Exploring Adaptable Art

Well, Eric (the artist I approached) was interested in a story about a girl from India who was born with a birth defect--in her case she was born with a parasitic twin, which gave her eight limbs in all. The girl's name is Lakshmi Tatma, by the way. You can find CNN's article here. It's funny, while researching this story, I learned that there were people in her village that began to revere her as a spiritual symbol, to the point where some people opposed her having an operation that would separate her twin & help her live a more normal life. Despite those with supernatural beliefs, her parents knew their daughter was special no matter what others thought. As a result, Lakshmi had what was an incredible & (for India) an unprecedented operation.

So...to tell the story, I decided that the girl and those surrounding her could be represented through music.

So as not to give the creative process away just yet, take a listen to the clip first.

I have to thank both free-loops.com (which houses unlicensed, public domain & creative commons audio) as well as the
Freesound Project. Thanks to these sites, I was able to find some great samples. See the extended post for attributions.

However, behind the scenes, I've actually been doing other stuff. I did put my Music for the Media class on hold for a couple of months. But, since I'm going part-time in school, I should (I hope) have the time to finish it, and I'm going to turn my attention back to it this weekend.

But, in the meantime, I've been doing some experimental stuff & learning how to better make use of all the upgrades I've made to the studio. I've basically made the switch to using a bunch of products from Native Instruments in addition to Cubase. Well, their stuff is neat--but is taking some time to learn how to use efficiently. These folks make great products, but I wish there was more guidance from the company on how to use their products...

...So, I've been digging a little & in the process decided to jump back into a project that's a bit more artistic in nature. I first started with a few tentative attempts at using Kontakt to take some vocal samples (freely available) and map them to midi regions, and finally to morph the clips by pitch & by time.

It's funny how inspiration decides when and where to strike. From there, I decided to pitch an idea for an art project to a friend of mine--and a great artist. (I don't want to name him just yet in case he'd rather not be. But, suffice it to say that he paints & has a really distinctive style.)

Well, the idea was to combine the presentation of his artwork with music that corresponded to the art. I know people have used background music in art galleries, but I wanted to have a more personal experience, specific to the art, and for the viewer to choose when & if they wanted to listen.

ok, let's take this one step farther. let's take the image once again of the straight fence, this time superimposing a sine wave on the image. at this point can see how the wave pattern mimics the flow of the seemingly gradual decline in the size of the fence.



...now, let's see how we can take a look at this musically

i'd like to move back into an exploration of rhythm. a couple of posts ago, i tried combining a musical background with aikido movement in an attempt to emphasize rhythm. i'd like to go back to that concept, This time, though i want to start by exploring a visual idea of rhythm.

according to some, visual rhythm can be described in a variety of ways, depending on what's happening with visual patterns, as well as with the flow of how the viewer's eye is drawn across an image. the artlex dictionary defines "visual" rhythm as "movement by the repetition of objects".

here's an example. this photograph is of a white picket fence somewhere here in austin, and was taken on a sunny afternoon.



i pulled this photo from my collection in an attempt to illustrate the idea of "progressive rhythm"--which basically means that the shape & size of the pickets in the fence appear to decrease from the left edge of the photo to the right edge. See another definition at acrstudio.com

the alternating light & dark areas of the photo also indicate a rhythm type of visual rhythm.