#assessment2

Artist Research: Ana Mendieta - Untitled (Rape Scene), 1973

“I didn’t move. I stayed in position about an hour. It really jolted them.”

“Untitled (Rape Scene) is the documentation of an action that the artist performed in her apartment in Iowa City, while she was a student at the University of Iowa on the innovative Intermedia art course run by the German artist Hans Breder (born 1935). It was created in response to a brutal and highly publicised rape and murder of a nursing student, Sara Ann Otten, by another student in March 1973. The following month Mendieta invited her fellow students to her apartment where, through a door left purposefully ajar, they found her in the position recorded in this photograph, which recreated the scene as reported in the press.” - https://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/mendieta-untitled-rape-scene-t13355

A twist on Sandra’s ADAD1002 Assessment2 final work on collaboration.

Rather than smooth connections and links to create a final product, collaboration my have pauses, glitches and challenges within the process of working together

Assessment 2 Final Work + Concept Statement

My final work is based on the constructed binary of Sound versus Music (which is slightly altered from my last assessments focus which was Sound versus Silence. Through the process of creating this work, I wanted to explore whether ‘random’, ‘everyday’ sounds are inherently musical or not and also to find the delineation between sound and song. I did this through recording a multitude of everyday sounds, manipulating them in different ways (explored below) and remixing them together to create a track of music. Alongside this, I videoed myself creating and recording the sounds and created a video collage as a kind of music video to examine this idea more.

The manipulation of the recorded samples was an interesting and learning process as I have not really done a lot of it before (In my sound works, I mainly work with MIDI rather than audio samples). It involved first taking the recorded stems out of Cubase, into Ableton Live, then cutting it to the point in each sample I was going to use. I then laid these out in a row (kind of like a sound bank) so I could figure out which sounds to use where and have them quickly accessible, visible and playable. 

(The recording setup)

(Recorded Stems in Cubase) 

(Samples laid out in Ableton Live)

Next, I started off with the squeaky sound - which was me rubbing a vinyl case against the table - as I pretty much already heard a rhythm out of the sound. After this, I warped the transients of the sample (the high amplitude, short-duration sounds at the beginning of a waveform) to get it in time and launched the rest of the song off that. 

(Warping the waveforms of the vinyl squeak)

I altered each sample differently. For the more percussion based sounds (this ended up being the majority of the samples) I put filters on them and increased the resonance of a certain frequency within them. For example, for the sample which involved me flicking a tin was put into a drum rack and turned it into both a hi-hat and snare by using different filters and transposing two of the same sample in different ways. 

(Drum rack and both a Midi arrangement and audio sample in Ableton Live)

For the more melodic-sounding samples, I pulled a singular hit from the recorded rhythm and pulled that sample into a sampler. What a sampler allows me to do is basically record midi data and play the sample in different keys and lengths, depending on what values I enter. However, within this process, I am still editing the frequencies and envelope as well; it just adds an extra element to the mix.

(The advanced sampler in Ableton Live with changes to frequency, resonance, and envelope along with the Midi Arrangement for the melodic lid drop)

The video element was a little bit tricky as I am not as versed in video editing as I am in sound editing. The process for each individual video was: first finding the corresponding sample in Ableton Live, finding which part of the sample I used, and then cutting the video down to a little bit before the hit (So you can see me create the sound/impact in the video rather than just the impact itself) and a little bit after. I then marked out where in the video the sound was created and then pressed the ‘m’ key in time with that particular sample to create markers to mark out where it would go within the timeline. In addition to this, for some clips I lined up the audio that was captured on my camera (as the audio I used in the music track was captured by a different mic), to the audio from my track to make the process a little bit easier. After this, I cropped at positioned all the recordings to create the collage. 

(Markers and edits in Adobe Premiere Pro)

This process took a lot longer than I first anticipated purely due to the number of layers I ended up using. Even after finishing this task, I didn’t end up getting to include every recording I used in the video element as I just ran out of space and by the end of the video it was already a bit too cluttered.

(Editing in the DB07 Video Suite)

So after going through the process of researching what defines a sound and what defines music as well as creating a piece of music and video from said sounds, I have come to the conclusion that an everyday sound is not usually inherently musical. However, by changing the context of these noises and combining them in a rhythmic and melodic way, they can easily be considered music.

References

"3.1.3 Music vs. Noise - Digital Sound & Music". in , , 2014, <http://digitalsoundandmusic.com/3-1-3-music-vs-noise/> [accessed 15 September 2018].

"ANDREW HUANG". in , <https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCdcemy56JtVTrsFIOoqvV8g> [accessed 14 September 2018].

Anna, P, Silence in the forest. in , , 2017, <https://freesound.org/people/13F_Panska_Petruzelova_Anna/sounds/379210/> [accessed 8 September 2018].

Ball, P, "Why dissonant music strikes the wrong chord in the brain.". in nature, , 2012, <https://www.nature.com/news/why-dissonant-music-strikes-the-wrong-chord-in-the-brain-1.11791> [accessed 15 September 2018].

"Consonance and Dissonance". in , <http://www.avatar.com.au/courses/PPofM/consonance/con1.html> [accessed 16 September 2018].

Darman, N, "Noise vs. Music: It's All in the Physics! | Fiat Physica Blog.". in Fiatphysica, , 2015, <https://www.fiatphysica.com/blog/everyday-physics/physics-of-music-vs-noise/> [accessed 14 September 2018].

Elert, G, "Music & Noise – The Physics Hypertextbook.". in Physics.info, <https://physics.info/music/> [accessed 16 September 2018].

M., E, "Difference Between Noise and Music | Difference Between.". in Differencebetween.net, , 2011, <http://www.differencebetween.net/science/nature/difference-between-noise-and-music/> [accessed 15 September 2018].

Metcalfe-Davies, S, "The Reality and Truth of Existence – by Stephen Metcalfe-Davies | The Magic Happens (TMH).". in Themagichappensnow.com, , 2016, <http://themagichappensnow.com/the-reality-and-truth-of-existence/> [accessed 16 September 2018].

"Sound and Music : Overview : How Music Works". in , <http://www.howmusicworks.org/100/Sound-and-Music> [accessed 13 September 2018].

Stanford, N, "Cymatics.". in Nigelstanford.com, , 2014, <http://nigelstanford.com/Cymatics/Behind_the_Scenes.aspx> [accessed 16 September 2018].

Stanford, N, Cymatics: Chladni Plate - Sound, Vibration and Sand. in , , 2014, <https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tFAcYruShow> [accessed 16 September 2018].

Nikayla Brown’s Artwork, THE PERFECT JUNKYARD (2018)

@nikayla1002

Art and design often explore relationships between humans and non-humans, the environment and ecology. How can contemporary art and design propose new possibilities for imagining the ‘human’ and the environment?

Experiment:

I wanted to explore bioluminescence within a marine environment by focusing on corals. 

I found that bioluminescent corals contain interesting colours and patterns. The corals natural have complementary colours, for example the blue on the outside and the orange on the inside.

I used only acrylic paints and slithers of cardboard to create the corals. I dipped the cardboard into different colours and made a circle by using the cardboard like a compass. I then used the edge of the cardboard to add the texture around the circle.  

The blue and yellow paint really effective when it was inverted and it resembled the corals. 

Experiment Three

This took way longer than expected!! I thought I would finish it in maybe two sittings, but no! SIX sittings (and 41 frames)! Therefore, this could be my final product - I do really like how it turned out anyway.

I have to admit, I was getting bored of it by the third session, so ended up only doing a little at a time, and I didn’t want to give up and leave it unfinished.

I decided to put this on a black background, as I felt it looked better and was easier on the eye. I also chose to redraw the entire composition for each frame because I like the ‘wiggly-ness’ it gives the animation, compared to a completely still composition which would feel a bit serious/not playful, especially with the black background. It makes it appear more ‘alive’.

Today in class we looked at the concept of Value, including different types (monetary, social, historical, etc.) and how we each value things differently.

I did some more brainstorming (pictures still to come), and had an idea about making an underwater house concept to show a possible solution to the current real-world problem of not having enough housing in Sydney. This could either be a real model in some kind of tank filled with water, or maybe an image composited in Photoshop. Another spinoff idea I had was to put conceptual things representative of the home in an underwater environment like the house. These would show how we would have to start putting things we value (comfort, money, security, family, etc.) in a foreign environment and trust it in a new way.

Research

My main focus regarding the vast concept of cultural appropriation is through fashion, the main area of this issue occurring in fashion shows and on social media.

Earlier this year, Gucci was criticised for putting turbans on white models. Many Sikhs condemned the move as a huge sign of disrespect, pointing out that the turban is a symbol of faith not a fashion accessory. This issue occurs far too often and inevitably leads to the culture being insulted needing to draw attention to this adoption of significant culture, a mockery for the catwalk.

User Credit: Harjinder Singh Kukreja https://twitter.com/SinghLions (2018)

Even before this, in 2017, globally famous models were put in dreadlocks and Native American headdresses to accompany their outfits, enraging the globe. Furthermore, and luxury fashion label Chanel was criticised for “stealing” Aboriginal culture when it revealed a £1,100 boomerang as part of its S/S17 collection. And when expanding the issue to celebrities, many such as Katy Perry, Selena Gomez and Beyoncé have been criticised for taking an item of cultural clothing and have appropriated it for fashion rather than as a celebration of that culture.

User credit: i-D https://twitter.com/i_D (2017)

However this topic is very delicate, as when it comes to cultural appropriation, it’s not really a black-and-white issue, and according to Dr Royce Mahawatte, Senior Lecturer in Cultural Studies at Central St Martins, trying to “draw a line” is problematic in itself: “It creates a victim complex in people who have not accepted that [...] British and American exceptionalism is over and that white supremacy in culture is being robustly challenged – especially in an age of social media.”

Since the line apparently hasn’t been clearly defined, on many occasions it has been crossed, however a simpler solution would be to simply leave the idea alone all together. All the traditional culture swishes for is for the dominant culture to leave their clothes of significance alone and thereby avoid the issue.

'The fashion industry and western ideas of dressing up and fancy dress are functions of our colonial and imperial pasts – there is no getting away from it' – Rachel Hosie