Reading the ecology article, I'm reminded of a scene from the film The Cove where they mentioned the sound recording of the Blue Whale sparking a mass upswing in environmental activism. I think there's a strange power to sound, even more so than with image. Perhaps it's because we have some instinctive link to the calming sound of the womb, the heartbeat, the blood flow, processing sound at a primal and urgent level. We might even connect the sound of the whale to some sense of forgotten memory. The article is incredibly poetic in terms of making the reader aware of the vast sound scape encompassing the world, and the importance of preserving the integrity of a balance between man/machine and nature. In terms of film, I think there is a great deal of practical application just based on the awareness of the potency of natural sound, and its juxtaposition and struggle against something more industrial. I think the two embody an inherent conflict that can fuel filmic productions in interesting ways. I also love how the second article, Sound on Image, drew upon sounds ability to create associations (much like how similar articles have established an associative link between two edited shots, ie Kuleshov Effect). This "added value" contributes a new tier of complexity to an already deeply layered string of image correlation. When we tap into some primal sensation through that sound we elevate films to greatness. I also love the distinction between the use of music in the second article, how a scene can take on the character of the image based progressing action, mimicking pace and tone (like fast paced action music for a car chase) or by creating a causal indifference. For the latter, I imagine the cool jazz of Elevator to the Gallows, where every criminal action takes a muted tone, as if offering commentary to the triviality of the pursuit of crime, the inevitable downfall, the emptiness of the character, like that.
In any case, those were the points I keyed in on. And that quote at the beginning of the ecology article, it's just beautiful. It makes me want to read that book. I fished up another couple quotes from the book out of curiosity:
My life and the world’s life are deeply intertwined; when I wake up one morning to find that a week-long illness has subsided and that my strength has returned, the world, when I step outside, fairly crackles with energy and activity: swallows are swooping by in vivid flight; waves of heat rise from the newly paved road smelling strongly of tar; the old red barn across the field juts into the sky at an intense angle. Likewise, when a haze descends upon the valley in which I dwell, it descends upon my awareness as well, muddling my thoughts, making my muscles yearn for sleep. The world and I reciprocate one another. The landscape as I directly experience it is hardly a determinate object; it is an ambiguous realm that responds to my emotions and calls forth feelings from me in turn. p. 33
The animate earth – this moody terrain that we experience differently in anger and in joy, in grief and in love – is both the soil in which all our sciences are rooted and the rich humus into which their results ultimately return, whether as nutrients or as poisons. Our spontaneous experience of the world, charged with subjective, emotional, and intuitive content, remains the vital and dark ground of all our objectivity.
[For the sound in Elevator to the Gallows clip, notice how the music is impassive but the act of murder is accentuated by the hard, grating sound of the pencil sharpener and the knowledge of death is accompanied only by silence. Very interesting sound to image correlations]
All right, so the pinhole camera was a heroic failure. I think they are kind of cool in a really abstract way but yeah, barely recognizable in terms of an actual image, really blown out. I will say, it makes me want to try it again. More to come in the actual assigned blog response.
The Wells article was a great read, specifically because it's focusing the divide between mainstream and avant-garde within a specific film genre branch (ie animation). The individual artist versus the mass collective, the seamless continuity versus purposive shifts in logic and action for emotional response, it all becomes really distilled in an animation. I think this is because animation has a tendency to get at the nascent root of artistic communication. The way the article spoke of recognizable characters becoming their own intrinsic identities beyond situation, Mickey Mouse still being a marketable recreation in the Sorcerer's Apprentice for instance, really speaks to how primal I think animations are. If we are watching a film with an actor, some aspect of their star persona seeps into the film, but for the most part we feel like we are watching new characters. With animation that doesn't happen, the character is trapped in amber, forever chasing rabbits or roadrunners, brought to a single narrative compulsion that carries the timespan of an entire cartoon series. On the other hand, experimental animation often pares down to simple shapes and colors, becoming the most basic and natural means of eliciting emotional response.
I did have two basic reactions to the article. One was that I would have loved for the author's opinion on the new trending Japanese Anime that has begun to challenge narrative norms. For instance, with the film Paprika the overall "unity of style" is constantly being challenged by experimental shifts in the environment, but it still operates under a narrative justification (the subconscious dream infringing on reality. It's a cool film). I suppose this is a bit like a distortion in a chase sequence but in my mind far more extreme. I also think that claiming the majority of orthodox animation is dialogue based is a little bit of a stretch, especially with the animation he has been referencing (eg Looney Tunes, Disney). I feel like many of those old cartoons harnessed both the fast talking of Groucho (love a good Marx Brothers reference, I'll give the paper props for that) but also harness old silent film tendencies (like Harpo!).
A few instances would be Roadrunner cartoons, Fantasia, Tom and Jerry, and I've seen a couple different Marvin the Martians that were almost completely without dialogue.
I'll include a few examples of what I'm talking about below.
I thought both the article and the video very enlightening. However, they left me with a lot more logistical questions about it all. For instance, how do they produce a sound based image of a snow flake, do they use an actual snow flake or is it a means of replication, meaning that the form snowflakes take on have some kind of communal elements with sound. And if it is the former, knowing how fragile a snow flake is how on earth would they accomplish that? In terms of synesthetics, I wonder if this association is a constant or if it comes and goes as the reflectionist artist seems to suggest. I love the fact that she uses these synesthetic moments to harness a universal sense of beauty, it's such a fantastic thought. I also wonder if it is a two way street for some synesthetics. For instance, the woman who listens to music and paints the corresponding colors and textures...does she see some other painting and hear some new sound scape, some symphonic registry that we'll never have access to? I'm terribly envious. Particularly with the acupuncturist response, it seems like some ramped up hypnogogic vision, terribly interesting stuff. I think what I take from all this is a level of connectivity with the universe, how everything is energy and manifests itself in different ways. Perhaps that makes me sound foolish but that's what I believe and when I see sound slowly shifting into visual patterns, it just makes me think that these are all different expressions of the same thing: energy, vibrations, strings, etc. I also like the fact that artists can either attempt to reproduce their synesthetic visions or can attempt to access synesthetic insight through their emotional connections. I think even if Kadinsky isn't a true synesthetic, he's tapping into the same process in a completely different way (eg emotional response).
Also, I'm fascinated by water so I found Marcia Smilack's work particularly interesting. I thought I would post of few images that I enjoyed of hers (found via google image search):
Original Response for McLaren Film:
"I enjoyed the film a great deal. It almost seemed like an attempt to harness a visual response to Jazz, to establish a call and response with the score within the genre's formal guidelines. The shift between a percussive response and the more fluid response went with the score beautifully, allowing the viewer to almost evaporate in those solos, denying the interruption of the visual staccato. The break in the middle of hte piece was also lovely, as the recurring image of strings seemed to to change into stars or floating orbs of fire, as if to suggest the transformative quality of the music. I was also reminded of an internalization process, like the rush of blood in the more fluid segments, as if we were either entering the musician's bloodstream or the music's bloodstream itself. A lovely, evocative work.
