mdcm3002
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Okay, so after my first EPIC fail of the semester I feel I need to kick it up a notch and get into my media 3002 project. I know I can fark around and leave it to the last minute, but I need to get out of that habit- it seems I can only pull that off with my essays… that is if I finish them. Anyway back to the point.
Now I decided that I started with the lounge and hated it, so I’m going to move away from it and come back to it towards the end when I have something a little more developed- I did start and I do plan to end with the lounge, it technically fits within the brief. Well that’s what I’m going to tell myself!
I have always been incredibly interested in performative art, or at least making the audience apart of the work and making them work to find meaning. There is nothing worse then sitting down and escaping- yes it can be great when you want to turn to mush, but I do think we need to stop being a LAZY society and start using our brains. You always hear “Back in my day we used to have to make our own entertainment,’ Why can’t we do this today? Why can’t we force our audiences to create their own experiences rather then provide them with a generic mass produced end result. If your getting my jist hoorah, if not then turn back now!
Quick side-track. I hate blogs, I hate spewing all this info out for everyone to see, I would much rather write it in my diary and develop in my space then SHARE! But no. I am forced to write these stupid blogs that make me sound like a complete and utter twat.
But back to the point. I want my audience to create an experience. I had an idea to blindfold my audience and play them a soundtrack. I want them to create their own video to the music, with different sounds evoking something different for every user. Its like when you close your eyes and just listen, you still create images behind your eyes to compliment what you hear. You listen out for what is familiar and that triggers an image or memory… I hope this is making sense. I want my audience to be apart of the project and make their experience with the work a personalised one.
Now I have realised that blindfolding the audience could get difficult, and I this project needs to approach each participant individually. In terms of blindfolding I could place the participant in an enclosed cubical – like port-a-loo size, and have an image of a couch on each side of the walls, or maybe a collage of couches… hmm possibly. Or I could place goggles on the user which has images of a couch in each eye, that could be interesting… I think this is something I need to flesh out and experiment with. Ultimately I think maybe the blindfold might be more effect, that way we are forcing images to be created… possibly
I think this would make for an interesting work based in a public space… there are a couple of things that I need to flesh out here a little more, but wouldn’t it be interesting approaching someone in the middle of the street and taking them out of the geographical space and forcing them to retreat into their mind… I think having cubicles could have an interesting lure, but I don’t know how people would react. Then again, I don’t know how people would react to being blindfolded by a complete stranger and how willing they would be to escape into their minds…
That’s me for now.. I hope more then one person reads this otherwise I have wasted a lot of time for NOTHING!
Beautiful.
The silhouette/shadow interplay from 2:13 - 2:31 is the kind of stuff I want to do in regards to idea number 1 for the lounge.
Man, can that girl go on pointe! I’m still in awe. Perfection. Love the dancing, choreography, music (love covers/reworkings!), video direction…
La La La Human Steps is a Québécois contemporary dance group. Naturally.
i had an experience recently that made me realise just how important sound is to a truly great production. now, as a sound producer, this is not some narcissistic babble. it is true that any great production is the sum of its parts and if there is something missing or doesn’t work, then the production as a whole falls on its face. now, onto my case in point.
hands up those who have seen Guy Ritchie’s latest, ‘Rocknrolla’? i have seen it twice, both times in cinemas, but both times were different. the first time i saw the film was at The Ritz, on ‘tight-arse Tuesday’ of course, and i was absolutely blown away! the scripting and the dialogue that Ritchie delivers is genius, a great balance between action and humour; the casting is spot on with Toby Kebbel stealing the show in the final scenes playing crack-head rock ‘n’ roller Johnny Quid. but the part what blew me away was the sound. the sound was huge heightening the suspense and drama and underpinning the comedic element of the film, whilst the accompanying soundtrack could not have been more on the money. the film surpassed my expectations of Ritchie, going further than both his classic London gangster films, ‘Lock Stock’ and ‘Snatch’.
However, and here is the point i wish to make the second viewing left me bitterly disappointed.
Let me set the scene for you: it was a quiet friday night, and as one does on a friday night, i was looking for some entertainment. a small gang of my buddies and i decided a night off the booze would be good for a change and so settled on the idea of heading to Govindas, a hare krishna joint on Darlinghurst Road that offers up a delicious deal of all-you-can-eat vegetarian wonders and a movie in a small and intimate cinema for only 25 bucks! so off to Govindas where we literally ate all we could, and headed up stairs to the cinema where, other than the usual arrangement of cramped cinema chairs, you are greeted with an assortment of bedding, couches and beanbags with which to make your viewing pleasure all that more, um, pleasurable. it is truly a fantastic set up, i was so comfortable i even whipped my shirt off.
but from the opening credits i realised something was wrong. the sound setup in the cinema was absolutely terrible! there was only a small pair of stereo speakers situated up the front next to the screen, and being in the backrow, we could barely make out the sound. the stereo system had zero dynamic range and seemingly were without any bass capabilities. it was like watching a bootleg copy of the film that had been caught on a mini-dv camera by some shaky-handed, bald, sweating Thai delinquent that had somehow been passed off as a genuine copy to the kind folk at Govindas. i couldn’t believe it! the sound was just awful and the full effects of the film were just not there. the sound was flat and the action seemed stale. the dialogue didn’t feel right as the intonation and inflection of the characters voices was missing, and as you can imagine the delivery of speech felt dead. the film as a whole suffered. it just was not the same, not even close to being the same experience as the first time i saw the film.it almost felt like a b-grade movie which it certainly ain’t.
after talking up the film as the best piece of cinematic entertainment i had witnessed in a long time, i was left red-faced as the full of effects of the film could not be impacted upon my peers. the poor sound let the film down massively! words do not begin to explain this, but what it made me realise is that any production is only as good as its poorest aspect, and the sound let the film down, making the whole thing seem utterly sub-standard.
so i guess where i’m going with this is that as media producers who are all multi-talented and with the abilities to work with an array of media platforms, we should be striving for excellence with everything we do. for if if we build super websites, beautifully constructed with interesting design contents, but settle for crappy content, or produce an awesome video but don’t think about the sound and use some contrite garage band loop, then we let the whole production down. for it is the productions where every aspect is tops that we sit back and say, that was awesome! if you think about how we view media we do often take productions to pieces, analysing each aspect and saying, well that part was good, but i didn’t like this; or that was good, but was let down by this, etc. but it is the productions where every facet works together to construct a perfect whole that are the ones we remember.
so let’s not become complacent, and strive for excellence in every aspect of our work! happy producing.
To solidify my concept I took more time to look into it, and constantly asking myself why? and how? I also started to take some initial small steps into my research.
The Concept
Going with my concept ‘The Modern Lounge’, the concept is to re-create the absorption and feeling of memorization present in the modern lounge room, to create a ‘bubble’ for the individual, exporting them from the world to a memorized trance like state. Why this concept? Because it takes a step back from the literal use of the lounge concept, and has a slight abstract approach. Also, it creates a feeling and experience for the viewer through the use of modern multimedia.
Practical Aspects, How?
In terms of the proposal for the art gallery my project would be a screen installed behind a blank wall with three or so headphones outside for the viewer to uses. It functions so that three or so viewers can simultaneously engage in the media and be in separate ’bubbles’.
The projects visual and audio aspects will be presented through flash animations. The visuals being created with flash and the audio created through studio recordings (drum, bass guitar, keyboards) and through computer generated sounds. The visual stimuli at the moment is still in the developing process, at the moment I thinking of using a simple, screen saver/ lava lamp like visuals, generic shapes, mono toned colors and smooth movements all created through flash.
For the audio aspect of the project I have come up with some ideas. Firstly whilst doing research I was looking into the first steps of creating music, the tempo (beats per minute). Techno music has around 128Bpm - 150Bpm, pop music has around 100Bpm and the human heart at a calm state has 70Bpm. So to create the relaxed and trance like state for the viewer I was thinking of using around 70Bpm or even a little lower, to help create a calm and realxed state. For the studio recording aspects of the audio stimuli I have some musician friends who can play the electric drum kit and the bass guitar. I myself have a background in guitar and am capable of creating some simple riffs with the keyboard. I was aiming at creating a simple, soothing, seamless musical piece that can be played on a loop. I was aiming for some thing similar to Air (a great example of the style I wanted to work in would be ‘Playground Love’). On top of the musical piece I also wanted to add a subtle background noise, used to create a ‘vacuum’ for the viewer, an example of this would be a particular work from Minilogue for the sound track to ‘Animals – The Movie’. I wanted to create a simple sound scape to subtly layer with the musical piece.
What to do now:
Firstly I wanted to get started on some practical aspects, creating samples and experimenting with different mediums and approaches. Secondly I wanted to dive deeper into my research, looking for similar works, concepts and anything to play around with.
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Wednesday night is reading night: gleaning interesting info from the (seemingly thousands) of pages that Andrew has set for this weeks readings in preparation for tute time. However, tonight the ABC had other ideas. I am not a huge TV fan, to be honest, there is nothing that really excites me on toob. I have tired of American accents flooding our airwaves. Seriously! I rate American television as annoying as getting out of the shower only to discover that you have no towel. But tonight, tonight was something special. Tonight I witnessed televisual-box magic! Tonight made me realise that us Aussies make damn good TV and I had all my faith confirmed by Lawrence Leung’s new delight, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’.
But first, the journey began with ye olde faithful, that ever-entertaining, but unfairly brief half hour morsel that is ‘Spicks and Specks’. With Adam Hills and co. offering up a half-hour of musical-based quizzical madness, and with two of our top comedians in Tim Minchin and Dave Hughes on board, this was the best episode I have watched yet.
This was then followed by Will Anderson in his new role as the host of ‘The Gruen Transfer’. Whilst this does produce tearful nostalgia and fits of rage over the canning of ‘The Glasshouse’, Anderson’s former tv baby, Anderson is sublime in his ability to take an amiably-gilded sword to the advertising industry, dicing and slicing some of their biggest campaigns to expose the meaning of the messages they send. ‘Gruen’ is more fun than a throwing a cat in a washing machine, and Anderson proves that the best way illustrate a point is with a fist full of satire.
But then, that’s when the magic happened. Step up Lawrence Leung! The man is a full-blown comic genius! Lawrence Leung’s new show, ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’, is sooooooo much fun! Wait. Seven O’s is not enough. SOOOOOOOOO much fun! There, nine to be sure, much happier with that, we can move on. Leung offers up a slab of self-reflexive and introspective humour that has been missing since ‘Summer Heights High’ left our screens and I think Leung will fill the big shoes that have (for now) been left by Chris Lillee. The show is just soo much fun, I cannot think of any other adjectives to describe it. Wait…one second. Off to google to find some….the show is a riotous romp, a boisterous escapade, a convivial quest through Leung’s failed childhood and is his attempt to relive and re-do his shortcomings as a youngster. Seriously great stuff and I don’t think I have ever been so involved with a TV show as I have with ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’. My hat is raised to you sir Leung!
But I guess the most that I took away from the show was that Leung was able to showcase the potential for a mutli-faceted media approach to a simple medium. Leung’s use of animation, and I’m not quite sure what it is called, so I will describe it thusly: through drawing cutesy pictures over the top of the video, and using stop-motion animation of playschool-esque characters and scenes to illustrate a point and provide super-entertaining visuals. This was really exciting to see for a new media producer as, although not entirely new, it shows how effective multi-media can be and the depth that it adds to a production.
I had my beliefs in our ability to produce great entertainment confirmed by the ABC tonight. With former glories, the affore mentioned ‘Glasshouse’ and ‘Summer Heights High’, and let’s not forget ‘The Chaser’, we are truly capable of producing some of the best stuff on the box. Hell, i’ll even admit to liking Seven’s ‘Packed to the Rafters’. And who could forget the first series of ‘Underbelly’? I don’t see why the Australian media producers don’t get behind Aussie productions? If it’s a money issue, canning ‘Neighbours’ and ‘Home and Away’ should free up some desperately needed funds. Now that i’ve solved that problem, we still have the problem of Matthew Newton still getting gigs on TV….
It’s been about 5 days since our sketch presentations, and I had presented idea number 3 as my idea for the lounge. Whilst the idea of people remixing sounds and having dancers create movement on the spot to these new sounds seems like a fun idea, it lacks an actual concept behind it; ie. no clear purpose and no clear audience.
So I took a step back, back to the beginning, and brainstormed a crazy looking mind map of all the things I could think of regarding the lounge, and this, combined with lounge brainstorming with Karen on the train, led to a new idea:
Underground Sounds
Underground Sounds (working title) is a sound-based interactive game for kids (most likely under the age of 10 or 12).
It works on the premise of a sound installation, where a lounge is centred in a darkened room where the lounge is spotlighted so that the kids will sit down on that spot. Once they are in place, the spotlight dims to darkness and the kids are aurally introduced to dripping, echo-y sounds of liquid falling in a cave, then the sound of bats flying around and above the lounge, which then settles to reveal a disembodied voice that introduces them to the new world that they’ve been transported to: the Labyrinth.
Kids must find their way out of the Labyrinth by answering a series of sound-based questions, which would be answered by either strategically placed mics, or motion sensor buttons in a particular area in the room/on the lounge.
An example of what children would encounter in Underground Sounds is a large and annoying house fly that has followed the children from the normality and safety of the start of their journey, and they must become active participants by getting up from the lounge and following the sound of this intrepid traveller around the room until it leads them on a zig-zagging tiring chase back to the lounge, where the fly stops buzzing, and the children must pick the correct seat/pattern on the lounge (ie. by saying their answer out loud) that will take them to the next portion of their journey.
Since this sound installation/game is called Underground Sounds, it would include all sorts of subterranean places and dwellings such as caves, underwater landscapes/soundscapes, what’s hidden beneath trap doors, sewer and tunnel systems, and perhaps even something like the London underground. These ideas, particularly that of the underwater lounge and the trap door idea, is influenced by pictures I found of underwater lounges and green rooms whilst researching the lounge (see my Diigo links for more).
I was hoping to incorporate Greek myths, folk tales and other mythologies into the sound game so that the children get to learn something new, run around for a bit, and most importantly, have fun.
Initial Sketch for the Lounge for MDCM3002 (as of 18 March 2009).
Project Ideas:
1. The first significant idea I had was a combination of earlier snippets of ideas and experiences of sound. In regards to the lounge, a person/dancer is plunged into darkness in the attic of their house. The only object that is large and familiar to her (and to us, the audience) is an old lounge in the centre of the room. The piece begins with a memory from childhood on the lounge and as she moves/dances through this, other memories and the objects attached to them come to mind (all in the dark, but the audience sees her as a silhouette).
The soundscape (done through 5.1 surround) follows her journey and is it through sound that the dancer and the audience gets a feel for what the object is in the attic and the memory behind it. This is all interspersed with instances where the lounge plays an important role in her recollections, much like that of the Ariadne’s thread (from the Deleuze extract last year). The darkness and the silhouettes are there to emphasise the aural components of memory. This would ideally be a sound installation in an attic-sized room.
2. The second idea: I want to explore how sound affects a space, the atmosphere and the people within that space, ie. with their state of mind/being. Instead of a narrative-based idea, this one is more conceptual in that I take the idea of the lounge in regards to one its more common uses; rest and relaxation.
I want to create a space and a matching soundscape that delivers this safe, cool and calm environment. This idea was inspired by chilling out in my sister’s bedroom with the window open and the cool, natural breeze of a summer night (albeit a crazy, fickle Sydney summer). This combined with the night time ambience really wants to make you close your eyes and let the cicadas rock you to sleep. In order to achieve this, I was thinking of a sound installation with a comfortable lounge (or two) where the temperature, lighting and placement of familiar sounds such as these play in the room.
3. This is an extension or spin-off of the second idea. It is still a space with the lounge as the focal point, but it is one where the concept of the lounge is there for recreation and entertainment. This is an interactive sound installation where the observer moves from being somewhat passive to an active part of their experience. The user has a device (ideally using a Mini Kaoss Pad ) and, using the metaphor of the lounge and remote control, can remix, manipulate and change the sounds that are emanating from the speakers. I’m hoping to use a combination of night-time ambience, techno loops and guitars as the sounds that the user can adjust with the Mini Kaoss Pad due to its touch pad interface.
Another dimension to this idea would be either changes to lighting in sync to the sounds being produced and mixed or a small group of dancers performing from a transparent ’screen’ in front of the lounge in time to the user-mixed sounds and would trickle into the ‘lounge room’, breaking the fourth wall and dancing around and amongst the user/the lounge.
Style Manifesto: Likes
‘Dominik Eulberg - Stelldichein des Westerwälder Vogelchores’ is a 9m31s track which would best be described as bird techno. Dominik Eulberg is a German DJ/producer as well as a park ranger who records bird sounds and puts them together to compose a song using only these sounds. What I like about this track is that it’s weird, a little unusual and is a different way of thinking about birds, nature and rhythm. This reflects my own personal style in that I like the idea of using sounds not usually associated with ‘normal’ music sounds and creating something new, different and catchy.
Dislikes
‘Rihanna copies Fefe Dobson……….. this chick has no shame’ is a YouTube video that is essentially a 10m14s slideshow that disparages one artist in relation to another, all to 2 songs of another pop artist (Pink). I highly dislike this piece because it looks tacky (ie. the lacklustre font choices and colour), the content is stupid, and it’s way too long. There’s even a small audio section of low quality that has shallow girls talking then one of them vomiting. It’s pointless, sad and time-consuming. How does this fit into my manifesto? It’s a veritable ‘DON’T’ list: don’t be hating; don’t drag on; don’t be tacky (the fonts/colour choices still make me cringe).
Practice Manifesto
I have learnt that research and bouncing ideas off with other people is a good idea, it helps with conceptualisation and is something I should do more of. I also like funny, quirky ideas that grab people’s attention (ie. “stickiness”) and making use of material (images, video, sound) I have made/collected out of fun and putting it into a new and different context. I like creating interesting sounds out of something normal and ‘mundane’ and clean and finely-tuned work. I dislike cheesy stuff and messy ‘loose ends’ where things can be too short in some parts and too long in others. I’ve learnt from my peers that strong conceptualisation and research is key, as is time management and just getting out there and doing/making stuff; all of which I should develop more this year.
