AUDIOVISUAL REPRESENTATIONS AND IMAGE PROCESSING TECHNOLOGIES

Design as representation:Representation technologies are not only the tools for designing space but they also influence our ways of understanding space, time, materials and movement. This specific function transforms them into referential perception systems. The osmosis of the traditional and digital representation tools has decisively transformed the architectural design practice. The students are asked to create space representations using different media technologies and narration patterns.

Objectives

LEARNING OUTCOMES To offer to the students a systematic approach to the audiovisual representation techniques (photography, sound recording, video shooting and editing) and their application in architectural communication and the design procedure. To develop the students’ abilities in analyzing, processing and composing technical, social and historic data of the urban and built environment. To offer a global approach to the evolution of the representation media and technologies, from the perspective of the Renaissance to contemporary digital technologies and to help the students understand the ways in which these media influence the models of human space perception as well as architectural design theory and methodology. Special emphasis is given to a global approach of representation technologies through the theory and aesthetics of both art and architecture.

Prerequisites

There are no prerequisites

Syllabus

COURSE STRUCTURE Each lesson is organized in three entities: - Theory - Audiovisual material presentation and discussion - Student works presentation and commenting Students are asked to take notes and make sketches of the key points of each lesson in a notebook. 13 WEEKS PROGRAM The program covers five thematic areas (TA): 1) Perception of space. Organization of the iconographic surface, 2) Sound and Space, 3) Pre-cinema devices and spectacle 4) Moving image, Audiovisual language 5) Electronic and Digital image TA: Space perception. Organisation of the iconographic surface 1. Introduction. Course content and structure. Examples of student projects. Brief retrospection to the rationalization travelogue of sight. 2. Image synthetic principles. Introduction to the structure and analysis of two-dimensional image (painting and photography). Composition principles of of the pictorial frame organization. 3. Changes in spatial perception and the rationalization of sight. Vision and perceptual process. The formation of a society’s perceptions about space, time and movement 4. Photography and narration. Photographic series, photomontage TA: Sound and space 5. Sound and space. Sound recording techniques. Sound processing in a sound studio. 6. Urban soundscapes. TA: Pre-cinema devices and spectacle 7. Optical devices: from science to spectacle. 8. Panorama: Nature and city at a glance. Moving Panorama: unfolding landscape TA: Moving image, Audiovisual language 9. Introduction to the moving image technology. Basic elements of the audiovisual language. 10. Camera techniques. Storyboard. Coded technical description the key characteristics of an audiovisual work. 11. Introduction to editing principles and techniques. TA: Electronic and digital image 12. Electronic image principles of operation and basic characteristics. Analog and digital image processing. 13. Computers and digital image. Homogenization of different pictorial media.