When I first begun to form any kind of idea to what I would be doing in this project, I begun with the obvious. However, at the time I believed my ideas were, of course completely innovative and interesting until I compared them with everyone else around me. These ideas were along the lines of creating something which would be perfect beautiful images accompanied by soft music, meaning that it would be something easy and gentle to watch. However as I did further research into the topic I found that the best, or at least the most effective projects came from those that either emphasized contrast or drove forward a very powerful message. This is what drew me towards creating something which would be unnerving or even uncomfortable to watch or listen to. This way I could not only challenge myself but create a piece of work which most probably will not be ground breaking but at least original or refreshing.
I wanted to work on an idea which had reference to human sounds initially and worked around the idea of footsteps for a while. I thought it was something odd and oddly personal because each person has there individual footsteps. However as hard as I thought I could not think of what I would use as the visual which would be appropriate apart from shoes, which was too simple and therefore out of the question. During some casual research I came across the book ‘Technik’ by Leigh Landy. During the chapter on sound, she talks of the structure behind sound and the relation between the audio and mimetic. She analysis the Luc Farrari’s Piece Presque Rien No. 1 subtitled ‘Daybreak on the beach’ which consisted of 21 minutes of overlapping natural sounds. She emphasized the power of a soundscape such as this by stating that ‘the whole… piece encourages the listener to go through clear and vivid psychological visual experiences, evoked by the explicit mimetic properties of the piece’ which is what I would want to achieve by the end of this assignment.
She later begins to consider the inclusion of electronic sounds which in her opinion ‘adapted the compositional concept of sonic transformation’. However, after reading through her analysis and theory I found that it was her thoughts on conflicting sounds which held my interest the most. Landy writes that the ‘basic underlying principle of opposite pairs of sounds… loud and soft, high and low, sustained and short, ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ is an incredibly effective way of creating a possible mixture of ”human-based sounds’ and synthesized sounds’ to create an appearance of ‘unusual perspectives and transformations creating almost surrealist images.’
This theory excited me as I believed that this is the freedom I would need to fuel an effective idea in this assignment. When I listened to the piece that Leigh was referring too when she was comparing sounds, Parmegiani’s ‘Dedans Dehors’ it was disturbing and hard to listen to but it was also what I was looking for. I liked the way it remained conflicting throughout, the way it fluctuated but remained with a constant beat behind it, giving the piece an undeniable and individual motif. It created images of a fractured reality or at least a dislodged basis of thought which would, if aided by images, could be directed to create something quite powerful.
Therefore, now, I am feeling considerably more confident with discovering an idea.
Landy, Leigh. Technology. Amsterdam: Rodopi, 1992. Print.
https://soundcloud.com/editionsmego/bernard-parmegiani-dedans
http://w3.pdn.cam.ac.uk/groups/cnbh/research/publications/pdfs/Petal92ish.pdf