Sound and the City

Catalog description

New York’s soundscape is hard to ignore: it can be overwhelming, it is always intricate, but also surprisingly subtle, and there is much that we hear that we don’t really listen to. In this seven-week workshop, we will interrelate the subjects of noise, silence, and the city, ranging from important moments in the history of noise abatement in New York City to the philosophy and work of composers such as John Cage. New York City’s diverse population strongly affects and produces its unique soundscape; how does this particular city reflect its inhabitants? There will be off-site field trips to visit sound-based exhibitions and permanent works. We will consider how sound is often explicitly designed to affect and influence us in places such as retail environments. How do our attempts to mediate sound with devices like headphones affect our listening? Students will engage the ideas of writers such as Stuart Hall, Jacques Attali, John Cage, Emily Thompson, R. Murray Schaefer, Ann Carson, and Shuhei Hosokawa, as well as works by Christina Kubisch, Susan Phillipz, and Pauline Oliveros. There will be several short production assignments, some of which will be made for specific sites in the city as a way of investigating the interplay between public spaces and listening. At its core, you will be asked to consider the politics and subjectivity of your own listening as a citizen of New York. Who do you hear? How do you sound?