A detailed image of various sound equipment.

Graduate Curriculum & Courses

Graduate Curriculum & Courses

The Master of Fine Arts (MFA) program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC) is designed to offer maximum flexibility in addressing your individual needs as a student. Following admission through a department, you will design your two-year plan of study based on optimizing the offerings and opportunities available throughout SAIC. You are encouraged to seek out curricular advising as needed from a variety of available sources including the dean, graduate dean, graduate division chair, department heads, academic advising, the graduate admissions office, and your peers.

In fall 2023, the Department of Sound and the Department of Art and Technology Studies are merging into Art and Technology / Sound Practices (AT/SP). New applicants can use this pathway to explore Sound work, Art and Technology Studies work, or both. This new synergy creates a place to explore, critique, and imagine the potentials of artistic production through focused study and interdisciplinary experimentation. Visit Art and Technology Studies to learn more about their ethos and courses.

Studio—MFA 6009 Graduate Projects, Seminars and/or maximum of 12 credits of 3000-level and above studios

39  

Art History

12  

  • ARTHI 5002 Graduate Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art OR ARTHI 5120 Survey of Modern and Contemporary Architecture and Design(3)
  • Art History Courses, 4000-level or above (9)

 

Electives—any course in any area at 3000 level or above

9  

Participation in four graduate critiques

 

Participation in ONE of the following as appropriate to artistic practice:* Graduate Exhibition, AIADO or Fashion Exhibition, Graduate Performance Event, Graduate Screenings

 

Total Credit Hours

60 

Studio—MFA 6009 Graduate Projects, Seminars and/or maximum of 12 credits of 3000-level and above studios

39  

* Students who wish to use an alternative venue or presentation outside of these options must receive permission from the Dean of Graduate Studies. The AIADO Department encourages students in their MFA design programs to participate in the AIADO and Fashion Graduate Exhibition.

Degree Requirements & Specifications

  • Completion schedule: You have a maximum of four years to complete your MFA in Studio degree. This includes time off for leaves of absence. Students will have access to studios for four semesters only.
  • Transfer credits: You must complete a minimum of 45 credit hours in residence at SAIC. You can request up to 15 transfer credits at the time of application for admission, which are subject to approval at that time. No transfer credits are permitted after a student is admitted.
  • Art History requirement: MFA students are required to take ARTHII 5002 Graduate Survey of Modern and Contemporary Art OR ARTHI 5120 Survey of Modern and Contemporary Architecture and Design. Art History courses must be at the 4000-level and above.
  • Undergraduate studio courses: Graduate students are permitted no more than one undergraduate studio course (3000-level and above) per semester without permission of the Dean of Graduate Studies. Courses at the 1000 and 2000-level are allowed only with permission.
  • Full-Time Status Minimum Requirement: 12 credit hours

MFA 6009 Graduate Projects

MFA 6009 Graduate Projects advising, an ongoing individual dialogue with a wide range of full-time and part-time faculty advisors, is at the heart of the MFA program at SAIC, encouraging interdisciplinary study across the curriculum. You are required to register for one MFA 6009 Graduate Projects advisor each semester, and we highly recommend you register for two.

In the registration process, you may elect to earn 3 or 6 hours of credit with each advisor. This option is designed to allow for maximum flexibility in designing your program. You can earn as few as 3 and as many as 6 credits with each advisor each semester, thus dedicating a maximum of 12 credit hours to your studio activity. The number of credits you earn has no correlation with the length or frequency of the advising sessions or to faculty assessment of student work.

The remainder of credits required for the full-time 15 credit hour load may include graduate seminars and academic or studio electives. MFA students are urged to take graduate seminars, and an introductory seminar in their department of admission is highly recommended. In addition, the MFA student may choose from all the art history, studio, and academic offerings across the curriculum (including undergraduate offerings above 3000 level) in any given semester to customize their degree experience.

Graduate Critiques

As one of the principle means of assessment each semester, you will be required to participate in Critique Week, a week-long schedule of critiques during which classes are suspended.

Fall semester critiques are organized by department with panels representing the discipline. This provides you with an opportunity to understand the department’s expectations, have your work reviewed from a disciplinary point of view, and to reiterate the expectations for graduate study.

Spring semester critiques are interdisciplinary, with panel members and students from across SAIC disciplines. Interdisciplinary critiques allow for a broad range of responses to your work, and are intended to assess the success of your work for a more general, albeit highly informed audience. Critique panels include faculty, visiting artists, and fellow graduate students.

Graduate Exhibition or Equivalent

At the conclusion of your studies, you will present work in the SAIC Graduate Thesis Exhibition, other end-of-year events at SAIC, or the Gene Siskel Film Center—or arrange with the graduate dean or division chair for an alternative thesis of equal professional quality. Each year more than 200 graduate students exhibit work, screen videos and films, and present time-based works, writings, and performance to a collective audience of 30,000 people.

Students wishing to install work around prevalent themes, strategies or stylistic affinities can participate in a juried and curated section of the SAIC Graduate Thesis Exhibition. A faculty and staff committee conducts extensive studio visits and as a collaborative project with student participants, organizes and installs the show in designated space at the exhibition.

Undergraduate Courses

MFA students are advised to understand the expectations of their faculty when enrolled in undergraduate studio classes. Although graduate students are an asset to the group dynamic, faculty requirements for graduate students in undergraduate classes are variable. The student is responsible for understanding the faculty member's expectations about completion of assignments, attendance, and any other criteria for earning credit. To assure that graduate students are working at degree level, they are permitted no more than one undergraduate studio course (3000 level and above) per semester without permission of the dean of graduate studies. Courses at the 1000 and 2000 level are allowed only with permission.

Course Listing

Title Catalog Instructor Schedule

Description

This course will introduce students to basic techniques of working with sound as an artistic material. As a prerequisite for many of the department?s upper level offerings, the class is designed to familiarize the student with both the technology and the historical and aesthetic background relevant to our facilities and courses, to the field of ?sound art? and experimental music in general, and to the application of sound in other disciplines (video, film, performance, installations, etc.) Equipment covered will include microphones, mixers, analog and digital audio recorders, signal processors and analog synthesizers. Hard-disk based recording and editing (ProTools) is introduced, but the focus is on more traditional analog studio technology. The physics of sound will be a recurring subject. Examples of music and sound art, created using similar technology to that in our studios, will be played or performed and discussed in class. The listening list will vary according to the instructors? preferences. Readings are similarly set according to the instructors? syllabus: some sections employ more or less reading than others, contact specific instructors for details. Students are expected to use studio time to complete weekly assignments, which are designed to hone technical skills and, in most cases, foster artistic innovation. Some of these projects can incorporate outside resources (such as the student?s own computers and recordings), but the emphasis is on mastering the studio.

Class Number

1825

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

MacLean 420

Description

This course will introduce students to basic techniques of working with sound as an artistic material. As a prerequisite for many of the department?s upper level offerings, the class is designed to familiarize the student with both the technology and the historical and aesthetic background relevant to our facilities and courses, to the field of ?sound art? and experimental music in general, and to the application of sound in other disciplines (video, film, performance, installations, etc.) Equipment covered will include microphones, mixers, analog and digital audio recorders, signal processors and analog synthesizers. Hard-disk based recording and editing (ProTools) is introduced, but the focus is on more traditional analog studio technology. The physics of sound will be a recurring subject. Examples of music and sound art, created using similar technology to that in our studios, will be played or performed and discussed in class. The listening list will vary according to the instructors? preferences. Readings are similarly set according to the instructors? syllabus: some sections employ more or less reading than others, contact specific instructors for details. Students are expected to use studio time to complete weekly assignments, which are designed to hone technical skills and, in most cases, foster artistic innovation. Some of these projects can incorporate outside resources (such as the student?s own computers and recordings), but the emphasis is on mastering the studio.

Class Number

1826

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

MacLean 420

Description

This course will introduce students to basic techniques of working with sound as an artistic material. As a prerequisite for many of the department?s upper level offerings, the class is designed to familiarize the student with both the technology and the historical and aesthetic background relevant to our facilities and courses, to the field of ?sound art? and experimental music in general, and to the application of sound in other disciplines (video, film, performance, installations, etc.) Equipment covered will include microphones, mixers, analog and digital audio recorders, signal processors and analog synthesizers. Hard-disk based recording and editing (ProTools) is introduced, but the focus is on more traditional analog studio technology. The physics of sound will be a recurring subject. Examples of music and sound art, created using similar technology to that in our studios, will be played or performed and discussed in class. The listening list will vary according to the instructors? preferences. Readings are similarly set according to the instructors? syllabus: some sections employ more or less reading than others, contact specific instructors for details. Students are expected to use studio time to complete weekly assignments, which are designed to hone technical skills and, in most cases, foster artistic innovation. Some of these projects can incorporate outside resources (such as the student?s own computers and recordings), but the emphasis is on mastering the studio.

Class Number

1827

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

MacLean 420

Description

This course is a sound production practicum with a focus on sampling and appropriation. Students will engage sound archives as a resource for creative sound design and music production. The seminar will consider contemporary strategies of sampling and appropriation in the context of popular culture, media preservation and intermedia design. Special attention will be given to public sound archives and library collections. Coursework includes bi-weekly reading responses, a mid-term, and a final project. Final projects can take form as a research based text or as a creative project that blends modes of creative production. Students are expected to actively and critically engage the social, political and cultural factors that inform their practice. Course readings explore the scholarly discourse on Interculturalism with focus on processes, structures, systems, and methodology in relation to the moral, ethical and aesthetic questions raised by working with cultural artifacts as material. The seminar encourages trans-disciplinary methodology and cross-media production and is structured as a modified in-person course. The hybrid format includes weekly online topics lectures, student led group discussions and individual student meetings. Online discussion groups will be created for each unit. Students are expected to participate in online discussions in response to unit readings, case studies and discussion prompts. In person studio and access to technology and tech support will be facilitated for students who wish to have access to campus resources.

Class Number

1831

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Location

MacLean 417

Description

This course is founded on exploring and understanding the richness and diversity of our sound environment: the sounds that are present, how they constantly change in time, their impact socially and individually, and how they can be attentively recorded and creatively deployed. Research conducted through recording will serve as a basis for discussion of acoustic ecology: an interdisciplinary concern with the social, scientific, and aesthetic interrelationships between individuals and their environment mediated by sound. Students will gain technical and critical skills and an understanding of the reciprocity of listening and sound-making, leading to increasing the potential for effective public engagement and social practice, and engaging with human perception and technology in human and non-human eco-systems. Coursework is supplemented by examining works by artists and writers including Steven Feld, R. Murray Schafer, Annea Lockwood, Pauline Oliveros, Chris Watson, Hildegard Westerkamp, Luz Maria Sanchez, Amanda Gutierrez, Leah Barclay, Christopher DeLaurenti, Jonathan Sterne, Francisco Lopez, Norman Long, Viv Corringham, Christina Kubisch, Andra McCartney, Jean-Fran�ois Augoyard, Henri Torgue, Andrea Polli, Manuel Rocha Irtube and others. Assigned projects include but are not limited to field recording, soundwalking, mapping, habitat monitoring and restoration, learning and cognition, communications, and soundscape composition. These lead to independent individual or collaborative projects.

Class Number

2118

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Community & Social Engagement, Public Space, Site, Landscape

Location

MacLean 522

Description

In thinking about slang, dialects, regional vernacular, language mixing, and code switching, how do we extract the sounds that we make that connect us to our families, communities and places of origin? How do we have to alter and shift these natural sounds in an effort to assimilate? We will explore various ways that our tongues convey language through visual and sonic expressions, storytelling, recordings and written documentation. This course is open to writers, visual artists, sound makers and anyone else interested in the sounds that we make to communicate and how they are seen and heard. We will use class time to read, record and/or perform text-based work: poems, essays, academic papers, literature. This includes work by April Baker-Bell, Theresa Hak Kyung Cha, Wanda Coleman, Rosario Mari�a Gutie�rrez Eskildsen, Lingua Franca, Zora Neale Hurston, Chi Luu, and John J. Ohala, among others. Students respond to readings and the presentation of artists' works, and produce individual text-based sound projects using the technologies of their choice, or no technoloogies at all. Students engage in group critiques for all projects.

Class Number

2119

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Economic Inequality & Class, Art/Design and Politics, Gender and Sexuality

Location

MacLean 522

Description

This course focuses on the relationship of sound to moving image, and introduces post-production techniques and strategies that address this relationship as a compositional imperative. Thorough instruction is given on digital audio post-production techniques for moving image, including recording, sound file imports, soundtrack composition and assembly, sound design, and mixing in stereo and surround-sound. This is supplemented by presentations on acoustics and auditory perception. Assigned readings in theories and strategies of sound-image relationships inform studio instruction. Assigned projects focus on gaining post-production skills, and students produce independent projects of their own that integrate sound and moving image. Artists include Chantal Dumas, Walter Verdin, Deborah Stratman, Lucrecia Martel, Martin Scorcese, Abigail Child, Frederic Moffet, Gyorgi Palvi, Francis Ford Coppola, Gary Hill, and others. Writings in theory include texts by Michel Chion, Rick Altman, and others. The student?s independent image-and-sound work is foregrounded and supported; supplemental assigned projects include sound sequence composition and ADR recording and mixing.

Prerequisites

SOUND 2001 or FVNM 2004 or FVNM 5020

Class Number

1829

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Digital Communication

Location

MacLean 1413

Description

This course considers the building blocks of modular analog synthesis- oscillators, amplifiers, and filters, using vintage and modern analog equipment. The course also considers various frequency and amplitude modulation techniques, including ring modulation and frequency shifting. These techniques are contextualized in a brief survey of the history of `classical' analog synthesis music, both European and American, with some analysis of classical studio technique in the work of composers such as Stockhausen, Berio, Koenig, Subotnik, Oliveros, Babbit, etc. Weekly compositional projects emphasize particular technical and aesthetic problems.

Class Number

1830

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Location

MacLean 416

Description

This class is intended for advanced undergraduates and graduates who are interested in the use of sound in an installation context. It is expected that students may come from a diverse set of backgrounds, and as such this course will be to some degree determined by the background of the students, and their specific needs. The course will include critical discussions of sound art and related installation and media art practices: a brief history of the sound/art interface, a brief introduction to acoustics, and readings by theorists and artists such as R.M. Schafer, Sterne, LaBelle, Cage, Lucier, Kahn, Lockwood, Fontana, Panhuysen, Lerman, Neuhaus, Monahan, Kim-Cohen, Kubitsch, Hellstrom, and Wollscheid. The topic of real-life sound installation exhibition and social context will also be covered, with input from the SAIC Exhibitions and Events Department. The course will also cover various methodologies for using/creating sound in installations through tutorials that are designed to give functional knowledge of each particular technique, as well as an introduction to the possibilities these techniques. Depending on the students? backgrounds and needs, potential topics for these tutorials include: basic sound recording and playback techniques, basic sound synthesis and electronics for audio, digital sound recording and editing, the fabrication of mechanical systems which create sound, using MAX (a visual MIDI programming language used for control and for processing audio), basic electronics for environmental sensing (sound, light, motion, etc.). In addition to working on various preliminary individual and collaborative projects during the semester, students will write a proposal for and present an installation as their final project.

Prerequisites

Prerequisite: SOUND 2001 or permission of instructor.

Class Number

2120

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Public Space, Site, Landscape

Location

MacLean 522

Description

This course will provide an introduction to programming for sound synthesis and real-time performance using the Max/MSP and Supercollider II languages. Students will learn the basic structures, strategies, concepts, and vocabularies of these two languages in order to prepare them for using these techniques within other sound department courses.

Class Number

1832

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Art and Science

Location

MacLean 420

Description

This course approaches the tools provided by game engines as an experimental sound studio capable of creating new kinds of digital audio works for un-fixed media. Procedural audio tools can lead to endlessly evolving sound compositions and generative music; interactivity can empower navigability through sonic worlds, virtual sound installations, or the creation of new instruments; physics simulations can allow for real, hyperreal, and unreal audio environments for listeners, viewers, and gamers. Starting from the first day with the download of a game engine and a digital audio workstation and ending on the last with the critique of a sound-focused work, this class will provide a thorough introduction to authoring sound-focused art experiences using game engines. Some of the scholars/artists we will study in this course include Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller�s audio walks, Peter Gena, Poppy Crum, Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers among others. Of particular interest are works that explore the use of real time, interactive, and emergent systems that critically address the ways that sound, action, and presence shape the experience of listening bodies. Screening may include virtual reality works such as Notes on Blindness by Colinart, La Burthe, and Middleton and Spinney or spatial audio experiences such as Scott Reitheman�s Boom App. Through weekly assignments and class studio time, we will focus first on building technical skills and developing some historical context related to game engine development, digital audio production, spatial hearing and spatial audio approaches, and real time motion tracking and interaction. Individual projects for formal class critiques will be proposed by students and may take the form of music composition, virtual sound installation, video game or VR sound design, new sonics forms, etc.

Prerequisites

Any 3000 level ARTTECH or SOUND class

Class Number

2121

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Game Design

Location

MacLean 402

Description

This course approaches the tools provided by game engines as an experimental sound studio capable of creating new kinds of digital audio works for un-fixed media. Procedural audio tools can lead to endlessly evolving sound compositions and generative music; interactivity can empower navigability through sonic worlds, virtual sound installations, or the creation of new instruments; physics simulations can allow for real, hyperreal, and unreal audio environments for listeners, viewers, and gamers. Starting from the first day with the download of a game engine and a digital audio workstation and ending on the last with the critique of a sound-focused work, this class will provide a thorough introduction to authoring sound-focused art experiences using game engines. Some of the scholars/artists we will study in this course include Janet Cardiff & George Bures Miller�s audio walks, Peter Gena, Poppy Crum, Brian Eno and Peter Chilvers among others. Of particular interest are works that explore the use of real time, interactive, and emergent systems that critically address the ways that sound, action, and presence shape the experience of listening bodies. Screening may include virtual reality works such as Notes on Blindness by Colinart, La Burthe, and Middleton and Spinney or spatial audio experiences such as Scott Reitheman�s Boom App. Through weekly assignments and class studio time, we will focus first on building technical skills and developing some historical context related to game engine development, digital audio production, spatial hearing and spatial audio approaches, and real time motion tracking and interaction. Individual projects for formal class critiques will be proposed by students and may take the form of music composition, virtual sound installation, video game or VR sound design, new sonics forms, etc.

Prerequisites

Any 3000 level ARTTECH or SOUND class

Class Number

2121

Credits

3

Department

Sound

Area of Study

Game Design

Location

MacLean 402

Take the Next Step

Continue to explore the SAIC Sound department website to learn about our curricular offerings, faculty, students, and alumni, visit the Master of Fine Arts in Studio degree program for more detailed information, or schedule a tour.

Visit the graduate admissions website or contact the graduate admissions office at 312.629.6100, 800.232.7242 or gradmiss@saic.edu.