Description: TouchDesigner is a powerful node-based visual programming platform for creating interactive and generative multimedia experiences in real-time. This course introduces students to the fundamental concepts and workflows of TouchDesigner, emphasizing hands-on creation of dynamic visual systems, interactive installations, and live performance tools. Through a series of progressive assignments and a final project, students will produce a portfolio of multimedia artworks that may include interactive installations, visual instruments for live performance, data visualizations, or generative art systems. Emphasis is placed on developing both technical skills and conceptual approaches to real-time media. This studio combines lectures, demonstrations, and extensive hands-on studio time with individual critiques and group discussions.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $300.00

Elective

This course deepens the exploration of computational art and design, pushing students to experiment with more complex methods. Emphasizing independent inquiry, students will refine their creative process and technical skills, developing a cohesive body of work. The course encourages critical engagement with emerging technologies and their social, cultural, and artistic implications. This course also provides guidance for students to articulate and present their body of work, engage in discussions about the field, and explore various directions to position their practice.

Major Requirement | BFA Art + Computation, BFA Sound

This course deepens the exploration of computational art and design, pushing students to experiment with more complex methods. Emphasizing independent inquiry, students will refine their creative process and technical skills, developing a cohesive body of work. The course encourages critical engagement with emerging technologies and their social, cultural, and artistic implications. This course also provides guidance for students to articulate and present their body of work, engage in discussions about the field, and explore various directions to position their practice.

Major Requirement | BFA Art + Computation, BFA Sound

This course introduces students to the power and politics of technologies and offers an in-depth exploration of the critical issues surrounding technological practices and discourses and its impact on society, culture and the environment. It examines how technological advancements—ranging from artificial intelligence and digital platforms to biotechnology and data systems—shape and are shaped by social, economic, and political forces. Through readings, lectures, case analysis  and class assignments, students will engage with key theoretical perspectives from science and technology studies, cultural studies, queer, feminist and critical race theory to analyze topics related to algorithmic bias, surveillance, digital labor, ethical considerations in AI, digital colonialism, data geopolitics, bioethics, and the environmental implications of technological innovation.

Major Requirement | BFA Art + Computation

Building on prior knowledge, emphasis will be placed on self-guided, rigorous, research and experimentation. The class will provide structured opportunities for encouraging iterative development and refining ideas through prototypes and drafts, and developing project management/research skills over long-term projects. The course culminates in a public presentation of individual projects, fostering professional development and critical discourse.
 

Major Requirement | BFA Art + Computation, BFA Sound

Building on prior knowledge, emphasis will be placed on self-guided, rigorous, research and experimentation. The class will provide structured opportunities for encouraging iterative development and refining ideas through prototypes and drafts, and developing project management/research skills over long-term projects. The course culminates in a public presentation of individual projects, fostering professional development and critical discourse.
 

Major Requirement | BFA Art + Computation, BFA Sound

The Independent Study Project (ISP) allows students to supplement the established curriculum by completing a faculty supervised project for credit in a specific area of interest. Its purpose is to meet individual student needs by providing an alternative to regularly offered courses. Permission of Instructor and GPA of 3.0 or higher is required. Register by completing the Independent Study Application available on the Registrar's website; the course is not available via web registration.

Programming Sound: Performance Systems focuses on programming and designing computer-based systems for sound art and music performance. Centered on the dataflow programming language, Max, the course will be of substantial benefit to students who desire a rigorous and fast-moving foundation in algorithmic approaches to sound design. The course simultaneously facilitates explorations in sound synthesis, audio signal processing, electronics, gesture-based human computer interaction, and instrument building with microcontrollers and sensors. Coursework involves weekly homework in the form of online lectures and exercises with class sessions reserved for demonstrations, workshops, and project assistance. The course emphasizes modularity and reuse of code. Students will present their work in a public concert during the last week of the semester.

Additional Notes: In order to conduct work in this course, students will need a laptop computer running a recent OS: Mac or Windows. Previous programming experience is recommended, but not required.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

This project-based course explores the role of sound in storytelling, research, and artistic expression. Students will engage in hands-on field recording, critical listening, and curating thematic sound archives, using these collections to create narrative-driven audio projects. Through readings and discussions, students will explore key theories in sonic arts, sound design, and sound studies, integrating these concepts into their work. The course encourages interdisciplinary collaboration, connecting sound with visual arts, literature, and digital media. Dialogues on contemporary issues in sound, such as its social and cultural impact, will be central to the learning process. By the end of the course, students will have developed a body of work that demonstrates technical skill and proficiency in creative storytelling using sound.

Elective

This intensive studio course investigates computational approaches to generating sound and image in real time. Precedents from experimental film and video, as well as sound installation and performance art will be examined in relationship both to human perception and the, students' artistic practice. The course will include discussion of key historical works and texts, hands-on demonstrations and in-class projects, as well as critical engagement with new works by class members. Students will use programming environments such as Max and its object libraries for sound and video, MSP and Jitter to explore the creative and expressive potentials of an intermedia production practice culminating in the development of a larger work that incorporates knowledge gained throughout the course.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

In A Hands-On History of Electronic Music, we will study the development of electronic music from a tactile approach using historical studio techniques. While learning about pioneering and underrepresented artists within the genre, students will use reel-to-reel tape machines, tube signal generators, modular synthesizers, and early computer music concepts to recreate key compositions within the field. Critical listening and analysis skills will be cultivated through guided exercises and projects. The hands-on approach this course takes will support a foundational understanding of electronic music history through methodologies as they evolved into current practice.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Intro to Sonic Arts provides a foundation in the creative and technical practices of using sound as an artistic medium. Students will be guided through the creation of original work while learning about recording and editing techniques, custom instrument building, and spatial audio design. Special attention will be given to cultivating critical listening skills, composition and improvisation techniques, as well as collaborative performance practices. No prior background is required, and the course is open to students from all disciplines. Students will need access to a laptop computer and headphones.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Intro to Sonic Arts provides a foundation in the creative and technical practices of using sound as an artistic medium. Students will be guided through the creation of original work while learning about recording and editing techniques, custom instrument building, and spatial audio design. Special attention will be given to cultivating critical listening skills, composition and improvisation techniques, as well as collaborative performance practices. No prior background is required, and the course is open to students from all disciplines. Students will need access to a laptop computer and headphones.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00

Elective

Modular synthesizers offer a tactile approach to sound production that is consistently inventive by design. Emerging from the 1960s counterculture, they are a product of expansive thinking that challenged conventions in both instrument design and creative practice. Six decades later, the limits of possibility only increased. In Modular Synthesis Studio, we will learn and apply concepts of voltage controlled synthesizers to creative coding and embedded computing platforms. Imbued with the spirit of community, together we will design and build a one-of-a-kind RISD modular synthesizer by semester end, while also creating new sound-based works with the system. Assignments in this studio course will involve creative projects, class presentations, readings, and module fabrication. The class will provide students with a strong foundation in modular synthesis, audio programming languages, and the skills to develop physical and software instruments relating to their personal creative practices.

Students should bring a laptop computer and wired headphones to class.
Experience with programming and/or modular synthesizers recommended but not required.

Elective

Throughout the past century, electronically generated sound has challenged the aesthetic and conceptual boundaries of art and music. In this intensive studio course, students will focus on the creation of experimental sound works utilizing hybrid analog / digital systems. We will investigate synthesis techniques using the SuperCollider programming language / environment in conjunction with the Serge modular synthesizer. Students will leverage the strengths of these tools towards uniquely personal production platforms that are more than the sum of their parts, and utilize them in the creation of fixed media, generative compositions, and improvised performances. The course will include discussion of historical works / texts, hands-on demonstrations, in-class projects, and critical engagement with new works by class members, culminating in a final project that incorporates knowledge gained throughout the semester. Students will need a laptop computer running a recent OS: Mac or Windows. Previous programming experience is recommended, but not required. 

Estimated Cost of Materials: $100.00 

Elective

Sound Critique is a studio elective focused on the development and realization of sound-based work. The course centers on sustained studio practice and weekly group critique, with students at different levels working alongside one another in a shared studio environment.

Students develop and refine projects in sound design, performance, installation, and composition. Workshops address practical skills including system setup and signal flow, responding to site conditions, troubleshooting, and documentation. Students present works-in-progress at multiple stages and respond to feedback through revision and continued development. Particular attention is given to preparing work for public presentation: testing in physical space, resolving technical and logistical problems, and readying projects for concert and installation contexts. Through ongoing critique and applied practice, students build artistic direction, technical fluency, and the independence to carry long-term projects of their own.

Estimated Cost of Materials: $250.00

Elective