About the Course
聖 shèng, sage
Wisdom in Western culture comes from viewing: 'visionary'. The ear radical 耳 in the character 聖 'sage' tells us that in Chinese culture, wisdom comes from listening. Being aware of one's environment through the careful observation of sound was essential to understand 理 or 'the underlying nature of things'. EASIA429 embarks on an exploration of Chinese and Japanese traditional music, landscape painting and poetry from this foundation of sound. Through the exploration of nature and sound in Daoist and Chan/Zen (禅) aesthetics, the course will explore human interaction with the environment (natural and manmade) in Chinese and Japanese history and how such interactions shaped a spiritual-aesthetic 'state of mind', within which traditional artists created. This course will use a research-creation approach where readings on philosophy, aesthetics and art will be supplemented by a creative practice of field-recording and creative audio editing. In the context of creative work, Western electronic music and soundscape composition will be studied to learn creative digital audio techniques and compare and contrast modern Western soundscape composition aesthetics with millennia-old Chinese and Japanese spiritual and aesthetic engagement with the natural and man-made soundscape and landscape.
Note that there is NO music or technology background requirement for this course. All techniques will be learned as part of the course and creative work is intended to function as practical experience from which to better understand the aesthetic and artistic practices in Chinese and Japanese traditional arts.
Contact Professor Jeffrey Roberts for more information: jsr1@ualberta.ca