Category: RAPS

Link to Gist: https://gist.github.com/Ellen25/5eb3f14f6e9c585cd079e719e1ec882e

Final audio effect:

Video:

Assignment4

I firstly added an audio clip from freesound.org as the bottom layer of the whole sound with a drug sequencer to control the rhythm of it.

The audio clip from freesound.org:

https://freesound.org/people/mauxuam/sounds/71106/

I selected this clip as I want to make the whole video more dynamic. The sound itself also conveys the basic idea of granular synthesis, as the rhythm of it is intensive and dense enough. 

Some effects have also been added to the original audios: chorus has been added to the second piece and the third piece has been added some delay on it. Both of these two effects are aiming at stripping the original human voice from the frames and making them abstract enough to represent the frames themselves. I want to let the abstract sound to show a kind of power and rhythm of the movement shown in the video. I kept the human voice from the first piece as I want there to be some sentences to be clear to create a contrast between the clearness and abstract sounds. I tried my best to make the effects close to the idea of granular synthesis. But I think there is still something I can do to improve and make the whole audio reflects a better understanding of granular synthesis.

Whitney Brothers’ mechanism and the creation of “mechanical analog computer,” which utilizes the remains from WWII warfares. They definitely marked down a cornerstone of the history of visual music. Their pioneer works also greatly influenced other artists. Belson is also a very significant figure in the experimental animation and cinema field, including the legendary Vortex concerts. I think their visual aesthetics share the same touch since they practiced around the same time around the late 50s – 70s.  Their two-dimensional animation and visual music often both involve repetitive dots/lines/shapes, a black background, and similar reactions from the sound to the visual.  

 What’s different about their visual language, on the other hand, is that the Whitney brothers’ visual music is more about patterns and movement. They utilize the whole screen as their canvas to create the movement and changes in different patterns. They also thought about the cultural context of visual language and musical composition. One of their representative works – Arabesque, really speaks about creating a harmony between visual style and the music. By adopting some of the symbology of what’s considered “Arabic” in its visual creation, it represents an exotic, mysterious, yet harmonious feeling. 

Belson is more articulate in creating sophisticated and complex kaleidoscope visuals in his works. His works are very exquisite from my perspective. I also admires his technical craftsmanship.

They are perfect statements that mechanics and digital tools won’t kill the authorship of the artists. In fact, their works speak for their style, aesthetics, and artistic choices. 

Artists like them created amazing works using the technology back in the 50s. Today, software and technology became much more accessible and easy to use. They can be great empowerment if used wisely. But more importantly, the radical and experimental spirits to challenge the concept of visual art, music, cinema, and the visual experience should remain unchanged.

This is a contemporary interpretation of the Whitney brothers’ Arabesque: 

The article “VJing” written by Eva Fischer and the documentary Video Out produced by Meredith Finkelstein and Paul Vlachos both imply a significant problem with VJing — its marginalized position as an art practice. According to Fischer, the strong attachment VJing shares to DJing is undeniable as “it has developed in deep entwinement with DJing” (112). VJs generate visuals that are responsive to the rhythm, arrangement, and overall tone of the music in contribution to a consistent and immersive club environment as one unity of sounds and visuals. However, the responsive nature of VJing causes VJs’ work to be a mere background, a wallpaper, rather than artistic productions that have its own right.

I think there are actually more differences between VJing and DJing than their shared similarities — while both practices are based on real-time manipulation and the processing of content, improvisation is deeply rooted in VJing where one processes materials in a spontaneous, creative, and unique manner which is beyond merely screening a prepared footage. In comparison, although DJing as well deals with realtime processing of musical materials, the selection of musical materials based on personal taste is the most significant nature of DJing. While a VJ’s work takes the form of total abstraction and conceals the apparent connection to the analogue or digital objects used to generate the visual content, a conventional DJ edits or filters his selected materials in order to bring them back to the front but in a different context. In other words, I think the relationship between pre-existing materials and the live manipulation is different in VJing and DJing.

The practice of VJing and DJing have reached beyond the club venue and makes appearance in places traditionally reserved for what’s known as “high art” — galleries, museums, theatre house… Although they share different historical roots and development, the club setting is still the most representative conjunction of the two. Clubbing is completely different in theory and in practice. I think the most important side note is that the experience of club is never a sheer appreciation of either music or what’s offered visually. It’s the consumption of one integral atmosphere built by a little bit of everything — music, screens, lightings, people, moods… It’s a social activity but personal, and is about the visitors themselves in the end. Personally, I do agree with the distinction between VJs and visual artists. But at the end of the day, the question of the artistic status of VJs is in fact a question of what defines art and how the relationship between an artist’s agency and the spectators’ reception should be subtly balanced. And it’s an impossible question!

Eva Fischer. “VJing.” The Audiovisual Breakthrough, Fluctuating Images, http://www.ephemeral-expanded.net/audiovisualbreakthrough/. Accessed 12 Nov. 2019.

The practice of VJing involves image/video loops blending and mixing, generating visual materials, creating collages and mixes, etc., in which electronic music elements are crucial to the entire production process. It is a collaborative, live practice of pure improvisation where the visual is actively and constantly responsive to the music. Different from traditional movie screening or music, the contents of VJ performance are in real-time rather than pre-recorded, as a result, as Eva Fischer claims, the “visual is perceived and processed in a temporal sequence”. ¹  VJing, as Erika Fischer-Lichte points out, requires the physical “co-presence of actors and spectators”.² VJs closely collaborate with musicians, sound artists, and DJs, and create immersive spaces in which the visual is strongly influenced by and integrated with the structure and characteristics (rhythm, melody, style, etc) of music. VJing in this context is not simply a visual company of the music, but a live performative artwork that has music as the foundation and expands itself beyond a musical context. Therefore, I don’t quite agree with the concept of “visual wallpaper” and even feel offended by it.

I have been to some music festivals with live VJ performances, however, I personally think that the VJing elements there were not as effective. Music festivals have similar atmospheres with clubs where the audience are more volatile than visitors in art galleries. To put it superficially, the artistic narratives of VJ performances are not what music festival audiences look for in their experience; they want anything that’s “cool”/”high” and can provide instantaneous stimuli. In other words, even though VJs desire to improvise conceptual and narrative works, the atmospheres (music festivals/clubs) technically don’t allow them to do so. I guess this is why I failed to feel the richness of the VJing contents but only the craziness in the visual. I prefer having VJ works more concept-based and richer in itself.

Reference:

1. Eva Fischer, “VJing,” in The Audiovisual Breakthrough (Fluctuating Images, 2015), 111.
2. Fischer, “VJing,” 107.

I believe the art of being a visual jockey is an experience that evokes the ultimate attention and talent of the jockey. Vjs must operate in a live performance venue as their work requires constant input and improvisation with the media. Their presence allows them to blend and remix the art in any performance space. This improvisation of the performance leads to no one performance being the same and creates a special, timeless, vibe for each space performed in.

In the club setting, many of these visual performances accompany the music as a reactive media performance. While the music and visuals complement each other in the space, the visuals act as a moldable “visual wallpaper”,  always complementing the music. This inter-media connection between the audio and the visual allows for both musical and visual artists to create the environment and mood of a club.

However, a lot of times at clubs I feel that the music always takes more of a dominant role than the visuals. This may be due to the fact that as an audience, we have a choice whether or not to look at the visuals, however, we have no choice whether to hear or not to hear. However, I believe as technology advances and even more amazing visuals can be achieved, the more people will pay attention to a space’s visual atmosphere.

I believe that visuals are becoming more and more important in the nightlife scene. Many people could choose to invite their friends over and listen to any song they wish, but instead go out to clubs where they don’t have direct control of the environment. This is because they provide enriching atmospheres. That atmosphere is fueled by the social, visual, and audial environment, but having a space with aesthetic visual performances is definitely held to greater importance nowadays in clubs, malls, theatres and more.