Projects
1. Three abstract sound works
Using Soundtrack Pro, create three sound works of between 40 seconds and 3 minutes.
- One using only white noise, pink noise, silence
- One using only generated sine, square, triangle, and sawtooth wave tones and silence
- One using all of the above
2 Sound Passage
Using Soundtrack Pro or Audacity and sound that you've recorded out in the field (with the Zoom audio recorders), you are to create two distinct "sound spaces," starting with one and transitioning into the other. As a point of courtesy (and sanity), please use headphones when editing in the lab.
Aim for your whole piece to last around 1-4 minutes.
Your sound spaces should be constructed out of a clear three-level spatial structure, containing three simultaneous layers of sound: a foreground, a middle ground, and a background. Sounds in different layers of depth should be recorded separately and mixed together, instead of recorded in unison.
In all three levels, your sounds should be unique and chosen carefully, but it is sometimes helpful to think of these levels as increasingly specific as they rise up a pyramid-like structure. Those in the base layer, the background, are usually less distinct, even ambient, but are often needed throughout the "sound picture." The middle-ground levels of the second layer are often a little more distinct, and can more easily fluctuate, hesitate, and change. The foreground sound is usually the loudest, the clearest, and the least reverberating. It also may not need to be present more than for one quick appearance.
You may only employ music or human voices in the background or middle ground.
Export an WAV or AIFF sound file. Make us weep and gnash our teeth.
Consider:
- choice of sound (identity, specificity)
- juxtaposition (how do sounds mixed together create space and meaning)
- volume of playback in the mix
- conditions of original recording scenario
- reverb or other illusion of space introduced in production
Do not rely on the pace of the original recordings to determine the relationships between layers. You are able to cut and move things around for a reason. Be intentional about your edits.
How/where does meaning happen or make itself known in your work? How do the transitions between the different layers affect this meaning or content?
3 Found Footage, Appropriation, and Remix
For this assignment, you will use appropriated sound and video from other sources. You can use material found online, on TV, in films, home movies, etc. You will re-edit your source material to recontextualize it and give it (or expose in it) meaning other than what was originally intended in its production. Remember our discussion copyright and what it takes to make it yours. You can add your own footage and sound to it. You can use footage from many different sources (as Johan Grimonprez did with Dial HISTORY) or you can use few sources (as Cem Kaya did with Do Not Listen). Your use of the original material must alter its meaning sufficiently that it is very apparent that you are not just passing it off as yours, but are using it as raw material to make something new. Think of the found footage as a material that your are molding to make it into something new.
You can use the synchronized sound from the original footage, sound you record and edit, or silence. You should not use pre-recorded music as a soundtrack, but you can use short samples that are edited into the soundtrack with other sound sources.
4 Performance and Documentation
Actions, like images, sounds, and objects, are saturated with meaning. Think about the performances we watched from Marina Abramoviç, Bas Jan Ader, Francis Alys, Ant Farm, Chris Burden, etc.
Plan, script, and storyboard the performance of a significant action.
You will shoot it twice. The first time it will be shot in one continuous take, with no edits. Think about the long takes we watched from Orson Welles' Touch of Evil and from Tarkovsky's The Sacrifice. Plan out the shot in advance. Plan your (or your actor's) movements, camera movements, framing, zoom, etc. Rehearse and shoot as many times as necessary to get it right.
The second time it will be shot from multiple different angles, with different shot compositions, etc. Think about what is most important for us to see. How should it be framed? How should the camera move? How does motion carry momentum between edits? What kinds of transitions are appropriate?
5 Final: Site Specific Projection
Here are your groups for the final project
Your final project will be a video (and sound if you want) piece that will be projected onto the bus stops at the corner of Fulton and Sheldon downtown Grand Rapids. We will be working out details with the bus service and need to figure out the best way to turn the glass bus stops into rear-projection screens. We also need to arrange to power the projectors and speakers with available electricity or with a generator.
We will be reading about and discussing site specificity to prepare for this project. The site lends itself to engagement with the structures' uses and surroundings, but your are not obligated to make work that deals specifically with the site. Nevertheless, the work must be made with the site in mind and must be appropriate for a public screening in collaboration with the city bus service.
We will look at examples during class of work projected in public spaces. These will bring up important questions for us to consider in our own work. Think about how the work engages (or doesn't) its location. What are the architectural characteristics of the projection site? How are these used by the artist? Who inhabits or traverses the space? What are the power dynamics at the space, e.g., who owns it, who controls it, who is privileged in it, etc.?
You are expected to contribute actively and equally to your group's work as well as to the class's execution of the projections.
We will hammer out more details as we get closer to the end of the semester.
The projects will be shown on the bus stops on December 10, 11, 12 and 13.
Here are Google Maps pictures of the area
Link to this Page
- Schedule last edited on 10 December 2009 at 10:47 am by 148.61.32.188
