Prof. Dr. Sabine Sanio
Art and Nature. Aspects of a Fundamental Relationship
Lecture in English, 2 SWS, 1 ECTS, open
Tuesday, 12-14 h, ca. weekly, starts 24.4.2018,
dates: 24.4., 25.4., 2.5.,15.5., 16.5., 22.5., 23.5., 12.6., 13.6., 19.6., 20.6., 3.7., 4.7.2018,
Lietzenburger Str. 45, room 314
ACHTUNG: Für Studierende der Fakultät Musik und von Gesang/Musiktheater nicht als Studium-Generale-Leistung anrechenbar!

Since the historical Avant-garde movement of the early 20th century, efforts to reconcile art and real life are a fundamental endeavor of the arts. This has given rise to a difficult decision artist now face. On the one hand galleries, museums and concert halls are still important places for the presentation of an artist’s work, while striving for recognition, but on the other hand, these places conjure up the image of the ivory tower of the arts. To elude this conflict, many artists today present their work in public space, strive to connect with daily life or every so often, take excursions into nature to present their art in uncommon surroundings. This newfound approach is not only proof for a fundamental change within the relationship of art and nature, but also shows the basic importance of it for the self-image of the arts. In hindsight one can find various forms of this relation: for a longtime the arts see it as their calling to emulate nature, later to disassociate with it and as an emphasis upon this, a focus on its own artificiality arises. In the 19th century with the (re-)discovery of nature, its depiction gains central artistic attention. While landscape paintings portray the beauty of nature, they also constitute the budding of an early ecological awareness. Against the background of this long tradition with its many facets, this lecture will introduce current, characteristic positions of the relation between art and nature. We will approach the question of this relationship from the perspective of the auditory: Hearing (and the “nature” of it) as a form of experiencing reality, may that be art or nature, will be a discussion point, as well as the nature of sounds and the idea of natural sound or harmonic series. New strategies and concepts for the discovery, involvement and re-approach to nature from the 20th and 21st century, such as Land Art, Soundscape or site specific (sound) art, will be portrayed. Finally, with the question about the relation of artificiality and reality, a renown but current variation of the relationship between art and nature will be discussed: How and in which way can the arts, and especially music and sonic arts, contribute to human understanding and communicating about our own nature, culture and artificiality.

Literature: Dewey, John: Art as experience, New York, 1934.
Kim-Cohen, Seth: In the Blink of an Ear. Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art, New York u. London 2009. Lucier, Alvin: Reflections. Interviews, Scores, Writings 1965-1994 / Reflexionen. Interviews, Notationen, Texte 1965-1994, hg. v. Gisela Gronemeyer and Reinhard Oehlschlägel, 2 Aufl. Köln 2005 (11995).
Voegelin, Salomé: Sonic possible worlds. Hearing the continuum of sound, New York u. London 2014.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Sporer
Psychoaccoustic, Sound Creation and Coding
Lecture in English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS, open
Friday, 15-19 h, Saturday, 10-14 h, 7 dates: 27.4., 4.5., 5.5., 15.6., 16.6., 22.6., 23.6.2018,
Lietzenburger Str. 45, room 314
ACHTUNG: Für Studierende der Fakultät Musik und von Gesang/Musiktheater nicht als Studium-Generale-Leistung anrechenbar!

This lecture covers three topics which are closely related: Psychoacoustics is a discipline which aims to describe the perception of sound. In contrast to the physiology of hearing it does not target to explain the function of the ear and it’s parts, but to measure the whole auditory sense, that is what we are able to hear, to distinguish and to rank. In this lecture the principles of one- and two-ear listening are explained and demonstrated with audio examples. An important topic will also be the assessment of perceived quality via listening tests and measurement systems modelling the human perception. In the part about sound creation we will look into the basis of speech, organ pipes and strings. Starting with natural physical systems we will also explain some basics about computer models for sound creation. The third part will conflate the chapters „creation” and „perception”: Speech coders, like those found in mobile phones, and audio codecs, like MP3 and AAC, exploit both properties of the source and the receiver. This part will also give an advice for the dos and don’ts of producing audio that may be coded. Format: This is a lecture with some additional experiments to give hands-on experience. Students are invited to contribute with questions, observations and sharing of personal experience. Target Audience: These lectures will be interesting for everybody who wants to understand the human auditory sense and those producing audio and using coding schemes. The lecture will sometimes make us of mathematical equations, but understanding these is only necessary if you want to program yourself. Finally, the knowledge conveyed will also benefit those who solely use mixing consoles or audio workstations. Requirements for attending: The lectures will build onto each other. Therefore it is necessary to attend regularly. To get most from the audio examples you should not be hearing impaired, but even with some impairment you might benefit, because you will learn to understand what you hear and what not.

Literature: Blauert, Jens: Spatial hearing, The psychophysics of human sound localization, MIT press,1997. Kahrs,
Mark u. Brandenburg, Karlheinz (Hg.): Applications of digital signal processing to audio and acoustics, Bd. 437, Springer Science & Business Media, 1998.
Roginska, Agnieszka u. Geluso, Paul (Hg.): Immersive Sound, The Art and Science of Binaural and Multi-channel Audio, Taylor & Francis, 2017.
Zwicker, Eberhard u. Fastl, Hugo: Psychoacoustics,: Facts and models, Bd. 22, Springer Science & Business Media, 2013.

Performance requirements: There is no exam, but regular attendance is necessary. If you miss more than one lecture an oral exam might be required. However if you are eagerly participating in the lectures this can be counted as an oral exam.

Prof. Volker Straebel
Media-specific music and media music
Lecture in English, 2 SWS, 2 ECTS, open
Thursday, 15-19 h, 7 dates: 26.4., 3.5., 17.5., 24.5., 14.6., 21.6., 5.7.2018,
Lietzenburger Str. 45, room 314
ACHTUNG: Für Studierende der Fakultät Musik und von Gesang/Musiktheater nicht als Studium-Generale-Leistung anrechenbar!

Since the emergence of media for sound recording and reproduction in the late 19th century, composers and media artists alike have created pieces specific to these media. This does not mean that certain media were essential for a compositions’ creation (like wax records and magnetic tape for musique concrete, or computers for algorithmic composition), but the media themselves became the inherent objects of composition and aesthetic experience. Fine examples are CDs with 99 tracks (the maximum number possible) or instructions for programing playlists according to a score or to use shuffle mode. Here, the perceiver no longer simply plays back a recording, but any playing of the CD inevitably turns into a performance. The form of the piece is to a high extent determined by the qualities of the medium. The lecture series addresses media-specific music in the context of media history and social practices of media application. The class is open to students of sound studies, musicology, electronic music, media art, media studies and audio technology. Each class will give space to the exploration and experience of media-specific work.

Literature:   Block, Ursula u. Glasmeier, Michael (Hg.): Broken Music. Artists’ Recordworks, Berlin, 1989.
Bull, Michael: Sound Moves: Ipod Culture and Urban Experience, London u. New York, 2007. Duckworth, William: Virtual Music. How the Web Got Wired for Sound, New York, 2005.
Katz, Mark: Capturing Sound. How Technology Has Changed Music, Berkeley u.a. 2004.
Kelly, Caleb: Cracked Media. The Sound of Malfunction, MIT Press, 2009.
Sterne, Jonathan: The Audible Past. Cultural Origins of Sound Reproduction, Durham u. London, 2003.