Nonlinear Structure for Real-Time Media

As our daily interactions in the social, cultural, and commercial spheres are increasingly digitally mediated, resulting in systems that are open to user input or that persist for an indeterminate amount of time, conventional notions of sequential narrative lose their efficacy, and a new type of system-based problem solving is required. Such nonlinear formats represent a growth area for composers, music producers, installation artists, and multimedia performers. In this course, students learn about the network of emerging practices that are springing up in such fields as sound art, interactive multimedia art, and audiovisual performance. Students gain the technical and theoretical skills to navigate this new ecology of multiple digital media. Using the graphical programming language Max, students develop projects that examine precedents for non-linear structure across boundaries of discipline, culture, and aesthetics. Developing fluency with alternative organizational models to traditional linear forms will allow students to innovate and thrive in a new digital ecosystem.