Summer 2007
Center for Digital Arts and Experimental Media (DXARTS)
University of Washington.
dxarts 198a

This Discovery Seminar will introduce students to state-of-the-art digital techniques and tools for computerized improvisation. The objective of the seminar is to provide an opportunity to explore, study, and analyze the experience of improvising time-based digital art production using a practical and experimental approach, and supported within a theoretical background. This seminar is focused on, but not limited to, audio and audiovisual digital improvisation.

Class sessions will involve lectures, demonstrations, practical assignments, and constant hands-on experimentation. The practical section is divided into a set of exercises. Each exercise explores different areas of the improvisatory paradigm such as extemporization, intuition, spontaneity, flow, free association, deautomatization, and unpredictability. Some of the exercises will be developed in the DXARTS Lab where students will use advanced digital technologies for the realization of the monitored lab exercises. Other activities involve the acoustical or visual intervention of particular locations around the Òuniversity villageÓ such as the campus's green areas, the Quad, and Red Square, and also around Seattle. In the theoretical section, key historical examples, current production, concepts, and suitable technologies are examined, studied, and discussed. This section contains in a nutshell an introduction to computer programming, digital sound, audio recording end editing, and digital imaging.