When 2 become 1

Further experimentation with sound

If in doubt throw everything together and see what happens...

Text to Speech

After writing up a grey description of one of my photos, I asked my fellow arty type best friend Leah to record herself reading it, in one take. I chose to ask her as I wanted someone who hasn't seen the image, to look at how successful (or not) I was in communicating visual information through words.

With the idea of presenting the photo as a sound work, rather than image, I edited the sound clip and added a white space, with the intention of it blending into the white walls of the gallery space.

This was the result:

I then experimented with how tone of voice and emotion affects the communication. To do this I used google translate TTS, to create a flat, monotonous and continuous voice.

Can words be art?

Grey Description -> Text works

"Images are more precise and richer than literature" p.10, Ways Of Seeing, John Berger

• Write what you see, what's there?
• Thinking about presenting the text without the photo- would it work? Should I include the image?
• The more detail the better
• Use a standard size and style font.
• Emotion?

From this I wrote a grey description, using this photo as the subject. 

"Throughout the carriage canary parrots, radiating from ten vertical poles, which allow anonymous primates to hang and balance, as the mobile flooring jolts and sways beneath them. To the left, behind one stanchion, reaching half the height of the car, an unidentified figure can be seen in a mustard coat. Thin black bugs connect longitudinal waves to an electrical device, linked via a thin black cable, tangled amongst a burnt sienna scarf. Knotted pink fingers grip the gadget close to an average frame. A corrugated plastic hexagon couples two sections together, dancing in time with the deck. At the highest point a honeycomb of metal guards a fluorescent tube, illuminating the foreground. Beyond this, cuboid light-emitting diodes brighten silhouettes. Reflecting against two visible surfaces, yellow and white combine to fuse cream, contrasting against a section of ultraviolet light within the corrugated sector. Incandescent words in the upper- centre read ‘The next Station...’, and although out of focus, this is repeated approximately six meters ahead. Above this the same text is flipped into the ceiling, mirrored, and illegible.

Vertical and horizontal lines cross, creating an ongoing grid, broken by bodies. Further ahead the coach seems to get busier, with thirteen visible, yet unknown individuals. Warmth from the chaos of the intertwined is juxtaposed by cold blue light, leaked by the emptiness of the forepart. However, this matches one, two, three blue notices, which nobody seems to be paying attention to. The signs are white, with cobalt blue rectangles and small black writing, that cannot be read unless up close. They are all obstructed by the shapes and forms of the carriage, blocking information, and hiding tidings. It is quiet, which is unusual, given the situation of thirteen strangers in a pod. Not one appears interested or to be engaged with anyone else. They are separate forms, brought together only by yellow poles. Three of them; one sat, head down, one holding a horizontal bar and staring ahead, and one engaged with a mobile, wear hats. They all wear black coats. In the centre, there is a child. They wear a venetian red coat with a faux fur stripe around the hood. They stand with their small arm laced around a post, which due to the lighting appears to extend past and into the ceiling. This same shade of red is repeated as the details of a polka dot bag, which is navy, and the mobile phone of a seated woman. Her eyes are focused on the screen, that is held up above a blurred newspaper, resting upon on her knee. The newspaper is the evening standard, blue capital text against dirty white paper. It features a face that’s reminiscent of an orange Sainsbury’s carrier bag."

• Text or sound? - Sound could be more engaging, people may be more willing to listen than read
• Could use a white/blank screen- what are they seeing? Removes context. Only words.
• Speakers or headphones?
• What tone of voice? Monotonous: even less context/emotional impact, less connected, more like a script? Enthusiastic? 

If speech- do I want the speaker to have seen the photo before recording, or should it be blind? Could try doing both myself, although other people would change the relationship, adding another layer to the work. 

Fine Art Crit #1

"Art doesn't have to represent anything"

One of the things I've struggled most with about the course so far is the idea that contemporary art doesn't have to be directly representative of anything. It is important to have and be able to form your own opinion around a piece of work- It's what it does, rather than what it's supposed to do. 

During the Crit our lecturer asked someone else doing the joint honours with Psychology course "Would you say it(the piece of art) is an experiment?". I think this is an important question to think about and in my own personal opinion I think all art is to an extent- the artist changing the materials (Independent variables) to see what the effect is (Dependent variables). This has led me to think about my ideas in a more structured, almost methodological way, and consider what I am doing. 

Focusing on my own work, he suggested I could try presenting the paintings in a different way, combining them with the sound to create a moving image. This is something I want to explore. I am thinking of filming the painting from a tripod- layering it with the sound to bring it together. I may also try layering the works digitally, using photoshop, or physically, prehaps printing onto transparent plastic or tracing paper to combine the images- putting one in front of the other to explore ideas of space  and how it effects the work.   

Responding with paint

How do you paint sound? 

I took the sound clip I recorded and picked colours which I felt best matched it. I chose to use blue, green orange and yellow, to mirror the atmosphere of the audio. 

To tie my work back to the Subject of 'Wallpaper' I used wallpaper samples from Home base(other DIY stores available) to contact print onto other paper. This allowed me to create layers which overlapped, matching the chaotic noises throughout the sound. Silence was also important and to reflect this in my work I used masking tape through some of the layers to leave empty spaces. 

After experimenting with different materials I found acrylic paint was the most effective to layer and get the intensity I wanted to create quickly, However I also found using chalk pastel and glue to add different textures contributed to the surface of the paintings. 

Here are the two most successful outcomes, which I think well capture the sound:

 

To move forward I need to think about how to present the work and whether or not/how the sound will accompany it. As the sound is 'for an enclosed space' I'm thinking possibly putting it through headphones (to bring the audience directly in) or to surround the art as more of an installation than a still piece.  

Experimenting with sound

One of the things I noticed whilst on the London trip was that I was attracted to works which were loud, slightly chaotic and not necessarily still, so it became clear to me that I should consider adding these features to my own work. 

I used Adobe Premiere Elements to edit my audio clips, piecing them together, and overlapping them to create a continuous sound that brings the audience into my work. All of the sound was recorded on my camera, a Nokia D3100 to ensure it was of the same quality. I think it works in terms of creating an atmosphere and giving narrative to a piece of art, as my main goal is to bring a viewer closer and make them think.

A photo posted by Rosie (@rsprcy) on Oct 8, 2016 at 12:03pm PDT

You can listen to it here:

Moving forward I need to consider ways of linking this to wallpaper (through the patterns and repetition).

How do you draw sound?

What does sound look like?

How can I transform vibrations into an image?

Digbeth First Friday

The train's at 6.20, don't miss it...

Before Friday, I'd only been to Birmingham once before- and that was for a shopping trip with a friend. This time we were headed to Digbeth's 'First Friday'- an event which sees the first Friday of each month come alive with open studios, live music and street food.

Digbeth, although obviously run down, to me had some kind of industrialised magic about it. I don't know whether it was the eerie atmosphere but I felt inspired to create something walking through the streets(almost definitely just me). I mean maybe it was just dark and I couldn't seen properly but I felt like I was in a movie and I was a really cool DIY scene artist walking through the wreckage and on my way to making some kind of masterpiece which would then make me rich, famous and never have to work again... so I recorded it.

I took sound recordings of the train journey and walking to the studios which I want to edit as a part of my sound for an enclosed space. I personally find trains (Especially London midland ones) quite claustrophobic, and the noise can be quite overwhelming- so there we have an enclosed space. In the future I hope to create my own area, with physical artwork that mirrors the sound. I am also going to layer the audio clips to try and make my audience feel involved in the whole narrative of the work, as if they're there with me, at the station, on the train, walking the streets.

Digbeth's first Friday, October 2016