Vibeology: Harmonies and Dissonances of Human Experience

The sound works in mysterious ways. It is both a physical phenomenon, and a thing that we cannot see or really get a hold of that nevertheless permeates our individual lives. This makes sound studies a field of academic inquiry that both investigates the plethora of roles and forms of sound and lacks a specific, well-defined centre, transforming it into a borderless pathway for us to adapt and explore our ever-changing lives, both socially and individually, as well as lives and forms of being that have come to pass.

The study of sound opens doors to contemplate on our being, our lived experience, as the historical, cultural, and even institutional significance and impact capacity of sonic affects, sound technologies, and just human susceptibility to sound cannot be underestimated or undervalued. Cutting through communication, technology, sociology, ecology, philosophy, film, music, advertisement, psychology/psychoanalysis and plain everyday life, the study of sound provides an interdisciplinary lens that allows for a new perspective on human life, shapeshifting it in new surprising and curious ways.

This course is inspired and built on a triad of the following elements: individuality (personalization of student learning), interdisciplinarity, and inspiration-driven way of organisation. The overarching approach of the course is to trace the phenomenological component of sound through life experience, which is different for everyone. The course is organised around these principles: its outcomes, class topics, and assignments. It simultaneously combines the familiar format of classes, known to everyone, and at the same time allows experimenting with the format of learning, both through the first time so heavily integrated AI model, specially created for the course, and through such practices as peer tutoring.

Course design by Excellence Track students: Anatolii Stepanov, Ivan Kashcheev, Sofya Matveeva.