To see a list of Fall 2012 courses, please visit the Course Archive

Spring 2013

Acting Together on the World Stage, Erik Ehn (TAPS)
Practical research in art for social change, with an emphasis on writing and composition, resulting in a series of solo and group devised performances (or well articulated proposals). Each week, in-session writing and devising exercises, coupled with a discussion of critical readings and case histories, build to projects that may be constructed solo or in small groups. We partner with students at Central Falls High School, who act as advisors and potential collaborators.

Advanced Poetry Writing, Cole Swensen (Literary Arts)
Upper level poetry course with work that includes a body of exercises, close reading of poetry, workshop conversations, and conferences.

Advanced Studio Composition, Stephan Moore (Music)
This course focuses on developing and reinforcing fundamental technical skills, musical concepts, and critical listening abilities associated with the practice of composition in an electronic music studio. These studies will be tied to a broad range of aesthetic approaches and discussions of medium, audience, and context. Through a series of self-directed projects, students will be encouraged to expand their knowledge and craft, and will provide each other with a forum for exploring their creative studio work.

Art and Science of Visual Perception, Mark Milloff (RISD), Roger Hanlon (Marine Biological Lab)
This course will explore the connections between the science of visual perception and art and design. A variety of visual systems will be studied, including those beyond human perception. Pivotal visual issues in nature and design such as coloration, contrast, patterning, and the role of edges in nature and design will be central to our work. Through a combination of lectures, visiting artists and scientists, hands-on design assignments and scientific experiments, the class will explore connections between camouflage and signaling communication in the animal world and their adaptive use as shared principles in art, advertising, logos and symbols. The class will pay particular attention to the physics of light, and its effect on visual perception and visual illusion.

CAVE Writing, John Cayley (Literary Arts)
An advanced experimental workshop for writing in immersive 3D - at the cutting edge of new media - introducing text, sound, spatial poetics, and narrative movement into Brown's "Cave" at its Center for Computation and Visualization. An easy-to-learn and easy-to-use application allows non-programmers to create projects on their laptops and then to run them in the Cave without the necessity for specialist support. Broadly interdisciplinary, the course encourages collaboration between students with different skills in different media, who work together to discover a literary aesthetic in artificially rendered space.

Choreography, Julie Strandberg (TAPS)
Designed for those who have had some experience in composition and would like to work, under supervision, on making dances. Emphasizes making full-length dances for small and large groups and demands a sophisticated use of space, dynamics, and music. Further emphasis on viewing and interpreting classic and contemporary works from a choreographic viewpoint.

Communicating Science through Visual Media, John Stein (Neuroscience), Steve Subotnick (RISD)
Taught by RISD and Brown Professors with the Science Center and the Creative Mind Initiative, this course explores the pedagogy of using visual media to convey scientific concepts. The goal is to assess the quality of existing material & design new material that fills an educational need & makes science engaging and accessible. It is comprised of lectures, labs, screenings, discussions, critiques and guest speakers. Student teams collaborate on a series of short exercises, leading to the creation of final videos/animations that explain scientific concepts. 

Creative Mind Studio, Richard Fishman (Visual Art), Ian Gonsher (Engineering)
This multidisciplinary studio will generate work that emerges out of, and in response to, conversations about the nature of creativity. We will iteratively develop projects in 2D, 3D, and digital media, as we engage our creative practice, individually and collaboratively. We will examine strategies for creative thinking by reflecting on both object and process - investigating and documenting the development of abstract ideas into concrete outcomes.

Design Studio, Ian Gonsher (Engineering)
Open to students interested in learning through making. Working in a studio environment, students will iteratively design, build, and test projects, as they imaginatively frame design problems, and develop novel strategies for addressing those problems. Students will explore Design Thinking, creative collaboration, exploratory play, ideation, iteration, woodworking, prototyping, and laser cutting – in addition to other strategies that enhance the creative processes, concurrently establishing a technical and conceptual foundation for the design and fabrication of objects and experiences.

Digital Culture & Art After 1989, Andrew Lison (Modern Culture & Media)
 How can we contextualize new media art alongside earlier forms of media such as photography and cinema? Is its relation to the "outside world" primarily conceived as representation, or as process? What are the cultural effects of this mediatic shift? Taking as our starting point the fall of the Berlin Wall and the resulting spread of capitalism as a near-global political-economic system, we will "read" a variety of works of art and culture from several contemporary theoretical perspectives. Topics include digital media, the Internet, European cinema, and popular music.

Habits of Living, Wendy Chun (Modern Culture & Media), Kelly Dobson (RISD)
How have we become habituated to and inhabitants of new media, and what are the effects of this voluntary and involuntary habituation? Focusing on the relationship between new media and affects? Environmentally-provoked, non-conscious responses, central to the formation of individual / group perception? This course investigates new media networks as structures created through constant human and non-human actions.

Narrative and Immersion, Todd Winkler (Music), Leslie Thornton (Modern Culture & Media)
Narrative and Immersion is a production course examining the potentials for cinematic media installations. The course draws on techniques of narrative to establish engagement in immersive environments. Students will be introduced to cinematic concepts, interactive technologies, multi-channel video and surround sound environments.

Recording Studio as Compositional Tool, Jim Moses (Music)
A study of advanced studio techniques taught in parallel with topics in psychoacoustics. Students will create original studio work while developing listening and technical skills for audio production. Technical topics include recording, signal processing and mixing software, microphone technique, and live sound engineering.

Time Deformations,  Ed Osborn (Visual Art)
This studio course explores modes of electronic media by focusing on time as a primary material. Students will develop projects for specific sites and situations in response to assigned topics individually and in groups. Selected works in video, sound, performance, and online media that make innovative use of temporal strategies will be examined. Technical instruction will be incorporated as needed into the course. Work will be complimented by technical lectures and demos, readings and discussions, short assignments, and screenings.