
Live Life – Life Live
Lighting Design for / as Performance
Bread & Butter
IoT WtF

MetaMedia

Taconis Stolk

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.

Credits: 3 EC
Objective: To develop skills in composing context and create artworks for unusual media
Literature: To be announced in class
No. of classes: 6 classes / 6 hrs
Examination: Small assignments, attendance

Sketching Methods

Cocky Eek, Michiel Pijpe

A work of art does not often come to its maker mysteriously like a visionary dream or out of nowhere and already worked out. And even when this happens it remains a question how to continue from there? In normal circumstances, the best ideas come while fiddling around, but how do you fiddle constructively?

An important aspect of the craft of artists working in any medium is sketching; how to generate ideas and how to draw consequences from them. Sketching can be a method of recording or prototyping an idea but it is also a powerful tool for discovery. The process of sketching enables you to deepen a thought, explore a fascination or playfully engage with elements that open up new directions in a work. It is a method to find things that you would never have found otherwise.

The creative process is often divided into a number of steps and can be characterized by a cycle: imagining – reflecting – making – reflecting – perceiving – reflecting – imagining. This process involves observation as much as mental-projection and decision-making.

In this hands-on course you will be introduced to sketch on a individual base as well in a group process. Finally you will be engaged in finding your own sketching method in your own medium.

Credits: 3 EC
Objective: Learning the basics of sketching as a generative method
Location: KABK / Schevingen Hellingweg 127 (De Vloek)
No. of classes: 6 classes of 6 hrs
Examination: Small assignments, attendance

SoundWorlds

Robert Pravda

The goal of this course is to introduce the theory and practice of working with sound and to teach the handling of basic recording and studio equipment. Also a short introduction will be given to the history of electro-acoustic music and basic concepts of composition. 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.

On the practical side an introduction will be given to basic studio hardware and software, such as the mixing desk, amplifiers, speakers, cables and types of microphones and their uses use: XY, AB, MS, Binaural. We will talk about recording, sampling, editing, sound effects and various software and plugins.

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. Common concepts of how to organize sounds will be introduced.

All the students attending the course are expected to finish a number of exercises in listening, recording and editing. At the end of the course each student is asked to produce a CD with all the short pieces done during these classes.

Credits: 3 EC
Objective: Introducing the most important techniques and concepts of handling sound
Literature: To be announced in class
No. of classes: 6 classes / 6 hrs
Examination: Small assignments, attendance

Introduction to Programming

Marcus Graf

This is an introductory course into programming in which the Processing language is used as an example. In nine sessions, the following topics will be discussed and tested: the mental landscape, the processing environment, data types and functions, in- and output, blocks, loops and branches and black boxes: subroutines and objects. These sessions contain both theory and practice, and aim at giving the students confidence in ‘speaking’ this newly learned language. Students are given assignments that will be presented and discussed in class.

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.

Credits: 3 EC
Objective: An introduction to Processing and to key concepts in computer programming
Literature: To be announced in class
No. of classes: 6 classes / 6 hrs
Examination: Small assignments, attendance

 

Projection

Kasper van der Horst

The intention of this course is to experiment in a playful way with projection in relation to your work. Besides displaying computer- and video images, projection is often used to define a space or, for example, to enhance the meaning of an object in a space. Also shadow and coloured light can be interpreted as projection.

As an assignment, you will be asked to make a projection design that connects with your own work and/or ideas. 

keywords:projecting on objects surfaces live playing how to use audio signals no-source feedback video minimal projection ganzfeld projection •we’ll also briefly look into how tv’s, videorecorders and analog video mixers work.

For students who followed an earlier projection course, there will be some new topics to look into, such as video mapping, high quality projection and the use of the more advanced digital video mixers that combine analog and digital image sources.

Due to the available amount of equipment, there’s a limited number of students that can enroll.

Credits: 3 EC
Objective: Developing approaches to projection and related key concepts
No. of classes: 6 classes / 6 hrs
Examination: Assignments, attendance

Sensors, Microcontrollers and Actuators

Lex van den Broek, Edwin van der Heide

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.

Credits: 3 EC
Objective: Learning to understand and build simple sensor-controller-actuator setups
No. of classes: 6 clss / 6 hrs
Examination: assignments, attendance

How to Confuse Your Senses?
an introduction to the artistic use of the smell medium

Maki Ueda

Often in olfactory art, the focus is on smell itself. It is used for evoking memories and feelings, for emphasizing manifestations or making statements. We will take a different approach that focuses more on our perception of smell and less on the meaning of smell.

I think that smell is in itself neutral. It’s the audience that attributes meanings such as “this is the smell of apple” or “this is a bad odour” based on their personal experiences and history. My memories and history are different from yours, so how can I assume that what is a “sweet smell” to me will have the same meaning to you?

In the course we will depart from the above perspective and regard smell as something neutral. In the first half of the course we discuss the question “what do we know, and what can we find out, about smelling?” By doing a lot of original and spontaneous researches and experiments you will quickly learn more about your sense of smell. In the second half of the course we will focus on creating a ‘simple’ artwork, interface, or game all focusing on confusing the senses.

Blog of the previous years: http://smellart.blogspot.com
Website of Maki Ueda: http://www.ueda.nl

Credits: 3 EC
No. of classes: 6 classes / 6 hrs
Examination: assignments, attendance

More Research in Motion

Gideon Kiers, Lucas van der Velden

An introduction into artistic use of (historical) research

This course is a continuation of last year’s Research in Motion workshop and is open to all students.

Our history is full of great but lost research, inventions, idea’s, experiments and prototypes. This is especially true in the field of expanded cinema and performative audiovisual art. The leads to these lost treasures are omnipresent, but often scattered, coded or simply locked up and forgotten. Artifacts can nevertheless be found online, in books, archives, and often in the living memory of those who witnessed them first hand a long time ago.

In this course we will look at some case studies on historical, technical and artistic research. Also, we will examine how to utilise (historical) research and focus on the odd sized projects and idea’s of our past, and how we can use these ideas and examples, reconstruct, reinvent and place these often powerful historical ideas in the present time. During the course all students will work on their own outline/trial within this framework.

Credits: 3 EC
No. of classes: 6 classes / 6 hrs
Examination: assignments, attendance

Live Life – Life Live #2

Pieter van Boheemen, Lucas Evers and guests

This course is organized in collaboration with the Open Wetlab of Waag Society

The rapidly developing and expanding world of biotechnology is pushing into our kitchens, our hospitals, our cars, our politics, our economy and no doubt our bedrooms! It is not only changing our lives but also that of other living species. Life prolonging treatments and care raises questions about what to do with your extra time. Xeno biology tries to make life of other than the classic amino acids and introduce other letters next to G, T, A and C to form base pairs. And what do we know about the compounds that can be found in our diets, such as citric acid, does that still come from lemon trees? Genetically modified orchids are grown by the industry, but is this aesthetic only a terrain for enterprise? How do those insights into life impact our relations to other living organisms? Life sciences have an impact on agriculture, medical, military and industrial technology. Can it also impact the wider domain of aesthetics such as art and design? And, reversely, can art and design influence the life sciences and life and the living itself?
As this new space for aesthetics and interpretations is still much unexplored, artists are starting to wonder, wander in the biotech cupboards, texts, protocols hard-, soft- and wetware. Bio Art cooks up unexpected and controversial new materials often very different in its goals and intentions than the work done by scientists or engineers.

In this course you will work with living organisms and (semi-)living materials of plant and animal origin, in order to investigate the living and the making of life and how we relate to it. This means growing organisms in the laboratory or elsewhere, influencing the growing and making sense of everything that comes with it.

Alternating on Tuesdays you will follow theoretical lessons on biotech and bio art and on Thursdays you will get practicum in the Open Wetlab.

The course will finish with writing a proposal and a presentation of the proposal during a public event at the Waag building.
After the course you are offered the possibility to continue and produce a project using the facilities of the Open Wetlab and mentoring by Lucas Evers and Pieter van Boheemen.

Syllabus with articles of a.o. will be provided before the start of the course:
– Tactical Biopolitics, Beatriz da Costa, Kavita Philip
– Fingerprints, Jens Hauser, Paul’s Vanouse
– Trust me I’m an artist, Anna Dumitriu, Bobbie Farsides
– Garage Biotech, Rob Carlson
– Evolution haute couture – art and science in the post-biological age, Dmitri Bulatov (ed.)
– Art in the age of technoscience, Ingeborg Reichle
– Home made bio electronic arts, Landwehr, Kuni (ed.)
– Vivo Art readers, Adam Zaretsky
– Meta Life, Annick Bureaud, Roger Malina, Louise Whiteley

Objective: practical and theoretical introduction into biology and art
Credits: 3 EC
No. of classes: 6 classes / 6 hrs
Examination: assignments, attendance
* Keep in mind that this workshop will partly take place in the Open Wetlab at the Waag in Amsterdam and that these travel expenses are for your own costs.

Lighting Design for / as Performance

Katinka Marac

The goal of this year’s course is to give an introduction to the theory and practice of lighting design and handling basic stage equipment. We will explore how meaning can be created using the exceptional possibilities of the medium light and how lighting design can be deployed in / as performance.

During the course we’ll trace back the origins of lighting design in contemporary performance, by looking into the work and compositional methods of renowned American artists from the sixties and seventies and some of their contemporary predecessors as Xavier le Roi. In the seventies artists as Robert Rauschenberg and members of the New York based Judson group shared a keen interest in working at the intersection of (dance) performance, visual art and art & 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.

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. During the course we will also collectively visit a theatre and review a lighting design of a theatre performance. (date & time still to be announced)

Objective: learning the basics of stage technology and lighting design.
Credits: 3 EC
Examination: group lighting design assignments , performance review, attendance

Bread & Butter

Joost Nieuwenburg

The relationship between food and art is longstanding, be it through modes of representation culminating in either objects or less tangible works, or in the socio-economical realm of the art world where it shows up in the guise of fundraisers, VIP dinners or openings.

In this course we are going to look into the role that food and meals could play to conceive, curate and present artworks. Starting with a brief survey of historical and contemporary examples of works and practices from artists and curators that include food or the performative space that surrounds it, we will continue with a hands-on, minds-on practicum. This could range from the outside picnic to the inside dinner party to artist-run restaurants, illegal bootlegging, norms associated with eating, parlour games and we’ll be going to toast on hunter-gathering and reading menus alike.

We will work towards a situation in which we’ll share our kitchen skills and articulations with one other, its shape to be decided on together.

Credits: 3 EC
Objective: Learning to play with and make use of formal settings, create artworks out of a situation and curate or frame these works and gestures both individually and collectively.
Literature: To be announced in class
Location: Various locations inside and outside the school, t.b.a.
No. of classes: 6 classes of 6 hrs
Examination: small assignments, attendance

IoT WtF

Arthur Elsenaar, Dani Ploeger (guest)

IoT
The IoT WtF hacklab is built on the theoretical foundation as put forward in Eric Kluitenberg’s course The Biometric Body II. While the human body is quickly becoming part of the ever expanding realm of objects connected to the Internet, this workshop is not exclusively focused on the body and its metrics, but on any object than be networked; e.g. the fridge.

WtF
This hacklab is a practical get together of students interested in the What’s that Feature of the Internet of Things. Students will learn the power of the command line, as it is your ticket into the world of open source software. We then venture out into the world of Git and Github, the current dominant versioning system.

When this is covered, we will get the hardware out and attach sensors, actuators and hook this all up to the Internet. Students are encouraged to bring in their own hard- and software ‘problems’, so we can work on it together.

Beware: there is no artistic output expected from this hackshop besides an engagement to learn and to advance skills of one another. But on the last day, students will be expected to briefly make a presentation about what they have learned and why it is important for their own research.

Hardware
– RaspberryPi
– Sensortag
– Bean
– 3D printing of Fitbit bracelet

Software
– Python
– NodeRed
– JavaScript
– Git

Reading material: http://ipj.dreamhosters.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/ipj-v18n4.pdf

Credits: 3 ECTS