1W13-4 MADA Assessment Presentation 1

Collisions: A Visual Discourse on Negotiations of Power

I. Key Concepts :

A. Bill Viola

Humanism

Sound

B. Michel Foucault

Power

C. Jackson Pollock

Interactivity

II. Sketches and Story Boards

Sketches

Storyboards

III. Video Experimentation

Experiment 1: Collaborative Exchange

Experiment 2: B/W Individual Study

Experiment 3: Color Individual Study

Experiment 4: Collaborative Exchange 2

 

1W13-1 Experiment # 2: Individual Study of Sound and Black and White

Through this experiment, I explored the idea of disruption in lieu of my collision collaboration with Moshe Ladanga. With it, I also began experimenting with sound; forming meaning through the combination of seemingly disparate things.

For the image, I learned that it is best to find a strong simple idea, and then to delve into the different elements (combining several techniques like photography, animation and final cut). But the trick is really keeping it simple. At first, I got quite lost knowing that I could do so many things with it, but then I realized that if I just choose one evocative image and then dive into that, I get to explore. Here, I was able to find the transformation of black on white (black image, white background) to the opposite (white image, black background). I found it during the process of transforming the different elements in the work. I am quite happy with the results, especially because I didn’t know how the film was going to end. Sometimes, this is better because you find new ways of expressing yourself. Like some ‘aha’ moment. I think I have that problem of going into a film knowing its end (my background in filmmaking). This process is teaching me the opposite…start with a good beginning (strong, simple, specific) then dive in as deep as you can.

Regarding the sound, much of my inspiration came from the Sound Workshop we had with Matthais Kispert last week. He stressed how instrinsic the connection is between sound and image. He mentioned that he has experimented with starting with sound then adding image and vice versa. According to him, when the image leads, one has greater freedom in forming meaning. He suggested using natural sound, and playing with it…connecting the image with something different in order to form something greater. This is what I did with this experiment.

Aside from putting music (which is a first for me) through manipulating some apple loops, I experimented with train and machine sounds to evoke the disruption I explored in the image.

1W12-2 Preliminary Installation Sketch

Mosh came up with the idea of the third image, a sort of merged image. If we can achieve the interactivity, this is probably where it’ll play out. The audience will be causing disruptions/evolutions of the two films.

The idea was also inspired by the immersive environment that Bill Viola has in his work. In a way, we want to achieve this same multi-sensory experience.

Here is another sketch of the work.

1W12-1 Humanism

“Works of art, though visible, represent invisible things.”

Bill Viola, Artist’s Talk, Tate Britain, 16 June 2006

(www.tate.org.uk/onlineevents/webcasts/bill-viola)

The key concept of my work is based on the idea of Humanism according to Bill Viola. He said, “The failure of critical discourse today in art- …(is) it does not encompass the very, very human qualities of our emotional lives(1994:176).” This is one of the main reasons why I am creating my work. And his work and philosophy is something that I aspire to become and hope to emanate with this work.

He speaks a lot about the idea of the first image…the “retina burning” kind of image. This I am still searching for this for the work, and hopefully through the process and experimentation, I will find it.

All this deals with the recreation of an internal environment, something that will fully engage the audience from all of their senses. Viola calls this kind of work, the one that affects the body fully. This is what I hope to achieve with the work.

1W11-1 Bill Viola and Acoustics

Bill Viola talked about how intertwined sound and image are. He mentioned how video was born through the development of radio technology and cited frequency as the base element of the video image as waves are to sound (158). He argued that technically, image is sound. And this inspired me to use the principles he mapped out about acoustics on the video images for Collisions.I’ll be approaching manipulation and the confrontation of Moshe’s video through the principles of acoustics as outlined by Bill Viola below (156-157):

Refraction: The bending of soundwaves due to a change in speed as they pass through different media, such as two layers of air of different temperatures. At Queen Victoria’s funeral in London in 1901, rounds of artillery were fired and, although not heard in the surrounding countryside, the loud roar of cannons suddenly materialized 90 miles away.

Diffraction: Sound turning a corner, when the edge of a barrier generates a new series of waves. We hear invisible persons talking on the other side of a high wall.

Reflection: The rebounding of soundwaves off a surface, the angle at which they bounce off being equal to the angle at which they arrive. With multiple surfaces this becomes an echo, and it is then possible to hear one’s own voice, possibly multiple times, as it existed at a previous point in time. One can sing with one’s self. Multiple regular reflections produce the conditions of reverberation,
where a sound can be repeated over and over on top of itself, the past becoming indistinguishable from the present.

Interference: Two sounds collide with each other, the wavefronts of each alternately reinforcing and inhibiting themselves. In a large hall the sound of a loud instrument suddenly drops to a barely audible whisper at a certain location in the room.

Resonance: Soundwaves reinforce themselves, either by the addition of an identical sound or when the material properties or spatial dimensions match the physical shape of the soundwaves themselves. A singer’s voice becomes louder, gaining energy when released into a small enclosure, or an object produces a specific tone when struck. The shape and materials of an object represent a frozen sound potential.

Sympathetic Vibration, related to resonance and possibly the most evocative of all: When a bell is struck another one across the room begins vibrating, giving off the same sound.
Bill Viola, Reasons for Knocking at an Empty House, 1994