Well things are going amazingly well with my project lately... I feel like it's really starting to unfold and I'm narrowing in on a final product. I have finished up the first section of three (the trees section) and am finishing up the music now on the second section (skies).

I've been thinking too about presentation, and I'm wondering if it would be possible to have three small screens playing each of the three sections in loops with a set of headphones at each station. It would be set up like a linear narrative in a way (kind of an emphasis on the construction of the whole thing)... beginning, middle, end... and you could choose to stop at each station like that in sequence... or you could just stand back and look at all three screens as they flip through the images in a continuous loop. I like that element of choice... and I think it would draw the viewer in to see it as a whole then as a sequence in its three parts. (These are thoughts that are coming to me based on this piece being shown in a museum-like space).

There are of course difficulties... like getting three screens of relatively the same size... headphones I could probably provide.... I don't know, we'll see.

Current Thoughts

Well I've sort of let the gender representation idea go, but I am keeping the issues related to authorial voice and the constructed nature of art.

I'd like to comment on the common misconception that what nature photography is doing is simply capturing reality without mediation; the beauty of nature that would have existed exactly as the photograph shows were the author present or absent.

I feel that this notion is entirely impossible and that all photographs need to be thought of as images which are mediated by technology and authorial intent and that photographs (like documentary films) are not unbiased records but are highly constructed extensions of the artists' creative vision.

The issues of time and change are very important to why I feel that a photographer is creating art rather than recording simple facts. Things such as swaying branches, rushing water, and cloudy skies are beautiful ephemeral moments that photographers design into aesthetically pleasing creations within the frame. How can that not be creating art?

So I'd like to emphasize the idea that photos are chosen and calculated and I want to emphasize this by using photo editing to disturb, but also heighten my own nature photography. I'd like to bring awareness to the choices that I've made in creating this slide show and show that every photograph is taken from a particular perspective; that the camera is not simply recording reality as it exists, but rather is shaping that reality.

PLAN:

1) I have decided to split my slide show into three sections: Water, Trees, and Skies.
2) I'd like to comment on my choices and the manipulation that I've contributed to the finished product (perhaps in a Godardian way i.e. "I did this, I did that"... inter-titles or voice-over??)
3) The slide show will be an artistic product i.e. beautiful images and pleasant music, but it will be self-aware.

INFLUENCE:

Steve McQueen - Once Upon a Time
-Uses images from 1977 Voyager space probes which are intended to pictorially describe life on earth to other beings.
-Incorporates soundtrack with glossolalia or "speaking in tongues."
-"explores the artist’s interest in the relationship between sound and image, particularly between language and representations of our world."
-http://www.southlondongallery.org/docs/exh/exhibition.jsp?id=102

Thoughts

Well I haven't had much time lately to do much physical work on my project (because of final assignments and exams), but I've certainly been thinking about it a lot in between everything else.

I've been thinking about everything I do in relation to this project, and the most interesting connection that I've come across so far, came about while I was writing an essay on the male gaze in cinema and literature. In thinking about all the ways that women are objectified/aestheticized on screen and in words, I noticed that I'm doing the very same thing with my photographs of trees. I have been doing some photo editing, fragmenting trees into their various parts, leaves, bark, roots, branches... and giving them polished and pristine appearances (sort of a magical progression between light effects and colours) and I noticed that this is exactly what filmmakers and writers are doing to dehumanize women and transform them into fetish objects. In the book Lolita, if you've read it, a young girl's anatomy is fragmented by the author which then causes the reader to inadvertently sympathize with the pedophile who seduces her. She becomes reduced to her various body parts; similar to Hitchcock’s depiction of women, and similar to my photo editing of images of trees.

In a way I felt like I was immorally ripping my trees into pieces just as filmmakers and writers often do with their female characters. It’s strange though in a way to worry about objectifying a tree. A tree seems already to be like something not worthy of moral consideration (in this way anyways). But it felt wrong to me. I had been thinking of trying to represent my thoughts on trees in a truthful way through a visual essay accompanied by my own voice with musical undertones… in a sense getting closer to the spirituality that I see in trees. After thinking about the project in reference to depictions of women in literature and film though, I feel like I’m betraying that whole idea.

I’m thinking now about getting to the bottom of this issue and thinking some more about what exactly I am trying to do by beautifying my images of trees (giving them more than what’s already there, and fragmenting them into abstracted images of the whole). I am really going to consider gender and representation and how this can be applied to something which is completely divorced from the moral human side of things. I am talking about nature, about a plant, and I think it’s really interesting that I am feeling concerned about moral representation. I’m going to do some more reading on gender identification (Freud, Laura Mulvey), and see if maybe I can critique the objectification of women by objectifying a tree. (Sounds like a nifty idea, but I’m going to keep on working through it.)

For now (the next two weeks or so) before I go home for the Christmas Holidays, I’m going to continue with my music-making and photo editing. The photo work has been quite painstaking (I’m making lots and lots of copies of iterations of the same picture with minute changes of colour and light, and I plan on joining them in an imovie montage). The more I work, the more I think, and even though my idea is not solidified at this point, I think I’ve finally figured out my working method… and that is to plod along and let the ideas take shape as I work creatively.

Things are going well, and sorry for the long and unfocused blog, but it really helps me to do it. (Any advice or ideas that you have to offer, I would love to hear)

Thank you.

I'm thinking now about working around a theme of nature, and trees in particular... and the different forms, textures, and light effects that I can play with with photographs of trees. Combing through my photo collection, I noticed that trees make up a large portion of my subject matter and in a search to find something personal to build my art around it seems that trees are an obvious choice. How much more personal can you get than having a tree perminantly imprinted on your skin in ink?

I am still developing my idea, but am throwing myself into it without overthinking to see what comes of my creations. I have been photo-editing and working on a rather abstract piano piece with lots of midi effects on the piano sound distorting and creating a thick texture.

Change of Heart

I have decided to leave my old idea behind due to the fact that it was not engaging me as an artist, and because I had chosen the idea for the wrong reasons. I really want to be working on something that I care about, and for that reason I am switching over to something which I feel will interest me more, and in the end turn out a much more interesting product.

At this point I am still attempting to simplify my new idea and to outline it in a practical way.

Tools for new Project:
-Photoshop
-Cubase SX
-Reason
-Tassman Synth
-Acoustic instruments
Preliminary Concept: (Still under construction)
-I have been thinking about the divide which exists between computer music (including synthetic sounds) and organic music (consisting of pure audio recording) and the ways that these two realms are often pitted against one another. In my own music this generally is a choice that I feel I have to make. I need to ask myself, will I be writing computer generated music? or will I be writing un-aided acoustic music?

What I would like to comment upon though, is that maybe these two areas should not be thought of as opposites or enemies and that they do in fact, work exceptionally well together. People are often of one philosophy or the other, but I would like to sit directly in the middle and show how each of these areas can work together.

At the moment I am thinking of doing a slide show of still photography that is accompanied by a musical track and I would like to incorporate an element of abstraction through photo-editing and music processing to bend something acoustic into something more synthetic and less musical. I would like to develop a focused theme however, and to create a solid and unified work.

The idea that I am working with at the moment involves a progression towards abstraction and a looping back, towards simplified acoustic music, and I am considering using my photos to flow from themes of nature, towards human life and human production and industry, and then moving to abstraction of form and then gradually back to nature. With the music I am thinking of moving from something musical and acoustic to something synthetically produced and then towards abstract sound.

Inspiration Stills:



Thinking: Things that are jumping around in my head right now include... how am I going to make this personal/something that I care about? How am I going to incorporate photography (something I love)? Subjects I enjoy: Nature, travel, children, faces, familiarity... What do I care about musically? What kinds of music do I enjoy making?... my instrument is: my computer, piano, guitar, voice, flute, whistles, uke, thumb piano???

Im still attempting to calm my body and slow my brain so that I can bring it together and figure myself out a little bit so that I can start producing.....

Mix

Well I've put together a little preliminary mix of this airplane song and I'll bring it into class and hopefully I'll get some suggestions of ways to change/improve it.

It's been slow going with this one, but I think from here I'll be able to fly... now that I'm comfortable again with the tools I have and now that I'm starting to feel creative again.

The day I spent yesterday at my practicum at Artech Studios was an important one I think for my portfolio project. We're working on putting sound and music to an interactive DVD for a Tropical Monopoly game, and yesterday was my first experience in writing music where I was completely out of my element. I was asked to sit and write music that sounded tropical, something that might be played for a menu screen on the DVD. I was plunked down in front of Reason, which I've never used before my time at Artech and had to produce something musical. In the beginning it was very difficult, my musical ideas generally had nothing tropical or beach-like about them, but what I was able to do was to take a melody that was my own style of music and then expand upon that until it turned into something suitable for a menu screen in Tropical Monopoly. It certainly was a first attempt at working like this and I still have much developing to do, but I think this has been a very good first step towards what I hope to accomplish with my portfolio. I really would like to expand myself as a musician and sound designer and I think yesterday I was able to broaden myself just a little bit by working towards creating something that is completely foreign to my creative ability. Hopefully now I will be able to continue this broadening with my piece of music that I am creating in the format of music for a video art piece. It's saturday afternoon and I am locking myself in my studio so that I can make some real progress on this piece that has had me stuck in a rut.