How does one translate music and images?

Background

This body of work began from Stop Making Sense. I've always loved Talking Heads, but after a year of graduate school, I viewed this film with a different eye. What makes the film unique is the attention to the visual. David Byrne used a giant suit to make his head look smaller on stage, and Jonathan Demme used the stage as a narrative element. Byrne said "Music is physical, the body understands it before the mind." He wanted to emphasize this with his performance. The movie begins with Byrne alone on a well-lit stage, with an acoustic guitar and a boom box. As the set progresses, more pieces of the band join him on stage and the lighting changes into a full-blown visual show.

I decided I wanted to make projects inspired by this movie. If music is physical, how can I investigate this statement? How can a designer become the performer? I used the big suit as my starting point, but even as my thesis changed and developed, I constantly looked back at this film for inspiration.

How can sound create visuals and how do visuals create music? As technology develops, does it aid the translation or hinder it?

What is the new role of a media designer in the conceptual thinking and applied creation of visual music?

What is useful about practice-based research in the field of visual music?

 

Cultural Context:

The most critical aspect of my work is the distinction between what I am doing and what a VJ does. A VJ (video jockey) is an artist or performer who creates visual art for concerts and clubs, in conjunction with a musician or DJ. Often, the visuals are made separately from the music and have no dialogue with the musical content. The visuals are usually stock video footage and tend to be added as an afterthought. The projects I have made are in rich dialogue with the content and highly focused on methodology to obtain an end product that is unique to the artist or project.

Historical Context:

As I began to develop visuals for Nosaj Thing's live show, Oskar Fischinger's and Len Lye’s names became important precedents. Their work used simple shapes and colors to synch perfectly with the music. The result is both abstract and beautiful. The earliest version of the visual show was made using video footage. I developed storyboards and focused on developing a narrative with short video clips that were mixed together. In the end, this version didn't make it past my 4th term review. However, I did stick with the project and drew on Fischinger for inspiration in the final version.

How does my work relate to these artists?

 

Andy Warhol's Exploding Plastic Inevitable is the most relevant influence for this investigation. Andy Warhol organized this multimedia event in 1966, which featured music by The Velvet Underground and screenings of his films. At the time, this kind of visual show was not being done in rock and roll. This allows me to do these types of projects. Andy Warhol is responsible for it- his ideas are ubiquitous in our popular culture, but I have always considered him to be an influence on my work. The Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) is most similar to what I was trying to accomplish with The Visual Show. It is an artist working closely with a musical act, to create one experience that is cross media.

 

One example of a current relevant discourse is James Houston’s Radiohead remix. This project captures an experimental approach to create music using unconventional methods. Houston explains his work: “I grouped together a collection of old redundant hardware, and placed them in a situation where they’re trying their best to do something that they’re not exactly designed to do, and not quite getting there. It doesn’t sound great, as it’s not supposed to.”

 

Universal Everything is the best example of a current studio that aligns with the kind of practice this thesis work will develop into. “Working with everything from pencils to generative design, Universal Everything is a diverse studio at the crossover between design and art.” Their projects range from rebranding MTV to stadium visuals to designing a project for Design and the Elastic Mind. The work is not classified by or limited to one medium or technique.