Composing Senses – microcomputers, sensors, data and the sound
Bela — a low-latency platform designed for real-time audio and sensor integration—provides the main entry point for this practice-based course. By using Bela to develop interactive systems that translate sensor data into sonic outputs, students will explore how sound can serve as a tool for gathering, transforming, and disrupting knowledge. Throughout the course, we will examine sonification's epistemic and political implications, analyzing how making data audible can reveal hidden dynamics, contest conventional structures of knowing, and spark new insights across scien-tific, artistic, and sociopolitical domains. We will also revisit key works by pioneering sound artists and researchers, exploring how their approa-ches to sonic knowledge production inform and challenge contemporary practices. Through prototyping sensor-based devices and installations, students will learn how real-time sound processes can facilitate critical inquiries into the world around us.
The in-class activities involve a collaboration with the module ‘Aesthetics of Macroworlds’, led by Dr. Alexander König. Additionally, the module can be taken alongside the scientific module Sound and Epistemo-logy, complementing each other through multifaceted engagement with sound as a carrier, transformer, and disruptor of knowledge.
Instructor: Dr. Marcin Pietruszewski