I chose to exhibit my story board and my final samples. The board explains how I got to where I did through experimentation. It is a snap shot of the key elements of the project, that tells the story of the two songs.
Evaluation Of Visions of Sound
I began this project by listening to pieces of music and loosely responding to them. I wanted the music to form a narrative and gave myself this goal. I wanted to experiment with how the music could become a visual piece. I started to research this by looking at Bjorks work with sound and nature. This inspired me to think about how the music can tell a story. I continued to draw to the music and select element from my drawings that I felt worked well. I used a photocopier to enlarge these sections. This process was quite random as I didn't always know what was going to happen. Through this process I began to create compositions that I liked and felt reflected upon the music.
I then began to use the music to draw with. I layered up my speaker with cling film and paint and placed a piece of paper 2 inches above. As the music played, the vibrations caused paint to splatter up to the paper forming a visual of the music. I decided that I could compare two different pieces of music and see the contrast in pattern. I was overwhelmed by how well this worked. The two different songs produced massively different patterns, just like I had hoped. Daft Punk, The Game Has Changed produced a singular large splurge with another smaller one next to it. Whilst Boom Bip - Road Must Roll produced 4 splodges. I then decided that I wanted to experiment further with this process. I used different materials such as acrylic, ink, gouache and rice. I found that each material varied the patterns. I then moved on to changing the ground that I was printing onto. Cottons and wools absorbed the ink more giving a large area of colour whist man made and less absorbent fabrics let less paint in causing a more accurate mark. So far I was really pleased and excited with what happened. I spent 3 weeks playing around with different surfaces and materials to see where the project could go.
As I am in the embroidery group, I needed to bring the project back to embroidery, so I began experimenting with embroidery techniques on my prints. I wanted to investigate how the techniques could vary the samples but still keep the essence and mood of the songs. I prefer hand embroidery so dedicated more time using techniques such as bullion knots, chain stitch and sewing materials onto the surface. I used materials inspired from a workshop involving the ideas of Richard Serra and his buzzwords.
I continued this process until I had produced 8 samples that I felt when put together reflected the mood and created a visual of each song. I see the context of my project to be an art piece comparing two very different sounds. I thought about bringing my project into different contexts such as fashion or interiors, but I couldn't see how this was relevant. I thought that in doing this I would lose the comparative factor that I feel is key in my work.
The process of printing on fabrics and paper worked really well in this project. Some of the interesting marks that I created I am very proud of due to the depth and precision. However not everything is bound to go well and I feel like my being in the wrong tutorial group throughout the project has hindered me. I don't feel like all of the embroidery I brought into the samples is necessary and i don't feel I dedicated enough time to really explore the boundaries of embroidery. In the next project, I would like to dedicate more time to thinking further about relevant techniques and materials to give my work more meaning and context.
