So recently I received an email saying that the visual artist I wanted to work with was okay to proceed, but instead of composing a soundscape to an already produced visual piece. I would be producing a soundscape and then the visual artist would be producing a video around my soundscape which is sort of a backwards technique to collaborating in sound and media.

 

I feel quite confident with this as it gives me complete creative control on a blank canvas where I can set the image and carve my own audible reality.

 

The artist I will be collaborating alongside is Cristiana Cott, she works in photography, cinematography and 2D animation. A lot of her work borders on the estrange and abstract forms of art, and I believe a lot of her inspiration comes from themes of violence, torture, sex and gore. She likes work that has an underlining message, and I think in this sense our idea’s and views on abstract art, sound and media with coincide quite nicely. Underneath is a screenshot from one of her pieces ‘Overlapping Memories’ which contains strong influences of gore, and themes of a deranged and some may say unstable nature.

 (Cristiana Cott – 2014 – ‘Overlapping Memories’)

 

I’m looking forward to working with her, as this will take a new approach to forming and composing forms of abstract media, basing a video on top of sound and music already composed. This will be as much of a challenge for her no doubt as it will be for me, as I’ve always been used to forming and creating audio on top of already finalised media works, such as animation and film. So this is a new concept where I’m painting the canvas with sound but need to do so with such passion that it can signify power and can inspire Cristiana and induce creativity.

 

What I want to do is base the soundscape from a conceptual point of view that is based of the concept of two contrasting sides of middle eastern culture, such as the religion, exotic landscapes, and playing on what’s unknown to us (if that makes sense) and also the devastation, terrorism and factors of fear and to promote these concepts.

I want the feel of the piece to be somewhat transformative, and evolve over the course, I plan to display audibly, some of Syria’s heritage as well as the modern warfare that we sometimes link it to today.

Looking at these two composures they take two very different forms into the representation of what interoperate as Syrian culture in modern day.

 

The first takes a more formalist approach using mostly synthesised material, the only natural element in the piece is the constant use of vocals from documentaries and news reports. In addition the synthesised works build an excellent atmosphere and emphasises tension and a sense of vulnerability. The build up to the climax in the soundscape I find very simplistic yet effective using a dissonant tone that modulates in rate and pitch.

https://soundcloud.com/casspoelstra/syrian-soundscape

 

 

The second one takes a very naturalist approach, it’s more of a composed piece of music than a soundscape that uses recreations of western culture musical styles and instruments like the singing, the strings and the general tonality to the sound piece. Different from the other soundscape this is more of a composed piece of music, but in turn gives it a lot more emotive value and structure. Each element of the piece works in partnership to build an ensemble of sound that almost engulfs the mind, leaving myself yet again feeling lost and senseless.

https://soundcloud.com/daniel-mcbride-2/syria

 

 

I’ve taken these two different approaches into my own idea’s and plan to take elements from each one, using the formalist approach to bring darker tones, atmospheric vibes and dissonance which will enhance this feeling of vulnerability that I want to achieve. Whilst also I want to take organic sounding instruments from a more naturalist style of soundscape to help give the piece it’s structure and push this feeling of empathy on to the audience, getting them to feel and picture themselves in the sense and environment of utter tyranny.

 

From what I can tell at the moment, I think I’m going to take more of a formalist approach to the piece, using naturalist undertones to really set the theme of the soundscape helping structure the piece so the audience knows it’s roots and story into middle eastern culture. The reason behind my thoughts for taking a more formalist approach is that if I want to make an abstract piece of art, I feel that naturalist works of sound art have all taken a similar approach in terms of composure, and the structure is vaguely similar, so I think I should think in an abstract sense formulating sounds and to coincide with the organic and naturalistic structure, use them to form a tangent and dither from the ‘norm’.