MIT Media Lab MAS.S68 (3-3-6)
Professors Tod Machover and Joe Paradiso
Wednesday 2:00-4:30 pm in E14-493
Music is changing faster now than ever with everything seemingly up for grabs, from instrumentation to audience to business models to purpose. We will study all of these, with emphasis on music’s power to create profound human connections, locally and across-the-globe. Using Boston as a “laboratory” (in coordination with many local institutions, from the Boston Symphony to Boston City Hall), we will explore the potential for music to establish a new level of civic engagement and interconnection. We will also develop concepts and prototypes with colleagues in Galway, Ireland (recently named European Culture Capital for 2020) to expand the techniques for immersive musical experience and “teleportation” between remote locations. And in association with MIT’s Environmental Solutions Initiative and the China-U.S. Climate Change Summit (to be held in Boston in spring 2017), we will study the possibility for music – with other arts and technologies – to influence awareness and behavior on a scale that transcends traditional limits of space and time.
In order to investigate how music’s impact can significantly stretch over the coming period, we will also study the transformational technologies, sensing systems and instrumentation that make this possible, as well as some seminal musical ideas from the past 100 years that have opened paths to the future. For the latter, we will give special attention to 3 ‘S’ composers – Schoenberg, Stockhausen and Saariaho –whose work fundamentally changed the sound and structure of music for past, present and future generations.
The class will be a combination of discussion and exploration, listening and experiencing in Boston and beyond (including a trip to New York to hear Saariaho’s L’Amour de Loin, the first work by a female composer to be performed at the Metropolitan Opera), and experimentation with – and prototyping of – projects that push the boundaries of music’s role in society, culture and everyday life.
The class will be limited to 15 students. Permission of instructors is required.
First class is on Wednesday, September 7th at 2pm. Come join us!!!!!!