1st Reflective Post

Evaluation 1 -  Words and Research

I think a good start to this project is to investigate my musical self. I have read that the music you listen to actually forms your brain and therefore who you are. So therefore a start is to make a mind map of all of my influential music – my musical brain. I ordered the music how my brain connects the bands together. I also did an investigation (almost questionnaire) applying favourite songs to questions - quite an eclectic taste. 

This has grown since creation... 

I find that writing, language and research seem to be starting points for all of my illustration projects. I need to fully understand before I can begin. Here if I solidify who I am and create some criteria then I can begin. 

I know that it takes a while for me to begin projects (I much before long investigative projects than short ones) and I am learning that this is just how I work. My works needs to have purpose, everything I make is considered and then experimented with.

At this stage I have refined my project to investigating how to visualize my top 10 bands - a flavour of musical identity.

My top 10 Bands

1.The Doors (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=22GEvDupWGo)
2.Fanny (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q80UWYkKNzk
3.Green River (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v_XVHkpBaxk)
4.King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q-i1XZc8ZwA)
5.The Cure (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UmFFTkjs-O0)
6.Jefferson Airplane (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7O7ihJCq0w)
7.Buzzcocks (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-EEPvXlTUnU)
8.Elastica (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WlOje4ly4hg)
9.Mudhoney (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_nGsT_qFMBs)
10.The Beach Boys (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eab_beh07HU)

I also thought investigating my band mates top 10 could be important especially before I decided on the purpose of this project. I could have explored the musical identity of my band.

I need to brake the barrier between words and images next. The natural way to do this for music is to listen, embody and respond to what I hear and feel.

I want this project to explore how to express music in different visual ways, through a holistic range of responses. 

I think this “passion project” should combine the different disciplines that I am passionate about (singing, image making and tap dancing) as if it is a musical investigation of myself I should explore the ways that I personally respond to and communicate music.

I predict that this project will be something very different than the other artwork I have created throughout this degree. I think I am somewhat of a "shapeshifting" illustrator where each project I will respond to it in different ways and media. The element which makes the work mine is the strong use of colour. 

This will be an abstract and conceptual project, very different from my visualisation of live music in COP which was quite literal, trying to capture musicians in their musical atmosphere. I think it is scary and exciting to investigate something very different and due to starting from scratch I will naturally develop my own visual language to communicate something that is ethereal and isn’t tangible.

I think that this artwork will naturally combine visuals, sound and movement. Therefore, it makes sense that it would be an installation, where people physically come to see the work and have their own sensory experience through looking, hearing and feeling.

Ideas for outcomes

-Make a paper scroll which is immersive, can physically wrap around yourself?

-Make 3D ceramic tiles of my top 10. Take photos of them. Mini patterns in a bigger holistic pattern.

-Make album covers of my top 10, perhaps including photographs of ceramics. Provide a cover which can be chosen and manipulated by the owner depending on how they feel

-Make a zine (maybe a collaborative project) where people are interviewed and provide stories about their relationship with music. Little case studies.

-Respond to these bands through expressive collage.

What do the bands have in common? What is the essence of me, my music?

-Create a colour palette for each band

-What is similar between the different bands?

-What do the colours represent (which genres)

The Doors, The Beach Boys and Elastica are on the So Young Magazine competition listing... could I combine these responses with some figurative elements and submit these into the competition? 

Could my final exhibition become an installation - do they need sound with the images?

How do other people visualise sound? 

Proposal and Initial statement

Project Proposal

My Initial Statement

I propose this project to explore the visualisation of music.

My aim is to develop my previous artwork expressing music which was quite a representational rejuvenation of the aura of live musical experiences. Here I want to question how to capture an aural musical experience, focusing on the dimensions of listening and feeling. This will mean that it will be important to interpret the terms “visualisation” and “art” more broadly than I have done so far.

The subject matter will be my favourite music, as listened to in my personal space, in my bedroom. As an illustrator I create my artwork alone, where I am surrounded by inspiring music and visual stimuli. This is my creative bubble.

I appreciate that listening to and experiencing feelings of music is extremely subjective. I will be trying to capture the magic and aura that I personally feel during a music listening experience by expressing and translating this visually. Therefore, my responses will not necessarily be easily appreciated by others and the pieces will need to have confidence in themselves. As such, whilst the outcomes may not be meaningful representations for viewers, I hope that they will be appreciated as instinctive, raw and genuine expressions.

As a creative, I experience both music and art in increasingly interconnected ways. I want to use this project to draw on my combined passions of art, music and tap dance to explore how they can be used to fuse and express one other. These elements are very important in constructing who I am musically as a person and an illustrator. It will be a very personal ‘passion project’.

Due to this being a huge holistic investigation of how to portray music, it is apt that the media used is interdisciplinary. I intend to combine the arts through; capturing movement through video, snapshots through prints and honesty through painting, all in an abstracted manner.

I predict that the development of this project will be more important as experiments than refined final pieces. Therefore, to capture the experience of this exploration I think that the use of video documentation will prove invaluable.

I anticipate that this project will be difficult to set boundaries for. The concept of aura is exciting and enveloping but is untouchable and precious. Therefore, trying to capture aura is likely to be ‘impossible’. However, I plan to explore ways in which I can try and get closer to capturing such special experiences.

I will need to consider how many songs and bands I visually investigate and what is enough to sufficiently explore it from different angles. I feel that this project will be the start of something much more long-lasting and become my practice.

Important musical beliefs

Who am I?

Musical maps

Group experiment musical soundmaps

Group experiment musical soundmaps

I was interested as to how different people respond differently to different types of music and how people express things differently and how visual language can communicate sound.

I conducted an experiment with me +5 others who were male/female and art/non art students.

This presentation compares the leading similarities in the visual language per song through visual analysis.

This fuelled the start to my project.

Musical Expression through paint