I’ve decided now instead of using my short film idea for this unit I will do that outside of uni so that it doesn’t need to be restricted into being made knowing it will be graded through an academic sound arts lens with criteria that I feel will be limiting to the piece.
I have another project that I was going to do outside of uni which I will now adapt into my portfolio #2 piece. The project is called there unfolding rose and is made from voice notes of various improvisation moments with other musicians, as well as voice notes of nature and conversations and other unfolding moments, caught on audio through my phone.
I adapted this album into a radio show for “the life is beautiful show” (a monthly show I have on loose.fm), where I played various voice notes, layering some over others. I also invited some friends of mine who also take a lot of voice notes to play some of their voice notes of both musical and non musical moments, and we improvised together all triggering voice notes (from both CDJ’s, as well as through phones going through my sp404 sampler, which was plugged into the mixer). This mix turned out really well and I really enjoyed it, and listener also told me they enjoyed it, it was like a smooth audio journey through various moments in various timelines, with different peoples voices and sounds of the world.
I plan to adapt this idea into an installation context. The idea is to have the person experiencing it feel as though they are in the middle of someone’s (my) memories.
My initial idea was have two speakers diagonally playing various voice notes of musical moments, and the other pair playing voice notes of nature sounds or voices or other non-directly musical moments.
However, given that voice notes are mono, I started to try think of a better utilisation of the quadrophonic setup, in order to convey the idea I’m trying to get across in a stronger way. So then I thought to have stereo pieces made from voice notes (like I did on some of the tracks on my album the unfolded rose) in a folder, and have a program randomly select from this folder. and in the other pair of diagonal speakers, have the same situation with the randomly selected files, but out of stereo tracks made from non-directly musical voice notes such as walks in nature or conversations on trains. I like the idea of randomness involved because of the infinite variability between the two sets of speakers meaning that it will be a different combination of sounds in each moment that the installation is running. This is something very inspired by Brian Eno’s ideas of generative music and his incorporation of randomness into his work.
Thinking about this idea of randomness then led me to think about how I could further amplify the chance aspect of the operation, and also though about the exact feeling and idea I want to communicate to the person experiencing the piece. Thinking on the feeling of being in the middle of my memories, and wanting to amplify the feeling and idea being communicated, as well as wanting to fully utilise the space and set up, then gave me the idea that instead of having two stereo tracks playing, I could have 4 mono tracks playing. In this version of the installation (the current version), I would have all the speakers playing from the same folder, which will include voice notes of all kinds of different moments, some musical moments some non musical. This way there is an increased degree of chance being felt, as there is a chance there will be no music at all playing when you experience it, and there’s a chance they’ll all be playing different music that may be consonant or might be dissonant with each other. This idea that the voice notes may be in harmony or may not, also I feel amplifies the communication of the idea of being in the middle of somebodies memories, as most peoples memories are not all in harmony with each other, peoples memories might be very dissonant at times, and sometimes very peaceful.
I feel this final version of the installation is the strongest version yet, and I really like the chance that different musical voice notes might be playing together and work really well together with the natural sounds too, and the person experiencing it is experiencing a combination of sounds that will never be heard in that exact combination ever again, making it literally a once in a lifetime experience.
I plan to conduct some experiments with this idea and try work out the technicalities of the setup, and try make a prototype of this installation to experience it myself.