Gitana's motion graphics blog

Final Project

2009-05-09T03:58:00.000-07:00

"CHROMATICITY" - FINAL OUTCOME

Please view below the creative process.

CREATIVE BRIEF

I decided to collaborate with a classical music composer Hannah Varty from, because I was very inspired by her "Chromaticity" piece for 12 saxophones. This a photo of Blackheath Halls were her piece will be performed.

The first thing was that we met up and had a sort of interview about her music, inspiration, her thoughts about visuals, the process of how she writes her music.... This was a great creative brief and vital information for me as a designer to understand what is her music about and create right visuals for it. I wanted the composser to be closely involved in the creative process. So here is the script from our conversion about "Chromaticity"

 Chroma is a color. In music something that is chromatic means using the whole spectrum of notes available, which technically my piece it’s not a descent sounding piece, because I used lots of notes clashing together, it’s not like that, but it’s trying to portray color in music it’s in a sort of abstract way, it’s abstract... Partially I was inspired by color of landscapes. I always like to use color in a music in terms of the sound of the instruments so making the most out of instruments you got. So color would be a meaning of sound variations. In orchestra (the sound is very broad, because you have so many sounds coming from different instruments)  the color is very rich and that’s what I kind of trying to make with the instruments in my music  And because the changing landscapes was kind of an influence, i think the word “Chromaticity” meant a lot in that term quiet as well. For example one day when I was coming back from Birmingham and this was in October, was weird, it snowed, quiet heavily and the whole country side probably like in an hour was white...The train was going through rural landscapes. It was weird that in an hour i was going from autumn to winter. And the trees in the park were changing their color. So that was kind of CHROMA-color type.  
The piece has the beginning and the end section kind of the same. The middle is a very short passage, where you get a sumptuous harmony, still when I hear it makes me go kind of weird, funny, makes me shiver. The beginning and the end I suppose is this kind of relentless drive, that keep moving and moving and .... one of my things was the Greenwich park, or any other parks in London are in some aspects really nice places to go, they got greenery and trees and when you go on Saturday or Sunday is so full of people, and that kind of natural environment doesn’t seem natural at all, because it’s been taken by people. People are sitting on every part of the grass and feeding the squirrels. The same space could be so different and changing.  So really I think those 2  sections, it goes to this relentless drive, the people, people  in the city, people in the space doing what they always do. But that middle section is much more, a glimpse of natural, the excitement  of the natural things that are happening, when nobody is around, but it only last for a short amount of time, because that’s not real, because that’s not what happens in a city, in a place where are humans, because we take over. and it doesn’t last it goes straight back to chaos.  And these ideas are kind of just, you know, they are not precise in any way, that’s just kind of that is just over all feel, over all thought process and that was put in a music in a kind of abstract way.  It’s good if you hear the music and get that kind of feeling (relentless/harmony), but somebody could listen and say:”It doesn’t mean anything to me!”. And there is no right or wrong, it’s not important that people would understand or get  that, because they can take something else from this music and  interpret the way they want.... 

I’m not desperate to be kind of literal translation it could be something quiet abstract. The audience perhaps  don’t realize to start with what they’re being listening to and what they are seeing. As they go through it gradually starts to become slightly clear to what it is the message about. It’s interesting when a composer had a process and there was a reason the way something came out the way  it did. All of that it’s not always necessary for the audience to know and sometimes if you give them all the detail it’s too much and then they don’t listen in a way that.....so.... Maybe it’s a case of giving them the snippets of information, but they got  sort of piece it  together  themselves. I see color, but I don’t see color through out the whole thing. For that short piece of time, where I felt  a sumptuous harmony, maybe that’s the point where very impressive or really attractive part of the visuals is. "

CREATIVE PROCESS

I highlighted the words which I thought were the most meaningful for me as a designer. Then I was listening to the piece, analyzing the conversation we had and brainstorming about the visuals. I was searching and thinking about the  contrasts: quiet - busy, natural - human changed, people - no people....Many ideas were rolling in my head. I went to the park and was filming the same landscapes, seeing how they change over time. I was analyzing landscapes and discovering natural parts of it, such as trees, horizon lines  and comparing it with human changed parts  such as paths, fences, square shaped spaces.

I was also filming city streets and seeing how they change from being quiet in the night and early mornings and busy during the day. I was trying to get as much evidence of my thoughts as possible, so that I would have something tangible, that I could experiment with.

The piece has 3 parts. First and last are very similar - fast, relentless and the middle part is very quiet, which represents harmony, peace, nature, fragile, existing only for a short amount of time. Since I was trying to come up with the narrative, I did a very simple translation, which would be:

______RELENTLESS_____|___HARMONY__|____RELENTLESS__

______CITY______|_____NATURE_______|______CITY___

In this graph we see the sound wave, timeline and the visuals. The beginning and the end parts would be layers of the filmed city at different times. The layers would be different transparencies  overlapping during the time and representing relentless and changing landscape. A middle section would present nature and harmony, where nothing really changes.  Here is just a test i did, which would represent the beginning section:

Another approach would be analyzing relationships between nature and people. How nature is being changed by people....  How a very natural environment is transformed into spaces which are not natural anymore, how differently we perceive spaces with people in it and without. We see transition from raw natural organic nature shapes into more urban environment, such as parks, which still holds a bit of nature, and finally to completely "dry" city environment: streets, houses, cars......
 Orange dots represent people.

__NATURE + PEOPLE__|__NATURE__|_NATURE + PEOPLE = CITY_

I'm still up for some more experimentation, trying to look for different visual ways to express this relationship in a more abstract and more interesting way, where I cancombine footage and illustration together.The footage evidences urban landscapes variety and changes. Simple test for it:

At the same time I'm exploring music in a more technical way, which is working with a midi file. Midi file structure is great form to see the sound movement. I'm exporting each individual instrument's track from the GarageBand in to After Effects, where I'll have each instruments timeline with the keyframes.

There are 12 saxophones and my plan is to use only some instruments, responding directly to the sound. I chose to do that in order to avoid clutter, since the music is so intense and could cause too much of overlappings. I'm listening  to each instrument individually, following the time line and trying to come up with graphic elements, which will best accompany the sound and my chosen concept.
This is a midi file in Garage Band and my sketch.

So my final narrative would be to show contrast between the city/busyness and quiet, natural environment, which happens only during the night time, when nobody is around. The green line ocasionaly comming in during the animation represents our little nature we have in our cities.

  I started analyzing urban landscapes and exploring it in an illustrative way trying to discover as many details as I can. I took a train and was examining landscape changes, how urban landscape is changing and how it's blending with the natural environment.  It was a very interesting process. I was exploring spaces around me as well, noticing many new  shapes and converting it into  graphics and illustrations. I was analyzing the architecture. I discovered a great variety of textures, lines and shapes.

A great influence came from the book Logic&Design in Art, Science& Mathematics, Krome Barratt, 1980

Then I used the Illustrator to  transfer my sketches into computer graphics.

I was very inspired by  architect Zaha Hadid as well:

Anothergreat artist's Bernardo Rivavelarde "Homodigitals" exhibition:

Dextro abstract art:

Justin Maller's work:

Those are my combined graphics I came up for the city and urban environment:

I chose to use only a little part of the screen, so animation is starting only with the thin line, which is  turning into a bit thicker stripe and staying for the most of the time, which was influenced by the video footage of the urban landscapes.

The stripe is slowly changing according to the intensity of the music, the louder and richer the music becomes, the more graphics and  shapes  related to the city  and urban environment start appearing. There are two significantly intense parts, were all 12 saxophones are playing at the same time, which graphically would represent the busiest time of our urban environment.

Here is a part, were we see how the stripe is changing:

The shapes were  influenced by architect Zada Hadid and my own architectual observations. In terms of a color, I was going to use only greys and blacks, but then I decided to use colors, becuase cities could be very colorful.

For the middle part of my animation I was really influenced by "Advanced Beauty" works on the Universal Everything website. I was also sketching and exploring an abstract beauty, which would be very colorfull.

Some experiments from the Illustrator:The beauty is presented on the black background, which represents the night. Only when there is no disturbance the beauty can come out and only for a short time.It starts as a green line, representing transition from the urban environment to the nature.

It starts turning in to more organic shapes and change color from green to pink.

The culmination is represented with the flower, which last just for couple seconds and then the  lines(urban influence) start braking it apart and taking us back to the city environment.

Final Project - DECISION MAKING AND EXPLORATION TIME

2009-04-19T02:59:00.000-07:00

It was a decission making time wheater I should create visuals for the classical music or choose other direction for my final project. Then I went to see LSO Orchestra plying in St. Lukes church.

Orchestra was great, but since I was trying to create visuals in my head I found the whole experience a bit overwhelming. The space we were in, wasn't like a grand hall, we were pretty close to the orchestra and all our attention was concentrated on it. While I was thinking about visuals, it felt, that there is no room for it. We were fully entertained watching conductor every instrument and every performer. The space was a bit too bright, which envolved us even more in the orchestra's performance. So all this said, I think it's very important to choose the right place in order for audiovisuals to work well, that music and viuals would balance each other and give the best entertainment to the viewer.
Listening to the classical pieces(Mozart,Bach, Beethoven), the orchestra was playing I wasn't sure if that's the classical music I would want to create visuals for. The pieces were so rich, occupying people's minds and the whole room, it felt that there was no room for anything else.

After all this experience I discovered contemporary classical music, which I thought would work better with visuals.
Ludovico Einaudi, O'lafur Arnalds, Steve Reich, Roberto Cacciapaglia etc. Their music is lighter has more room for the story and interpretation.

This video was made for O'lafur Arnalds piece:

Ólafur Arnalds - 3055 from Erased Tapes on Vimeo.

I want to explore Roberto Cacciapaglia's music in particular, tell the story in a similar way that was done in Olafur's video.

Here are some tests I did trying rotoscoping and 3d stroke filters:

Secondary research and inspiration:

Sophie Clements is the artist I just discovered. Her work is very original and very interesting.

Vhttp://www.sophieclements.com/

Magnetosphere: Audio by Trentemoller
by flight404

My Secret Heart is a new commission by Streetwise Opera of a music and film installation written by electronic composer and Warp artist Mira Calix, video artists Flat-e and sound designer Dave Sheppard. The new piece is inspired by the Allegri's 17th-century choral work Miserere Mei, a piece so protected by the Vatican that they put an embargo on it.

My Secret Heart from Flat-e on Vimeo.

YCN project outcome

2009-04-07T06:34:00.000-07:00

Current TV idents. I left the initial idea, where the cubes are visiting many different venues and chose to create a separate ident for each location. Cubes are a metaphor for people, who are visiting different venues, exploring, collaborating and bringing news to Current TV. Current TV covers different topics: culture, politics, arts, science, technology etc. Each TV Ident represent one of those topics. For the first TV ident I chose Tate Modern, which covers art topic.

The second TV ident represents teens and their culture, since Current TV's audience is 16-30.

YCN - RESEARCH AND REFERENCE

2009-02-25T05:53:00.001-08:00

Visual Sound [Heaven Is Burning Pt.1] HD from David Bryan on Vimeo.

current from LICHTFAKTOR on Vimeo.

This lightwriting video by LICHTFAKTOR, was done for current tv in London and Brighton.
Have a look at the making of: current.com/items/88826634_painting_with_light

London 2012 / Brand Launch from Universal Everything on Vimeo.

"CURRENT TV moodboards"

My idea is to use cubes, which symbolize people visiting different venues, collaborating and delivering the most exciting news.

Those are the locations, where the cubes are coming from. Current TV covers:
ART & STYLE, for which I chose TATE MODERN, BORDERS

ENTERTAINMENT, for which i chose: BAFTA, HMV

POLITICS: Parliament, Pickets

COMUNITY: Festivals, Hobbies, Gatherings

NEW STORYBOARDS

I was working on a composition and tried to show traveling boxes in a more interesting ways.

1.Tate Modern. Sound: smooth.

2. Skateboarding. Sound: skateboard.

3.Sound: smooth. Moving twrd. St. Paul.

4.Skateboarding, moving twrd. Parliament.

5.Sound: Marching.

7. Sound: metal turning in to sacred music.

8. Sound: sacred music.Smooth move.

9. London Festival. Sound: street talk, music.

10.Jumping from NG traveling the roof.

Boxes either roll or jump.

11.In Science museum. Shooting boxes out.

12. Bafta.Sound:Clapping. Jumping in pairs.
Sound: shooting

13. Flying from Science museum window.
Sound: strong wind, rocket

14. Boxes are bending down.

15. Boxes meeting in Picadilly. Getting to the TV screen

16.Forming first letters of the " Current"Logo
screen. Sound: symphony...?

Case Study - NIN world tour visuals

2009-02-08T07:14:00.000-08:00

"Nine Inch Nails concert - visual feast", said Ryan Lawson

Nine Inch Nails (abbreviated as NIN) is an American industrial rock music group, founded in 1988 by Trent Reznor in Cleveland, Ohio. As its main producer, singer, songwriter, and instrumentalist, Reznor is the only official member of Nine Inch Nails and remains solely responsible for its direction.^[1] NIN's music straddles a wide range of genres, while retaining a characteristic sound using electronic instruments and processing.

"I'm not really a purist," admits Reznor. "If I'm in the studio working on an album, I try to only please myself. But when it's a tour, it feels a bit more like I have a responsibility to some degree to entertain people."

For the band's current Lights in the Sky tour, Reznor has not only raised the bar for what's possible in an arena tour, but has also produced what could arguably be one of the most technologically ambitious rock productions ever conceived.

Reznor and other band members use Lemurs during the "electronic set." The touchscreen devices can be used to control a range of audio and visual aspects of the show on the fly.
Photo: Jon Snyder/Wired.com

World Tour video, Seattle 2008

Visual elements employed during Nine Inch Nails concerts have often included numerous lighting, stage and projection effects employed to accompany and augment presentation.^[64] Prior to the Fragility tour in 2000, Reznor reflected that "I’ve adopted a philosophy of the way to present Nine Inch Nails live that incorporates a theatrical element. I want it to be drama. I want my rock stars to be larger than life, you know? The Kurt Cobains of the world, I’m sick of that (expletive). I don’t want a gas station attendant being my hero. I grew up with Gene Simmons. I grew up with Ziggy Stardust."^[27]

Many songs are typically accompanied with specially designed visual aids, including synchronized lighting effects and projected stock-footage montages. Early performances of the song "Hurt", for example, were accompanied by a projected montage of clouds, charred bodies, mushroom clouds, maggots, and war refugees,^[65] a performance of which is featured in the song's music video. Recent performances of the song, however, have featured less lighting effects.^[64]

Alessandro Cortini, during a performance in 2007

Since 1999, the visual presentation of Nine Inch Nails live shows have been directed by Rob Sheridan, while Bill Viola designed a large triptych display for the Fragility tour.^[34] The images displayed on the triptych focused on storm and water imagery. And All That Could Have Been features an audio commentary track by Viola describing the display and his inspirations for it.^[66]

For the Live: With Teeth tour, Roy Bennett and Martin Phillips were responsible for the lighting design and stage design respectively.^[67] Bennett explained in a 2005 interview that much of the lighting was done using a series of LED lights arranged in "stalactites or stalagmites [formations] to tie in to the album artwork". DLP projectors were also used to project images onto a gauze screen in front of the stage.

A Nine Inch Nails performance during the Live: With Teeth tour featuring the "teeth" lighting fixtures

Using the gauze projection-screen, Phillips, Reznor, and Sheridan devised a "gag" where they projected "a sheet of glass shattering onto a downstage kabuki scrim that would drop as the glass shatters fell. ... We settled on Trent swinging his guitar at the gauze [and] shattering it, but with all the pieces falling up as the [screen] flew out".^[67] This technique can be seen in the tour documentary Beside You in Time. In contrast to the lighting of previous tours, Performance 2007 featured minimal lighting that was designed to shadow Reznor and the band.^[68]

The visual elements of the live shows has been subject to much commentary. The Boston Globe described the Fragility tour as "one of the most outstanding light shows in memory".^[69] A reviewer from the Contra Costa Times described a Live: With Teeth performance as being "heightened by just the right amount of dark purple or blue spotlights, with up-lighting from the stage front, giving the band a horror-flick feel".^[70]

Making of it from Moment Factory

Collage

2009-02-06T10:47:00.001-08:00

This project is based on Christian Marclay's work. The initial idea is to collage things that not necesarily match but create a new meaning. My initial start wasn't extreme enough. Christian Marclay's record collages and music are very experimental. His exhibitions and print work has experimental feel to it as well, but they actually are very focused and carefully planned. For the first piece of work I chose different objects and collaged them together. It was more of a beautiful advertising piece rather then extreme, mind breaking project, which I felt didn't really relate to Marclay's work.

My next experiment was cut outs, which I ran quickly one after another. My chosen object wasn't my first choise, but it happened that I had piles of cosmopolitan magazines and used them only as a experiment.

Collaging for MTV. I collaged the objects that relate to MTV world, music instruments, current shows logos, celebrities and musicians. Another idea was to collage official MTV logos, running them one after another starting 1980 and finishing 2009.

Scratch project

2009-02-06T09:13:00.000-08:00

It was an amazing experience to be able to work with 16 mm film and experience how motion projects were done before. I really enjoyed working with the film, scratching it, applying color and seeing the effects later on the screen. It was more of an experimentation with time and visuals. It was fun to design not knowing what kind of result we'll get. It's so different from the designing in After Effects where you actually can see the results right away.
We all had a number and had to create projects related to that. My number was 1. I approached it as one ever existing, one in universe: world, me, you, life, death, experience....That lead to development of the sequence, which is one me one life - one you - one death. The moving dot represents me, moving from day to night, from life to death, from light to darkness. It starts in a day, which is a clear film with light blue ink on it and long scratches. The dot was made by punching a whole. When the message "one me - one you - one life - one death" is revealed, the dot jumps into the night-death, where I used a black film. The dot keeps traveling along a line till it reaches a word "one" and goes around each letter. The light goes through the hole creating nice shining effect.

BBC "Beaufort"

2009-01-18T15:07:00.000-08:00

BBC project "Beaufort scale" started with a research. A big excitement wasn't there. The chosen audio was not very funny either. It was a challenge! At the beginning I was trying to use minimalistic approach, using only symbols or shapes in order to challenge the viewer. This Paul Rand's movie was an inspiration to me.

To develop a well illustrated and clear storyboard was one of the most important tasks. I went back and forth, listening to the audio over and over again and adding more details every time to it. While I was developing a storyboard I decided to use characters since the shapes were not satisfying enough. These characters are very expressive and funny personalities. My main goal was to entertain a viewer, achieve the highest humor level. I chose to do that by treating their words and expressions literally, for example, when Jane says, " Wind speed is driving us apart!" I used two bicycles that are going in different directions.

The project style was inspired by contemporary illustration - thin pencil drawings with a splash of transparent water colors. I thought BBC project would be a great opportunity to explore this style even more and apply it to my work. Copyright issue encouraged it even more. Pencil drawings were combined with old Victorian images to give richness to the project. I chose warm colors, sand and old paper tones and textures, introducing only very settle red for the room and window to give a bit excitement to the eye. Here are some examples of contemporary illustrators, such as David Foldvari, Julie Verhoeven and Deanne Cheuk.

Since the storyboard is over, my next step is to get to animation part. A video "I met Walrus" was a great inspiration to me. I was exploring a camera moves and how the images develop. The used techniques entertains the viewer and gives a satisfaction.

Those are the storyboards

Storyboard for "Rwanda"

2008-11-22T14:27:00.001-08:00

"Rwanda"

2008-11-22T12:08:00.000-08:00

Subject: Canadian General, who had never seen an action, this was the command of a lifetime in UN peace keeping mission in the heart of Africa. It seemed it was a simple job, he would enforce a peace agreement between Rwanda's government and Kigali and the rebel army positioned behind the seas fire line. The rebels were mostly Tutsi, ethnic minority, that had been persecuted for decades. Unfortunately the General failed the mission...

Design Process: Since it's a commander's confession and it's very sensitive and personal, I chose the
the typewriter version font, which has a diary feel. The distress of this typeface represents the war, commander's misery and failure. The audience can't really sense yet, that it was a failure, so at the beginning of the animation the imagery is more calm and abstract. While later when his words start revealing what is really happening the imagery changes to the red pulsing spots, which are the photographs of the red paint. Essential words such as "me", "spirit", "killed" were chosen to be uppercase, in order to make it more effective. The sensitivity of the subject didn't allow too much of the experimentation of the direction and movement of the words. Most of them are revealed in a way typewriter works(from left to right) and only "big" words such as "killed" and "war" has more personality.
From the beginning of the project the thoughts were changing. The first version was to make the words running in a small red streams, crossing over, overlapping and forming a bigger stream towards the end.
Another version was to play with a commander's shadow and while he is talking, make the words slowly to fill it up. That would express his inner state, the heaviness, which he always has to carry in his heart and be remainded till the end of his life.

Other version:

CHRISTIAN MARCLAY- ARTIST & DJ, WHO LOVES SILENCE

2008-11-21T13:47:00.000-08:00

"I was born in US but raised speaking French and learned English later. I've always felt like I was between two cultures, between two languages. I think I became an artist because I didn't trust language that much and I was more interested in other types of communication, like visual language or music, things that rely on different signs or perceptions"

Christian Marclay emerged in both contemporary art and music scenes during the 1980s. His work covers numerous visual media-sculpture, installation, performance, found objects and collage-along with music and its artifacts, to create a unique, multidisciplinary art.

"I was living in Brook line(Boston); while walking to school on a heavily trafficked street a block away from my apartment I found a record on a pavement. Cars were driving over it. It was a Batman record, a children's story with sound effects. I borrowed one of the turntables from school to listen to the record. It was heavily damaged and skipping, but was making these interesting loops and sounds, because it was filled with sound effects. I just sat there listening and some kind of spark happened".

"I've never really studied music. I couldn't play an instrument, so I used records. Turntables and records are my instruments. The punk movement had freed people from the idea that you had to be skilled to play music. I didn't pick up dance music. It was 70s and performance was very important, punk rock as well, which influenced me the most".

MUSIC:

Marclay is all about live performance, improvisation and social interaction with other artists. He comments, "In these performances I bring people together, audiences and musicians from very different backgrounds, who play different kind of music, and who, under normal conditions, would never play together. Now every December he organizes event called "The Sound of Christmas" providing a unique opportunity for this new generation of turntablists. Here is the clip from it:

"We hear recorded sound all day. The live performer has been replaced by inanimate object, a disembodied recording. Records are about dead sounds, but when I bring records into a performance and play with them, I change my role from the passive listener to an active player. I give new life to these dead records. I try to do something with it that's different. I don't necessarily like those records, it's more dislike. The reason I use those records is that they're easily available, cheap and just junk".

He scratches the records, brakes them apart and glues them back, puts stickers on them. The records come from everywhere - stores, garage sales, thrift stores etc. and they range from classical to Rockn' Roll, movie clips, broadcasting.

"Recording technology, he says, has turned music into object, and a lot of my work is about that object as much as it's about the music. The ephemeral and immaterial vibrations that make music have become tangible objects-records, tapes, Cd's. This transmutation is very interesting to me. One doesn't necessarily think of music as a physical manifestations. It can also be an illustration, a painting. In a performance you have the visual presence of someone producing sound. In my work I'm constantly dealing with the contradiction between the material reality of the art object as a thing and it's potential immateriality. In a way immateriality is the perfect state. In music this aspect of immateriality is very liberating".

Marclay's first release was "RECORD WITHOUT COVER(1985). A standard vinyl was distributed without the jacket, that it would remain vulnerable to all finger prints, dust and rough surfaces with which it became in to contact. Collectors were instructed not to put in any protective sleeve. The recording itself combines sounds from other records along with the scratching and skipping noises. Cristian Marclay says, that he wants to change our listening habits. That when the record skips we try very hard to make and abstraction of it so it doesn't disrupt our musical flow. He tries to make people aware of these imperfections and that we can accept them as a music; the recording is a sort of illusion, while the scratch on the record is more real.

A record without recording."UNTITELED"(1989) thus presents viewers with the challenge. It's silence serves as a sign of pure emptiness that might be filled with any desire, any sound;it ultimately comes to represent a fetish, reflecting the projections and fantasies of any consumer.

Paralleling his experiments with vinyl disks, Marclay also playfully reworks album covers, distilling and deconstructing their predictable forms. A sexual politics are being analyzed in Marclays works such as "MY FAIR LADY", "DICTATORS(1990) and "INCOGNITA"(1990). It's 25 classical musical albums that are joined to form a patterned grid. It's a join between the orchestra conductor and anonymous woman who pose on album covers as erotic ornaments, not as musicians. In a playful sen-up of this masculine and largely patriarchal culture that lionizes the classical orchestra conductor and denigrates woman as a sexual objects. "BODY MIX"(1991) series are as well related to gender studies.

"THE CHORUS"(1988) encapsulates Marclay's ongoing fascination possibilities of synaesthesia, when the visual object produces , if not the effect of sound, it's after effect.The visual work produces an opening for the imagination. The photograph itself is silent. As such, this silence delivers an extraordinary array of sounds- some lyrical, some grating, some brittle, some elegant.

INSTALLATIONS:

Working on a much larger scale for his installation "FOOTSTEPS"(1989) in Zurich, he tiled the gallery floor with 3,500 vinyl disks, on which he had recorded the sound of his own footsteps mixed with the quick rhythms and syncopation on tap dancing. The viewers walked directly on the albums so that the each disk would be etched with a unique and complex pattern or scratches and skips. When the exhibition was over, the records were packaged and sold.

Several of Marclay's larger installation projects have developed out of the archives. For "ACCOMPANIMENT MUSICAL"(1995) at the Musee d'art et d'histoire, Geneva, the artist re-installed more than 400 art objects and artifacts, each tied to the history of sound-making and it's representation.
"AMPLIFICATION" 1995 was installed int the beautiful Chiesa di San Stae. Transluscent prints on cotton scrims of were shifting with each breath of wind. The images seem to haunt the space with the sweet presence of passing time and the notes of unheard and forgotten melodies.

VIDEO:

Marclay's archival impulse is not limited to museum exhibitions. His video work, such as "TELEPHONES"(1995), "UP and OUT" (1998) and "VIDEO QUARTET"(2002) use films and their soundtracks as ready made material to be mined for their cultural references. "TELEPHONES" video runs for 7 min. and includes a meticulously edited montage of brief clips from classic Hollywood movies in a kind of tone poem. Miscommunication and unspoken desires are the underlying tropes, envied by moments of humor.

"GUITAR DRAG"(2000) is one of the more painfully anthropomorphic and politically resonant work. An electric guitar being securely attached by rope to an old pick up truck and dragged over the rural dirt road. He maid this video, because of what happened to James Byrd. The guitar also relates to violence, rebellion, crazy youth. The work is there to get people to think and discuss these issues, and when you get this mixture of disgust and experiment at the same time, it generates debate and that's always good.

His use of film as a ready made material allows for juxtapositions not normally seen in the cinemas, providing for subtle forms of cultural criticism as well as playful editing.

FUTURE of the MUSIC, according to Marclay

"The music of the future will be constantly manipulated, always evolving, an unstable flow of sounds , never the same twice. This music will be ephemeral again, free of permanent recordings, free of marketing devices"!

"Inject"

2008-11-21T12:28:00.000-08:00

The animation was done using sequence of word "Inject", to better express the meaning of the word "INJECT"

"Inject" logo design

2008-11-21T12:15:00.000-08:00

2nd project "Inject-Crash-Collapse"

2008-11-03T14:25:00.000-08:00

The project was done using Stop Motion technique.