Evaluation – Experience and Expression
I have once again realised the importance
of process in my practice. It is the experimentation
and energy that are the interesting aspects of my work rather than
solid final outcomes and something I should embrace.
With this project I think it is the journey and
combination of works which is powerful rather than final products. It is the
personal musical experience which matters to me and it is the experience of
making different outcomes which begin to capture the aura of music, visually.
My initial visual creations were collage. They
were created in my personal bubble and are a method of image making I am very
comfortable with. I often use collage as an alternative to creating sketchbook
roughs. They acts as a mood board for colour. They are rough, tactile and a
balance between considered and intuitive. They proved their purpose here and
broke down the barrier between words and visuals, getting me to listen and
consider the different elements of songs. I started to visualize how I can
communicate the patterns of sound through different materials, sizes and
shapes, however there was a large number of mixed media used which is way too
complicated.
Inspired by research in performance responses
to music, I began responded to music through tap dancing. It is
a natural way that I express myself and a way of exerting my rhythmic responses
to songs. I chose songs from my top 10 list and improvised, spontaneously letting
my feet guide the responses. I videoed these, allowing the viewer to see into
my intimate and personal musical experience. I also noted that this footage
could become useful for applying to other media.
I then took the tap dancing further and
combined image making with movement and danced in paint. This created a “map”
of my musical experience as a painted/completed product. Filming captured the movement
of the experience. My feet had created their own visual language through the
duration of the piece. They are visually interesting paintings however the use
of colour wasn’t well considered due to limited resources and the speed of choosing
the colour in the moment. I think they could have been bigger and this would
have made the images less dense and the footprints could have more purpose.
I then explored how I could capture the rhythm
of the songs through creating my own musical visual language, experimental
music notation. I wanted to take the colour out of the imagery and solely focus
on capturing the different sound elements of the songs. This was through
drumming with paint brushes and expressing the shapes which were appropriate to
each instrument. These were deep, raw and honest expressions of music. They
were not considered, purely felt and created in that musical moment.
These
paintings are essentially the ammunition for the rest of my project, they have
got the ball rolling!
Ideas for outcomes
- Take my rhythm visualisations and add duration to them, put
them in time. Create a long
progression which can be turned into something like a publication but captures the travel and change over the
song, rather than a static snapshot
which has its own importance but doesn't
portray the embodied journey effectively.
- Colour is important to musical
experiences. How can I add colour? Through print? Screen
print with multiple colours? Riso is an immediate form of print...?
- Add substance to my exploration
by reading around the subject of visualising music, Not
necessarily music art books but the theories
of musical psychology and visualising the senses
- Find merchandise and ways that I
could apply my
visualisations to within the music industry. Who is my audience? Music enthusiasts, music industry, bands, fans.
- Slow shutter speed (motion camera shots). Could take these
at gigs and live musical performances of the bands. Could take them of me tap
dancing in response to my bands, capturing the whole movement. Could then
develop these and overlay them with artwork. Could drum and rhythm paint directly onto
them, capturing a multi-dimensional expression.
