Sound and Vision Process Book Naomi Edmondson
Sound and Vision Process Book Naomi Edmondson
Research
Concept development/ideas
Experimentation
Reflection/analysis
Nothing and Sound I heard a really interesting radio program about 'nothing'. It reminded me of a lecture I'd listened to by the philosopher Alan Watts where he describes the necessity of breaks and silence in music and sound. I therefore used this concept as a jumping off point for thinking about visualising sounds.
Radio nothings The minute you start talking about nothing, you're talking about everything
Silence at the end of the performance is actually something incredibly full. Black Holes are not great cavities of nothing. It is an entity, it has mass. It’s enormous amounts of mass squeezed down to a tiny amount of living space.
If something gets pulled onto a black hole it just becomes part of the black hole. It’s not a huge tunnel through to another part of the universe. Black holes are regions of extreme gravity.
Alan Watts Most of us assume that space is nothing...But as a matter of fact, space is the basis of existence...Stars shine out of space and something comes out of nothing. ...When you listen, you hear all sounds coming out of silence.
Silence is the origin of sound.
There must be an interval. Sound goes on and off. There is no such thing as pure sound, you couldn’t hear it. Between every little undulation of sound there is also an interval. When you hear a melody, what actually makes it significant are the steps between the tones, what we call the intervals.
The interval between whatever happens is as important as what happens...
The sound and the silence.
Extreme gravity and space Imagining how gravity and space could be visualised.
Regular gravity
Would there be more space between objects in extreme gravity?
Black hole extreme gravity
In a black hole, gravity pulls so much that even light can't get out. Because light can’t get out we can’t see black holes.
Every large galaxy contains a supermassive black hole at its centre.
In the context of nothing - every large galaxy is centred around something which we can’t see and which most people think of as an absence of things.
Mira Schendel Mira Schendel saw her work as activating the void, thus poised between being and nothingness. I looked at Schendel's work to invetigate how she had visualised a space inbetween something and nothing.
Mira Schendel
The absence of a square here questions what the shape is and which colours and shapes are on top of which. Is there a square here that's the same colour as the background or is it just background? Questioning being and nothingness.
One of her paintings was of two spreads of black ink. There was a space in between the black where water had pushed away the ink. This space felt like the most important part of the painting, rather than the large black shapes taking up most space.
My sketch of a painting by Mira Schendel from her 'Bombs' series.
There is an ambiguity of layers with some of Schendel’s work that can be viewed from two sides. Sometimes you can't tell which side the letter is on.
Mira Schendel. ‘Graphic Object 1967-68’.
Similarly, her books printed onto translucent paper make it unclear which page the letter is printed on as you can see through several pages at once.
Visualising sound and silence How could I visually represent a sound with ambiguity as to whether something is a noise or an interval?
If I try to accentuate an interval it risks being perceived as sound. Negative/interval becomes the positive/sound.
There's more ambiguity between foreground and background if there’s less contrast.
If it was animated I could use Schendel’s ideas of layers where both the sounds and the intervals rise to the top.
Sound
Interval
Perhaps there would be more ambiguity if the shapes were more similar...
Sound
Interval
I tried using the same shape for both sound and interval.
“The page becomes a canvas, with the negative spaces between the words taking on as much import as the letters themselves.”
Kenneth Goldsmith talking about Mallarme's poem in the book, 'Uncreative writing.’
Stephane Mallarme. 'Un coup de des jamais n’abolira le hasard'.
“...the meaning which emerged in the reading of poetry lay primarily in intonation and rhythm, and only secondarily in semantic content.” Kenneth Goldsmith talking about a poem by Neil Mills in the book, 'Uncreative writing.’
I could do the same with sounds? The visual translation of the sound would be the meaning rather than the object that made the sound or what the sound is saying, e.g. the sound of scrubbing a ship deck - the meaning doesn't have to be speaking about a labourer etc.
Accents and Dialects I started listening to lots of different sounds from the British Library sound archive, including recordings of people explaining their regional accents and dialects. These are some of my favourite phrases from the recordings that I listened to. Inverurie, Aberdeenshire Nae well Beylin het Hell of a het Clays or Clys Scuddlin clays
Bricks Gymmies Shimmet
Un well
Boiling hot Clothes Clothes for doing housework etc Trousers Plimsoles Vest
Hose
Socks
Bairn or babeh
Baby
Loon
Boy
Kwine or quine
Girl
Kest Freen
Kit of tools Friend or relation
Kyey or coo
Cow
Dise
Sofa
Wines, parthay, walkie or lanie
Narrow walkway between buildings
Soundscapes I also started to listen to the soundscapes which I found particularly interesting. I like the way they instantly make you imagine an entire scene. On the British Library website, soundscapes are described as sound that: “describe a place, a sonic identity, a sonic memory but always a sound that is pertinent to place.” For similar reasons I liked some of the titles of the soundscapes- the ones that gave me more of a sense of the place where the sound was from, e.g. River in a deciduous wood.
The spirit of a place
One of the goals of asian ink wash painting is to capture the spirit of the subject.
It’s described as an expressionistic art that captures the unseen.
Describing place I felt that I shouldn't try to represent a narrative of the soundscapes. It's perhaps a too literal way of translating the sound and also although the soundscape recordings have a beginning and end by technological necessity, I really identified with the idea of soundscapes describing a specific place. I started to therefore looks at the elements of the soundscape RIver in deciduous wood.
Birds that can be heard in the recording and illustrations by other artists and designers.
Sketching some of the elements
Pattern I thought that pattern could be an interesting way of describing place in a way that's not too presciptive and also relates to the endless nature of the sounds.
This page - general pattern research also including patterns relating to nature or water. Facing page - William Morris, 'Strawberry Thief', 1883
Pattern experiments and fails I tried out collaging my sketches to physically generate some images before digitising my drawings and experimenting using Illustrator...
... and succeeded in creating a pattern that looks like christmas wrapping paper!
Woodland pattern around the outside of a river shape Describes the place and the diversity of the soundscape. Is this just visually showing surroundings and not the sound?
Does it matter?
Empty space is the river. River is the main sound.
Pattern could include overlaid leaves... Could somehow play with ambiguity of layer with overlays. Sounds all overlap each other- there is no hierarchy.
“If you want to represent a rainforest- find a single tree, a single leaf on that tree and then a single insect that lives on that leaf.�
River in deciduous wood
Water
Reeds and plants
Stones and rocks
A single drop
How do they move with the flow of the water?
Do they move down the river over time?
Viewing through a water drop
What are their colours?
What eats them? What shelters beneath them? Do they change with the seasons?
What happens to them if you take them out of the river?
River flow Thinking about using the flow of the river and the way it can be seen by the movement of reeds.
I felt that the watery inks or paints that fill this pattern looks like water and has a sense of flow in each shape.
River inks I began experimenting with using the water-like aesthetic of inks to describe the river.
I then generated a combination of colours which related to the river and deciduous wood - the water, the plants and the leaves.
I then cut out lots of small sections in diamond shapes which I used to form the pattern on the facing page.
I used is as the fill of the river shape .
I felt a diamond related to the sounds of the water and to light reflecting off a river.
I temporarily experimented with transforming the pattern and shape repetitions into more of an individual image. I dramatically changed the scale to see if the pattern became more watery and shifting.
Facing page - overlapping new shapes to represent the overlapping sounds.
I made many colour variations and cut out new zig zag shapes. I felt zig zags related to the movement and running of the river water.
Through my tests I realised how important the white and empty spaces were in both the original ink colour blocks and in the way that the patterning shapes were combined. It relates to the space and nothing that I investigated at the start of this project and visually the patterns are much more interesting with a balance of spaces.
Pattern concept I decided to create a general concept for creating soundscape patterns so that I could potentially create a series.
Colours of the place Soundscape pattern Shape of the sound Using this concept, the pattern becomes a visual experience of both place and sound that's not a literal or direct representation. Colour palettes are limited to a maximum of 3 colours ensuring they are sufficiently varied and retain a sense of each specific place.
Choosing sounds I was tempted to just choose soundscapes that appealed to me personally. However, I thought that I should exhibit the range of soundscapes that the British Library offers and so researched a chose the following soundscapes which I categorised as: Nature Industrial Social
River in deciduous wood Lotus shoes ltd factory Moretonhampstead carnival
Facing page - River in deciduous wood
Lotus shoe factory research
Lotus shoes are the oldest shoe manufacturer in Northampton, which is town with a famous history of shoe making. Context feels historic- there are barely any shoe factories left in the UK. Should I include a feeling of deterioration?
Factory soundscape Reptition of the exact same sounds Wheel driven and constant repetition..
Factory names used to be painted onto the brickwork.
Lines couldl be dashed to represent stitching.
Colours Light green/turqoise - factory machines Navy blue - smocks of workers Brown and tan - leather of shoes
I experimented with various factory shapes: machine wheels, pistons, stamps and a factory window pane.
Hexagons felt representative of the louder sounds in the recording and the lines are the slides between the punctuations of noise.
I used different colour palettes and combinations of the shapes to try and find the most appropriate pattern. I focused on just the shoe colour with the brown palettes.
I tried changing the format of the pattern so it was very different from my river pattern. However, I felt that they became less like patterns, and more like standalone images which didn't really speak of the inifinitely repeating nature of the soundscapes. They also looked a little like a ship's wheel. I also created a variation of the hexagon and line shape but it didn't have the same feeling of dynamism and movement that my previous patterns had and at times looked a bit like floor tiles.
Final shoe factory pattern
Moretonhampstead Carnival
Moretonhampstead is in Devon and its annual carnival is a traditional event with face painters, bouncy castles, charity stalls and a procession of up to 80 floats. In the soundscape you can hear the drums of the band approaching in the Grand Carnival Procession and members of the public chatting as they watch the floats.
Carnival elements
Colours Red and yellow Band uniform and traditional carnival. Blue Bunting contrasting colour.
Patterns inspired by carnival bunting.
The bunting patterns were a little too fire-like. I then experimented with incorporating the softer shape of a balloon and added blue.
I tried to reflect the rhythm of the drums in the soundscape whilst also combing the flag-like shape of bunting.
Final carnival pattern
Animated patterns I wanted to create a sense of life and movement to the patterns and created simple animations that would accompany prints.
I moved the overlapping layers to create an animation relevant to each pattern and rhythm or speed of the soundscape.
The animations are endlessly repeated GIFs to reflect the continuous nature of soundscapes.
Promotional posters I designed some large format posters which use the patterns to promote the sound archive.
Top
Testing different sizes and typography at 100 %.
Left
Paper and colour test strips.
Right Printing final A1 prints.
Book jackets
I had an idea to produce dust jackets for some of the books in the British Library as a way of promoting the sound archive.
However, I thought it might be better to promote the sound archive to new audiences, for example schools.
Postcards One idea was to have a range of postcards which featured different details of the pattern. However, I felt that the holistic sense of the patterns wouldn't be communicated in this format. I therefore created 3 postcards which feature the full pattern of each soundscape. On the reverse there is the history and context of each soundscape and how to listen to the sound archive online.
Sound archive package The posters and postcards could be sent out to schools, encouraging teachers and children to look up and listen to the soundscapes on the sound archive website. Furthermore, lenticular animated cards could be made with the pattern animations with contextual soundscape information on the reverse.
River in deciduous wood Soundscape recording
Moretonhampstead Carnival Soundscape recording
Lotus shoes ltd factory Soundscape recording
Recording location
Recording location
Recording location
Devon, England
Moretonhampstead, Devon, England, UK
Lotus Shoes Ltd factory, Holloways Industrial Estate, Weedon Road, Northampton, UK
The Soundscape
The Carnival
This relaxing and peaceful soundscape features a close recording of a bubbling woodland river and is accompanied in the background by the song of a Wren. Wrens are very small and round brown birds that have a remarkably loud and often complex song.
Moretonhampstead Carnival includes face painters, music, bouncy castles, and charity stalls. The main event is The Grand Carnival Procession which contains as many as 80 floats.
Lotus shoes ltd
Top Left
Lotus Shoes were established in 1759 and the factory is located in Northampton, a town renowned for shoe making since the middle ages. The recording is from the factory that makes welted shoes.
The Soundscape In this recording you can hear the drums of the band approaching in the Grand Carnival Procession and members of the public chatting as they watch the floats.
The Soundscape The lotus shoes factory is a large room with no divisions between different areas, so the sound from the different machines overlaps. There is a background hum of factory machinery and the close sound of shoe heels being attached.
Listen to River in deciduous wood at: http://sounds.bl.uk/environment/soundscapes
Listen to Moretonhampstead carnival at: http://sounds.bl.uk/environment/soundscapes Listen to Lotus shoes ltd factory at: http://sounds.bl.uk/environment/soundscapes
British Library Sounds
British Library Sounds
British Library Sounds
50,000 sounds online and 3.5 million at the British Library sounds.bl.uk
50,000 sounds online and 3.5 million at the British Library sounds.bl.uk
50,000 sounds online and 3.5 million at the British Library sounds.bl.uk
The full set of posters Postcards with soundscape and sound archive information on reverse. Right Lenticular cards which would display the pattern animations with soundscape and sound archive information on reverse.