Curriculum 2022-2023 | ArtScience Interfaculty

Credit Points (ECTS points) are assigned two times a year, at the end of each semester and before the presentations. Each credit point represents 28 hours of ‘study load’. Students (both Bachelors and Masters) should earn a total of 60 credit points per year. Part of the courses are obligatory, other courses can be chosen regarding certain rules and besides that there are a number of credit points for elective courses or alternative study related activities (this is called the individual study trajectory (IST) or portfolio). Obtaining IST points is not mandatory in B1, but allowed and encouraged.

Credit points for participation in courses, MediaTechnology courses, KABK and KC courses are assigned on the basis of the evaluations given by the teachers of those courses.

The credit points for the individual study trajectory are assigned on the basis of written reports or other forms of project documentation. The student is expected to check beforehand with their coach whether the activity is applicable for IST. Afterwards, the IST report is evaluated by the coach and the head of department.

* The ‘ArtScience Courses of Choice’ in the curriculum can be chosen from all the courses offered by the department (or in collaboration with KC/KABK) that are mentioned in the Course Descriptions (including those in the Exchange Weeks with Sonology and Composition). The student is required to follow enough courses to obtain the amount of ECTS as mentioned in the Curriculum of their year of study. Eventually, other courses within KC/KABK and MediaTechnology (Leiden University) can alternatively be taken, but only after prior approval by coach or head of department and to a maximum of 6 ECTS. Courses part of the CASS Exchange Weeks count as normal ArtScience courses.

ArtScience B1 Curriculum
ArtScience B2 Curriculum
ArtScience B3 Curriculum
ArtScience B4 Curriculum
ArtScience M1 Curriculum
ArtScience M2 Curriculum

Curriculum Handbook Bachelor (in preparation)
Curriculum Handbook Master (download)

ArtScience B1 Curriculum	ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice*	2
Collecting Observations	2
Excursion Ars Electronica	1
Introduction to Electronics	1
Introduction to Programming	4
Introduction to Studio Techniques	1
Int(r)o Projection	2
Lighting as/for Performance	2
Light – Space – Perception	2
MetaMedia	2
New Arts & Music Theory (Semester 1+2)	3
The ArtScience Context	1
The ‘Other’ Senses	2
Quick & Dirty	2
SoundWorlds 1	4
IST	4
B1-Meetings (Semester 1+2)	2
Semester 1 Presentation	8
Semester 2 Presentation (Propaedeutic Exam)	15
Total	60

ArtScience B2 Curriculum	ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice*	24
IST	11
B2-Meetings (Semester 1+2)	2
Semester 1 Presentation	8
Semester 2 Presentation	15
Total	60

ArtScience B3 Curriculum	ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice*	18
Professional Writing	2
IST	13
B3-Meetings (Semester 1+2)	2
Research Methodologies	2
Semester 1 Presentation	8
Semester 2 Presentation	15
Total	60

ArtScience B4 Curriculum	ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice*	12
IST	13
B4-Meetings (Semester 1+2)	2
Bachelor Thesis	8
Semester 1 Presentation	8
Preview Exam	2
Semester 2 Presentation (Bachelor Final Presentation)	15
Total	60

ArtScience M1 Curriculum	ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice*	18
Excursion Ars Electronica	1
Introduction to Studio Techniques	1
The ArtScience Context	1
IST	10
M1/M2-Meetings (Semester 1+2)	4
Research Methodologies	2
Semester 1 Presentation	8
Semester 2 Presentation	15
Total	60

ArtScience M2 Curriculum	ECTS
ArtScience Courses of Choice*	10
IST	13
M1/M2-Meetings (Semester 1+2)	4
Master Thesis	8
Semester 1 Presentation	8
Preview Exam	2
Semester 2 Presentation (Master Final Presentation)	15
Total	60

Archive

* Curriculum 2021-2022
* Curriculum 2020-2021
* Curriculum 2019-2020
* Curriculum 2018-2019
* Curriculum 2017-2018
* Curriculum 2016-2017
* Curriculum 2015-2016
* Curriculum 2014-2015
* Curriculum 2013-2014

Courses 2022-2023

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.

AIOTMLWTF 0.4a — Arthur Elsenaar
Algorithmic Fitness – Coralie Vogelaars
Art <> Science Methods — Valery Vermeulen
Bootstrapping Computational Arts — Arthur Elsenaar, Carl Rethmann
Collecting Observations — Marion Tränkle & guests
Composing for Vision — Leandros Ntolas
Data <> Art Methods — Valery Vermeulen
Database Logic — Coralie Vogelaar
Exploring Production — Marisa Manck
Fragrance Library – Renske van Vroonhoven
Hacking Worlds I & II — Anastasia Loginova, Katarina Petrović & guests
Introduction to Electronics — Lex van den Broek
Introduction to Optics – Leandros Ntolas
Introduction to Programming — Jeroen Meijer
Introduction to Studio Techniques — Robert Pravda
Int(r)o Projection — Kasper van der Horst
Light – Space – Perception — Leandros Ntolas
Lighting Design for/as Performance — Katinka Marač
Math <> Art Methods — Valery Vermeulen
Matter of Art — Eduardo Mendes, Eric Kluitenberg, Arthur Elsenaar
MetaMedia — Taconis Stolk
New Arts & Music Theory — David Dramm, Gabriel Paiuk, Eric Kluitenberg
Organization of Knowledge — Katarina Petrović
’Pataphysics — Matthijs van Boxsel
Performance Systems — Marion Tränkle
Practical Perfumery for Olfactory Art — Renske van Vroonhoven, Lauren Jetty
Presentation as Performance — Hilt De Vos
Professional Writing — Eric Kluitenberg
Project Projection — Kasper van der Horst
Quick and Dirty — Cocky Eek
RecPlay (Semester 1, Semester 2) — Kasper van der Horst, Robert Pravda
Redeconstruct Media — Kasper van der Horst, Nenad Popov
Reenactment Lab – Arthur Elsenaar
Research Methodologies (B3/M1) – Maya Rasker
RE~SEARCH ~SHAPE ~STORE — Sébastien Robert
Sensors, Actuators & Microcontrollers — Lex van den Broek, Johan van Kreij
Slow Spatial Imaginaries – Carolyn F. Strauss + guests
SoundWorlds 1 — Robert Pravda, Milica Ilić
SoundWorlds 2 — Robert Pravda
Spacious: AMARE I — Renske Maria van Dam, Leon Lapa Pereira
Spacious: AMARE II — Renske Maria van Dam, Leon Lapa Pereira
Strandlab Almere – Patterns of Ebb and Flow — Cocky Eek
Studium Generale — Erica Sprey & guests
TASTELESS – Zack Denfeld, Cathrine Kramer
The ArtScience Context — Taconis Stolk
The ‘Other’ Senses — Caro Verbeek
The Return of the Real – Eric Kluitenberg
The Synaesthetic Universe — Robert Pravda, Kasper van der Horst
The Way of the Octopus — Nele Brökelmann
Voicing the Intra-Face – Willem van Weelden
Writing as/in Research — Maya Rasker
Zaal 3 — Kasper van der Horst, Robert Pravda, Hilt de Vos

AIOTMLWTF 0.4a
Arthur Elsenaar
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: every other week (Wednesdays), physical

Course Content:
AIOTMLWTF is a 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:
Students need to have experience with programming (Python).

Objectives:
– you will have a better understanding of named topics and how these relate on one another
– you’ve gained some practical skills in implementing these topics in your own art endeavours
– you became wise enough not to go under in a sea of complexity

Work form:
Seminar style with hands-on exercises and problem solving.

Assessment:
Attendance (min 80%) and proven understanding of the topics by showing working code (whatever that is).

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 2 semesters

Algorithmic Fitness
Coralie Vogelaars
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
Prototyping a performance or video work by using body tracking tools available online

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 world the algorithm seems to be everywhere around us, it entered our physical world and is tracking our bodies and our behaviour. Hereby algorithms decide what is a signal and what is noise. What is being measured and what is not being registered.
But you could also argue that the world of algorithmic logic has also entered our bodies. 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 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.
By using the tactic of quick prototyping with the help of easy accessible open source tools we will work towards a short performance or video work with a certain choreographic structure.

Objectives:
– You will learn how to do quick prototyping, train our skills of perception 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.

Work form:
Experimental learning. The course consists of 4 workdays. The first day we will discuss existing works and we will collectivily build a database of possibilities of open source tracking tools to work with. Every day we will show short experiments to each other and reflect on them.

Assessment:
Make a 5 minute performance or movie by using a tracking tool in combination with (a part of) your own body. The outcome can be seen as a semiotic study on human and machine logic.

Due to the limited number of days, a 80% attendance is required.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 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.

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 1, physical/online

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.

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, physical

Course Content:
Experimentation – observation – documentation. In this workshop we will cycle through a process of making work, starting from fiddling and free-flow experimentation to razor sharp selection and 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 constructive consequences from it. Therefore, documentation and recording of 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 process together.
– Learn to identify and switch between modes of experimentation, observation and documentation.
– Develop a personal vocabulary to capture observations in a diary format.

Work form:
You will work in group processes to get to know each other and to generate diverse input. Furthermore, each of you is required to keep an individual record of those processes.

Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in group processes, individual report (work diary) at the end of the workshop.
70% attendance, participation
30% self-reflection, individual report

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours

Composing for Vision
Leandros Ntolas
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange course, physical

Course Content:
During this course we will take an in-depth look at composing for the sense of vision and cross-modal perception. Taking as a point of departure the study of vision and philosophy of perception, we will then look at relevant examples from the history of art and science (ie. graphical scores, visual music, synaesthesia). After that we will use this knowledge to experiment with visual tools and start composing for the sense of vision, on its own and in relation to the other senses.
A specific emphasis will be put in the cross-modality of perception, and how one can start taking it into consideration when creating a work for one or more senses. We will also look at how compositional tools for one sense can be translated and used for another.

Requirements:
interest for visual and cross-modal composition

Objectives:
– gain a better understanding of visual and cross-modal perception
– make the first steps towards composing for vision, on its own and in relation to the other senses
– experiment and build a palette of visual compositional tools
– gain an understanding of working with visual means so you can start implementing visual elements in your own practice

Work form:
Lectures, hands-on experimentation, personal assignment

Assignment:
As an assignment, you will be asked to work on a project or experiment related to visual composition, that connects with your own work and/or ideas.
80% attendance required

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 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

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

Database Logic
Coralie Vogelaars
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3, physical

Course Content:
Possibilities of using a (digital) database in your work.

The first part of this course will be focused on how to make a dataset repository. We will look into possible places to find datasets online and possibilities in creating our own with data-scraping. We will discuss the possible formats of JSON, CSV etc. Also we will have a look at different Deep Learning models (classification, object detection, etc … ) and the process of training a model. Next to this we will see examples of artists working with databases and theoretical discuss what AI can and can not do. At the end of this first part you have a database to work with. This database can be related to your own work or can be build around a new topic you’re interested in.
The second part of the course will be used on how to use a database for the creation of a work. This could be done with the help of Deep Learning or other sort of automation, but this is not a necessity. If you want you can also work in an analogue way. We will collective talk about possible methods for creation, for example working with a research question, looking at different ways of dismantling your content, or working with if this then that conditions.

Requirements:
Some computer and coding skills would be very practical. But lets help each other! Be aware I also don’t have all the answers, so I expect a flexibel attitude.

Work form:
Experimental learning.

Assessment:
A final presentation of a work that is using a dataset as a source.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

Exploring Production
Marisa Manck
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: once a week, block 4, physical

Course Content:
In this course we will focus on your role in production processes in the arts.
You will practice giving and receiving feedback in order to keep good communication with the production team. Doing so will enable you to meet the timelines and – very importantly – do this in good communication and in a good atmosphere.

At the end of the course you will:
– Be able to make a realistic production sheet with timelines;
– Have knowledge on how to communicate within a product organisation;
– Are more aware of your own position within the organisation and responsibilities you can take/have.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
— Have knowledge on how production processes in arts works.
— Have knowledge of giving and receiving feedback.
— Have knowledge of making production sheets, time tables, etc.

Work form:
Theory – we will explore the theory of project organization and communication by lectures and discussion.
Individual assignment – presentation of your production proposal
Individual assignment – make a production sheet
Groups assignments – practice new learned communication skills

Assessment:
60% attendance
20% presentation and assignments during the course
20% self-reflection

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 7 classes of 6 hours

Fragrance Library
Renske van Vroonhoven
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: once a week, block 2 (Tuesdays), physical

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.

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 (last week: Tuesday and Thursday)

Hacking Worlds I & II
Anastasia Loginova, Katarina Petrović & guests
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: biweekly, block 2 & 3 (Thursdays), physical

Semester 1, Block 2 / Nov 2022 – Jan 2023
Semester 2, Block 3 / Feb – May 2023

Hacking Worlds is an elective course specially designed for Bachelor and Master ArtScience students, but equally open to all students of the Royal Academy of Arts and Royal Conservatoire in The Hague interested in interdisciplinary practice(s). The course is led by Anastasia Loginova, curator, artist and cultural producer, and Katarina Petrović, artist and researcher – both ArtScience alumni.

Conceptual Framework:
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 two 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 & build up a community of 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.”

Structure:
For each session a professional from their respective field(s) is invited to share their work and process. The talks are usually about how they got here, which tools or systems they use that helped them develop their practice – sharing their work process and the hacks they’ve developed. The presentations are in the form of a lecture, studio visit or field trip but we are very much open to hybrid formats that support exchange.

Sessions are 3 hours long, with approximately 1 hour reserved for the presentation of each invited guest. This is then followed by a moderated discussion with students and guests to reflect, debate and ask questions. There is a possibility for students to share their work and reflect on their own processes with guests. Some sessions may have 2 guest speakers to encourage dialogue and exchange between practices and disciplines.

List of Speakers and Schedule:
Lecture 0 – Nov 9th @ RADIUS, Delft
19:00 – 21:30
Lecture by biologist, writer Merlin Sheldrake (15eu pp) author of award-winning book Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds & Shape Our Futures
Lecture 1 – Nov 24th @ PB301
16:30 – 19:30
Introductions by course leaders – Anastasia Loginova & Katarina Petrović
Themes of the course: ArtScience hybrid and interdisciplinary practices, Hacking Worlds – getting insider info, hacking the soc. structures… Raising questions, assignment setting.
Lecture 2 – Dec 8th @ KABK Auditorium x Masters Collaborative Program (MCP) x Masters Industrial Design (MID)
17:00 – 20:00
Presentations and conversation with artist, writer & cybernetician Oscar Santillan & artist, curator Bogomir Doringer (NXT museum Amsterdam)
Lecture 3 – Dec 15th @ RADIUS Center for Contemporary Art and Ecology (Kalverbos 20, Delft)
11:00 – 17:00
Field Trip to RADIUS Delft to visit group show – Calm Before the Storm (Post-Anthropocene) with a guided tour from director Niekolaas Johannes Lekkerkerk and assistant curator Sergi Pera Rusca
Lecture 4 – Dec 22nd @ PB301
16:30 – 19:30
Speakers – Students Choice – discussion about ArtScience
Lecture 5 – [ studio visit ] Jan 12 @ TRIXIE, Den Haag
11:-00 – 17:00 (TBC)
Field trip to artist run initiative TRIXIE, Den Haag + studio visits with artists (Zeno van den Broek, Penelope Cain, Beng Yeunyong, Sophia Bulgakova & Cemre Kara)
Lecture 6 – Febr 23rd @ PB301, KABK
16:30 – 19:30
Zeynep Birsel, concept and project developer in the domain of art-science-technology
(Waag society, Amsterdam)
Lecture 7 – March 23rd @ PB301, KABK
16:30 – 19:30
Frans Snik, astronomer and director of Sterrewacht, Leiden University
Lecture 8 – March 30th @ PB301, KABK
16:30 – 19:30
Dewi Kruijk, Grants Officer, Digital Culture & Professionalization, Stimuleringsfonds
Lecture 9 – April 13th @ PB301, KABK
16:30 – 19:30
Angelo Vermeulen, space systems researcher, biologist, and artist (PhD at TU Delft)
Lecture 10 – April 20th @ PB301, KABK
16:30 – 19:30
In4art – Lija & Rodolfo Groenewoud van Vliet
Lecture 11 – May 11th @ PB301, KABK
16:30 – 19:30
Nicky Assmann, artist and ArtScience alumna
Bonus:
Field Trip – Teylers Museum, Haarlem (art, natural history, science) TBA
Lecture – Lucas van der Velden, Sonic Acts, Amsterdam TBA

Aims & Objectives:
We want you to:
– 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, make contacts by first learning about their work (have an overview and an idea about your own positioning)
– 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

Work form:
Attendance, active listening, participation in discussion

Assessment:
Attendance 80%, participation in discussion
Written assignment – 750-1000 words essay reflecting on the position of one’s own practice in relation to the presentations and discussions of the course.
First draft – 29 January (methodology, abstract, maybe some first paragraphs)
Feedback – February
Final – 30 April

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS for each block
Duration: 6 sessions in each block

Introduction to Electronics
Lex van den Broek
Mandatory for: B1
Type: short group sessions, block 2 (first week), physical

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

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECTS
Duration: 3 classes of 2.5 hours plus individual appointments.

Introduction to Optics
Leandros Ntolas
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block3, physical

Course Content:
During this course you will be introduced to a very fundamental, but very complex thing: light. Through the study of optics and through hands-on experimentation, the main properties of light will be explored and analysed, along with the basic tools involved when dealing with it. Also, a brief introduction to visual perception and the human visual system will be presented.

For the ‘output’ part of this course, you will be asked to actively engage in the observation of light in your environment for the days that the course lasts, and to attempt to utilise what you learned and observed into creating something interesting using some property(-ies) of light; be it a sketch for an artwork, a simple light experiment, or a conceptual proposition.

One of the days of the course–if the weather conditions allow it–we will move the course outdoors, and go for a small field-trip. First stop will be the work ‘Celestial Vault’ at Kijkduin, by the American artist James Turrell, and second stop will be the beach of the Hague (possibly at Zandmotor), where we will delve into the fascinating world of atmospheric optics ( aka light interacting with the atmospheric elements of nature).

Objective:
To gain fundamental skills in the workings of optical physics.

Examination:
Attendance, assignment

Grading System: TBA
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours

Introduction to Programming
Jeroen Meijer
Mandatory for: B1, Elective
Type: once a week, block 2 (Fridays), online/physical

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

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, physical

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:
Meetings in the new ArtScience studio at the new KonCon building ‘Amare’.

Assessment:
All the students attending the course are expected to accomplish the exercises and be able to use and operate studio facilities and technique and have attendance of 100%.

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, physical

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.

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.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
Experiment with projection. You learn to develop a way of playing together as a group as well as perform 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:
The course consists of 4 workdays. 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.
Due to the limited number of days 80% attendance is required.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours

Light – Space – Perception
Leandros Ntolas
Mandatory for: B1, Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3, physical

Course Content:
This course is a follow up to the course ‘Lighting Design for/as Performance’. Facilitating the tools and techniques you learned in the lighting design course, we will focus on the perceptual and phenomenological properties of light and its interelatedness with space. The course will combine lectures on light and perception (covering a broad range of perspectives, from physics to philosophy) with hands on experimentation on the things we discuss. By creating and composing together light setups in space, we will experiment with perceptual phenomena and attempt to create interesting perceptual experiences that can act as research or be communicated to an audience.

Requirements:
Recommended to first follow Katinka Marač’s course ‘Lighting for/as Performance’

Objectives:
– to gain an insight into the basics of light and perception
– to sharpen your visual and embodied perception
– to start using light as your medium for creating installations
– to start thinking and composing in a spatial way, going against the screen-based two-dimensionality that our culture imposes on us

Work form:
Lecture, hands-on practice and experimentation.

Assessment:
Assessment of the students’ work will take place the last day of the course.

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, physical

Course Content:
The goal of this 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. 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. 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 contemporary predecessors such as Xavier le Roi, Meg Stuart and Martin Spangberg.
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.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
To master theory and practice of basic lighting design for artistic purposes.

Work form:
The course consists of 4 workdays. Every day we set up a practicum with a different focus.

Assessment:
Attendance, assignments, evaluation.

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

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 course brings to the class the interactions experienced between scientists and resident artists in top laboratories.
The interaction between highly specialised scientists 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) are at first glance “orthogonal” professionals with methodologies and focus that are apparently, but only apparently, opposed.

Matter of Art fills the gap in our education by bringing together these two communities at a very young age. Working on mixed classes, half of the students from KABK and half from TUD, the group will work on acquiring knowledge and characterisation methods for the development of new (soft) materials. While engineers tend to think at new materials as a function of their new useful properties for a given application, artists tend to use materials as canvasses either for aesthetic or meaningful / social / personal messages. Since these two communities have different drives, their requests of new material properties or how they could use a new material property are very different. This course gives both student communities the opportunity to learn with each other on their approach to problem solving and creativity in relation to the development and characterisation of new soft materials.
The field of materials chosen is Soft Matter (plastics, gels, resins, composites, liquid crystals …) as they are easy to process at low energy and offer large amount of freedom in properties and composition. Students will work with new materials, their development, processing and characterisation in the laboratory. Organised in small mixed groups of 4 people (KABK-TUD) they will teach each other how their community (historically) uses a given material either for an application or for a piece of art, how they would like to improve it for a given application and due to these interactions, exchange their approach to creation, questioning, interpretation and property requests for enhancement or modification of new materials.
In order to foster interaction between the two very distinct groups of students, during class sections, each group will give short presentations followed by a discussion: engineering students give short presentations explaining how a material functions from molecule to macroscopic properties while art students give short presentations explaining the use or choice of such material for a given (contemporary) art piece.

Requirements:
– none, for all levels

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

Assesment:
1. Active participation during the group sessions, lab experimentation,
brainstorming, etc. (70%)
2. Final assignment (30%)

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: TBC
Duration: TBC

MetaMedia
Taconis Stolk
Mandatory for: B1, Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3, physical

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:
None.

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.

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 Lesson

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:
– 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

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, physical

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 will explore various classification systems by focusing on garden design, encyclopaedias 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 centred 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 the Rijksmuseum Boerhaave in Leiden whose collection includes several
cabinets of curiosities.

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 and theory of complex
systems.

The last day is reserved for presentations and feedback sessions, where you are invited to reflect on the systems you use, encounter or develop in
your work and further build on them.

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 informa8on; 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 (garden visits & reading). Furthermore, you are invited to reflect on your own practice and apply the systems approach.

Weight:
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

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 classes of 6 hours

‘Pataphysics
Matthijs van Boxsel R/OCS
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

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 developed in the Oupeinpo (Ouvroir de peinture potentielle): with self-imposed 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:
A thirst for imaginary knowledge.

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% self-reflection, ha. In case of absence due to illness, dentistry and the like, the student has to make an additional contribution on paper.

Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours

Performance Systems
Marion Tränkle
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3, physical

Course Content:
In this workshop, collaborative work and the experimentation with art as process and system will be central. During the week you will develop a basic theoretical understanding of structures and functions of systems. We will study among others feedback loops and self-regulation and homeostatic systems, and find ways to “game play” and performatively embody those principles.
Thus: Emphasis is on collective making, on basic concepts of systems theory, and on the experimentation with rule-based performative (movement) systems.

Requirements:
Willingness to take part in a collective endeavour and to move in space. Not suited for people who wish to develop their work individually during the workshop.

Objectives:
– Gain experience of how to work together and to experiment collaboratively
– Gain basic theoretical understanding about the basic operating units of systems
– Know how to translate system features into action and performative scores
– Introduction to system thinking as a method to drive artistic experimentation.

Work form:
Group work and reflection, lecture, individual research

Assessment:
Attendance, active participation in group processes,
80% attendance, participation in discussion and group assignments
20% self-study and presentation

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, physical

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 Although some fine fragrance methods will be covered, the aim of the class is to learn to apply scent in a more diverse context. As part of the course the students will be hosted at a perfumery lab in Arnhem for a few days during this course, where they can experiment with a vast array of materials to create a final work.

Requirements:
It is not required but recommended that students have already taken the course The Other Senses.

Objectives:
At the end of the course you will
– have an understanding of the materials used in perfumery, both synthetic and natural, and how these are extracted or created.
– have a knowledge of and experience with basic materials used in perfumery and their application.
– understand the relationship between a smell and its context and be able to avoid mistakes applying scent to contextual work.
– understand the basic principles of perfumery and lab safety.
– be able to write and read a fragrance formula and compound a fragrance correctly.
– know which types of extraction methods a perfumer can use and what the limitations of these methods are.
– have started to form a mental olfactory library of scents.
– have developed an olfactory project.
There will also be a small theoretical part of this class focusing on application of scent in art, to give some context, but since The Other
Senses covers this theory as well, we will assume a prior knowledge.

Work form:
Practica, projects, excursions, lectures, assignment

Assessment:
60% presentations
20% attendance, assignments
20% self-reflection

Grading System: TBA
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

Presentation as Performance
Hilt De Vos
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
In this Course you will learn how to use your body-voice-mind as communications tools for presentation and performance.
How does an audience perceive you as an 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?

Requirements:
Being open-minded.

Objectives:
At the end of this course, you
– get the tools to effectively use your body-voice mind, while remaining yourself on stage.
– learn to reflect better on yourself as a communications medium.
– use humor to help in the process of creation.

Work form:
Experiential learning.
The format is a master class which means that the focus is on the individual while it is also a collective learning experience.

Assessment:
A final presentation on the last day of the course.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours.

Professional Writing
Eric Kluitenberg
Mandatory for: B3
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
As the Professional Practice Preparation course of ArtScience, this week offers specific training in writing, focusing on how to write clearly about your work for grant applications, catalogues and to sponsors and press.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
To learn practical professional writing skills.

Work form:
TBA.

Assessment:
Attendance, assignments.

Grading System: TBA
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours.

Project Projection
Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
The Project Projection course is aimed at students who are planning to use some form of projection in their 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. In this very hands-on and practical course we’ll explore these aspects considering the projects or ideas that the students bring in individually.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
Develop existing ideas a few steps further, get feedback on a daily basis and test in practice. Gaining advanced knowledge and skills in artistic possibilities of projection.
At the end of this course, you
– will explore how different technical resources are best put to use and what impact that could have on the experience of the work. This might result in some radical alternatives to the original plan!
– try out and test a lot so that a high level of precision can be reached. Hopefully in this way we’ll put the original ideas into an enriched perspective.

Work form:
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 CAM rooms in the conservatory, second week we can build bigger sets in PB301 in the academy.

Assessment:
At the end of the second week we’ll present an overview of the works in PB301.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

Quick and Dirty
Cocky Eek
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

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 duo’s 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:
Learning 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)

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 omprovisation ensemble.

Work form:
Weekly meetings and jam sessions.

Assessment:
Attendance and participation.

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, physical

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:
Learning how to handle the defragmentation of contemporary media in an artistic manner.
At the end of this course, you you will be able to find interesting points in an unfinished work, partial idea, and have them mutate into a new work

Work form:
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.

Assessment:
At the end of this two week course we ‘ll ask you to present your system in the format of a work or to present a conclusion of how your system works.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

Reenactment Lab
Arthur Elsenaar
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block3, physical

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 reenact a historic demo?

Requirements:
TBA

Objectives:
TBA

Work form:
The laboratory starts with a lecture, reading and discussion of various historic scientific demonstrations. Next we visit the remarkable Teylers Museum in Haarlem, make plans and finish the workshop with one or more public reenactments.

Assessment:
TBA

Grading System: TBA
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

Research Methodologies
Maya Rasker
Mandatory for: B3 (Mondays) / M1 (Fridays)
Type: biweekly, block 2 & block 4, physical

Course Content:
The course supports and enhances artistic (practice) and theoretical research processes, aiming at a thorough knowledge and understanding of what theoretical research implies, and how it underpins one’s 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 a research process, such as ‘concept’, ‘method’, ‘research question’, ‘contextualisation’. Please note: although the skills are formal / fixed, the (written) output is expected to reflect your artistic view on your subject.

Programme objectives:
The learning outcomes revolve around a thorough understanding (and exhibition) of the competence to identify and utilise theoretical and other resources as a means to underpin one’s artistic practice, and the ability to communicate new knowledge and insights in and through writing.

Objectives:
Upon completion of the research skills course, you:
– know where and how to find relevant, including juxtaposing, theoretical / thematic resources;
– are able to use your sources as a means to critically discuss, support and enhance your practice and 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;
– 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 (writing) assignments; presenting and reading; listening / giving feedback.

Assessment:
– writing assignments and presentations
– end text (mini-thesis)

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: for B3 – 7 classes of 6 hours in block 1, 2 classes of 6 hours in block 2 / for M1 – 5 classes of 6 hours in block 1, 4 classes of 6 hours in block 2

RE~SEARCH ~SHAPE ~STORE
Sébastien Robert
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Exchange Course, physical

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.

Weight:
Attendance, active participation in the workshop and final group presentation

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, block3, physical

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.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

Slow Spatial Imaginaries
Carolyn F. Strauss + guests
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
The Slow spatial imagination is unbounded, porous, both rooted and rhizomatic, characterized by a constant weaving and renewing of energies and possibilities. Reaching into the past, gesturing toward the future, deeply attentive to the now, it demonstrates a fluid and artful movement within, between, and across diverse markers of identity, registers of speed, and understandings of time.
This course invites students to open themselves more consciously and fully to the myriad ecologies in which their lives and cultural perspectives are entangled. An important philosophical point of departure for this course is the Martinican philosopher Édouard Glissant’s theory of Relation— first introduced in his seminal book Poetics of Relation (1990)—, drawing sustenance from his concepts of ‘creolization’ and ‘archipelagic thinking’ as well as his nuanced approach to generosity, ‘donner-avec.’
Through readings, discussions, immersive research, and practices of making, the course emphasizes diverse dimensions of ‘Slow research’ (the course leader’s field of expertise): encouraging expanded practices of attention and intention as students explore subtle interweavings of geographies, cosmologies, and temporalities; human and more-than-human agencies; patterns and residues of movement; structures of belonging; scaffoldings of care; and thresholds of knowing and not-knowing. The course is enriched by guest teachers/lecturers who share non-Western and post-colonial perspectives and practices.

Requirements:
None.

Objectives:
This course helps you arrive at an expanded sense of self and enhanced accountability for how that self meets and operates within the world. You will acquire tools for applying Slow thinking and research methodologies not only to projects developed within this course, but also to your other projects and relationships.

Work form:
Practice-based research, lectures, readings, discussions

Assessment:
30% attendance, assignments
30% participation and presentations
40% self-reflection, personal process

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

SoundWorlds 1
Robert Pravda, Milica Ilić
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
The goal of this course is to introduce the theory and practice of working with sound.
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.
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.

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%

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, physical

Course Content:
SoundWorlds 2 is a hands-on course. During the course the focus will be on developing individual performative or installation pieces. All participants are required to have a basic knowledge of working with sound and starting idea of a project or direction that they want to work on.
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 advance 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 86%, assignment 100%

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

Spacious: AMARE I
Renske Maria van Dam, Leon Lapa Pereira
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: once a week, block 2 (Tuesdays), physical

Course Content:
Spacious is a creative practice research community that gathers around sited experiments. Working with/in Spacious enables you to develop alternative rhythms for your spatial practice at the crossroads of architecture, performance and philsophy. The course is set up as an open research-atelier. To experiment is not to know in advance and –more often than not–to forget after the event. Therefore we start without a predefined plan to let curiosity-driven and pro-active experimentation emerge in correspondence with the site.
This year our site of exploration is AMARE, the new cultural center of The Hague and home of the Royal Conservatoire. AMARE is designed as a ‘multiversum’: an inviting, multifunctional, cultural and social space with streets, alleyways and small squares. In this context, we work towards spatial and performative interventions which activate the in-between spaces of the building.
We will work with the theme of RADICAL CARE / RADICAL AFFECTION. Departing from sensuous fieldwork, guided by a moving, listening and breathing with the environment we will explore different performative and spatial tactics to activate new levels of care for and being with your surroundings. Together we explore and introduce empathic and animistic engagements with the world.
The course consist of two parts. SPACIOUS: AMARE I is focused on thematic research and sensuous fieldwork. In SPACIOUS: AMARE II we will work towards a collective spatial performative intervention in which all students can explore their own interests. We strongly recommend to subscribe to both courses. If you are only willing to take part one course, please inform us by means of a motivation letter.

Literature:
van Dam, R.M. (2021). Working With/In the Gap: Japan-ness in Architecture of Experience. Brussels, Belgium: KU Leuven.
Strauss, C.F. (2021). Slow Spatial Reader: Chronicles of Radical Affection. Amsterdam, Netherlands: Valiz.
Wołodźko, A. A. (2015) “Materiality of affect. How art can reveal the more subtle realities of an encounter,” in Rosi Braidotti and Rick Dolphijn (ed.) This Deleuzian Century: Art, Activism, Life, Brill/Rodopi: Amsterdam/New York.

Objectives:
At the end of this course, you are introduced to a diversity of spatial and performative tactics to attune with, vitalize, become aware of and extend the spatial experience.

Work form:
We will shift focus between:
– Movement practice and experimentation in different environments
– Collective reading and discussions
– Working on performative and spatial interventions

Assessment:
Collective spatial performance in which each student can develop their own interest/project. Presented at the end of the course.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
– 50% attendance and participation
– 50% results of the assessment
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours (last week: Tuesday and Thursday)

Spacious: AMARE II
Renske Maria van Dam, Leon Lapa Pereira
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: once a week, block 4 (Tuesdays), physical

Objectives:
At the end of this course, you are introduced to a diversity of spatial and performative tactics to attune with, vitalize, become aware of and extend the spatial experience.

Assessment:
Collective spatial performance in which each student can develop their own interest/project. Presented at the end of the course.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
– 50% attendance and participation
– 50% results of the assessment
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 7 classes of 6 hours

Strandlab Almere – Patterns of Ebb and Flow
Cocky Eek, Rachel Schuit
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 4 (beginning of May), physical

Course Content:
This course of Patterns of Ebb and Flow will be directed together with the Mime department from the Academy of Theatre and Dans – Amsterdam. This week is an opportunity to experience working with the natural elements, while being part of the process and be challenged by their continual movement and change.
We’ll reside on the relatively young sandy strip of Almere Beach, along the IJ-Lake where we will specifically zoom in on – movements of sand –
Sand mediates in the liminal space between sea and land. It combines qualities of solid and liquid. Sand is both ancient and renewing. A simple storm across the beach clears all of yesterday’s traces, but a grain of sand may take eons to travel from rockformations to coastal sediment before ending up in your swimsuit and sandwich.
The interventions look for an immediacy of relating action to their environmental sources, which encourages diligent observation and accidental discovery. We will start working from a phenomenological approach to explore this specific landscape. We will do daily exercises to activate our listening body and to to open your ‘physical presence’. Test setups and prototypes are based on hands-on means of enquiry in the field and fully exposure to the elements. we want to focus on physically making and exploring patterns on the artificial beach, which we try to film from a higher perspective. The closing Friday afternoon our observations will be shared with a small audience. Documentation is an important part during the whole week.

This course is a collaboration with StrandLAB Almere; a set-up as a project, initiated by the city of Almere and the province of Flevoland, to accelerate cultural activity in the area around the ‘Almeerderstrand’ or Almere Beach. Important consideration is to always work with the intrinsic values of the area and to contribute to the place as an area for excitement and renewal. Through working with artists and researchers StrandLAB relates to the bigger questions of Almere as a new town and the region on new ‘polderland’: how do you build an Almere identity? how do you extend the cultural facilities and how do we make use of water and land in a sustainable way?

Requirements:
This exchange week is a 24/7 residence on site in Almere Beach, and needs your full-dedicated participation. We are there all the time, including sleeping, eating, working, and strolling around. Pay attention that the travel is part of your own costs.

Objectives:
To unfold an artistic proces in the context of tidal movements in nature.

Work form:
Physical/sensory exercises, field-explorations and hands on prototyping, conversations with locals, documentation

Assessment:
Working without preconceived ideas. Presentation to a small audience, documentation during the process, writing a reflection.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 days full-time

Studium Generale
Erica Sprey & guests
Mandatory for: B2
Type: KABK Weekly Lecture Series, physical/online

Course Content:
For over ten years the Studium Generale at the KABK has been organized as an interdisciplinary lecture series that ´hovers, as it were, over the departments, addressing themes that may not have an immediate practical use, but are potentially relevant to each and every student.’ This year the Studium Generale is making its own educational turn, from an active-passive lecture-theatre to a self-directed learning place to be owned up by students who may use it as a testing-ground and amplifier for their issues of concern.

Requirements:
None.
Objectives:
To gain general contextual insight.

Work form:
Online lectures.
Assessment:
Attendance, assignments.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS (Semester 1 = 1 ECTS, Semester 2 = 1 ECTS)
Duration: Approximately 12 lectures of 1.5 hours per Semester (approx. 24 in total).

TASTELESS: New Rituals, Recipes and Tools for Disrupted Flavour Perception
Zack Denfeld & Cathrine Kramer
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
Imagine if your sense of taste and experience of food was altered due to severe air pollution, exposure to COVID-19 or living on the International Space Station. How would you cook differently to take pleasure in taste-less situations, or ensure that you were keeping a nutritious diet? Could you prioritize the role of texture in cooking or design new cutlery to make taste-less eating less bland?
In this course we will explore how artists might meaningfully respond to altered-taste scenarios by working with food as a medium. At the start we will conduct a series of short tasting exercises, discuss and debate food as an artistic medium and experiment with molecular gastronomy techniques that expand the range of textures one can generate using edible materials.
Then—working alone or in groups of 2-3—students will prototype a ritual, recipe or tool that responds to a specific scenario where human eaters taste less, or differently, than they have before. 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.
The course is co-taught by the artist duo the Center for Genomic Gastronomy (Cat 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.

Requirements:
Access to a home kitchen for some experiments with food is a plus.

Required Reading:
Prior to the class you should have read (or listened to) “How we lost our sensory connection with food – and how to restore it” (The Guardian newspaper, Tue 29 Mar 2022, by Bee Wilson) and be ready to discuss this text in class.
– READ: https://www.theguardian.com/food/2022/mar/29/how-we-lost-our-sensory-connection-with-food-and-how-to-restore-it
– LISTEN: https://www.theguardian.com/news/audio/2022/apr/18/how-we-lost-our-sensory-connection-with-food-and-how-to-restore-it-podcast

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
TASTE-LESS SCENARIO
– You have identified and are able to articulate a specific scenario where humans might taste-less, and taken into account the physiological, mental or environmental conditions of the eater in that scenario
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

Additional Resources:
If you want to expose yourself to content about food as art, food as science before the class, we recommend:
– PODCAST: Gastropod: Food with a Side of Science & History https://gastropod.com/
– WEBSITE: This Is Mold: Designing the Future of Food https://thisismold.com/
– BOOKS: On Food & Cooking by Harold McGee.
Additionally, there are a ton of cookbooks, how to guides and other resources about Molecular Gastronomy and manipulating texture within food at any bookstore or library.

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, 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
– and a short written reflection (15%). This method will be assessed based on organization, understanding and reflective skills.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours

The ArtScience Context
Taconis Stolk
Mandatory for: B1, M1
Type: Introductory Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
This course is an introduction to historical and contemporary works from and around the ArtScience domain. It presents works in five narratives, each representing a different strategy for producing artistic works. The presented works range from realised and unrealised 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:
— To gain insight in the artistic realm of ArtScience.
— To distinguish different creation methodologies.

Work form:
Lectures with interdisciplinary examples.

Assessment:
Attendance, participation in discussion.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 1 ECTS
Duration: 2 classes of 6 hours

The Other Senses
Caro Verbeek, several guest teachers
Mandatory for: B1
Type: Standard Course, block 1, physical

Course Content:
The senses of smell, taste, touch and proprioception are powerful tools for engaging an audience in an intimate and often interactive way. They require little knowledge and they are strong inducers of vivid memories.
Whereas sound and vision always gained a lot of academic attention, the so called ‘lower’ senses only recently (re-)entered the artistic debate. The ArtScience Interfaculty, formerly known as the Institute for Image and Sound, underlines the importance of those other senses that go beyond our traditional occularcentric approach.
This course is about creating awareness and understanding of the role of the ‘other’ senses – smell, touch and taste – in (history of) art, education and science.
For they are not as divided as we assume, the correlation between the senses will also be addressed (synaesthesia).
Due to their animalistic nature important thinkers like Plato, and later on Kant and Hegel excluded the lower senses from the aesthetic debate. As a counter-reaction famous artists like Marinetti and Duchamp and composers such as Scriabin incorporated olfactory and tactile dimensions to their work. Unfortunately this quite volatile heritage was partially lost due to its fleeting nature and the impossibility of registering and preserving smells, tastes and tactile experiences. Museums and other institutes that address vision, have always been primed to collect and conserve. That is why many tactile and olfactory works of art never made it into written history. Anthropologists, art historians and other academics are now working on a reconstruction.
During classes students will encounter sensory art historical reconstructions to stimulate debate on the senses and as an inspiration to create small olfactory and tactile compositions. A colour-smell synaesthesia test will be executed on the first and the last day of the course.
Furthermore there will be a linguistic translation of a Futurist tactile poem, and an olfactory-musical recital composed by Scriabin.

Requirements:
none

Objectives:
At the end of the course
– you will have general knowledge and understanding of the role of the other senses in history of art.
– you will have an increased sensory vocabulary.
– you will be able to use other senses more analytically and discern between them better (even become of aware of previously unknown senses).
– you will be well equipped to start using more senses in your art practice and daily life in a meaningful way.
– you will be able to engage an audience by triggering their senses.

Work form:
– lectures with an interactive character (in which you sense sensory replicas)
– small assignments, such as creating smell maps and tactile poems
– a smell-color synaesthesia test
– small sensory experiments in which you analytically study your own perception, guided by a set of questions by the teacher
– reading assignments and discussing articles
– socratic discussions among yourselves and with the teacher
– a joint multi-sensory performance in the end, and an evaluation of the course and your own progress

Assessment:
– overall engagement and participations in discussions, reading of articles and presence (4 out of 4) (20%)
– execution of smell maps and tactile poem and presentation thereof (technically, by means of content, and effect, verbalization of what they did and why) (first 2 days, 20%)
– their role in the multi-sensory performance (Did the student step out of their comfort zone? How was their sensory input related to the whole? Can they verbalize their intentions afterwards?) (final day, 30 %)
– self-reflection: the student’s own insight in their improvement/development. Did the student learn new things? Can they reflect on what they learned? (oral examination after the performance) (final day, 20%).

Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 4 classes of 6 hours

The Return of the Real
Eric Kluitenberg
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: once a week, block 4 (Tuesdays), physical

Course Content:

“I want the future now,
I want to hold it in my hands;
All men equal and unbowed,
I want the promised land.”
– Peter Hammill, The Future Now (1978)

‘All that was once directly lived now becomes mere representation’ (Guy Debord). This is no longer true. Better to say: ‘All that was once mediated by spectacle and simulation, now becomes a direct confrontation with The Real’.

Lacan maintained that The Real is always there, in its place, but remains unknowable, and that our symbols and (self-)images merely ‘cut’ across The Real – the rest, just phantasmatic. However, there is nothing phantasmatic about a long-range missile turning a multi-storey building to rubble, or the long-range killing of pregnant women and unborn children in a maternity ward – nothing ‘unreal’ about that at all.
There is equally also nothing unreal about the ever worsening climate crisis, or rather ‘the new climatic regime’ (Latour). It is there, indeed, in its place, which is to say here, everywhere, and it is definitive, no escape. Meanwhile waiting for the next pandemic.
Culturally we have not even begun to absorb what this Return of The Real means. What kind of a response it requires. We are still stuck in analysis and simultaneous crisis-management. It is however obvious that the crisis will endure. How should, how can, the arts respond to this? Can we already see the germination of a new aesthetics, and perhaps even more importantly a new ethics for the arts?

What does this turn towards The Real entail? Are the arts to become more realistic, or perhaps even ‘realist’? Where to find the first traces of this ‘new realism’ (not to be confused wit New Realism)? Some of these first traces might be found in (the exploration / application of) forensic procedures, and new ways of bearing evidence (directing the digital towards The Real). But how are we to ascertain their epistemological status?
How to learn to believe in The Real again? – this might be the greatest challenge that the undeniable return of The Real poses to us.
One consoling thought may be that the ‘capitalist’ project has failed just as miserably as the Marxist’ project, precisely for all the reasons why The Real has returned to us. Capitalism may still seem very much alive and ubiquitous, but it has become a real-life phantasmagoria of the walking dead – it has achieved zombie-status.

Given the misery that put an end to capitalist irrealism that is little solace.
So, how are we to become realists (again)?

Topics:
(provisional)
– The return of The Real: climate crisis, pandemic, war (in Ukraine)
– Spectacle / Simulation / Hyperreality | the reality of The Real
– Forensic verification / Evidentiary Realism
– Get Real: Thing Politics and the quest for a new realism (in art and politics)
– The reality of the New Climatic Regime: Facing Gaia at long last…
– The Good Common World: the end of capitalist (ir)realism

Requirements:
– Intelligence, sensitivity, and resilience.

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:
– Attendance, active participation in discussion.
– Open assignment & collective presentation / feedback.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 7 classes of 6 hours

The Synaesthetic Universe
Robert Pravda, Kasper van der Horst
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, tba, physical

Course Content:
The aim of this course is to investigate the theoretical and practical approaches to synesthetic and cross-sensory art. In order to develop a unique approach we will set some guidelines as starting sources for further investigation.
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 synesthesia, 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 synesthesia. 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 synesthesia as a creative force, whether student or professional, an introduction into the foundations and extensions of seeing sound and hearing colours throughout the centuries.”

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.

Assessment:
At the end of the second week we’ll evaluate the experiments and the engagement of the students.

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 spring, physical

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:
Attendance min 80%
Active Participation
Documentation of the conducted experiments and findings
Presentation at the end of the course (Friday afternoon)

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 2 ECTS
Duration: 5 classes of 6 hours

VOICING THE INTRA-FACE, becoming a guide in the border-space(s) of sonic warfare
Willem van Weelden
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Master Primer, block 2 (Tuesdays), physical

Course Content:
The course has as its main focus the conceptualisation and creation of the experience of an interactive sonic interzone (intra-face) between two conflicting sonic interfaces. Inspired by Marcel Duchamp’s notion of the ‘infra-mince’ (infra-thin), and Alexander Galloway’s notion of the ‘intra-face’ (an interface internal to the interface), the course has as its main challenge to design a mediating ‘meta-language’ (a voicing) between two (or more) confrontational sonic ‘phrase regimes’. These probings will be based on a theoretical exploration of the concept of (sonic) border-space(s). These border-spaces as actual battle grounds of sonic warfare can refer to a wide variety of origins and contexts, ranging from conflicts between the voicing of memory-affects (refrains) and presence-affects (the anamnesis of trauma), to the conflictual in sonic regimes of identity and gender, to the regimes of acoustic violence (‘psycho-acoustic correction’) apparent in the ‘politics of frequency’ mutating vulnerable sonic worlds of enunciation (‘policing the acoustic’). The course in its workshop sessions will offer individual guidance for all students to help conceptualise a relevant and dedicated border-space(s) that will feature in their work to come (guiding to become a trans-subjective guide in sonic warfare).

Objectives:
The learning objectives are
– to study offered research material (texts, movies, music, interviews, etc.) and apply that to the creation of an individual artistic project.
– to learn to make the derived and developed concepts experiential; to render them alive.
– to apply discursive, reflective analysis of relevant theoretical notions and concepts in the creation of an interactive audio installation or experience.
– to develop a critical conceptualisation of the notion of border-space (as highlighted in the course), when it comes to conflicting sonic interfaces, and apply it convincingly in the creation of the work that intervenes on a meta-level of interaction.
– to be able to present in a relevant and communicational way the various iterations of the project in its developments, and critically reflect on them.
– to present the final project in a compelling and convincing way, and react productively on offered feedback by addressing the project ramifications on its artistic development, and be able to support the project by a comprehensive process documentation with attention given to the research conducted.
– to be able to reflect critically on the context in which the project would be best suited to be presented.

Work form:
Lecture series with an additional series of workshop sessions, that feature student presentations, with feedback sessions, and individual feedback talks.

Assessment:
– prior to the course (a week in advance) a written project description based on the mandatory reading of the offered texts and the course description. (minimum of 800 words) (no written project description means no access to the course)
– attendance of the 8 days sessions (both lecture and workshop) (7 are mandatory)
– A bi-weekly in-class 10 minutes presentation (pref. keynote or powerpoint) of all students during the workshop sessions, that showcases the advances made by the student in the conceptual development and research conducted, thus helping the student to reflect critically on the project in its various iterations and specifications. In total this would amount to 3 presentations (not included the final presentation).
– a final presentation (January 2023) of a working demo (end product) (max. 15 minutes) that will be assessed on its artistic and research qualities, given the description of the assignment. Special attention in the final assessment will be given to the students reaction on feedback by course teacher and fellow students. (10 minutes feedback session)
– a written documentation (minimum of 1500 words), together with the (at least 2) presentations, that grant an overview of the conceptual steps amounting to the final work, and highlighting the research done, including references. This should be completed at the end of the course.
– Final presentation, reaction to feedback and documentation of the process will determine the final assessment, apart from the above conditional mentioned criteria
(project description, attendance, presentations). (The grading of these assessment criteria = 60% Final presentation, 20% reaction feedback, 20% documentation process).
– During the workshop sessions explanations will given about the assessment criteria that will be applied on the various instances of relevance of the work.

Grading System: Pass/Fail
Credits: 4 ECTS
Duration: 8 classes of 6 hours (last week: Tuesday and Thursday)

Writing as/in Research
Maya Rasker
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Master Primer, block 3, physical

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
Kasper van der Horst, Robert Pravda, Hilt de Vos
Mandatory for: Elective
Type: Standard Course, block 3, physical

Course Content:
Central theme – To speculate on and fictionalize the scientific field of (synthetic) biology
Sub theme(s) – Historical overview of biotechnology, narrative techniques & story-telling, rhetoric skills and the language of biology (biosemiotics)

Prerequisites:
a brief on the importance of fiction / motivation

Objectives:
– The students gain insight in (the history of) scientific breakthroughs in the field of biology & biotechnological developments.
– The students develop practical scientific literacy towards biology.
– The students can apply various narrative techniques: On/Off stage.
– The students can translate course content into a staged lecture-performance.
– The students gain experience as a performer on stage.

Work form:
Lectures, practice based workshop & project

Assessment:
– originality in approach to central theme
– ability to deconstruct and reconstruct central theme
– approach to narration and story-telling
– ability to collaborate and reflect On/Off stage
– stage or performative presence and convincing rhetorics

Grading System: Numeric
Credits: 6 ECTS
Duration: 1 workshop week of 5 days in January, 1 workshop week in February followed by 1 week on location in February, TBC public events