AMST 4619

Writing on Tape in the 1970s

Course Description

Course information provided by the 2017-2018 Catalog.

This course examines the way audiotape both corrupted and enabled the aesthetic and political culture of the 1970s. The possibilities of editing (via the cut, the loop, or the overdub) on one hand, and the seeming capacity for indiscriminate recording of sound on the other, revealed tape to be a medium with claims both for authentic documentation (and also surveillance), and wide aesthetic reference (but also mass deception). With one ear to the state and another to the music industry, this course will focus on the way politics and the arts responded to and incorporated the new technology. Authors include Andy Warhol, Alvin Lucier, Hunter S. Thompson, William S. Burroughs, The Last Poets, The Firesign Theatre, The Credibility Gap, Adrian Piper.

Permission Note Enrollment limited to: 15 students. Intended for advanced undergraduates and graduate students.

When Offered Spring.

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