Month: September 2023

Pick one of the films that we watched in the Early Abstract Film program, preferably one that you particularly enjoyed or were intrigued by. (Check the lecture slides, the films & videos, and the links resources pages for references to the films and artists.) Conduct research on both the artist and the specific film you picked. Write a two to three-paragraph reflection on the motivation of the artist to make such a film and the actual process the artist used to create it. Pay special attention to the presence or absence of any synesthetic relationships between the visuals and the sound.

Norman McLaren – Dots (1940)

“Animation is not the art of drawings that move but the art of movements that are drawn.”—Norman McLaren

Dots is “an experimental film in which both sound and visuals were created entirely by Norman McLaren drawing directly upon the film with ordinary pen and ink”. When I first watched it, I didn’t realize the creation of this film was simply through drawing. Norman followed the rhythm to create the appearance of the dots.

The short film is as simple as the name might suggest. “A collection of blue dots on a red background shuffles and squeaks into life, trumping in and out of existence with a playful autonomy”. The synesthetic relationships between the visuals and the sound are very interesting. The presence of different shapes of dots signifies the sound. When the duration of the sound is longer, the size of the dots becomes smaller, which is exactly like the balloons. I think this creation is really well-made because it combines visuals and sound perfectly.

In this film and all the other films Norman produced, we can get the idea that “he used film as an alternative tool of expression and a canvas to express flowing movement and rhythm” (Russell).  He’s really managing to draw the movements of art.

Reference

Russel, Calum. 80 years of Norman McLaren’s experimental film ‘Dots’. https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/norman-mclaren-film-dots/ 

https://www.nfb.ca/film/dots/

Overall Patch

Process Documentation

My main goal for this assignment is trying different oscillator, effect, level, sequencer modules. I made a lot of explorations and achieved my final effect. I started by choosing a sequencer.

I tried many but I found that some of them are only able to generate one kind of sequence. Sequencer is capable of generating different notes. So I use it to make more interesting patterns.

There are many oscillators for me to explore as well.  I eventually chose wavetable and cloud. In wavetable, I found that I can adjust the number of the wave and the shape. By mixing them using pan mixer, I’m able to control the velocity for each. I use the MMF filter module. Though I don’t really understand how it works, I notice it decreases the noise and frequency.  

The level effect modules are very interesting. I explored with almost all of them.

I first used the compressor effect, but the sound got too noisy. Reverb makes the synth with a more echoing affect. Frequency shift is also interesting because it gives out different outputs, so I added it to generate more interesting pattern.

Finally, I mixed this synth with the previous one for a harmonic output.

The link to the patch and the audio recording

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1fd-sJnBaC_2CXO8JHgIUAkARCvd1JfW0?usp=drive_link

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fAxHlLK3Oyk

Listen: Alvin Lucier – I Am Sitting In A Room.
Find a quiet place where you can sit and relax undisturbed for 45 minutes. Listen to Alvin Lucier’s seminal sound art piece I Am Sitting In A Room. Use a good pair of headphones. Listen to the piece from beginning to end. Don’t skip any parts. Don’t look at your phone. Don’t look at your computer. Concentrate on the experience.
Afterward, read Collecting Alvin Lucier’s I Am Sitting in a Room, and then, write a post in which you detail your exact experience listening to the piece and your understanding of it after reading the text. Also, reflect on how sound and music fit within the context of art. Your reflection should be two to three paragraphs in length.

I would say that my listening experience of this piece is magical. I didn’t know anything about the piece in advance, so I was surprised to find that the piece is made up of a person speaking the same paragraph over and over again with the growing frequencies, reinforced with each playback. The human voice gradually dies down and all I can hear  is the resonant frequencies within the room. When I was listening to the music, I had the image of this piece being recorded in a small room with specific architectural material so that the walls can generate this effect. I could here the noise in the background. And the music reminds me of the kind of music I often hear in the art galleries or museums. 

Before reading the passage, I didn’t know that the composer shuttered. I heard the shuttering like “rhythm”, but I thought it was deliberately composed.  From the reading, I learned that Alvin attempted to smooth out his shutter. Surprisingly, the shutter didn’t disturb my overall listening experience. 

In the reading, it says that “As the recorded sound of his speech grew faint and the frequencies more distinct, we witnessed sound as physical fact. No longer just an auditory phenomenon, this was a physical, material, and spatial experience, implicating the institutional architecture of the room in the radical nature of the piece. Eventually the recorded sound transformed into a complete abstraction of the original, specific to the very walls around us. ” This explanation helps me better understand this piece of music. This piece begins with human voice and sounds produced by the architecture of the space gradually dominated the sonic experience. So when I’m listening to this piece, I don’t only hear the sound, but I also hear the space where the sound is produced. Therefore, when the auditory experience combine with its material production, it creates a connection between the sound and the space. The reading also discusses the temporality of the recording. It’s a particular effect in a certain time and space, which makes it an amazing artifact. 

OVERALL PATCH

I input 2 video clips and one GENERATE module. Based on what I learned last class, I first mix-composited the 3 videos with MODEMIXR. Then I added EFFECT and GENERATE modules based on what has been mixed. One video I chose is black and white and another is colorful, and they both circulate in a center. So my intention was to use the EFFECT to randomly adjust the color and change the zoom range so that the visual output is constantly changing. I found an interesting module called BRCOSR. It can adjust the brightness, contrast, and saturation. I also placed SOLARZR, which can add more glow and color to the output. However, I feel the current output is a bit over-solarized. I adjusted the brightness, contrast, and saturation plenty of times, but the outcome wasn’t quite satisfactory. I put ZOOMR so that I could scale the size of the image to make it have a more stunning effect. I also considered adding ROTATR but since the 2 videos were already rotating by themselves, the addition would be too repetitive. For almost all the effects, I placed the GENERATE modules to generate random input to constantly change the effects. 

At first, I chose the RainbowBars clip. However, I decided to use the TunneVolumeBars because I felt that the RainbowBars clip didn’t align with another video.

The rainbow lines overlapped with the visual effect generated by 1EASEMAPPR, thus the two effects weren’t that obvious. Therefore, I changed the video to create a more swirling effect

There are many GENERATE modules I can choose from. I explored many of them. I hoped to find a module that could generate a small range of random output. I explored with WANDR, TWIDDLR, and RANDOMIZR. I found that although they have slightly different usage, the overall functions are similar. I changed all speeds to the slowest so that the image could move slower. With the high speed, the visual effect became unpleasant to look at. WANDR is useful because the number generated is in a small range. 

For the EFFECT modules, I explored many, like POSTERIZR. This module is useful for creating interactive patterns, so it doesn’t fit in best with the output I wished to create.

Adding modules may not always reach the effect I expect, I’ll keep exploring!

Recording 

Maggie-assignment2

Link to the patch and the video https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1DeqRIPlSTa0g3Ev_i4McKGlqknAZSqiz?usp=drive_link

Prompt:

Read: Emrich, Hinderk M., Janina Neufeld, and Christopher Sinke. “Synesthesia, a Neurological Phenomenon.” In See This Sound: Audiovisuology a Reader, 414–23. Köln: Verlag der Buchhandlung Walthar Köning, 2015.

Find one representative example of synesthesia from popular culture (music, art, literature, etc.) and write a blog post explaining how synesthesia is present in this cultural artifact, what the significance of it is, and give your opinion on this artifact now that you have a better understanding of the phenomenon. Reference the reading in your response to make your case. Your reflection should be two to three paragraphs in length.

In the reading,  the author introduces the research on synesthesia and delves into its neurological basis. In the area of genuine synesthesia, the scientific literature most frequently describes colored hearing, in which spoken words, letters, numbers, voices, or sounds activate visual impressions like colors and/ or figures, so-called photisms (415).

Wassily Kandinsky’s artworks are representative examples of this color hearing. When the synesthete hears music, he sees abstract colors and images. Kandinsky uses visual impressions including colors, lines, and shapes to describe the sounds and voices he hears. His painting becomes musical. We can feel the musicality behind the colors and the lines. These artworks provide the audience with a lot of room for imagination. From the reading, I understand that every synesthete has his or her individual constant couplings of activating and activated perceptions. Therefore, different artists may perceive the same kind of sounds differently with different colors and painting styles. I can see that Kandinsky is mostly using straight lines, whereas others may use dots. The audience not only hears the music behind the painting, but we can also feel the mindset of the painter from how the work is composed. 

The movie Inside Out is also an example of synesthesia. In the movie, the five emotions become human figures and they differ in color. Disgust is green, Anger is red, Joy is orange, Sadness is blue and Fear is purple. From my perspective, the filmmaker’s decision on the color of the five emotional characters is related to synesthesia. When people are happy, they may think of warm colors like yellow or orange, which is the color of Joy, and vice versa. When people see warm colors like yellow or orange, their spirits may lift up. When we say the word blue, it doesn’t only mean the color, but it also contains the meaning of sadness. So in the movie, the colors and the emotions are related. This reminds me of the synesthetic perceptions of color mentioned in the reading (419). Though different in meaning, there is a connection between the letters, colors, brightness, etc. 

Since synesthesia is a neurological phenomenon, there are people with genuine synesthesia. However, from my perspective, people more or less experience synesthesia in their daily lives. We can explore more about the connections of all senses.

Based on the patch we created in class, there are mainly 3 problems I need to work on to achieve the effect. The first problem I try to solve is using the random object. Since the 3 notes change every 2 seconds, I place a metro object to set the interval. There should be 2 metro objects and 2 buttons each in control of the random playing and the playing of the 3 notes. The second point is to define a consistent interval between the three notes. I link the random object with the 3 addition objects. And the addition objects each link to a number object. The number objects only show the output number. The addition made is based on the first note. So my second note is 3 steps higher than the first one, and my third note is 5 steps higher than the first one. The third point is to link the original patch with the patch I added. The 3 buttons controlling the 3 notes should be linked to the addition objects so that the 3 notes can run one by one. I misdid it at first because I linked them with the random object, but then I found that the random object controls the 3 notes, so they shouldn’t be linked together.

One thing I neglected first was that there should be 2 metro objects for the two functions. Using one metro project can’t make it happen. I placed another metro object for the playing of 3 notes. At first, I didn’t know what number I should put. So the notes turned out not to be playing evenly. I figured that the metronome time interval should be 2000/9 because the same 3 notes will be playing 3 times. Through the assignment, I understood the function of the objects better, especially the number object and the addition object.

The video below shows the first version.   

Maggie’s original version

Below is the link to the uploaded file.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AE6xl4XNKCmAjP4c2ur85Wx59YRWrcjQ?usp=drive_link