CS 2050 - Making Noise: Sound Art and Digital Media

Electronic technology is pervasive in our modern world but how it actually works can be a mystery to many people. In this class students will explore the fundamentals of electronic technology with a goal of increasing their "technological fluency." This class does not assume any specific background in electronics or programming. Through hands-on labs and projects students will gain a fundamental understanding of how electronic things work and what are their capabilities and limitations. This will be explored in the context of making art and noise with electronic components, some of which will be built from scratch, and some of which will be discovered from scratch, and some of which will be discovered form existing cast-off or broken devices. This blending of arts and technology is sometimes called "circuit bending" and involves learning enough about technology to modify simple circuits to make strange and unexpected sounds. The final project will be to design, build, program and perform with an electronic musical (or at least noise-making) gizmo that has never previously existed.