Category Archives: Visual Music Studio

Visual Music Studio – Final Project

By Ryan | Published May 10, 2010

Ryan Raffa, Visuals and Sound Editing
Spencer Snyder, Composer
Mark Lev

Through the manipulation of public domain film and sound composition, we are investigating the meaning and use of gesture as it relates to human interaction. By using film from the late 1940′s and 1950′s, which often times contain exaggerated movements from the actors to express a point, the element of memory and nostalgia become ways of describing these gestures.

I are using the interaction between a man and woman from the film D.O.A. (1950) to represent a progression of emotions, from happy/content, introducing instability, full-blown psychosis, and ending with a sustained calm.

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Visual-Music Culture – Written Response

By Ryan | Published February 10, 2010

Here is a link to my written response to Visual-Music Culture by Kerry Brougher:

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Visual-Music Culture – Research

By Ryan | Published February 6, 2010

I’m currently going through the reading for my Visual Music Studio class, and I investigated a few of the early films referenced in the reading. Two of my favorites were Opus I (1921) by Walter Ruttmann and An Optical Poem (1937) by Oskar Fischinger.

After watching Busby Berkely’s Dames (1934), I immediately thought of Michel Gondry’s music video for The Chemical Brother’s song Let Forever Be (1999).

I knew of Harry Smith because of his folk music compilations, but I was floored after watching his Early Abstraction pieces. The film exercises from the Whitney brothers were not only advances in visual music but point toward the many possibilities of electronic music.

I enjoyed seeing John and James Whitney’s innovations in automated processes with hand drawings, with a massive jump from their early experiments to pieces such as Yantra and Lapis. Stan Brakhage’s The Dante Quartet (1987) illustrates his abilities in rhythm, pacing, and mixing of colors and movement that “creates an almost hallucineogenic world, a realm somewhere beyond nameable things”.

Reference
Wiseman, Ari, Judith Zilczer, Kerry Brougher, and Jeremy Strick. Visual Music: Synaesthesia in Art and Music Since 1900. New York: Thames & Hudson, 2005.

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Sound-Image Translation Assignment – Steve Reich “Octet”

By Ryan | Published January 30, 2010

For Visual Music Studio, the first assignment for the visual artists was to choose one piece of music from three options and create an original 2D image response/translation/interpretation to the chosen piece of music (no moving-image pieces).

I chose Steve Reich’s “Octet”, which you can listen to here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

While listening to the piece, I wrote down keywords that came to mind and made an initial sketch (see scanned sketch below). Using my initial notes, I created a collage using construction paper and a few magazines I had around the apartment. I searched out the color scheme I had seen while listening to Reich’s piece (blue, silver, and white) and cut small square pieces.

I felt that each tone had a square aspect that rotated around a central theme. I looked to provide the illusion of rotation upon itself as well as an equal layered distribution of the instruments. I created an underlying layer of small squares that continuously rotated under the center theme that had a slower and less frantic aspect.

The color scheme related to the emotional characteristics I felt the piece had. The repetitive nature of the fast moving elements created a cool and calming aspect and provided a bed for the large fluid main theme.

This is the final visual piece:

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Sound-Image Translation Assignment – Steve Reich "Octet"

By Ryan | Published January 30, 2010

For Visual Music Studio, the first assignment for the visual artists was to choose one piece of music from three options and create an original 2D image response/translation/interpretation to the chosen piece of music (no moving-image pieces).

I chose Steve Reich’s “Octet”, which you can listen to here:

Audio clip: Adobe Flash Player (version 9 or above) is required to play this audio clip. Download the latest version here. You also need to have JavaScript enabled in your browser.

While listening to the piece, I wrote down keywords that came to mind and made an initial sketch (see scanned sketch below). Using my initial notes, I created a collage using construction paper and a few magazines I had around the apartment. I searched out the color scheme I had seen while listening to Reich’s piece (blue, silver, and white) and cut small square pieces.

I felt that each tone had a square aspect that rotated around a central theme. I looked to provide the illusion of rotation upon itself as well as an equal layered distribution of the instruments. I created an underlying layer of small squares that continuously rotated under the center theme that had a slower and less frantic aspect.

The color scheme related to the emotional characteristics I felt the piece had. The repetitive nature of the fast moving elements created a cool and calming aspect and provided a bed for the large fluid main theme.

This is the final visual piece:

Also posted in 2010 Spring | Tagged | Leave a comment