Biology, Music and Art
Designed by Carmen Caruso
Class Description:
This course explores the overlapping of biology, music, and art. In this
class we will look at interdisciplinary areas such as biomusicology, bio-art, and
soundscape music. This class is intended for students interested in exploring the
grey area between the three fields. We will explore scholarly essays, scientific
research, artwork, and music by composers interested in biology and ecology.
Students will be expected to engage with the reading material, participate in class
discussion, and create interesting work. There will be 3 main units: sound and
nature; bio-art; and biomusicology. For each unit, there will be a project.
Assessment:
Assessment will be based on the three unit projects, participation in class
discussion, and class reading and listening assignments. Students will need to do
all the readings and listening by the day they are listed. Grading will be broken up
as follows:
Required Books:
The Origins of Music
Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond by Eduardo Kac
30% Participation
20% Project 1: One-minute soundscape
20% Project 2: Bio-art
30% Final Project: Experiment
Syllabus
Week 1 –– Introduction
Tuesday: Introduction to class
Discussion: What constitutes a “musical” sound? Can nature be musical?
 A brief look at composers using natural sound
o Music concrete (Pierre Schaeffer)
o Environmental Listening (David Dunn/ Ron Nagorcka)
Thursday:
 Technical Discussion:
o How to use the Edirol
o A brief look at how to use Audacity proficiently
 Assignment (due Tuesday): Pick one reading and discuss it
 Discuss listening
Listening:
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


David Dunn –– Why do Whales and Children Sing? (1999)
Judy Klein –– The Wolves of Bay Mountain (1998)
Pauline Oliveros –– Alien Bog (1967)
Chris Watson –– Vatnajökull (2003)
 Ron Nagorcka –– Devils of the Night (2002)
Unit 1: Music and Nature
Week 2
Tuesday: Discuss reading assignment and first unit project
Readings:
 David Dunn. 1997. Nature, Sound Art, and the Sacred.
 Katharine Norman. 2004. Before and after listening to Judy Klein's the
wolves of Bays Mountain.
 David Ingram. 2006. 'A balance that you can hear': deep ecology,
'serious listening' and the soundscape recordings of David Dunn.
Thursday: Discuss possible 1-minute compositional structures for pieces
 Selections from The Frog Peak Collaborations Project
 Selections from the 60x60 project
 One-minute graduate compositions from Fall 2007
Week 3
Tuesday: Guest Composer
Thursday: Student Presentations
Unit 2: Bio-Art
Week 4
Tuesday: A brief look at bio-artists
 George Gessert
 Natalie Jeremijenko
 Joe Davis' Microvenus
 Marta de Menezes
 Eduardo Kac
 Dmitry Bulatov
 Stelarc
 Laura Cinti
 Brandon Ballengée


Andrea Zittel's Breeding Units
David Kremers
Thursday: An Introduction to Biotech Culture
Readings:
 Vita-More, Natasha. 2007. Brave BioArt 2: shedding the bio, amassing the
nano, and cultivating posthuman life.
 Selections from Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond (2007). Edited by
Eduardo Kac.
o Eduardo Kac, Introduction
o 1 – 5: Biotech Culture
Week 5
Tuesday: Other bio-artists’ work
Readings:
 Selections from Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond (2007). Edited by
Eduardo Kac.
o 10: Eduardo Kac –– Life Transformation––Art Mutation
o 11: George Gessert –– Why I Breed Plants
o 15: Catts, Oron and Ionat Zurr –– Semi-Living Art
o 23: Brandon Ballengee –– The Art of Unnatural Selection
Thursday: Bioethics
Readings:
 Selections from Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond (2007). Edited by
Eduardo Kac.
o Eduardo Kac, Introduction
o 6-9: Biotech Culture
Week 6
Tuesday: Bio-artists Student Presentations
Thursday: Present student artwork
Unit 3: Biomusicology
Week 7 –– Origins of Music
Tuesday:
Discussion: What is so human about our desire to make music? Is music
an evolved human faculty? What came first: music or language?
Readings:
 Selections from The Origins of Music (2001). Edited by Nils Wallin,
Bjorrn Merker, and Steven Brown.
o 16: Steven Brown –– The 'Musilanguage ' Model of Music
Evolution.
 Music, Language, and the Brain. Aniruddh Patel. Oxford University
Press. 2008. Chapters 2 & 3.
Thursday:
Students present proposals for final projects
Week 8 –– Music and Animals
Tuesday: Birds
Discussion: Can we call birdsong music? Why do birds sing?
Readings:
 Selections from The Origins of Music (2001). Edited by Nils Wallin,
Bjorrn Merker, and Steven Brown.
o 2: Simha Arom –– Prolegomena to a Biomusicology.
o 4: Peter J.B. Slater –– Birdsong Repertoires: Theirs Origins
and Use.
o 5: Carol Whaling –– What’s Behind a Song? The Neural Basis
of Song Learning in Birds.
Thursday: Primates
Discussion: How are nonhuman primates using sound? Is there a
connection between how humans and other primates create sound?
Readings:
 Selections from The Origins of Music (2001). Edited by Nils Wallin,
Bjorrn Merker, and Steven Brown.
o 7: Thomas Geissmann –– Gibbon Songs and Human Music
from an Evolutionary Perspective
 Hauser, Marc D. and Josh McDermott. 2004. Are consonant intervals
music to their ears? Spontaneous acoustic preferences in a nonhuman
primate.
 Hauser, Marc D. and Josh McDermott. 2003. The Evolution of the
Music Faculty: a Comparative Perspective.
Week 9 –– Music and Humans
Tuesday:
Discussions: How do we perceive sound? What processes, insights, or
codes are at work when we listen to music?
Readings:
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
Gray, Patricia, et al. 2001. The Music of Nature and the Nature of
Music.
Barucha, Jamshed J., Meagan Curtis, Kaivon Paroo. 2006. Varieties of
Musical Experience.
Thursday: Present final projects
Week 10
Tuesday: Present final projects, cont.
Unit Projects
Unit 1: Each student will compose a one-minute piece of music in Audacity. They must
only use one sound source. This sound source should be a single animal. Students can
either check out an Edirol to record their own nature sounds (we will briefly go over how
to use the Edirol in class), or they may choose animal samples from the web. Students
may not be able to use non-nature sounds (no Garage band patches, synthetic sounds,
etc.).
Unit 2: Each student will create a piece of bio-art, and discuss a piece of bio-art that has
influenced them. Students will discuss a piece of bio-art must present a proposal for the
piece that they would like to do within the first week of the unit. Then they must present
a 2-3 page paper (1½-spaced) on what they find interesting in the piece, how this piece is
influential, as long a detailed analysis of what the piece is about. I expect well-written,
reflective responses. Students must present their work, along with a brief description (a
couple of paragraphs) about their inspiration for their piece.
Unit 3: For the final project, each student will conduct an experiment on their own or
with another student, selecting a hypothesis subject that relates to the general topic of
biomusicology, or to something that we have discussed in the class. Initially, each student
or team will write a proposal for their final project due in week 7. Each proposal must be
approved by me. If students work with a partner, I expect their projects to be more
involved than a student working alone. Each student should attempt to shed some light on
their hypothesis using an experimental method, and provide a detailed analysis of the
results of their experiment. The paper should be turned in on the last day of class, and
each student will present their findings to the class. Students are welcome to use each
other as test subjects. (Of course, these experiments may not cause bodily, emotional, or
psychological harm to another student.)