#audio-vision

The animator, Davis Fang, responds to a selection of the new soundtracks.

Philip Charley: I adore this interpretation of the animation. With a far darker tone than the original piece, I hear hints of Bach’s Toccata and Fugue in D minor which is perfect for Halloween!

https://creativesoundtechnologies.tumblr.com/post/154318487502/new-soundtrack-by-philip-charley-2016-animation

Quianjun Wan: This piece has a beautiful duality to it. Beginning with influences of a modern techno pop, it soon transitions into a soothing piece that would be appropriate for a music-box. The transition from the music of young adulthood to the innocence of the celeste (I think) piece I feel is like a reverse bildungsroman, a look back at one’s coming of age story. Framed by the heartbeats at the beginning and end, it is an interpretation of the piece that represents the stages of one’s life.

https://creativesoundtechnologies.tumblr.com/post/154324209405/new-soundtrack-by-quianjun-wan-2016-animation-by

Laura Bunting: What’s most striking about this piece is how it has managed to create a story out of the seemingly random sequence of imagery. Recounting the birth and first few months of a child’s life, I adore how it breathes new life into the animation. It is beautifully mixed and recorded as well.

Somewhere, our limbs lost in the distance.

(Originally written January, 2012)

Chion: Voice in Cinema and the Muted Character

Considering Michel Chion’s penchant for grandeur, most chapters of his book Voice in Cinema, specifically those within the section “Tamiki: Tales of the Voice,” focus on the magnitude of the voice as it pertains to the human plight and how its use in films can usually be retraced to the correlating fears and desires within ourselves. Interestingly enough, however, the author makes one of his most convincing cases when he examines the characters who are unable to speak, which he does in Chapter 7, “The Mute Character’s Final Words.”

Prior to this chapter, Chion had already established the “voice” as something mankind is always striving to control. Specifically referring to the Christian myth, the Word (Voice) of God is the device that sparks the creation of all life. There is no light without an order from the all-powerful voice. Another, equally defining example is the unborn child, who is developing in the mother’s womb. Before the infant can even open its eyes, it is exposed to the sound of the mother’s all-encompassing voice. Again, before light (birth), there is only the voice. Once the child is born, the umbilical cord, previously its main source of communication, is cut, and thus the infant lets out its first scream; its first in a lifetime of attempts, futile as Chion likes to point out, at obtaining some sort of connection with that original, all-powerful voice.

So this is what makes the idea of the “mute” character a fascinating one. Here is a character who seems to lack the drive that is one of the defining characteristics of mankind. It’s no wonder why, as Chion points out, we tend to find this character unsettling and often untrustworthy. One can also make the case that, since the human voice is such a defining characteristic, we have no idea how to perceive this person. And as part of human nature, mystery is often met with fear, and all sorts of questions arise. What does this character know? What has he seen? What has he heard? Because of the character’s silence, we are naturally inclined to think that he has somehow managed to obtain a special nugget of wisdom, which Chion calls “The Great Secret.”

As the author points out, this character is not one specific to film but can also be found in novels and plays. In film, however, there are methods of accentuating the character’s mystery, particularly sonically. For instance, in some films, to quote Chion, “[it is] as if his mutism or muteness extends even to his footsteps and other sounds he makes when he moves.”

Throughout Voice in Cinema, Chion makes reference to the acousmêtre, the off-screen, omnipotent voice, aka “the voice without a body.” In the chapter on the muted character, he tackles the idea of the “body without a voice,” and in doing so, creates interesting parallels between the mute and his prior theories of the acousmêtre. The author describes their relationship as “symmetrical” and as one being the other’s “counterpart.” Both, however, are associated with having complete knowledge, or at least knowledge outside of the average person’s grasp.

Chion wraps up the chapter with a lengthy description of the French film Les Enfants du Paradis, in which the main character, a famous mime named Debureau, is put on trial for murder and is therefore forced to reveal his voice to the world. Not only is this a fairly literal interpretation of the “mute” revealing the “great secret,” but it also displays the character’s fall from grace. As the author states, “It is because he killed a man that Debureau had to expose his voice.” This suggests that, aside from mystery and suspicion, there is also a level of innocence attached to the character who cannot speak, an innocence that Debureau had clearly lost.

Perhaps this leads us toward a more developed idea of the relationship between the acousmêtre and the muted character. It’s hard to think of anything more innocent than the unborn child. This new being, who, like the mute, cannot speak, is comforted by an actual psychical attachment to the acousmêtre via the umbilical cord. Once removed from the womb, the connection is severed, and the newborn frantically resorts to the voice. So, it’s easy to say that there is a deep-seated jealousy instilled in us when we are presented with a muted character, one who has seemingly managed to maintain this connection with what is, for us, the unattainable, all-comforting Voice.

List of five stage performances that happen inside responsive or interactive audiovisual immersive spaces. Check more under Immersive A/V Environments IV and Immersive A/V Environments III.

[pic: HAKANAI, Adrien M, Claire B // BREAKDOWN, R.Carvalho, Y.Quay and S.Shen ABSORPION, M.Schlesinger, H. Delimat // D. Harrer and F. Voggeneder. Details below].