Paul D. Miller - DJ Spooky - Seminars / Workshops / Lectures

FREE FORM: On Design and the Acoustic Environment (3 credits)

Paul D. Miller and Mitchell Joachim, Ph.D.

Description: The aim of this course is to expand the student's responsiveness to the intersection of sound and architecture. The course will spotlight fundamental values of ecological thought, in relationship to contemporized rhythm, acoustics, and composition. In the first half we will survey and unpack core conceptions of sound aesthetics and eco-design principles. The next half of the program we allow the students to illuminate the concepts of design into a brief intangible/tangible project, to reexamine the interaction between sound, context and urban architecture.

Context: Ungracefully, the American value system is somewhat distressed. It seems value has devolved into feats of rampant affluenza and mega scales; franchise brands, super-sizes, big box retail, XXL jumbo paraphernalia, etc. This consumption encapsulates a joint race for ubiquity and instantaneity in the American mindset. What are the American value systems and how are they expressed within acoustical sound and cities?

Sample Task: Imagine you are the sole leader of the free world. Produce a fabulous semiotic image, acoustic propaganda piece, and/or manifesto that would forever benignly alter our global environment. To help you focus here are some directives to rethink one of many possible anthropocentric needs for the near future; any utilitarian object, transport device, basic sonic composition, or musical network. Visualize a new deep-seated design that subsumes this human necessity entirely within an acoustic ecology. Each designed element should adhere to a predetermined set of socio-ecological principles. This is an exercise in design and sound. Therefore it is not possible to have a truly erroneous solution.

Required Readings:

Breton, Andre. Nadja. Paperback, 160 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780802150264. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Brown, John Seely & Paul Duguid. "Chapter: Agents & Angels." in: The Social Life of Information. Harvard Business Press. 2000. Hardcover, 336 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0875847625. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr. Paperback, 330 pages, ISBN: 1578517087. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Carson, Rachel. Silent Spring. Mariner Books. 2002. Paperback, 400 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0618249060. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Chang, Jeff. Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. Hardcover, 560 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780312301439. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr. Paperback, 546 pages, ISBN: 9780312425791. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Fuller, R. Buckminster. Operating Manual for Spaceship Earth. Princeton Arch. Press. 2000. Paperback, 128 pages, Language English, ISBN: 3907078233. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Iyers, Vijay. Vijay Iyers: Strength in Numbers.

Mau, Bruce. Massive Change. Phaidon Press. 2004. Hardcover, 240 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780714844015. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Mckibben, Bill. The End of Nature. Random House Trade Paperbacks. June 13, 2006. Paperback, 224 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780812976083. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Miller, Paul D. (Editor). Sound Unbound. The MIT Press. 2008. Paperback, 362 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780262633635. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Miller, Paul D. Rhythm Science. The MIT Press. March 1, 2004. Paperback, 130 pages, Language English, ISBN: 026263287X. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

McDonough, William & Braungart, Michael. Cradle to Cradle: Remaking the Way We Make Things. North Point Press. 2002. Paperback, 208 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780865475878. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Nattiez, Jean-Jacques (Editor). The Boulez-Cage Correspondence. Cambridge University Press. 1993. Hardcover, 186 pages, Language English, ISBN: 0521401445. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Nietzsche, Friedrich. The Case of Wagner. Paperback, 240 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780394703695. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Rose, Tricia. Black Noise. Wesleyan. 1994. Paperback, 257 pages, Language English, ISBN: 9780819562753. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Required Listening & Viewing:

Sakamoto, Ryuichi. Out of Noise. CD, AVEX. ASIN: B001OFB8HE. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Bahrini, Ramin. Plastic Bag.

M.I.A. Born Free.

Davis, Tamra (Director). Jean-Michel Basquiat: Radiant Child. New Video Group. 2010. DVD. ASIN: B003MWHUMY. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Buckland, David. The Cape Farewell Project.

Collage Aesthetic

Iphone Aesthetics

Wikileaks and liveleak.com

Franzen, Benjamin (Director). Copyright Criminals. Indie Pix Films. 2010. 65 min. Starring: De La Soul, George Clinton, Chuck D, DJ Spooky, Saul Williams. ASIN: B002WPPS5S. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Miller, Paul (Director). Rebirth of a Nation. Starz / Anchor Bay. 2008. 100 min. DVD, ASIN: B001DHXSYE. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

MEDIA SOUNDS: Towards a New Esthetic of Music and Art (3 credits)

Paul D. Miller.

Media Sounds: Towards a Philosophy of Aesthetics in Music and Art” is a course I’m teaching at the European Graduate School as a mini residency during the summer. The school is kind of a 21st century update of the Black Mountain College: it brings together a wide variety of people from radically disparate philosophical and aesthetic backgrounds to teach and enjoy ideas outside of the academic norms.

My class focuses on sound, sound art, and their relationship to compositional strategy across different forms of contemporary art and digital media. The class explores the clashes and resonances between multiple styles and cultural approaches to music — from classical composition to rap, hip-hop and avant-garde sound collages.

These materials will be excerpted and made into copies and handed out as PDF files with accompanying sound. The 100 songs will be distributed on data DVD’s and or downloaded from the European Graduate School’s Sound Bank that I’ve set up.

Syllabus: Afro-Modernity: Composition in Collision

1. Adorno vs Duke Ellington

2. Technologies: a time line

3. The role of sound in the culture industry

4. The Nation’s “Media Landscape” – control networks in the era of mass media 2006, Orson Welles “War of the Worlds,” Entarte Musik, Entarte Kunst: definitions of “purity” versus Hybridity.

5. Compositional Strategy: (Satie, Debussy, Wagner, Varese, Hildegard Von Bingen, Antheil, Ives, Xenakis, John Cage, Lionel Mapleson and the bootlegs of the Metropolitan Opera House, Thomas Edison, Xenakis, William Grant Still, Amy Beach vs. Nina Simone, Scott Joplin, Bert Williams (blackface) - blackface, Lee “Scratch” Perry, Hendrix, Walt Whitman, The Beatles, Toshiro Mayuzumi, Grand Master Flash, Arthur Rimbaud, Comte De Lautrémont (Isidore Ducasse), Duke Ellington, Ornette Coleman, Pamela Z, Sussan Deyhim, Sun Ra, Yoko Ono

6. Philosophy of remix: Mcluhan, Eshun, Duchamp, Hegel, Glissant, Lessig, Dada Cinema, hip-hop cinema, Griffith, Ruttman, Luigi Russolo “The Art of Noises,” Eclectic Method – multimedia and the sound of “modernity.”

7. Multimedia/New Media: Rafael Lozano Hemmer, Scanner, Billy Kluver/Rauschenberg, Harry Smith, Nam Jun Paik, Amiri Baraka, Orson Welles

8. Sound of Science: Frequencies – the cell phone symphony, Marshall Mcluhan’s record version of “The Medium is the Massage,” The Happening – Harry Smith, Allan Kaprow, Andy Warhol, the Art Ensemble of Chicago and Amiri Baraka, Ben Rubin’s “Listening Post.”

9. Standardization: The Architecture of Frozen Music: Joseph Paxton’s Crystal Palace vs Muzak, Norbet Weiner “Cyborg Narratives,” Vannevar Bush and the simulation of the human spirit, the world of “large numbers.”

10. The Rise of Mass Culture: 18th-19th century mass media encounter the digital world. Accumulation of multiple recording formats vs the “copy” and “found object” in the fine arts. Ontological uncertainty – Mary Shelley, Kafka, Dostoyevsky, and E.T.A. Hoffman.

11. Biological Surrealism: Towards a Vision of the Sonic Future: David Hammons, David Tudor’s “Rainforest” electronic music compositions, Pauline Oliveros “Quantum Compositions,” Daniel Bernard Roumain’s “Hip Hop Symphony, ”Brian Eno’s “Bell Studies for the Clock of the Long Now,” Matthew Barney’s Cremaster Cycle and the artist as logo-centric producer, Dj Spooky’s remix of D.W. Griffith’s “Birth of a Nation.”

12. The Experience Economy: libidinal networks and the decline of geography. Nurture versus Nature – how we hear digital sound. Valentine De St. Point’s Futurist Manifesto of Lust, 1913, and the Muzak phenomenon: acousticc banality – General George Owen Squire and the rise of musical Taylorization.

End

Required Books and Reading Assignments:

Nyman, Michael. Experimental Music: Cage and Beyond (Music in the Twentieth Century). Cambridge University Press. October 1999, 210 pages, 2nd edition, Paperback, ISBN: 0521653835. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Cage, John. Empty Words. Wesleyan University Press. November 1981, Paperback, ISBN: 0819560677. Buy it at Amazon.com, Amazon.ca, Amazon.de, Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.fr.

Reading Assignments:

1. Paul D. Miller aka Dj Spooky – Rhythm Science
2. Michael Nyman – Experimental Music
3. Joseph Lanza – Elevator Music: A Surreal History of Muzak, Easy Listening, and Other Moodsong
4. Clinton Heylin – Bootleg: The Secret History of the Other Recording Industry
5. Simon Reynolds – Generation Ecstasy: Into The World of Techno and Rave Culture
6. Lloyd Bradley – Bass Culture
7. Christoph Cox (editor) – Audio Culture Reader
8. David Toop – Rap Attack
9. Jeff Chang: Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop
10. Luigi Russolo – The Art of Noises
11. Kodwo Eshun – More Brilliant Than The Sun
12. Ken Jordan and Randall Packer – Multimedia: From Wagner to Virtual Reality
13. R. Murray Schaefer – The Soundscape
14. Allen S. Weiss and Gregory Whitehead (editors) – Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio and The Avant Garde
15. Saul Williams – The Dead MC Scrolls
16. Lewis Hyde – The Gift: Imagination and The Erotic Life of Property
17. Norbert Weiner – The Human Use of Human Beings
18. Lawrence Lessig – Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
19. Roselee Goldberg – Performance Art: 1909 to the Present
20. Andy Warhol – The Philosophy of Andy Warhol (From A to B and Back Again)
21. Yve Alain Bois, Rosalind Krauss – Formless: A User’s Guide
22. Gilles Deleuze – Difference and Repetition
23. Alain Robbe Grillet – Topology of a Phantom City
24. Rudolf Arnheim – Film as Art
25. Theodore Adorno – Essays on Music
26. John Corbett – Extended Play: From John Cage to Dr. Funkenstein
27. Leroi Jones aka Amiri Baraka – Blues People: Negro Music in White America
28. Alfred Appel – Jazz Modernism: From Ellington and Armstrong to Matisse and Joyce
29. Ralph Ellison – Invisible Man
30. Jacques Attali – Noise: A Political Economy of Sound
31. Edmund Burke – A Philosophical Enquiry into the Origin of our Ideas of the Sublime and Beautiful
32. Octavia Butler – Parable of the Sower
33. Sheree Rene Thomas (editor) – Dark Matter
34. Russell A. Potter – Spectacular Vernaculars: Hip-Hop and the Politics of Postmodernism
35. Tricia Rose – Black Noise
36. Norman O. Brown – Love’s Body
37. R.D. Laing – The Politics of Experience
38. James Snead – White Screens/Black Images + (essay) Repetition as a Figure of Black Culture
39. Donald Bogle – Toms, Coons, Mulattoes, Mamies and Bucks: An Interpretative History of Blacks in American Cinema
40. Anthony Appiah – On Cosmopolitanism
41. Mark Coleman – Playback: From the Victrola to MP3, 100 Years of Music, Machines, and Money
42. Ferruccio Busoni – Sketch of a New Esthetic of Music

Required Listening:
1. John Cage – “Imaginary Landscape 1” (Original + Dj Spooky remix)
2. Ludwig Van Beethoven – Symphony No. 5 In C Minor, Op. 67: Allegro Con Brio
3. Pierre Schaefer - “Edtude Pathetique”
4. Karheinz Stockhausen – “Kontakte”
5. Pierre Boulez – Pli Selon Pli (Portrait de Mallarme) track 1
6. Gustav Mahler – Symphony No. 2 In C Minor: 3. “Resurrection” III. Scherzo: In Ruhig Fliessender Bewegung
7. Luciano Berio – (Sinfonia) III In Ruhig Fliessender Bewegung
8. Charles Ives – Three Places in New England
9. Ernst Toch – Der Fuge Aus Geographie (Geographical Fugue for Speaking Chorus)
10. Marshall Mcluhan – The Medium Is The Massage (record version)
11. Hildegard Von Bingen – O Virga Mediatrix
12. Pierre Henri – Psyche Rock
13. John Cage – Roratorio (Ein Irischer Circus uber Finnegans Wake)
14. Richard Wagner – Vorspiel Zum 1. Aufzug
15. Amy Beach – “Gaelic” Symphony in E Minor Op32 I. Allegro Con Fuoco
16. Igor Stravinski – The Rite of Spring, Part II The Sacrifice – Sacrificial Dance (Chosen One).
17. Arnold Schoenberg, Ein Überlebender aus Warschau op.46
18. Elvis – Jailhouse Rock
19. Hector Berlioz – Symphony Fantastique Op. 14
20. Luigi Nono – Ricordia Cosa ti fatto in Auschwitz
21. Richard Wagner – Rheingold Prelude
22. Woody Guthrie – This is Your Land
23. Alexander Scriabin – Prometheus, The Poem of Fire
24. Dj Spooky + Chuck D – B-Side Wins Again
25. Johan Sebastian Bach – “Little” Fugue in G Minor
26. Orson Welles – War of the Worlds radio broadcast
27. Danger Mouse + Jay Z – Encore
28. The Doors – Soul Kitchen (Dj Spooky remix)
29. Hive – Experiments in Synthetic Rhythm
30. Iannis Xenakis - Analogiques A + B
31. Edgar Varèse – Poème Èlectronique
32. John Coltrane – A Love Supreme (Part 1)
33. Philip Glass – Concerto For Saxophone (Quartet version)
34. Steve Reich – Come Out (1966)
35. John Adams – Shaker Loops: 1. Shaking and Trembling
36. Duke Ellington - A Tone Parallel to Harlem (The Harlem Suite)
37. Lee “Scratch” Perry – Black Board Jungle Dub (Version 1)
38. Pauline Oliveros – Butterfly (1968)
39. Charlie Parker/Rob Swift “Cheers” (remix)
40. Madonna – Hung Up
41. Brian Eno/David Byrne – Regiment
42. Kurt Weill – The Three Penny Opera – Die Dreigroschenoper: Moritat Von Mackie Messer
43. Olivier Messaein – Livre D’Orgure: IV. Chants D’Oiseaux
44. Meredith Monk – Atlas – Part 1: Personal Climate – Travel Dream Song.
45. Miles Davis – Bitches Brew
46. Ryuichi Sakamoto/Yellow Magic Orchestra – Riot in Lagos
47. The Winstons – Amen, Brother!
48. Brian Eno/David Byrne – Regiment
49. Fela Kuti – Zombie
50. Abdullah Ibrahim – Mindif (Original + Dj Spooky remix)
51. Ornette Coleman – Free Jazz
52. John Coltrane – Om
53. Saul Williams – OHM
54. Amiri Baraka – Black Dada Nihilismus
55. Allen Ginsberg – Howl
56. William S. Burroughs – Breakthrough in Grey Room
57. Asha Bhosle – Rang De
58. Laurie Anderson – Oh Superman
59. Sun Ra – it’s after the End of the World
60. Max Roach – We Insist (Triptych: Prayer/Protest/Peace)
61. Charlie Parker with Strings – Summertime
62. George Antheil – Ballet Méchanique
63. Eric Satie - Vexations
64. Claude Debussy – Concerto for Alto Saxophone and String Orchestra in E Flat Major, Op 109
65. Claude Debussy – La Mer
66. Raymond Scott – Music for Babies: Tempo Block
67. Toshiro Mayuzumi – Works for Musique Concrete X (1956)
68. Rahzel – Wu Tang Live Medley
69. Yoko Ono – Rise (original + Dj Spooky remix)
70. MC5 – Kick out the Jams
71. Kraftwerk – Trans Europe Express
72. Afrika Bambaata – Planet Rock
73. Grand Master Flash – Adventures on the Wheels of Steel
74. Jack Kerouac – The Subterraneans
75. Ella Fitzgerald – Mack The Knife
76. Louis Armstrong – Mack The Knife
77. Scanner – Structural Loss
78. Talvin Singh with the Master Musicians of Jajouka – You Can Find the Feeling
79. James Brown – Coldcut Meets the Godfather Megamix
80. William Grant Still – Afro-American Symphony – Moderato Assai - Longing
81. Scott Joplin – The Entertainer
82. Double D and Steinski – Lesson 3 (The History of Hip-Hop)
83. Basement Jaxx – Where’s Your Head At
84. DeeeLite – Groove is in the Heart
85. NWA – F*ck the Police
86. The Last Poets – White Man’s Got a God Complex
87. The Beatles – Revolution #9
88. Jimi Hendrix – Electric Ladyland
89. Herbie Hancock - Rockit
90. The Beastie Boys – Sure Shot
91. The Police – Reggata de blanc
92. Wayne Wonder – Sleng Teng
93. Count Machuki – Oh Carolina
94. George Gershwin – Porgy and Bess: 1. i (Summertime)
95. Linton Kwesi Johnson – Bass Culture
96. Pete Rock – They Reminisce Over You (T.R.O.Y.)
97. Jeff Mills – Metropolis Soundtrack (Convicted to Paradise/Maria)
98. Gloria Jones – Tainted Love (1965)
99. M.I.A. /Dj Diplo – Piracy Funds Terrorism
100. Nina Simone – Black is the Color of My True Love’s Hair