“Noisemakers! Tracing the Origins of Modern Music in Italy” is a Digital Humanities Lab that I taught in the spring of 2018.
The goals of this course were to have students study Italy’s musical-literary history and acoustic geographies and examine the response of different authors, scholars, and artists to the environmental and urban changes of their time. The course also allowed students the chance to acquire familiarity with different artistic and literary currents such as Futurism, Surrealism, Neo-Avant-Gardism, and Postmodernism, and their main principles and features. Another main goal of the course was to develop stronger ties with the town of Waterville, ME by spending time downtown and uncovering the acoustic signature of the local territory. Students were able to complete these goals through readings by different literary scholars such as Gavin Williams, Paul Hegarty, Marjorie Perloff, Jonathan Sterne, Theodor Adorno, John Cage, and many others.
The tangible results of this lab were the students’ projects (soundwalks, remixes, an immersive sonic Virtual Reality experience of Waterville, a 2D laser cut map of Waterville with Arduino components, and a noise intoner) that were showcased at Noisefest!
The students involved in this project were Corin Balan, Louisa Baum, Shamus Connelly, Andrew DeStaebler, Mike DiCosmo, Federica Parodi, Anikka Schliesmann, Devon Smith, Shaw Speer, and Olivia Wandres. Below you can find student-created posters for each final project.
Special thanks to Mark Wardecker, Tim Stonesifer, and Bradley Borthwick for their help with these projects.
