A The existence of sound is ever-present in our environment. Even in silence there is a pervasive/omnipresent hum, the rhythm/flow/flux of our modern world. Sound with or without a visual component immerses the mind into a quixotic state. With this internalization, a portal is created into the minds perception. Upon externalization, new and ambiguous visual landscapes are created. Within this ambiguity there is a heightened sense of awareness and involvement from both the creator and viewer. Simultaneously, there is a visual equivalency, although they are not isometric/parallel. We, as humans can hear roughly 10 octaves of sound, but only see about 1 octave of light. The reduced frequency range of the visible raises questions about its ability to express as wide a range of emotion or sensory stimuli as sound. I am interested not in scientific notations, but in notation and compositions that provoke similar emotive qualities of sound. I hope to allow my process to rely on chance determination as a discipline, instead of improvisation. Whether the sound, or the visual is created first, or if they exist dependently or independently of each other, has no bearing. I want to purely explore the link between the internal and external ways of visualizing sound, and the cyclical nature of their influence upon one another. The result; creating a personal language-method and process, with the ultimate goal of externalizing the environments created within.
B
B Sound creates landscapes and conveys emotion. It’s a language that communicates experience. “Sounds thicken the sensory stew of our lives, and we depend on them to help us interpret, communicate with, and express the world around us.” (Akerman 175) For as long as I can remember, sound has been an essential role in my existence. Its how I defined myself as a youth, and to this day a constant inspiration to my being. I find no difference in the definition of sound and music. Sound is song, is noise, is talk and in our modern world, it is also present in silence. I began considering graduate study when my internal struggles with my work began. I knew that somehow I wanted encompass my three passions : graphic design, music, and photography. Long inspired by people like John Cage, Yoko Ono, Bjork, David Byrne, Patti Smith, and Sally Mann, who appear to have a seamless relationship between their life and art, I begin my quest, to appease my inner voice, and begin working where the lines are blurred between the practices.
“This is walking, that is a dream, this belongs to the body, that to the spirit, this belongs to space and distance, that to time and duration. But space spills over into time, as the body into the soul, so that one cannot be measured without the other. I want to exert myself to find a different kind of measurement” —PE NE L OPE FI TZG E R A LD The Blue flower
As a musician I aspire to create compositions that move the listener as well as myself internally, to another world, intuitively describing a landscape or emotive space with not only words, but rhythm, phrasing, and melody. As a photographer, I attempt to alter the viewer’s perception of the subject by presenting something well known in a slightly skewed way, a document of my mind’s eye. In Visible Deeds of Music : Art and Music from Wagner to Cage, Shaw-Miller states, “Both music and the graphic arts share rhythm and harmony as the means to produce beauty.” In my creative project, I will explore the connections between these two areas of creative activity and consider various approaches to VISUALIZING SOUND.
Within the realm of Visualizing Sound I see three distinct ways in which to explore. In the first, the visual is realized first, and the sound is then created to further expand the knowledge/experience of the content. The image is altered or enhanced by the use of sound. In the second variation, the sound piece exists first and the visual follows, inspired by all aspects of the sound. In the third variation the two are created simultaneously, fueled by one another. “Poets and artists live on frontiers. They have no feedback, only feedforward. They have no identities. They are probes,” —M A R SH A L L MCLUH A N
During my first year of graduate study I have already began to experiment along these lines, creating score/free-writing responses to sound as well as short videos supported by a combination of self-generated, captured and existing sounds. In my work over the summer and next year I intend to think about musical performance with the addition of visuals, as well as exploring zine-like pieces that visually interpret a sound piece, and to create an emotional landscape parallel to that which is achieved by listening to a piece of music. In my work over the course of the next year I am interested in the following questions: What can then be gained by expressing the landscapes of the mind? Can an individual visual response to sound be shared between individuals, given it’s highly subjective nature? How can clarity be gained from ambiguity? How should audio and visuals be presented? Are the visual components abstract and personal, or do they facilitate the reproduction and re-performance of sound (scores)? Is the human hand important in creating emotive landscapes? How does the human voice play a role in creating space, environment and atmosphere? How does texture and collage play a role in creating space, environment and atmosphere? How can a sound piece inform a visual piece? How can a visual piece inform a sound piece? What role does chance determination play? Should there be a fixed language for symbols? When, where, and how does visualization occur? Can the visualization be purely mental?
C
C JOHN CAGE composer . philosopher . poet . music theorist. artist This specific work of John Cage instantly struck a chord in my thoughts. John Cage is noted for his radical innovations in music, and his inclusion of noise and ambient sounds. The way he defined music challenged the establishment. Cage is most widely known for his composition, 4’33”, three movements without a single note being played, and his prepared piano in which the sound is altered by placing various objects in the strings. The aspect of Cage’s work that most excites me is his use of controlled chance. In a 1957 lecture, “Experimental Music,” he described music as “a purposeless play” which is “an affirmation of life – not an attempt to bring order out of chaos, nor to suggest improvements in creation, but simply a way of waking up to the very life we’re living.” It is my thought that as a graphic designer I have been educated to create visual and aesthetic beauty by total control. The designer controls every aspect of a design from the font selection, image selection, placement, balance, etc., similar to a composer with music, using the learned/taught skills and methods to answer the graphic/music problem. I want to challenge this process and push my methods and thinking further. By setting up specific parameters/control and then letting the piece that I am creating create itself, “waking up the life that is within,” a better understanding of the creative process is formed, and a level of exploration is achieved that would not be possible if the process had been controlled from initiation.
When I first started thinking about visualizing sound I began experimenting with score-like compositions as a reaction to music/sound. Instantaneously the idea of improvisation arose. I knew that I was not interested in exploring the idea of improvisation, but I was not exactly sure why. After some discussion with Stephen Vitiello, Sound Artist, about my interest in John Cage’s scores he sent me this, a discussion that he had with Margaret Leng Tan, a former student of Cage’s on his ideas of chance operations and improvisation: David Toop refers to John Cage as the inspiration not only for the improvising pioneers of the 60’s but also for the new breed of electro-acoustic improvisers emerging from Japan. While I wholeheartedly agree that Cage’s inclusion of noise and ambient sounds in his definition of music has turned the hum of air conditioners and rain falling on a roof into legitimate material for today’s intrepid explorers, I would like to call attention to a paradox: Cage was not exactly an ardent proponent of improvisation. On the contrary, he regarded it as antithetical to his own use of controlled chance, which freed him from subjective involvement in the creative process. He even went so far as to say: ‘’Chance operations are a discipline, and improvisation is rarely a discipline. Improvisation is generally playing what you know and what you like and what you feel; but those feelings and likes are what Zen would like us to become free of.’’
--MARGARET LENG TAN
I aspire to set myself free from subjective involvement in the creative process.
NORMAN MCLAREN animator . film director Notable for his experiments with image and sound as he developed a number of ground breaking techniques for combining and synchronizing animation with music. It is said that his early experiments with film and animation included actually scratching and painting the film stock itself when he did not have access to a camera.
LAURIE ANDERSON visual artist . composer . poet . photographer vocalist . instrumentalist Influential in her role as a performance artist known for her multimedia presentations where she casts herself in various roles. To me Laurie pushes the boundaries of an artist, and seems to not be intimidated by medium or media, and always forward thinking.
S A L LY M A N N photographer Best known for her large black and white photographs, first of her young children, then of landscapes suggesting decay and death. Mann is inspirational to me because of the surrealistic nature of her images. Her expressive printing styles lend themselves to an emotive landscape and she brings the element of ambiguity to all of her creations.
MASSIN graphic designer . art director . typographer Massin had a great adoration for music. He believed that music methods were parallel to that of a graphic designer. He states, “Every graphic artist, even if he knows nothing at all about music, uses approaches in his layout that are related to musical notation.” Proof, if any is needed, of the validity of the link between the two.
D AV I D LY N C H filmmaker . visual artist An interesting character to me for his distinctive and unorthodox approach to narrative filmmaking. His films are known for their dream/ nightmarish worlds that are created by his meticulously crafted attention to sound design, as well as surrealist image.
PAT T I S M I T H singer-songwriter . poet . visual artist Patti inspires me through her vision and her life. She performs with passion that comes from deep within and can not be emulated. Her mystery, cool confidence, attitude and character is a example of what I want to be when I grow up.
FUTURIST I am constantly inspired by Futurist ideas about motion and sound, their spirit for change, and the manner in which their ideas embrace technology and the future. “We will not be overtaken by progress; rather, absorb progress in our evolution.”
NARRATIVE
1.1.1
1.1.2
self-generated
existing
1.2
1.2.1
1.2.2
1.2.3
1.2.4
1.3
1.3.1
1.3.2
2.1.1
2.1.2
2.1.3
2.2.1
2.2.2
2.3.1
2.3.2
2.4.1
2.4.2
1.1
S O U R C E
S E Q U E N C I N G
D E L I V E R Y
AUDIO
S O U R C E
L E N G T H
I N S T R U M E N T A T I O N
2.1
2.2
2.3
2.4
E F F E C T S
S O U N D T R E A T M E N T S
V O L U M E
2.5
2.6
D Y N A M I C S
R H Y T H M
IMAGE
2.7
2.8
3.1
S O U R C E
captured linear verbal
captured blip vocal existing 2.5.1
non-linear
self-generated abrupt instrumental
2.5.2
2.3.3
percusive
2.5.3
2.6.2
muted
normal
2.7.1
2.7.2
2.7.3
2.8.1
2.8.2
sparse
distorted 2.6.3
existing 3.2.3
3.2
3.2.1
3.2.2
3.3
C O N T E N T
3.3.1
3.3.2
3.4 C O L O R
3.4.1
3.4.2
S I Z E
3.5.1
3.5.2
small
repeated type duotone
3.3.3
drawing 3.4.3
3.5.3
monumental
4.1.1
4.1.2
blip
4.2.1
4.2.2
abrupt
short
4.3
4.3.1
4.3.2
stop frame
4.3.3
continuous
4.4.1
4.4.2
4.4.3 existing
still image
self-generated
S U B J E C T
D I M E N S I O N A L
2-D
4.5.1
4.5.2
4.6
4.6.1
4.6.2
4.4
4.5
S P E E D
3.5.4
large
L E N G T H C A P T U R I N G
3.3.4
collage
typical
captured
captured
frame by frame
self-generated 3-D
continuous
full color
4.2
2.7.4
sequencial
S O U R C E
2.6.4
amplified
3.1.3
4.1
2.5.4
destroyed
self-generated
b&w
2.3.4
3.1.2
photo
1.2.5
infinite
synthesized
intense
single
2.2.4
long
full
3.1.1
captured
irregular
F R E Q U E N C Y
2.2.3
2.6.1
regular
reverse
existing short
augmented
none
self-generated
VIDEO
circular
clean silent
1.1.3
visual
3.5
4.1.3
existing 4.2.3
4.2.4
long
2.2.5
infinate
D
D
Akerman, Diane. A Natural History of the Senses. New York: Vintage, 1991. Barthes, Roland. Image, Music, Text. Hill and Wang, NY, 1977. Bernstein, David W. and Christopher Hatch. Writings through John Cage’s Music, Poetry, and Art. The University of Chicago Press, 2001. Carter, Rob. Meggs: Making Graphic Design History. New York, NY: Wiley, 2007. Critchley, Macdonald (ed) and Henson, R.A. (ed). Music and the Brain: Studies in the Neurology of Music. William Heinemann Medical Books LImited, London,1977. Deutsch, Diana (ed). The Phychology of Music. Acasemic Press, Inc., 1982. Fletcher, Alan. The Art of Looking Sideways. London: Phaidon Press, 2001. Hargreaves, David (ed) and MacDonald, Raymond (ed) and Niell, Dorthy. Musical Identites. Oxford Uniersity Press, 2002. Kepes, Gyorgy. The Nature and Art of Motion. George Braziller, Inc., NY, 1965. Lehrer, Warren. I Mean You Know. Visual Studies Workshop, 1983. Lightman, Alan. Einstein’s Dreams. Vintage, 2004. Shaw-Miller, Simon. Visible deeds of music: art and music from Wagner to Cage. Yale University Press, 2002. Stilgoe, John R. Outside Lies Magic. Walker & Company, 1999. Venesky, Martin. It Is Beautiful… Then Gone. Princeton Architectural, 2004. Wolff, Laetitia. Massin. Phaidon Press Ltd. 2007. Zettl, Harbert. Sight Sound Motion. Wadsworth Publishing Company, 1990.
E
E familiarity/passion of/for music ability to speak ambiguously about my work appreciation of the process
inexperience with video + motion software ability to speak ambiguously about my work innately human struggle to release control
F Rob Carter Steve Hoskins John Malinoski Roy McKelvey Sandy Wheeler Stephen Vitiello
Meaghan Dee Kelley White Ernest Bernhardi Maria Fabrizio Bret Hansen Eric Karnes Meena Khalili Josh Reese
& a special thanks to Kyle Harris, my biggest supporter