Where Sound Meets Vision: Art and the Convergence of Sound and Vision
Benjamin Shane Phillips - 3131443 BCT (Sound and Audio Production) - JMC Academy BMus Hons (Sonic Arts) – The University of Adelaide MMusTech - The University of Newcastle
Submitted in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Philosophy (Fine Art)
The University of Newcastle (Australia)
January 2017
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Statement of Originality The thesis contains no material which has been accepted for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution and, to the best of my knowledge and belief, contains no material previously published or written by another person, except where due reference has been made in the text. I give consent to the final version of my thesis being made available worldwide when deposited in the University’s Digital Repository**, subject to the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968. **Unless an Embargo has been approved for a determined period.
Benjamin Phillips January 2017
Page 1 Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Creative Works - Film Paintings and Titles
All creative works accompanying this thesis are presented on this film painting map http://1331.space/digital-sketchbook They are also available in the virtual gallery http://1331.space/av-gallery/
1. Golden Jewel Sang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQMxYo8hLjs (4:25) 2. Slow Cooking Urban Decay https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC_yzgTByrA (4:18) 3. Golden Water Sang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNDGPLTVdD0 (3:24) 4. And She Shone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr4PpJ2_JqU (5:10) 5. Kaleidoscope Jamboree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhfItSXhk2g (6:03) 6. And So She Disappears https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVOcEdqXTN0 (5:10) 7. And She Whispered https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWBVfpPA7gs (5:10) 8. Look Up There Fools! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwjcTflbzoI (4:00) 9. In Service of the Light+ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG4-4IvtXkg (4:20) Detailed analysis of works and links feature in Chapter Four. Important Note: Please view the works in the order specified on a high definition screen using quality stereo headphones. This is to appreciate the connectivity and themes that link the works.
Page 2
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Table of Contents
Statement of Originality ...... 1 Abstract ...... 5 Introduction ...... 6 1 – Transforming Sound into Sound and Vision ...... 8 1a - Post-Digital ...... 8 1b - Post-Media Aesthetic ...... 10 1c - Audio-Visual Art ...... 11 Case Study 1 - The Virtual Space ...... 12 Case Study 2 - Digital Art Beyond The Computer Interface ...... 12 2 – The Transformation of Early Twentieth-Century Art and The Emergence of Moving Image Practice ...... 15 2a - The Technological and Cultural Influences of Moving Image Practice ...... 19 3 – The Convergence of Sound and Vision ...... 24 3a - A Confluence of Happenstance ...... 25 3b - A History of Synergism ...... 27 Case Study 3 - The Rock Avant-Gardes ...... 31 4 – How Do Sonic Artists Transform Sound Only Practices into Audio-Visual Practices? ...... 34 4a - The Art of Audio-Field Recording ...... 35 Case Study 4 - Sound Mapping...... 35 4b - The Light Microphone ...... 36 4c - Sonic Art ...... 38 Case Study 5 - The Soundscape ...... 39 Case Study 6 - Granular Synthesis ...... 40 4d - Soundscape as Sonic Sculpture ...... 41 Case Study 7 - Musique Concrète ...... 41 Case Study 8 - Binaural Sound ...... 43 5 – Conclusion ...... 47 Bibliography ...... 50
Page 3
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Table of Figures
Figure 1: Computer created ‘Rembrandt’ (BBC Website) ...... 14 Figure 2: Image from Colour Box, paint on film strip, 35mm, 4 mins ...... 17 Figure 3: Image from Le Retour a la Raison (The Return to Reason), black and white film, 35mm, 2 mins ..... 18 Figure 4: Luigi Russolo - The Intonarumori 1914 ...... 25 Figure 5: Painted by Syd Barret - album cover for Barret, Harvest Records, London 1970 ...... 28 Figure 6: Pink Floyd - The Roundhouse 1966, Photo by Adam Ritchie ...... 29 Figure 7: Padshop granular synthesizer by Steinberg used in the creative works ...... 40 Figure 8: Binaural Dummy Head ...... 43 Figure 9: Diagram of Binaural Sound Field ...... 44 Figure 10: Binauralizer plug-in by Noise Makers ...... 44
Page 4
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Abstract
Over the course of the twentieth-century, both the ethereal material of sound and light (vision) converged through emerging technology and mediums – creating new audio-visual art practices and forms. Whilst artists past and present still use sound and vision in singular artistic practices, the emergence of The Internet is creating a conundrum for sonic artists. This is because The Internet is a multimedia medium, creating a need for sonic artists to explore the possibilities of audio-visual practices to utilize the full potential of the medium. Furthermore, prominent academic and sound artist Barry Truax posits in his key sound art text Acoustic Communication ‘we live in a visually centred culture’. The conundrum of sound only art practices like soundscaping, and how to transform such practices into audio-visual ones for broader viewing and dissemination on multimedia mediums is the question to be investigated in the thesis. The practical component of the thesis, through practice-led experimentation will demonstrate how to transform the sound only practice of soundscaping into an audio-visual form. To achieve both these aims, historical avant-garde film art or ‘film painting’ and sonic art will be explored, along with digital art theory.
Page 5
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Introduction
In 1913, when proto-creative arts researcher Luigi Russolo wrote his now seminal sonic arts text The Art of Noises, 1 sound became a legitimate ethereal material that could be used in emerging artistic practices. Over the course of the twentieth-century, The Art of Noises was expanded through artistic experimentation by artists from all three movements of the avant-gardes’ – historical, neo and rock. These artists also foresaw the contemporary art era, or the rise of multimedia mediums like Television and The Internet. They did this by experimenting with both sound and vision, to create some of the first audio-visual and multimedia artistic practices and forms.
It was in the 1980s, when the term sound art was first used to describe emerging artistic practices that used sound in a way more closely defined as fine art.2 The term sonic art has since emerged as a further refinement for sound art practices, but the definition is contested. Particularly when retrospectively using the term to include the historical avant-gardes’ sound art manifestos and practitioners. For the purposes of this research thesis, the term sonic art will be used to describe the broader movement of sound only practices including music, whereas the term sound art will be applied to sound only practices like sound mapping and Barry Truax’s granular soundscape compositional method. Both sub-genres of the wider sound activist movement of acoustic ecology, co-founded by Barry Truax and R. Murray Schafer in the late 1960s.
The research in this thesis will not dispute the popularity of sound only creative practices like sound mapping and soundscaping. Sound and sonic art in various guises is very popular. Not only because of the need for sonic content to accompany visual media on the Internet, but also due to the rise in popularity of sound art practices like sound mapping; yet, Barry Truax has also stated ‘we live in a visually centred culture’.3 Furthermore, Australian art academic Caleb Kelly believes ‘there is no such thing as sound art’4 This creates a conundrum for sound and sonic artists like the author of this thesis. Both assertions by Truax and Kelly form the basis for the research contained in this thesis, namely ‘if visual culture is the dominate cultural medium, how do sonic artists transform sound only practices into audio-visual practices?’ This question will be answered by using four research methodologies – content analysis, historical analysis, practice-led research, and case studies. Chapter one will analyse
1 Luigi Russolo, The Art of Noises, (historical manifesto 1913), http://www.artype.de/Sammlung/pdf/russolo_noise.pdf, (accessed 5th March 2014). 2 Seth Kim-Cohen, In the Blink of an Ear: Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art, (New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009), introduction xix. 3 Barry Truax, Acoustic Communication (Westport: Ablexbooks Publishing, 2001), introduction xii. 4 Caleb Kelly, ‘Sound is in the Visual Arts’ catalogue essay for Sonic Spheres: Tarrawarra Biennale, (2012), https://www.academia.edu/8314115/Caleb_Kelly_Sound_is_in_the_Visual_Arts_catalogue_essay_for_Sonic_Spheres_Tarra warra_Biennale_2012?auto=download, (accessed 16th April 2016), pp.11.
Page 6
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
academic papers for key terms, phrases and theoreticians on digital media and digital art theory. This initial content analysis was subsequently used as a framework to create the dissertation, creative practice and submitted audio-visual works. The first case study at the end of chapter one will contextualise the use of the Internet to display of the submitted creative works. The second will discuss digital art created beyond the computer as an interface. An important idea when thinking about the future of moving image practice, and the emergence of virtual and augmented reality. Chapter two will demonstrate the historical timeline of early avant-garde film art, and the cultural underpinnings of early moving image practice to demonstrate ideas used in the creative practice and submitted audio-visual woks. Chapter three will demonstrate the beginnings of sound art and multimedia practice. This will show how early sound art practice influenced visual art practice over the course of the twentieth-century, creating a convergence of sound and vision. This historical event is an important theory within the submitted thesis, as it is evidence that supports Caleb Kelly’s belief there is no such thing as sound art. Chapter three will also demonstrate how sound and visual artists transformed sound only practices into multimedia and audio-visual practices. Another key concept within the submitted thesis. Finally, chapter four will use practice-led research to demonstrate how the author of this thesis transformed his sound only practice of soundscaping into an audio-visual one. All sound and sonic art theory will be presented in this chapter as case studies.
Page 7
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
1 – Transforming Sound into Sound and Vision
To understand the logic of new media we need to turn to computer science. Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media.5
The first step in transforming the author’s sound only practice of soundscaping into an audio-visual practice was to understand the notion of digital art from a new practitioner’s point of view – due to the digitization technology used in the creative practice and submitted works for the thesis. To achieve this aim, a content analysis research methodology was employed, using three texts on the topic of digital art. The first text Digital Arts-An Introduction to New Media, 6 was written by the head of Monash University’s Conservatorium Professor Cat Hope and John Ryan. The second was an academic paper by Australian media academic Ian Andrew’s text on ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism’,7 and the third was by new media research Professor Florian Cramer titled ‘What Is Post-Digital?’.8 These three texts expanded the author’s lexicon on digital art and theory by identifying key theories and theoreticians within the digital arts. The identification of key theories and theoreticians within digital art and theory was then used in a second broader content analysis, and subsequently used as the framework for both the creative practice and submitted creative works. This chapter will analyse the content of the main academic papers used to create the framework of the thesis. The two case-studies at the end of the chapter will discuss the virtual gallery and the expansion of art through emerging technologies and ideas. The virtual gallery case study will also further contextualise the display of the creative works on the Internet.
1a - Post-Digital Ian Andrew’s paper ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism’9 was one the first papers analysed for the thesis. Andrew’s paper investigates the topic of post-digital art aesthetics, and whether there was a post-digital aesthetic. He highlights digital music theory concepts like glitch, or flaws associated with digital signal processing (DSP) to demonstrate possible aesthetics correlated with digital technology. He also mentions the so-called pristine nature or coldness of digital as another possible aesthetic, along with emulating the ‘analogue sound’ with DSP.
5 Lev Manovich, The Language of New Media, (book exert, Georgetown University: Washington, 2001), http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Manovich-LangNewMedia-excerpt.pdf, (accessed 23rd Aug 2015), pp.65. 6 Cat Hope and John Ryan, Digital Arts-An Introduction to New Media (Bloomsbury: New York, London, New Delhi, Sydney), Kindle Edition. 7 Ian Andrews, ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism’, (essay 2002), http://www.ian- andrews.org/texts/postdig.html, (accessed 29th April 2015), pp.1. 8 Florian Cramer, ‘What is Post-Digital?’, APRJA A Peer Review Journal About Post-Digital Research 3, no.1 23rd Jan 2014, http://www.aprja.net/?p=1318, (accessed 29th April 2015). 9 Andrews, ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics’.
Page 8
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
The term post-digital according to Ian Andrew’s can be attributed to Kim Cascone and his paper ‘The Aesthetics of Failure: Post-Digital Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music’10 This paper introduces the idea the digital revolution was a failure at the time, and these failures or the glitches that can be heard in audio after DSP processing have become a key aesthetic within broader digital art practice. Cascone attributes the failure of the digital revolution to digital theorist Nicholas Negroponte and his paper ‘Beyond Digital’.11 Both Cascone and Negroponte believed at the time, the computer revolution had failed because the computer had become ubiquitous within society, which subsequently also made computers boring.
Nicholas Negroponte’s ‘Beyond Digital’, whilst not in the sphere of digital art theory is none the less important for artists who use technology in art practice to at least be aware of. This is because it’s a beginning point to better understand the wider subjects of digital theory, digital media and digital art theory. ‘Beyond Digital’ is also considered prophetic due to the fact it was written in 1998 and predicted social media platforms, streaming media content and even IOT or The Internet of Things – smart devices.
Neo-modernism was another important concept within Ian Andrew’s ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics’ paper. Post-digital art or the aesthetics of failure he states, ‘is the reaction to a crisis in post-modern culture’.12 A topic too broad to be properly discussed in this thesis, but still an important idea within wider digital art practice. This is because Andrew’s references academic and computer scientist Lev Manovich’s art manifesto ‘Generation Flash’ to explain the emergence of a digital neo-modernist aesthetic.13. The idea of using neo-modernism to solve the ‘crisis’ in postmodern culture, Andrew’s subsequently believes is naïve because it does not deal the problem of originality and duplication.14 Lev Manovich’s ‘Generation Flash’ posits to solve the postmodern culture ‘crisis’, a soft-modernist approach, not neo-modernism as Andrew’s termed it was needed. Manovich describes soft- modernism as a ‘return to the belief in science, idealism and rationality – the heroic spirt of modernism’.15 To achieve this digital soft-modernist aesthetic Manovich proposes the use of computer code to create software applications, or as Manovich describes it The Software Artist.16 The software artist then uses these applications he or she has coded and the language of modernism or abstraction to create art.
10 Kim Cascone, ‘The Aesthetics of Failure: Post Digital Tendencies in Contemporary Music’, MIT Press 2002, http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors3/casconetext.html, (accessed 29th April 2015). 11 Nicholas Negroponte, ‘Beyond Digital’, Wired 6, no.12 1998, http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED6- 12.html, (accessed 29th April 2015). 12 Andrews, ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics’. 13 Lev Manovich, ‘Generation Flash’, (essay 2002), http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/generation-flash, (accessed 23rd Aug 2015). 14 Andrews, ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics’. 15 Manovich, ‘Generation Flash’, pp.17. 16 Manovich, ‘Generation Flash’, pp.6.
Page 9
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
1b - Post-Media Aesthetic Another key text discovered using the content analysis methodology, and also written by Lev Manovich was The Language of New Media.17 This text links an important idea from the referenced academic papers so-far discussed – medium. Cascone suggests in ‘The Aesthetics of Failure’, ‘medium is no longer the message; rather, specific tools themselves have become the message’.18 Perhaps paraphrasing Marshall McLuhan’s famous phrase ‘the medium is the message’. Whilst Andrew’s ‘Post-Digital Aesthetics’ references Clement Greenburg and medium-specificity. A key theoretician and theory of twentieth-century modernist art. Medium, and situating art through medium has been an ongoing source of consternation since the historical avant-gardes redefined art practice to include celluloid and other emerging technological mediums. Lev Manovich’s The Language of New Media is an attempt by Manovich to solve this problem. To do this he suggests a post-media aesthetic. According to Professor Cat Hope, Manovich believes defining art through medium or the traditional way of defining art works is too limiting in the digital age.19 Instead of using medium to define art works, Manovich suggests the use of five different categories. These are numerical representation, modularity, automation, variability and cultural transcoding.20
Manovich’s The Language of New Media is an important reference when thinking about concepts pertaining to the term new media, and how to situate art within the wider spectrum of digital art. This is because new media has been used to describe disparate art practices involving digital art, multimedia art, computer art and photography. The meaning of new media is contested though, Manovich’s Language of New Media demonstrates this, as does Cat Hope’s Digital Arts text.21 Manovich associates the term with the digitization of ‘old media’ or celluloid, and therefore to him the term is a misnomer as there is nothing new about new media.22 The digitization of media or the digitized medium subsequently became one of the key theories used in both the creative practice and submitted creative works. Whilst the notion of medium-specificity has been rejected within contemporary art theory – a subject to broad to be discussed in this thesis – it was the investigation into the digitized medium that broadened the author’s understanding of mediums and their limits. For example, the creation of the final submitted audio-visual works required specific settings to be used when rendering the works for the MP4 format, and used on most multimedia dissemination platforms like Youtube. This could be called technological medium-specificity, because the works were created within the limits of the medium by using 1920x1080p high definition digitized film and the SRGB colour standard. The standard of all high definition audio-visual content on the Internet. Other notions
17 Manovich, The Language of New Media. 18 Cascone, ‘The Aesthetics of Failure’. 19 Hope and Ryan, Digital Arts, pp.8. 20 Manovich, The Language of New Media, pp.44. 21 Hope and Ryan, Digital Arts, pp.8. 22 Manovich, The Language of New Media, pp.65-66.
Page 10
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
of medium specificity were also used, most notably within the submitted sonic works accompanying the film paintings and the analogue emulation aesthetic.
1c - Audio-Visual Art The final paper used in the creation of the framework for this thesis was Ian Andrew’s ‘The Expanded-contracted Field of Recent Audio-Visual Art’.23 This paper sets out the terms of what audio-visual art or A.V art is according to Andrews. This of course is a fairly narrow definition, but is pertinent to the creative practice and submitted audio-visual works. Andrew’s believes A.V art is primarily a live performance practice, which differentiates A.V art from experimental film, video and media art. More importantly, he believes A.V art is a music or sonic practice. Furthermore, even though the term audio-visual would seem to denote equal weighting to both sound and vision, the language of A.V art he believes is derived from music. The creative practice used within the submission isn’t a live performance practice, but the sonic works underpinning the visual accompaniment does adhere to Andrew’s belief of music being the language used in the creation of said works. This is because each of the submitted works uses a musical key, time signature and roman numeral analysis (chords in a specific key) to create a music layer. The music layer was then combined with the other sonic collage layers to create a composite audio master. This will be further discussed in chapter four.
Andrew’s ‘The Expanded-contracted Field of Recent Audio-Visual Art’, also sets out other key tenets and historical theories on A.V art. For example, Andrew’s belief the best audio-visual art is when sound influences the vision, or the audio is derived from the film. In some respects, the submitted works again reflect Andrew’s opinion by using audio-field recordings captured at the same time as the vision. Creating a holistic work of art, where sound and vision act in concert to inform the whole. An important theory used in both the creative practice and submitted works. The idea of holistic works of art will be further expanded upon in chapter’s three and four.
In conclusion, this chapter has used an investigative approach, and employed the methodology of content analysis to create a theoretical underpinning for the submitted thesis. To achieve this, the texts analysed in this chapter and other texts detailed in the bibliography were used to create a map. This conceptual map creates a links between the theories discussed in this chapter, the historical research contained in chapter’s two and three and the creative practice. For example, Ian Andrew’s paper on post-digital aesthetics identified a list of key terms and theories that were all used in the submitted thesis, such as Lev Manovich, Kim Cascone, post-digital, neo-modernism, medium and the analogue
23 Ian Andrews, ‘The Expanded-contracted Field of Recent Audio-Visual Art’, Scan- Journal of Media Arts Culture 6, no. 2 (2009), http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=134, (accessed 18th Aug 2015).
Page 11
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
emulation aesthetic. Then by using Andrew’s reference list and a digital content research methodology, further ideas and concepts emerged. The aforementioned post-media aesthetic, and the problems associated with the technological medium for example. Each of the papers also discussed either key historical movements like Futurism, or the more broader movement of twentieth-century avant-garde art, along with key avant-gardists – both historical and neo – such as Luigi Russolo, Laszlo Moholy-Nagy and Oskar Fischinger. These links, and the theoretical map created from the research discussed in this chapter, clearly demonstrates how the written dissertation, creative practice and submitted creative works act in concert to inform the thesis holistically.
Case Study 1 - The Virtual Space The post-internet or ‘web 2.0’ as it is known,24 is thought to have begun when the Internet ‘became less of novelty and more of a banality’, according to artist and academic Artie Vierkant’s 2010 paper ‘The Image Object Post-Internet’.25 In this, Vierkant’s concept of post-internet is philosophically similar with Cascone’s post-digital. Understanding, adapting and using the post- internet, along with the subsequent and associated ‘web 2.0’ tools is an important part of art practice for all artists to be involved in. This is because it has become one of the primary ways to advertise and distribute an artist’s work. One of the first visual artists to take advantage of ‘web 2.0’, and subsequently the post-internet era was Oliver Laric. In 2006, Laric and a group of friends created VVORK or a virtual gallery. This blog was designed as a proxy art space, and could be used for other art-based projects, including advertising physical exhibitions.26 The creation of a virtual space using ‘web 2.0’ tools, subsequently became an experiment within the creative element of this research thesis. http://1331.space/ displays all the visual experiments created for the creative component of this research thesis. The website also displays a research production diary or blog which detail these experiments, along with a new audio-visual practice video mapping. The video maps act analogously to a sketchbook, and were an important first step in designing the creative practice. Having unadorned video maps for viewing on an interactive map was also another important aspect of the artistic process, perhaps bringing the project closer to the emerging augmented reality concept.27
Case Study 2 - Digital Art Beyond The Computer Interface When reviewing and investigating contemporary art for this thesis, it became apparent that art wasn’t only being transformed by human creators and computer operated tools – art was also being created by invisible technology such as artificial intelligence. Even art created in the ethereal digital realm was being transformed into physical corporeal works. These changes will
24 Graham Cormode & Balachander Krishnamurthy, ‘Key Differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0’, First Monday 13, num. 6 (2008), http://firstmonday.org/article/view/2125/1972, (accessed18th Oct 2015). 25 Artie Vierkant, ‘The Image Object Post-Internet’, (essay 2010), http://jstchillin.org/artie/pdf/The_Image_Object_Post- Internet_us.pdf, (accessed 25th Aug 2016), pp.1. 26 Domenico Quaranta, ‘The Real Thing’, Artpulse, 2010, http://artpulsemagazine.com/the-real-thing-interview-with-oliver- laric, (accessed 20th July 2015). 27 Kevin Bonser, ‘How Augmented Reality Really Works’, How Stuff Works-Tech, 2016, http://computer.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm, (accessed 2nd Oct 2016).
Page 12
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
need contemporary artists to think about not only the computer as a creative tool, but how the computer is only a small part of the technology used in the creation of art. Shaun Gladwell for instance, an Australian mixed media artist who works with painting, sculpture, photography and video has expanded his moving image practice into the virtual realm. It is believed he is one of the first artists to have sold a virtual reality art work in Australia.28 Another use for virtual reality is sculpture. Eric Lobbecke, an illustrator for the The Australian newspaper has been using virtual reality to sculpt in the ethereal digital realm, he then uses a 3D printer to create a physical approximation of the work.29
The cross-over of science and art is also starting to push art into new and wild frontiers. Israeli artist, Guy Ben-Ary is a researcher at The University of Western Australia who specialises in bioengineered brains. His self-portrait CellF is a neural network cultured from his own cells which are grown on an array of electrodes. These are then integrated into an interface that control an array of analogue synthesizers. Human musicians then improvise, and the improvisation is fed into the neural network which responds by playing the synthesizers.30
Continuing the science art cross-over, beyond art created by humans, some believe the next great art will come from space and using images captured from telescopes pointed at the stars.31 In the future, art may even be created by computers and not humans at all. Earlier this year, a team of technologists working with Microsoft analysed the works of Rembrandt using a computer. The computer then created a new ‘self-portrait’ of the artist, which was then printed with a 3D printer to simulate the look of an oil painting.32
28 Ashleigh Wilson, ‘For Simon Mordant, art ownership is relatively virtual’, The Australian, 6th June, 2016, https://www.google.com.au/#q=sean+gladwell+sells+first+virtual+reality, (accessed 6th June 2016). 29 Chris Griffith, ‘Illustrator Eric Lobbecke’s carving art in the virtual world’, The Australian, 7th July, 2016, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/illustrator-eric-lobbeckes-carving-art-in-the-virtual-world/news- story/cfdafd7c11b4bd213580aeb92da2efd5, (accessed 7th July 2016). 30 Penny Durham, ‘Art-sceince collaborations bring a human perspective’, The Australian, 8th Aug, 2016, http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/artscience-collaborations-bring-a-human-perspective/news- story/c3a75f93e9e5aa5d125f14bb10d3fdad, (accessed 8th Aug 2016). 31 Johnathan Jones, ‘Out of this world: why the most important art today is made in space’, The Guardian, 12th June, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jun/12/why-most-important-art-today-made-in-space, (accessed 12th June 2016). 32 Chris Baraniuk ‘Computer paints ‘new Rembrandt’ after old works analysis’, BBC News, 6th April, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35977315, (accessed 6th April 2016).
Page 13
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Figure 1: Computer created ‘Rembrandt’ (BBC Website)
Page 14
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
2 – The Transformation of Early Twentieth-Century Art and The Emergence of Moving Image Practice
Is it right, today in the age of moving reflected light phenomena and of the film, to continue to cultivate the static individual painting as a colour composition? Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film. 33
The history of early avant-garde film art, and discussed in this chapter represents the second phase of the author’s research on the main stated question of the thesis. To answer this question, the author first had to more fully understand the possibilities of moving image practice. This required practice-led creative experimentation, and a direction for the visual aspect of the submitted creative works. The map between digital theory, theoreticians and broader art concepts discussed in chapter one suggested the historical avant-gardes and their early avant-garde film art experiments. Film painting, a key early avant-garde film art practice eventually becoming the visual form of the submitted audio-visual works. This chapter will use historical research presented in a narrative format to demonstrate important events, theories, texts, and the cultural underpinnings of early modernist avant-garde film art. This research was subsequently used to expand the author’s moving image practice, further demonstrating how the theoretical knowledge discussed in the submitted dissertation and the practice- led research were used holistically to answer the main stated question of the thesis. To create the narrative timeline, and to establish the key ideas within early avant-garde film art, two avant-garde film texts were employed – A History of Experimental Film and Video written by British academic Al Rees, and Abstract Film and Beyond written by avant-garde film artist Malcom Le Grice.
The historical avant-gardes push to expand art practice into new media paradigms, in part was a response to the rapidly changing world of the early twentieth century.34 Science, mass media, mass production and mass communication all had effects on each modern art movement from the advent of the twentieth century. Two such movements were Futrurism and Dada. Dada is perhaps best remembered through Marcel Duchamp and his readymade concept.35 The readymade, according to Duchamp was to challenge the notion of aesthetic beauty in what he termed ‘retinal art’ or painting. 36 He did this by elevating everyday objects into art, such as the now infamous urinal sculpture.37 It was this rebellious act by Duchamp, that could be viewed as the beginning point in the expansion of the contemporary art definition to include intellectual and conceptual practices. The Futurist movement, on the other hand, has become somewhat of a bi-line in history. Particularly if you compare the two
33 Laszlo Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film, trans. Janet Seligman. (London: Lund Humphries, 1927), pp.22. 34 Fred. S. Kleiner, Gardeners Art Through The Ages, 13th ed. (Australia: Thomson and Wasworth, 2009), pp.967. 35 Kleiner, Gardeners Art Through The Ages, pp.930. 36 Hans Richter, Dada Art and Anti-Art (London: Thames And Hudson, 1965), pp.207-208. 37 Robert Short, Dada and Surealism (London: Octopus Books Limited, 1980), pp.25.
Page 15
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
sections on both art movements in Gardeners Art Through The Ages.38 This is possibly because of their first manifesto glorifying war.39 The Futurists importance in art history though, cannot be understated. This is because they were some of the first artists who experimented with film, and conceptualized multimedia practice due their fascination of emerging mechanical technology.40 At first, the Futurist painters were more occupied with capturing the movement of cars and city life in their paintings. Mostly aping the popular post-impressionist and cubist painting styles of the time.41 Eventually though, the Futurist painters became early champions of film, which they used to expand painting into new mediums and forms.
It’s perhaps hard to imagine how amazing emerging film and cinema technology would have been to not only the artists of the modernist era, but to society as a whole. It was in 1895, when the now famous French Lumiere brothers, creators of some of the first cinematic film camera technology shot one of the first films in a documentary style. They then showed this film to their workers at their factory, perhaps forever propelling the moving image into the consciousness of humankind. Amazingly, both brothers famously believed there was no future in film – film was not art but a passing curiosity.42 Film art could have gone in any number of directions from these humble beginnings. Eventually though, over the course of the twentieth century narrative film art became the dominant use of the Lumiere brothers’ technology. Two early film luminaries were Antonin Artaud and Charlie Chaplin, and it was their pioneering use of the narrative film art form that perhaps propelled film beyond the limited perceptions of the Luminaires’.
The Futurists were some of the first in the historical avant-garde who wanted to use film in art practice.43 This is evident in the Futurists writing a manifesto on the topic in 1916 – The Futurist Cinema44. Unfortunately, there is a paucity of early modernist film art in existence, making it hard to pinpoint when the actual first experiments in film painting began. Al Rees’s key avant-garde film text A History of Experimental Film and Video suggests that it was The Futurists’ Arnaldo Ginna and his brother Bruno Corra, who were the progenitors of these first avant-garde film painting works.45 The evidence Al Rees’s suggests exists in the Futurists’ manifesto Abstract Cinema, Chromatic Music,46 written in 1912, and in which both brothers are listed as co-authors. There were two different methods
38 Kleiner, Gardeners Art Through The Ages, pp.928-927. 39 Marjorie Perloff, The Futurist Moment (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986), preface pp.5. 40 Al Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video (Londen: BFI Publishing, 1999), pp.28. 41 ‘Futurism’ The Art Story, http://www.theartstory.org/movement-futurism.htm, (accessed 27th Sept 2016). 42 Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video, pp.15. 43 Malcolm Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond (Great Britain: MIT Press, 1977), pp.10. 44 Apollonio, Futurist Manifestos, pp. 208. 45 Rees, A History of Experimental Film And Video, p.28. 46 Appollonio, Futurist Manifestos, pp.66.
Page 16
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
for creating the earliest form of film painting. Either cut the celluloid into strips and paint onto this, or paint onto longer strips of celluloid and let the projector frame the film painting.47
There are a number of key artists and film texts within these early film experiments, that could be re- evaluated to demonstrate the importance of film within historical fine art and modernism. Len Lye, a relatively lesser-known New Zealand born artist for example, produced the seminal film painting Colour Box.48 Colour Box is considered seminal because it is one of the earliest surviving films using the painting onto celluloid method (despite being created long after the first early Futurist experiments). Lye was a trained animator, and his film experiments tended to be abstract. This is particularly evident in Colour Box.49 In Lye’s film painting work, abstract shapes dance and pulse rhythmically, as if they were a form of visual music. One of the key reasons for the popularity of film painting onto celluloid was it required very little technical skill i.e. developing film stock and an actual camera – allowing the continuation of the nineteenth century tradition of the ‘genius’ artist working alone.50 It was also the cheapest way to experiment with film at the time.
Figure 2: Image from Colour Box, paint on film strip, 35mm, 4 mins 51
The emergence of animation in the 1920s was the next key development in avant-garde film art. Artists would use a thinly sliced strip of wax to imbed an image, this was then printed onto celluloid.52 Oskar Fischinger, a musician, artist, and a key member of the German Expressionist movement, created some of the earliest attempts in animation using this technique. Even though Fischinger’s Optical Poem was created in 1937, and after the first important phase of avant-garde film painting, it is still considered a key text.53 This is because it was one of the first and only avant-garde film paintings to be created with Hollywood’s financial backing, and it was also created to sync with the
47 Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video, pp.29. 48 ‘Kaleidoscope, Colour Box, Colour Flight’, Youtube video 2:51, posted by magicalmotionmuseam, 3rd Nov 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-DksmbDMDUU. 49 Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond, pp.70. 50 Rees, A History of Experimental Film and Video, pp.29. 51 Len Lye, Colour Box, 35mm film, 4min, http://www.lenlyefoundation.com/films/a-colour-box/21/, (accessed 13th Oct 2016). 52 Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond, pp.30. 53 ‘Optical Poem’, Youtube video 7:09, posted by All Classic Video, 24th Feb 2013, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=they7m6YePo.
Page 17
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
music of Franz Liszt’s Second Hungarian Rhapsody.54 Much like most early film painting experiments, Optical Poem is essentially a study in abstraction, where shapes, circles and squares dance in rhythm to the music. Fischinger continued experimenting with various animation techniques throughout his career, using the now common stop motion technique, paper, and even clear Perspex for Motion Painting 1.55
In the mid-1920s, the first cinema film cameras became cheap enough and available for artists to expand the concept of film painting into photorealism. Man Ray (an American born Emmanuel Radnitzky), was one of the first in the historical avant-garde to use photorealism in avant-garde film painting. Le Retour a la Raison (The Return to Reason) is an important film text for two reasons.56 First it was created at the end of Dada and on the cusp of the new Surrealist movement,57 second it used a new film technique – Rayogram. According to The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s website,58 the rayogram technique used photosensitized paper, objects were placed upon this paper – the paper was then exposed to light. Like earlier film painting experiments, Le Retour A La Raison (The Return to Reason) is a study in abstraction, salt and nails are placed on photosensitized paper and filmed. The scene then changes to a montage of a roundabout at night, making the scene hard to distinguish. The scene changes again, and more rayograms of springs and other objects. The final image in the work is a woman’s nude torso with f clefs painted on her back.
Figure 3: Image from Le Retour a la Raison (The Return to Reason), black and white film, 35mm, 2 mins 59
54 Franz Liszt, ‘Second Hungarian Rhapsody’, S.224, 1887. 55 Oskar Fischinger, ‘Motion Painting 1’, 1947, animation acrylic on glass. 56 Le Retour a la Raison (The Return to Reason), Youtube video 2:51, posted by Dmitry Shubin, 4th May 2011, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwLD5WWQptw. 57 Rees, A History of Experimental Film And Video, pp. 43. 58‘Manray-The Rayogram’, The Metropolitan Museum, http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection- online/search/265487, (accessed 3rd Dec 2015). 59 Man Ray, Le Retour a la Raison (The Return to Reason), black and white film, 35 mm, 2 minutes, http://www.manraytrust.com/, (accessed 16th Oct 2016).
Page 18
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
The final key film painting text is Un chien Andalou.60 It was created by perhaps two of the most important film and Surrealist artists of the early modernist period – Luis Buñuel, and Salvador Dali. Dali is also one of the best-known artists of early modernism. He explored art like a scientist, manipulated the media like a magician, and he is remembered not only for his dream like art, but also his stunts. Un chien Andalou takes film painting and creates a new variation on the concept. The first film experiments were crude abstractions, Un chien Andalou uses abstraction, then twists the viewer into a nightmare dreamscape made even more so because of the use of photorealism. Ants seemingly crawl out of hands, eyeballs are sliced open, and a dead donkey is tied to a piano. It’s hard to guess what the filmmakers’ intent was, because the symbolism was always left as a mystery.61
In conclusion, this section of chapter two has demonstrated the transformation of early twentieth- century art to include moving image art practices. This transformation was the result of artists from early avant-garde movements like Futurism experimenting with new forms, materials, mediums and technology. The Futurists’ progenitor film painting experiments and highlighted in this chapter, also further establish how the discussed theories and history of early avant-garde film art underpin the creative practice and submitted works. The four key avant-garde film texts, as set out by both Al Rees and Malcom Le Grice provided a clearer understanding of avant-garde film art, and how experimentation was important in early moving practice. The realization that experimentation was an important element of avant-garde film art and early moving practice was critical, as it demonstrated to the author how the avant-gardes created new artistic practices at the beginning of twentieth-century. Subsequently the author better understood how to answer the main stated question of the thesis, and the broader concept of practice-led research.
2a - The Technological and Cultural Influences of Moving Image Practice The transformation of painting with pigment to light is an important part of the historical story when thinking about the concept of film painting. This is because it establishes the changing attitude to art and practice over the first fifty years of the twentieth century. Whilst the technological changes demonstrate how film painting transformed into video art. The change in medium used in traditional painting to celluloid, an ethereal storage and transmission medium, also establishes how the nature of moving image art practice was markedly different from the 1960s onward. Finally, both the cultural and technological growth that occurred from the early 1900s to the 1960s saw another important change in the way society viewed art and culture. This is the convergence of sound and vision into a singular form – a by-product of emerging analogue recording and transmission technology. The research in this chapter will demonstrate the convergence of sound and vision from the perspective of
60 ‘Un Chien Andalou’. Youtube video 15:50, posted by iconatua, 19th July 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BIKYF07Y4kA. 61 Rees, A History of Experimental Film And Video, pp.46.
Page 19
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
moving image practice, as opposed to chapter three which will demonstrate the convergence from a sonic arts’ perspective. This convergence is important holistically to the thesis, because it demonstrates the transformation of early twentieth-century culture into a one that is visually centred. Creating a key link within the theoretical map between the main stated question of the thesis.
An important early moment in the transformation of painting with pigment to painting with light, was the search for a way to express the inner by creating a pure painting style. The historical avant-gardes, rather than create representational figurative art were trying to find a way to express an inner fluid energy and emotion by using abstraction. They used music as an example of a pure non- representational art form that still had formal structure, but was mutable and had transcendent power.62 This was something they wanted to instil in the new painting style. The Futurists’ experiments with film painting are some of the very first attempts in a pure non-representational, non- figurative style.63 Perhaps making their early film painting experiments even more historically significant. The first film painting experiments, even though they were crude and hand painted onto celluloid also demonstrate one of the first instances painting with light.64
One of the first texts describing the transformation from painting with pigment and creating static art, to painting with light and creating kinetic art was by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy. In Painting Photography Film, first published in 1925 – he describes a device he terms a light microphone. This device he believed would revolutionise easel art, he opined though, ‘it had not been invented yet, and nor would it’.65 Moholy-Nagy was a Hungarian who taught at the prestigious German Bauhaus School in the mid-1920s. Like other modernist avant-gardes, he envisioned a different future for painting or what he termed easel art. ‘The camera has offered us amazing possibilities, which we’re only just beginning to exploit’, Moholy-Nagy says in Painting Photography Film.66 It is clear though, because of the limitations and the expense of the technology, the early avant-garde film painting experiments never really became a cohesive movement.67 Subsequently these important experiments are largely a footnote in the history of modern art.
The invention of the cine-camera is a significant historical moment in the concept of painting with light, and perhaps the most significant in the expansion of fine art to include the moving image. Before the Eastman Company, later Kodak, only Hollywood could afford the cinematic film camera. After 1922, The Eastman Company introduced the Cine Kodak, a cheaper film camera and the first
62 Mel Gooding, Movements in Art-Abstract Art (London: Tate Publishing, 2010), pp.7&9. 63 Rees, A History of Experimental Film And Video, pp.29. 64 Rees, A History of Experimental Film And Video, pp.28. 65 Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film, pp.23. 66 Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film, pp.7. 67 Le Grice, Abstract Film and Beyond, pp.12.
Page 20
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
cinematic type film camera to use 16mm film.68 The development of the cine camera, and camera technology throughout the twentieth-century cannot be understated. The camera continues to be a key driver in cultural development, mass communication, and mass entertainment. It is also inextricably tied to the Hollywood system according to the DVD cinematographer text Visions of Light-The Art of Cinematography.69 As Hollywood developed the narrative approach to film making, a desire for a bigger more expansive film experience created a need for better cameras and lenses.
It was the rise of the auteur director who became pivotal in transforming film painting as characterised by the Futurists and their film painting experiments. First, into the art house film, and later the experimental film movement of the 1960s. Directors such as Federico Fellini and Michelangelo Antoni took the ideas and film experiments of the historical avant-gardes’, and turned them into full length feature films. An example of this is Antoni’s Zabriskie Point,70 which in many ways is a long form film painting. Antoni using skills he gained from making Italian Neo-Realist films, ad-libbed the entire script and story – what there was of it – and creates a surreal world. Two most notable scenes demonstrating the similarities between early historical avant-garde films such as Buñuel and Dali’s Un chien Andalou and Zabriskie Point, involve a scene where a young couple meet at a petrol station in the middle of the desert. The man who has stolen a plane, and the woman are both using the station to fill up the plane and her car. They both then go into a secluded area and copulate, as this happens other actors – although none including the main couple were professional actors – also copulate in various stages of undress. This was all set to the music of Jerry Garcia, guitarist in rock band The Grateful Dead. It’s the abstract nature of the compositional elements within the scene that creates similarities between Zabriskie Point and Un chien Andalou. One minute the couple meet, the next they’re copulating in the desert to music. This doesn’t even take into account the randomness of a man flying a plane who refuels his plane only to meet a girl that he copulates with. The other scene is even closer to film painting because of the use of miniature models, which are filmed in slow-motion exploding. Abstract colours and images dance to Pink Floyd’s Come In Number 51 Your Time Is Up,71 which is actually a remake of an earlier composition Careful With That Axe Eugene.72 Comparing these visuals within Zabriskie Point, and the use of a dead donkey tied to a piano in Un chien Andalou – clearly demonstrates the influence early avant-garde film art had on the experimental film movement of the 1960s.
68 ‘Super 8 mm Film History, Kodak Motion Picture Film, http://motion.kodak.com/kodakgcg/motion/products/production/spotlight_on_super_8/super_8mm_history/index.htm, (accessed 6th Oct 2016). 69 Visions of Light-The Art of Cinematography, DVD, (AFI-American Film Institute & NHK-Japan Broadcasting Cooperation, 1992. 70 Zabriskie Point, Directed by Michelangelo Antoni, (MGM 1970). 71 Come In Number 51 Your Time Is Up, Pink Floyd, Harvest Records London, 1970. 72 Careful With That Axe Eugene, Pink Floyd Harvest Records London, 1970.
Page 21
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
The melding of popular culture, rock musicians, experimental film and art is key demonstration of the convergence of sound and vision, and is integral in the history of moving image practice. The convergence of sound and vision is also how the philosophies and techniques of the historical avant- gardes’ became common place in popular culture. This happened through the popularisation of these philosophies and techniques, via the rock-avant-gardes as they’re now known. A notable example being The Beatles and the track Tomorrow Never Knows, 73 which used the historical avant-gardes’ tape composition method – musique concrète. This is the first known cross-over of the technique into popular music. 74 There are other noteworthy examples of the rock-avant-gardes using historical and neo-avant-garde philosophies and techniques, but Tomorrow Never Knows is widely regarded as the beginning of this crossover.
The sonic crossover of the avant-gardes’ philosophies and techniques into popular culture was important, but so too was the influence of the historical avant-gardes’ sonic arts techniques on visual art, which were re-purposed by video artists in the creation of the then emerging video art form. In a similar way to the Cine Kodak film camera, the commercial release of the Sony Portapak video camera in 1965 also revolutionised moving image practice. Furthermore, the introduction of the video camera anticipated a change in the way art was made. When Duchamp conceptually declared painting a dead end, the consequences were not truly felt until the 1960s, this is because not only did Duchamp declare painting a dead end, he also declared the formal skills of painting and drawing dead.75 Video art didn’t need the technical skills which had underpinned the last five hundred years of fine art, and this was perhaps the final key moment in the history of the moving image and the transformation from painting with pigment to light.
In conclusion, this section of chapter two has investigated the moving image in art practice, the transformation of painting with pigment to light, abstraction in art and historical film painting practice. These compositional elements from historical film art, subsequently became important compositional elements within the submitted creative works. The key idea discussed in this chapter is how Futurist film painting transformed into surrealist film (Un chien Andalou), then through comparison of two scenes from Zabriskie Point and Un chien Andalou, how surrealist film painting clearly influences the experimental film movement of the 1960s. This is because the transformation of avant-garde film art, links all the key ideas of the first fifty years of avant-garde film experimentation
73 Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles, Apple Records London, 1966. 74 Kari, McDonald and Sarah, H. Kaufman ‘Tomorrow never knows’: the contribution of George Martin and his production team to the Beatles’ new sound’, in Every Sound There Is’,ed. R. Reising (Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002), p.145. 75 Araon L. Panofsky, ‘From Epistemology to the Avant-Garde-Marcel Duchamp and the Sociology of Knowledge in Resonance’ Theory Culture and Society 20, no 1 (2003), https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240708552_From_Epistemology_to_the_Avant- st garde_Marcel_Duchamp_and_the_Sociology_of_Knowledge_in_Resonance, (accessed, 21 Dec 2015), pp.67.
Page 22
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
together. Furthermore, this transformation also demonstrates the convergence of sound and vision from a moving image perspective, and shown by the use of popular culture music within Zabriskie Point and other experimental films of the 1960s. Blow-Up an earlier film directed by Antoni for example.76 Finally the convergence of sound and vision also creates a link between the idea of a visually centred culture by demonstrating how visual culture developed over the first fifty years of the twentieth-century. The next chapter will investigate and discuss the convergence of sound and vision from the sonic perspective.
76 Blow-Up, Directed by Michelangelo Antoni, (MGM 1966).
Page 23
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
3 – The Convergence of Sound and Vision
GAMES FOR MAY: Space-age relaxation for the climax of spring-electronic compositions, colour and image
projections, girls, and THE PINK FLOYD’ - Poster advertising Games For May 1967.77
The third phase of the research thesis, and discussed in this chapter began with the realization the author had been focusing entirely on the visual aspect of both the dissertation and submitted works – even though the research thesis was supposed to be investigating the broader question of ‘how to transform sound only practices into audio-visual practices?’. It was this realization that made it necessary to re-examine the author’s previous research done at an Honours level and on sonic arts. By re-examining this research, the author became aware of a larger historical event which happened within art and culture over the course of the early part of the twentieth-century – The Convergence of Sound and Vision. This convergence and its beginnings can be traced back to sound artists from the historical avant-gardes’, and their early sound art experiments. Both the visual and sonic arts research was then combined, and the transformation of the author’s sound only practice of soundscaping into an audio-visual practice begun. This chapter will investigate key historical ideas from early sound art practitioners, and how these ideas crossed-over to the rock-avant-gardes who popularized them – culminating with the convergence of sound and vision. This is an important idea within the broader framework of the thesis, because the convergence of sound and vision possibly validates academic Caleb Kelly’s belief ‘there is no such thing as sound art’,78 by demonstrating how some sound artists’ of the historical avant-garde were in fact some of the first multimedia artists. Furthermore, some members of the rock-avant-gardes were also trained visual artists. Giving further credence to the idea sound, sonic and musical artists were some of the first in modernist art to fully appreciate emerging multimedia mediums by experimenting with early audio-visual forms. Think the music video for example. The research in this chapter also demonstrates how avant-garde-artists’ of early modernism transformed their singular artistic practices to include either sound or vision. A key idea within the broader framework of the submitted thesis. The case study at the end of this chapter will give further context to the importance of the rock-avant-gardes, and their place within twentieth-century art history.
77 Nicholas Schaffner, Saucerful of Secrets-The Pink Floyd Story (London: Sidgewick and Jackson, 1991), pp.64. 78 Kelly, ‘Sound_is_in_the_Visual_Arts’, pp.11.
Page 24
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
3a - A Confluence of Happenstance The convergence of sound and vision, along with the contemporary concept of multimedia has it beginnings in 1913. It was Marcel Duchamp’s and Luigi Russlo’s break with traditional forms and subsequent manifestos on art and practice, that could be perceived as the beginning of this convergence. Russolo’s manifesto The Art of Noises is particularly important, because it demonstrates one of the first instances a visual artist expanding his singular artistic practice to include sound – becoming in current terminology an interdisciplinary artist.
There are striking similarities between Marcel Duchamp’s rebellious act of declaring painting a dead end via the readymade,79 and Futurist painter Luigi Russlo declaring any sound you like could be music.80 Not surprisingly, both concepts were mooted in 1913. Duchamp says in a later interview he did not know any members of The Futurist art movement when he created the readymade.81 It’s perhaps an intriguing question to ask then: how did these two men, who made similar declarations that subsequently changed not only art but culture too, not know of each-others work? The convergence of sound and vision culminated in the 1960s as this chapter will demonstrate, but the beginnings of this convergence can be traced back to Duchamp’s and Russolo’s two declarations. One for sound, the other for vision. Russolo though, like Duchamp was a painter. This makes Russolo’s declaration even more amazing perhaps, because not only did he have to create an entire new philosophy without any framework…he also made his own instrument to replicate the sounds he heard in his head – The Intonarumori or noise generator.
Figure 4: Luigi Russolo - The Intonarumori 1914 82
79 Panofsky, ‘From Epistomology to the Avant-Gardes’, pp.63. 80 Russolo, The Art of Noises, pp.10. 81 Calvin Tomkins, Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews, (Brooklyn, NY: Bandlands Unlimited, 2013), pp.67. 82 ‘Luigi Russolo The Intonarumori’, Media, Art, Net, http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/intonarumori/, (accessed 14th Oct 2016).
Page 25
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
The year 1913 wasn’t only an important year for art, but also the history of humankind. Europe was on the brink of World War One, and society was transforming rapidly through mechanisation due to The Second Industrial Revolution. Russolo in that same year was listening to a musical performance when an epiphany struck. Instead of using musical instruments to create music, sound and noises found in everyday life could be fashioned instead into a new musical form. Following this revelation, he wrote the seminal sound and sonic arts text The Art of Noises. It was in the guise of a letter to fellow Futurist composer Francesco Balilla Pratella, and is one of the many manifestos created by The Futurist movement at the turn of the twentieth century:
However, musical sound is too restricted in the variety and the quality of its tones. The most complicated orchestra can be reduced to four or five categories of instruments with different sound tones: rubbed string instruments, pinched string instruments, metallic wind instruments, wooden wind instruments, and percussion instruments. Music marks time in this small circle and vainly tries to create a new variety of tones. We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds.83
The true cultural significance of The Art of Noises is perhaps not as well understood compared to Duchamp’s ready-made concept, yet the influence of this document, and its influence on twentieth- century sound and visual art practice is maybe just as great. This is because of Russolo’s Art of Noises and the subsequent influence of this document on John Cage, who uses the ‘found sounds’ philosophy in the creation of his early sound art compositions. Indeed, John Cage virtually re-writes The Art of Noises in one of his first papers from 1937 – The Future of Music. We can see evidence of this from the two quotes below. The first from Russolo, where he writes: ‘We must break at all cost from this restrictive circle of pure sounds and conquer the infinite variety of noise-sounds’.84 Whereas Cage writes ‘Which will make available for musical purposes any and all sounds that can be heard. Photoelectric, film, and mechanical mediums for the synthetic production of music’.85
It could be said, one of the most important artists of the twentieth-century was John Cage. This is because he acts as a conduit between all three movements of the avant-gardes’. He is also one of the first sound artists to examine the possibilities of Russolo’s any sound you like philosophy, by experimenting with gramophone records to create some of the first noise-music compositions. More importantly though, Cage is one of the first in the historical avant-garde to explore the possibilities of multimedia practice. An early example of Cage’s multimedia work is the 1952 performance Theatre Piece No.1, where poetry, music, slides, photography, film and even paintings were all employed to
83 Russolo, The Art of Noises, pp.6. 84 Russolo, The Art of Noises, pp.6. 85 John Cage ‘The Future of Music’, (historical essay, 1937), http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/source-text/41/, (accessed 3rd Oct 2016).
Page 26
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
create a synergy of sound and vision.86 Further demonstrating the importance of the historical avant- gardes’ sound artists, and how these artists influence emerging technological art forms during the latter half of the twentieth-century. This can be seen in video art practice and Cage’s influence on Nam June Paik who is considered one of the first video artists. Bands in the late 1960s like Pink Floyd also use Cage’s multimedia experiments in some of their first early multimedia shows.
3b - A History of Synergism Conceptually the convergence of sound and vision is not a new idea. You find discussions of this convergence in various history texts – both sound and vision, although it is the author who coined the phrase of The Convergence of Sound and Vision to better represent this historical event. What is perhaps not as well understood is the importance of the rock-avant-gardes who facilitate this convergence. The focus within the history texts, for example Chris Meigh-Andrew’s A History of Video Art-The Development of Form and Function, 87 is the influence of the historical avant-gardes’ sound art texts and practitioners like John Cage on video art. Fluxus is often cited as important too within the concept of the convergence of sound and vision, because of the relationship between John Cage, Nam June Paik and Yoko Ono, and indeed Nam June Paik’s early pioneering experiments with video art. This is because Paik repurposes Cage’s early sound art experiments within video art and the notion of tape loops – both of which use the celluloid medium which is perhaps causing the confusion. The problem with this theory is, Cage is actually a member of the historical avant-gardes’ due to his emergence in the 1930s, whereas Fluxus is a construct of the 1950s. Furthermore, Cage begun his sound art experiments on gramophone records – the loop was actually first conceptualized on the gramophone record player. Meaning Fluxus had very little to do with the cross-over of the historical avant-gardes’ sound art experiments into popular culture, and key in the culmination of the sound and vision. Yes, Fluxus, Paik and Cage’s experiments with tape loops are important within the history of video art and visual art – another topic which would require a separate dissertation and not within the scope of this thesis – but at the time video art was a niche practice. Meaning it’s the rock- avant-gardes who facilitate the cross-over of the historical avant-gardes’ sound art experiments into popular culture.
The notion of the rock-avant-gardes may be an anachronism to some, but what is perhaps not well understood is some of the rock-avant-gardes attended art school through the British art school system. In the 1950s and 60s, British students who were finishing the equivalent of high school, and deemed not able to succeed at university were often recommended for a place at art school. It was within these schools, which bear keen similarities between the various tertiary art schools in contemporary
86 Justin Wolf, ‘John Cage American Composer, Theoretician and Writer’, The Art Story, http://www.theartstory.org/artist- cage-john-artworks.htm, (accessed 3rd Oct 2015). 87 Chris Meigh-Andrews, A History of Video Art-The Development Of Form And Function (Oxford: Berg, 2006).
Page 27
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Australia, the likes of John Lennon, Pete Townsend of The Who and Syd Barret of Pink Floyd (see picture below) were trained in visual art techniques. This is before they became rock and roll cultural icons. Some like Townsend were even taught by artists of the avant-garde movement, which is significant evidence in not only the importance of the rock-avant-gardes, but in also the designation of avant-garde.
Figure 5: Painted by Syd Barret - album cover for Barret, Harvest Records, London 1970 88
Perhaps the most important way the avant-gardes’ ideas crossed over into popular culture happened via The Indica book shop. This is because, The Indica book shop in many ways acted as a meeting place and knowledge repository for members all three movements of twentieth-century avant- gardism. It was of course The Indica bookshop where John Lennon met Yoko Ono for the first time too – this was in 1966. The Indica was started by counter-culture luminary Barry Miles, who was close friends with Paul McCartney. In fact, Miles says it was McCartney’s shop because not only did McCartney design wrapping paper and put up book shelves, he also financed operations when money was tight. 89 The Indica bookshop is also how Lennon first learnt about avant-gardism, and famously found a book written by Timothy Leary which he subsequently used as inspiration for Tomorrow Never Knows.90 The history of the Indica bookshop is well known within the history texts on both The Beatles, and also the general history of popular music. The significance of The Indica bookshop, and how it acted as a meeting place, knowledge repository and indeed larger dissemination space for avant-garde ideas is not.
88 Syd Barret, Barret, oil painting, http://www.sydbarrett.com/music/recordings/, (accessed 16th Oct 2016). 89 James Campbell, ‘Barry Miles: 'I think of the 60s as a supermarket of ideas. We were looking for new ways to live’, The Guardian, 20th March, 2010, http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/20/barry-miles-sixties-indica-interview, (accessed 11th April 2014). 90 Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles.
Page 28
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
1967 has been variously called ‘the summer of love’, the year of Sgt Pepper,91 and the year of the Monterrey pop festival, but more significantly it was also the year when the convergence of sound and vision culminated. Barry Miles wasn’t only instrumental in the first known cross-over of musique concrète through John Lennon and Tomorrow Never Knows, he also financed the first British underground newspaper International Times. It was in International Times that the first underground raves were advertised. Again, financed by Barry Miles with help from both Lennon and McCartney.92 These underground raves were in fact some of the first popular culture multimedia shows or a synergy of sound, light and music (see picture below). One of the most important examples of emerging popular culture multimedia happenings, a term coined by neo-avant-gardist Alan Kaprow, was in 1967. The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream Festival as it became known, had Pink Floyd perform as the sun rose, John Lennon was also in attendance, but more importantly Yoko Ono performed a conceptual art piece. 93 Yoko Ono’s performance at The 14 Technicolour Dream Festival is one of the first demonstrations of the dissolving boundary between so-called ‘high art’ and popular culture or ‘low art’, and thus key in the convergence of sound and vision. Pink Floyd at a subsequent show, which was also in 1967 and dubbed Games For May, used the avant-gardes’ sound art techniques live by projecting footsteps through one of the first quadrophonic sound systems – making sound swirl around the audience.94
Figure 6: Pink Floyd - The Roundhouse 1966, Photo by Adam Ritchie
The staging of both multimedia music raves – The 14 Hour Technicolour Dream Festival and Free Games For May in 1967 is significant evidence in the reasoning the culmination of the convergence of sound and vision happened in said year. This is because these proto-rock shows – proto because both concerts are some of the first to resemble a modern multimedia rock show – are a clear extension of Cage’s earlier experiments with multimedia practice in 1950s. Before these early raves, musicians
91 Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, The Beatles, Apple Records London, 1967. 92 Schaffner, Saucerful of Secrets, pp.41. 93 Schaffner, Saucerful of Secrets, pp.62. 94 Schaffner, Saucerful of Secrets, pp.64-65.
Page 29
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
would perform at dance halls, but never with a multimedia visual accompaniment. Furthermore, the appearance and performance of Ono’s conceptual art piece at The 14 Technicolour Dream Festival demonstrates one way Cage’s ideas on multimedia may have crossed-over from the serious and academic art world into popular culture. This is because of the relationship between Ono and Cage, and Ono’s appearance at The Destruction in Art Symposium or DIAS held in London in 1966.95 Ono whilst in London for DIAS also puts on an exhibition at the Indica book shop, and even though Pink Floyd were already experimenting with early multimedia ideas at the UFO nightclub – the links between Ono, the Indica and the expansion of ideas on multimedia can be clearly demonstrated through the aforementioned rock festivals held in 1967. DIAS was also organised by neo-avant- gardist Gustav Metzger who was Pete Townsend’s tutor at art school. This shows how 1967 became a conduit for the broader dissemination of the avant-gardes’ philosophies and art or the culmination of The Convergence of Sound and Vision. A convergence that foresaw the need for sonic artists in particular, but also visual artists to think more broadly about multimedia mediums and practices, to more fully utilize first the multimedia medium of television and now The Internet. The emergence of the music video being a prime example of an audio-visual form that used the medium of television, which grew in popularity after 1967. For example, The Beatles’ Strawberry Fields promotional film clip and used to promote said music single.96
In conclusion, this chapter has investigated the convergence of sound and vision from the historical perspective of early sound art practitioners. An investigation that not only lead to the broader concept of the convergence of sound and vision, but also how early sound artists predicted emerging multimedia mediums by experimenting with sound and vision in new practices and forms. This chapter has also demonstrated how the rock-avant-gardes were crucial in the dissemination of the avant-gardes’ techniques and philosophies, yet because the rock-avant-gardes are primarily known as music stars first – this is not very well understood. There can be no doubt though in the importance of the rock-avant-gardes’, and indeed in the designation of the term avant-garde for the listed reasons. Whilst it might be an anachronism to some, possibly due to the belief the rock-avant-gardes are a commercial construct, this belief doesn’t take into account the history of art and capitalism. Beethoven for instance, is believed to be one of the first artists to earn a living from his music compositions and performances. Freeing him from the constraints of The Church and creating music in the name of God. Without capitalism, good or bad, it’s possible The Church may still dictate what an artist can create, or indeed if modern western society was aligned with communism and socialism –
95 Kristine Stiles, ‘The Story of the Destruction in Art Symposium and the Dias affect’. https://web.duke.edu/art/stiles/KristineStilesDIAS_Affect-2.pdf, (accessed March 13th 2014). 96 The Beatles, ‘Strawberry Fields’ (music video), Apple Films 1967.
Page 30
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
art and culture it could be said would be very different to the one we’ve become accustomed to. This of course is a larger topic, and outside the research parameters of the thesis.
The key idea contained in this chapter, and used in the submitted creative works is how sound artists of all three movements of the modernist avant-gardes’ foresaw the need for both visual and sonic artists to think holistically when approaching contemporary technological art practice. An idea the next chapter will explore more fully, by demonstrating how the author of this thesis transformed his sound only practice of soundscaping into an audio-visual practice.
Case Study 3 - The Rock Avant-Gardes The popularisation of the historical and to a lesser extent the neo-avant-gardes’ philosophies and techniques creates a dichotomy – this is because when something becomes popular it can no longer be thought of as radical and at the vanguard. Indeed, it was perhaps the late 1970s when the modernist avant-garde movement ended, because of both the popularization of modernist avant- garde philosophy via the rock-avant-gardes and the end of the 60s rock-avant-garde movement. This is not to say avant-gardism didn’t and doesn’t continue, it’s just the late 1970s seems to mark the end of modernist avant-garde art.
The rock-avant-gardes have their beginnings with Pete Townsend and his relationship with Gustav Metzger – his art tutor at Ealing Art College. Metzger was a prominent neo-avant-gardist, known for painting with hydrochloric acid in a similar way to Jackson Pollack. This technique became known as auto-destruct art.97 Townsend’s subsequent use of feedback and the creation of auto-destruct rock in 1964, was a pivotal early moment in what became the counter-culture music revolution of the later-half of the 1960s. John Lennon, another key member of the rock-avant- garde is quoted extensively throughout the history texts, and believes he was the first to use feedback on a recording.98 This was also in 1964 and on the composition I Feel Fine.99 Whether he had heard about Townsend’s auto-destruct rock is hard to confirm, but these two examples are some of the first known uses of feedback – both live and recorded. They are also key early moments in the popularization of the avant-gardes’ philosophies. Furthermore, the use of feedback demonstrates the rock-avant-gardes’ creating their own avant-garde technique, and in Townsend’s case philosophy. Perhaps a clear demonstration of why there is a need for better recognition of this third modernist avant-garde movement.
It was Lennon who became known as the avant-garde Beatle, yet it was Paul McCartney who was perhaps the most experimental Beatle in the early years. It was the rivalry between both Lennon
97 Stuart Jeffries, Gustav Metzger: ‘Destroy, and you create’, The Guardian, 27th Dec, 2012, http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/26/gustav-metzger-null-object-robot, (accessed 7th April 2014). 98 ‘100 Greatest Beatles Songs-I Feel Fine’, Rolling Stone Magazine, 19th Sept, 2011, http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-20110919/i-feel-fine-19691231, (accessed 8th April 2014). 99 I Feel Fine, The Beatles, Parlophone Records London, 1964.
Page 31
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
and McCartney that drove Lennon to expand into the avant-garde. Lennon in the late 60s developed a friendship with both John Cage and Karlheinz Stockhausen – a key neo-avant-garde sound artist. This was through his wife Yoko Ono, but it was Paul McCartney who was the first Beatle to listen Stockhausen. Apparently McCartney’s favourite composition was Gesang der Junglinge (Song of the Youths),100 which lead to the tape loop experiments of Tomorrow Never Knows.101 Lennon actually spoke on the phone with Stockhausen in the late 60s, and there was talk of them doing a concert after The Beatles broke up. 102 It was Stockhausen who described Lennon as the most important mediator of popular and serious music culture in the 1960s, which probably does McCartney an injustice103 Even George Harrison, who once made the quip in regards to The Beatles’ avant-garde period as ‘avant-garde a clue’,104 created an experimental avant-garde album Electronic Sound. 105 This was in 1969. Electronic Sound is an important album, if only because it’s one of the first recorded instances of The Moog Synthesizer within popular culture. Harrison was instrumental in disseminating not only the sitar into western music, he also helped introduce the synthesizer into the popular consciousness as well.
There is no definitive moment when the avant-garde movement of twentieth century modernism ended. If experimentation with technology characterized by idealism is perhaps a key component in modernist avant-gardism, then the finish of the rock-avant-garde era is perhaps the end of said movement. This conceivably happened when David Bowie released the album Heroes.106 It was fitting then, that he used both Brian Eno and Robert Fripp – leader of the progressive rock band King Crimson on Heroes. This is because Fripp and Eno, along with Bowie could be considered the last members of the rock-avant-gardes’. Fripp in particular was an important member of the rock-avant-garde. He was dubbed ‘the Mr. Spock of rock’,107 and was known for not only his pioneering avant-garde guitar playing, incorporating jazz and early heavy metal techniques – he also perhaps gave a final coda moment in the modernist avant-garde movement. This was the 1979 album Exposure.108 Exposure used the ‘found sounds’ technique in quite an unusual way. Fripp not only recorded his neighbours having an argument through his apartment wall, and the Gurdjieff disciple John G. Bennet was also featured discussing a possible coming ice age. Stranger though was a recording of his mother Edith Fripp discussing Fripp’s toilet training as a baby. This was all set to a number of very heavy and stylistic music compositions. Furthermore, he promoted this album by touring in an-anti rock star way as he described it, with just himself
100 Tim Whitelaw, ‘Karlheinz Stockhausen’, SOS Magazine, March, 2008, nd https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar08/articles/stockhausen.htm, (accessed 2 April 2014). 101 Tomorrow Never Knows, The Beatles. 102 Carol Brennan, ‘Karlheinz Stockhausen’, Encyclopedia, http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Karlheinz_Stockhausen.aspx, (accessed 3rd April 2014). 103 Whitelaw, Karlheinz Stockhausen. 104 Vanessa Thorpe, ’40 Years on, McCartney wants to hear ‘lost Beatles epic’, The Guardian, 16th Nov, 2008, https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/nov/16/paul-mccartney-carnival-of-light, (accessed 15th Oct 2016). 105 Electronic Sound, George Harrison, Zapple Records London, 1969. 106 Heroes, David Bowie, Parlophone Records London, 1977. 107 Eric Tamm, Robert Fripp-From King Crimson to Guitar Craft (London: Faber and Faber, 1990), pp.3. 108 Exposure, Robert Fripp, EG Records London, 1979.
Page 32
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
playing. The subsequent tour was labelled Frippertronics – small mobile independent unit in action. This tour was a final act of avant-gardism by Fripp, where he played in a number of strange venues including record company offices, art galleries, museums and even the odd pizza parlour.109
109 Tamm, Robert Fripp, pp.116.
Page 33
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
4 – How Do Sonic Artists Transform Sound Only Practices into Audio-Visual Practices?
Don’t You Wonder Sometimes – About Sound and Vision?
David Bowie, Low.110
The emergence of multimedia mediums like The Internet in the 1990s, and the subsequent advent of the ‘web 2.0’ paradigm in the 2000s has accelerated the dominance of visually centred creative content in contemporary culture. An idea, as previously mentioned, sound artist and academic Barry Truax posited in 2001. This was in his revised sound art text Acoustic Communication.111 The significance of a sound artist like Truax, stating the dominance of visual content within contemporary culture, lead to the main question investigated within this research thesis. This chapter will show how a practice-led research methodology was used to answer the main stated question of the thesis. The sound and sonic arts theories presented as case-studies within this chapter, were all used in the creative practice and submitted sonic works accompanying the film painting element. Concepts pertaining to the practical experiments conducted in the creation of the film paintings will also be discussed. The final submitted audio-visual creative works also establishes the use of a practice-based research methodology, although the practice-led research will be the more important within the submitted thesis. Further details of the creative experiments are contained here: http://1331.space/researchphase1/
110 Sound and Vision, David Bowie, Parlophone Records London, 1977. 111 Truax, Acoustic Communication, introduction xii.
Page 34
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
4a - The Art of Audio-Field Recording The research contained in this thesis – both the written dissertation and submitted creative works – are the synthesis of an earlier sonic arts degree that investigated soundscaping, sound mapping and the rock-avant-gardes. Both the practices of soundscaping and sound mapping were subsequently repurposed to create a sonic bed for the as of yet finalized visual element of the creative practice. Furthermore, conceptually the sound art practice of sound mapping would be updated into an audio- visual practice – video mapping. Video mapping became an important element within the creative component, because the audio-visual recordings used in the submitted work were gathered on-location and outdoors. The video maps created for this project and found here http://1331.space/digital- sketchbook/, mapped colour, light and sound over the course of two seasons, and were important when further audio-visual field recordings were required in the second year. This is because creative decisions involving light and colour could be made on location. Finally, like the sonic equivalent of sound mapping, which has the purpose of promoting active listening – video mapping had the dual purpose of both active listening and active seeing. Again, this was important in the overall finished works because it expanded the author’s hearing and visual senses – allowing for memorisation of environmental conditions. More importantly though, when these environmental conditions were memorised the flow state or the automatic could be employed when gathering further audio-visual field recordings. The flow state being a state of mind, where time dilutes allowing for the total absorption of the surrounding environment and the work being conducted. 112
Case Study 4 - Sound Mapping Barry Truax is an academic and practicing sound artist. In the 1970s Truax and R. Murray Schaffer founded the Acoustic Ecology movement, which broadly is an environmental sound art practice with elements of activism. Conceptually sound mapping was a key early component of acoustic ecology. The early practice of sound mapping was decidedly analogue, and designed to inform the community of prominent sounds that may affect their health. Sound mapping was also designed to promote active listening.113 The acoustic community, as Truax dubbed the concept encouraged practitioners to take a walk in their environment, and then on a map record any prominent sound. These sounds are then designated hi or low. Hi sounds were environmental noises such as birds and good, low sounds were industrial noises and deemed bad. Furthermore, the area was given a keynote sound which was analogous to a leitmotif or even a musical key signature.114 The keynote sound was subsequently re-purposed to inform the viewer of the sonic theme of submitted works.
112 Steven Kotler, ‘Slow Down Your Brain to Get More Done, with Steven Kotler’, Big Think, http://bigthink.com/videos/steven-kotler-on-the-science-of-flow- states?utm_campaign=Echobox&utm_medium=Social&utm_source=Facebook#link_time=1500050138, (accessed 19th of July 2017). 113 Truax, Accoustic Communication, pp.57. 114 Truax, Acoustic Communication, pp.57&59.
Page 35
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
The concept of sound mapping has grown exponentially due to the internet, social media and a proliferation of apps, which allow sonic practitioners to create and interact with other sound mappers.115 Due to technological advances, modern sound mapping, as a differentiation from the original concept now includes audio-field recordings used on web pages, and accessed on interactive maps. Sound mapping also includes a number of sub-genres, such as sonic walks, 116 and sound diaries within the broader acoustic ecology practice as well.117 The contemporary parameters of sound mapping have expanded from the original concept of only recording acoustic information for the community, to even acting as possible archaeological time capsules.118 Examples of large scale sound mapping projects include the Montreal Sound Map,119 and the London Sound Survey.120
One of the key criticisms of sound mapping, and the acoustic ecology concept is the moral posturing and stance the designation of sound perhaps creates. There is also a belief the concept of acoustic ecology creates a beauty bias, where practitioners would favour hi or natural sounds over low noise pollution sounds. 121 The sonic element of the submitted creative works uses both so- called low and high sounds, and does not differentiate between the two. This aligns the author’s sound mapping practice with the historical avant-gardes’ found sounds technique, rather than the acoustic ecology philosophy which underpins most sound mapping communities found on the Internet. Sound maps (from Honours) can be heard here: http://1331.space/sound-maps/
4b - The Light Microphone When the practical experiments began in earnest to create the creative component, it was necessary to experiment and play with possible forms, techniques and technology. At first, multiple shots and cuts were used to create mock-ups of possible finalized forms, which could have been used in the final submission. For example, Industrial Sunset 2 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BDwSK327QM. After two months of these experiments, it became clear the author of this dissertation did not have a sophisticated grasp of the technical nuances to operate a DSLR. Whilst the author understood and could operate a DSLR as a photographic camera. Something he had learnt in first year photography at The University of Tasmania, using a DSLR as a cinematic camera required a greater skill-set. It was through experimentation these skills developed over a period of six months, and transformed the camera from a simple reality capture device into a more experimental tool – capable of ‘painting’ the ethereal material of light.
115 Jacqueline Waldock, ‘SOUNDMAPPING CRITIQUE: Critiques and Reflections On This New Publicly Engaging Medium’, Journal of Sonic Studies 1, no.1 (2011), http://journal.sonicstudies.org/vol01/nr01/a08, (accessed 22nd Aug 2014). 116 http://www.sound-diaries.co.uk/, (accessed 22nd Aug 2014). 117 Florian Grubar, ‘Sonic Walks’, Transmedia Art, http://www.transmedia.at/proj/styled/, (accessed 5th Oct 2016) 118 Waldock, ‘SOUNDMAPPING CRITIQUE’, 1. 119 ‘Montreal Sound Map’, http://www.montrealsoundmap.com/, (accessed 22nd Aug 2014). 120 ‘London Sound Survey’ http://www.soundsurvey.org.uk/index.php/survey/soundmaps/, (accessed 22nd Aug 2014). 121 Waldock, ‘SOUNDMAPPING CRITIQUE’, pp.1.
Page 36
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
One of the key concepts learnt in the early development of the film painting practice was the idea of the light-microphone.122 Something first mooted by Laszlo Moholy-Nagy as previously stated in chapter two. Whilst he believed this device would never be invented, there is a keen similarity conceptually between the digital SLR and Moholy-Nagy’s idea of a light-microphone. This is particularly true when viewing the submitted piece Golden Jewel Sang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZQMxYo8hLjs, where the ethereal material of light creates a fractal dancing between leaves and branches…singing almost. Another example of the light fractal is in the piece In Service of the Light + https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hG4-4IvtXkg, here the light fractal represents higher spiritual aims rather than wood spirits.
During the early DSLR camera experiments, it became obvious there was a difference in the material quality between different framerates, subsequently the use of framerate as an aesthetic became another pivotal discovery within the framework of this research thesis. As an example, it seemed to capture the silky movement of water the framerate had to be higher than the standard 24fps. A standard that was set over one hundred years ago, to trick the eye into believing there is movement within the film frame. To demonstrate this concept, the submitted piece Golden Water Sang https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNDGPLTVdD0 was filmed at 30fps instead of 24fps. In this video, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45STlHc3L9E to the show the difference between the two framerates, water was filmed at 24fps. This experiment clearly shows a material difference between the two framerates. Later research revealed framerate did indeed change how the eye perceived movement. Framerates above 48 FPS had a more realistic quality, and below a dreamier aesthetic. 123 Furthermore, colour was also affected by using different framerates. For example, in the submitted piece And She Whispered filmed at 24fps https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HWBVfpPA7gs, the pinks and the greys that dominate the film frame are accentuated by a lower framerate. This creates the aforementioned dreamier effect, adding to the tone of the finished piece. Whereas at higher frame rates, like in Golden Jewel Sang which was filmed at 60fps, the image is very fine giving a more realistic appearance to the image, thus allowing the light fractal to be captured more accurately and revealing more detail within the fractal. This is particularly true if the viewer watches the piece on a 4k panel with the SRGB colour standard.
The experiments involving the DSLR camera conducted during the beginning phase of the research thesis clearly demonstrate a practice-led research methodology, which was employed within the final creative practice. Whilst operating a DSLR camera is perhaps best learnt at an undergraduate level,
122 Moholy-Nagy, Painting Photography Film, pp.23. 123 Andrew Tarantola, ‘Giz Explains: Why Framerate Matters’, Gizmodo Australia, 15th January, 2015, http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/01/why-frame-rate-matters/, (accessed, 16th Oct 2016).
Page 37
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
learning to operate a DSLR beyond the specified parameters of said device is not. For example, using the wrong shutter-speed to create strobing light effects within the film frame – a technique used in some early film painting experiments. Pointing the camera at the sun without a filter is also another example of an advanced cinematic technique used within the creative practice, as is the employment of framerate as an aesthetic. All three cinematography techniques required extensive research and experimentation to implement, and again would be hard to incorporate at an undergraduate student level.
The discovery of the light microphone as a concept, whether Moholy-Nagy meant this as joke or not, demonstrate the importance of research conducted at the beginning stages of the research thesis on early modernist avant-garde film art and digital theory. By using a content analysis research methodology, Moholy-Nagy emerged as an important theorist on the transformation of painting with pigment to painting with light, and indeed early film art practice. Another key concept that emerged whilst conducting research on avant-garde film art, and further shows the importance of the research discussed in chapter two was the single-shot moving image to create a painting like experience. It wasn’t until after watching Andy Warhol’s 1963 experimental film Sleep, that the creative practice employed this technique.124 Before watching Sleep, the creative practice and finished works used multiple cuts and shots similar to narrative film art, and whilst these experiments were important within the practice-led research methodology to progress the creative practice – the finished experiments were substandard in comparison to the submitted creative works.
4c - Sonic Art Once the DSLR camera experiments were completed, and the single-shot film technique established as part of the final form, it became necessary to improve the sonic foundation of the creative component of the research thesis. It must be noted the first soundscape compositional experiments were less than successful. An example of an early soundscape experiment is contained within this piece And The Heaven’s Cried https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R6Q0JR7oc-Y. Conceptually this work, and other early soundscape experiments followed what seemed to be the Barry Truax method. This is place the audio field recording into a granular synthesizer, and use the device like a sampler. Truax’s compositional method created fairly rich natural soundscapes, but not ground-breaking or new. It wasn’t until more substantive research was undertaken to better understand the granular synthesis process and used in both the creative practice and submitted creative works, along with further experimentation that the soundscapes developed.
124 Sleep, Vimeo video (40:20), posted by screen-test 2009, https://vimeo.com/4880378, (accessed 2nd Oct 2015).
Page 38
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Case Study 5 - The Soundscape The soundscape has a number of definitions depending on the practitioner. This includes the aforementioned sonic collage experiments of the historical avant-gardes’, Jimi Hendrix’s synthetic sound collages such as 1983 A Merman I Should Turn To Be,125 and Robert Fripp’s late 1970s soundscape experiments involving tape loops. Fripp would sync two tape machines together to create ethereal guitar effects. He dubbed this process Frippertronics. An example of this method is featured on the 1982 King Crimson composition Requiem.126
Barry Truax’s soundscape is another derivative of the form, and whilst conceptually similar to the historical avant-gardes, Truax’s differed philosophically in the treatment of sound within the composition. Whereas Pierre Schaeffer and others in the historical avant-garde wanted to take the meaning out the re-organised sounds within the sonic collages, Truax believed such reductionism was problematic and diminished the already rich environmental sound.127 Truax went further, and devised his own soundscape compositional method, where rather than create a ‘schizophonic’ electro-acoustic composition as in Schaeffer’s case,128 his compositions combined the environmental sounds and the emerging digital effects to complement each other. He wanted each sound to not overwhelm either component so ‘the composition is composed through the sound’.129 In some respects, the idea of the sound being subservient to the whole is similar in concept to the ‘total work of art’. One of the other main differences in Truax’s soundscape, in comparison to the historical avant-gardes was the use of effects processing. Here is perhaps a link with the 1960s soundscape experiments of Pink Floyd, Jimi Hendrix and later Robert Fripp’s. Again though, Truax was trying to keep the context of the field recording. He did this by using a new form of synthesis called granular.
The soundscapes submitted as a part of the creative component, keeps the context of the sounds like Truax via links with the vision, but also uses the avant-gardes sonic collage technique depending on the context of the vision. The sounds are then treated using the granular process, which creates a link with the rock avant-gardes’ and their soundscapes.
125 1983-A Merman I Should Turn To Be, Jimi Hendrix, Sony Records New York, 1968. 126 Requiem, King Crimson, EG Records London, 1982. 127 Barry Truax, Soundscape, Acoustic Communication and Environmental Sound Composition, http://www.intr- version.com/truax_soundscape.pdf, (accessed 4th Oct 2016), pp.4. 128 Truax, Soundscape, Acoustic Communication and Environmental Sound Composition, pp.4. 129 Truax, ‘Soundscape, Acoustic Communication and Environmental Sound Composition’, pp.12-13.
Page 39
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Figure 7: Padshop granular synthesizer by Steinberg used in the creative works
Case Study 6 - Granular Synthesis The granular synthesis process involves creating thousands of small short ‘grains’ to create a larger acoustic event.130 This is where the modern concept of sampling and granular sampling differs. A typical sampler used in the creation of rap and hip-hop is a binary type of sampling, where the user is limited to only going forward or backwards. Granular synthesis takes an audio sample like a binary sampler, then depending on the settings creates microscopic grains of the audio event. These grains can then be stretched in an infinite number of ways, creating rich acoustic textures. If the synthesiser’s operator has a midi controller device, it’s possible to play the wind or sea as an instrument to create even more nuanced textures.
Unlike other forms of synthesis, such as subtractive, granular has only really been possible since the first digital revolution in the early 1980s, although there were some early tape granular experiments in the 1970s. This was by Iannis Xenakis, who also created one of the first compositional methods for granular synthesis. The concept of granular synthesis was first postulated in the 1940s by a physicist Dennis Gabor in conjunction with a theory on hearing. He believed these grains were in fact quantum representations, and could be used to describe any sound. 131 Taking this idea further, it’s possible if Gabor’s posit is correct, granular synthesis could similarly represent all types of synthesizers, and indeed time-based effects like flanging, phasing
130 Curtis Roads, ‘Introduction to Granular Synthesis’, MIT, http://www.jstor.org/stable/3679937, (accessed 9th October), pp.1. 131 ‘Granular Synthesis’, A Granular Synthesis Resource Website, http://granularsynthesis.com/guide.php, (accessed 9th Oct 2016).
Page 40
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
and chorus. Something that seems to hold currency after the sonic experiments conducted as part of this research thesis.
4d - Soundscape as Sonic Sculpture Granular synthesis is perhaps one of the hardest types of synthesis to master, this is possibly why it has not become a major synthesizer movement like the Moog synthesizer and subtractive synthesis. When listening to Truax’s soundscape compositions, they seemed to only show glimpses of the potential granular synthesis offered. This could be because his early pioneering compositions were made on rudimentary and primitive digital equipment, but more so he also appeared to be limited by his own definition of the soundscape, or the belief his audio-field recordings could not be abstract in anyway.132 By ignoring Truax’s edict on abstraction, a more sophisticated soundscape emerged. This was after many months of experiments, and included using layers of audio-field recordings in a granular synthesiser, and using a DJ type technique to create texture, layers and drama. The soundscape used in the already mentioned piece And The Heaven’s Cried is a prime example of the DJ technique. None of these experiments produced a satisfying result though. It was only when it became obvious the linear approach to creating the soundscape was not working, that it allowed for a combination of Truax’s granular process and the historical avant-gardes’ sonic collage method, thus creating a new composite form of soundscape. The submitted work Slow Cooking Urban Decay is one the best examples of this new composite form of soundscape https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RC_yzgTByrA. The main audio in this particular piece is still mainly linear, like Truax’s soundscapes, but by using layers and isolating individual bird sounds which were manipulated using sonic techniques similar to the historical avant-gardes, i.e. looping, speed and reverse sonic effects – a sophisticated collage composition emerged. Happenstance and the automatic were again an integral part of the creative process. This is because the sound created for Slow Cooking Urban Decay, and all the submitted works were created in a similar way to abstract painting, where there was no fixed idea of what the finished piece should sound like, and the sonic layers were created by ‘throwing’ sound at the ‘canvas’. For the piece, Slow Cooking Urban Decay, the outcome of the above technique was perfect, as the sound art work fitted the terrifying image of a once mighty industrial complex cooking its surrounds, which is further accentuated by the burnt orange sky at dawn.
Case Study 7 - Musique Concrète The concept of Musique Concrète has its beginnings with experiments involving the loop – a ubiquitous device in today’s visually orientated culture. One of the first noted uses of the loop was by sound artist and audio engineer Pierre Schaeffer in the 1940s. His first experiments were with
132 Truax, Soundscape, Acoustic Communication and Environmental Sound Composition, pp.12.
Page 41
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
gramophone records, where he would lock the arm of the gramophone so the record would play the same groove repeatedly…in a loop.133 He further refined this technique using tape in the late 1940s. He called this musique concrète. The concept of sonic collage or musique concrète was an experimental composition technique that many others in the historical avant-garde used. Pierre Schaeffer along with John Cage are perhaps two of the most well-known of the historical avant- gardes’ who experimented with this composition technique first. John Cage’s Imaginary Landscape No.1 is an early cited example of this composition technique although he used gramophone record technology rather than tape.134 A Dada artist also experimented with gramophone records and composition using eight gramophone records at once, this was in the 1920s.135 Frenchman Pierre Henry was also instrumental in the creation of the sonic collage technique. Henry is perhaps best remembered as the posthumous composer of The Futurama television show theme.
The second foundation of the sonic practice was the use of basic music theory. This was done by re- purposing the rudiments of time signature, tempo and key. In fact, time signature was used as a language and became a metaphorical sonic rock on which the film paintings were melded too. By using time and tempo, the soundscapes could be worked on without the visual element in a separate program allowing the sonic component to be ‘shaped’ in a three-dimensional ethereal digital realm – creating an analogous link with sculpture. An example of this concept is the already mentioned piece Golden Water Sang, which used the time signature of 12/8 to represent the bubbling water – possibly creating a ‘voice’ for the water. Golden Jewel Sang used the time signature of 6/4 to represent the asymmetrical dance of the light fractal, and in the submitted piece And She Shone https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mr4PpJ2_JqU the time signature of 12/8 was used again This time representing the grains of light dancing through the tree at sunset. The use of 12/8 to represent light and water show the possibility of using time signature as a form of language in this type of work. This is because the time signature represented similar themes within the works i.e. the quantum grains of light and water. Even the basic time signature of 4/4 could convey meaning within the submitted works, for example Kaleidoscope Jamboree https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhfItSXhk2g was composed in 4/4 to link the theme of the piece to earlier sonic experimentation by bands like Pink Floyd.
133 John Dilberto, ‘Pierre Schaffer and Pierre Henry: Pioneers in Sampling’, Electronic Musician, 14th June, 2005, http://www.emusician.com/artists/1333/pierre-schaeffer--pierre-henry-pioneers-in-sampling/35127, (accessed 13th Dec 2015). 134 John Cage, ‘Imaginary Landscape No.1’ Youtube video (9:07), posted by Matias Uribe, June 21st, 2009, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GLDxqnksY80. 135 Chris Cutler, ‘Plunderphonics’, in Music Electronic Media and Culture, ed. Simon Emmerson, (Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2000), p.95.
Page 42
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
One of the final problems that had to be overcome before the final sonic form could be completed, was the very low-mid heavy nature of the final masters. It was the use of five to seven layers of sound in each piece that created this problem. To solve the muddiness of the sonic works, the author discovered virtual binaural sound could be created for headphones by using a series of emerging DSP plug-ins. This allowed the multiple layers of untreated sound, granular sound and the granular music layer to be separated within a 360`-degree sound field. Creating a further analogous link with sculpture due to ability to separate the layers by using binaural sound. The first completed work using the virtual binaural effect, and submitted for this research thesis was Look Up There Fools! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwjcTflbzoI. Once a formula was created, which was then used in all the sonic works accompanying the film paintings, the sound practice developed quite quickly.
The practice-lead research on creating virtual binaural sound has further uses beyond this research thesis. This is because of the emerging virtual and augmented reality paradigm, and also due to people in contemporary society who predominantly listens to music, plays games and watches different media content on portable devices with headphones.
Case Study 8 - Binaural Sound Binaural sound was first experimented with in the 1880s by a French engineer Clemet Adler. In one his first experiments he used microphones to cover the breadth of a stage at a Paris opera show. The sound was then broadcast through a telephony system to listeners at the other end. He called this Theatrephone. In the 1930s, AT &T Bell Laboratories brought the binaural concept to the Chicago World Fair, allowing listeners to hear sound from microphones set-up nearby. Unfortunately, both demonstrations suffered because of poor sound quality due to embryonic and primitive technology. It wasn’t until the 1970s that the technology matured. This is when German microphone manufacture Neumann created a binaural technology using a dummy head with two microphones attached to create the binaural effect.
Figure 8: Binaural Dummy Head 136 137
136 ‘GDJ’, Openclipart, creative commons, https://openclipart.org/detail/229188/boys-head, (accessed 9th Oct 2016). 137 ‘Worker’, Openclipart, creative commons, https://openclipart.org/detail/219992/microphone, (accessed 9th Oct 2016).
Page 43
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
The concept of binaural sound is to recreate a 360 degree listening-field for headphones, similar in concept to 5.1 surround sound and earlier quadrophonic sound. For example, if bird flies overhead you hear the sound go from front to back in the 360 degree sound-field.
Front
Left Right
138 Rear
Figure 9: Diagram of Binaural Sound Field
The two most common ways to create binaural sound and mixes are the already mentioned stereo dummy head microphone technique, or a plug-in effect such as the Binauralizer to create a virtual 360-degree sound field. This is the technique used in the final sonic works underpinning the film paintings.
Figure 10: Binauralizer plug-in by Noise Makers
Binaural sound has been mainly used by sound artists in the recent past, and is a popular technique used in some sound mapping communities. Binaural sound has been used in game sound too, but it has never really become a major sound movement. This seems to be changing with the introduction of virtual reality, and the need for an immersive 360` sound field experience. 139
138 Morris Hill, Clipart, https://clipartfest.com/download/ANd9GcSE2h2n7eWPXLmKqW5jNV631X6x-CojySY- loKhAHZsRodco0x1kLOVG-Gs.html, (accessed 6th Jan 2017). 139 Mona Lalwani, ‘Surrounded by sound: how 3d audio hacks your brain’, The Verge, http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/12/8021733/3d-audio-3dio-binaural-immersive-vr-sound-times-square-new-york, (accessed 8th Oct 2016).
Page 44
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
The final form of the creative practice was the result of many months of experiments. To create the final audio-visual works, the visual element went through some final adjustments. Most notably, what form would the visual element convey. The early film painting experiments, like the soundscapes were not very successful, and again mirrored the need for a clearer understanding of the history of film painting and multimedia practice – with Warhol’s Sleep a key avant-garde film text viewed within the second phase of the research thesis.140 This lead to the realization that early experiments within the creative practice were closer to narrative film art, which was also important in realising the early film paintings weren’t working. Even though the author of this thesis was well versed in avant- garde film before the research thesis began, it was hard to perhaps experiment on three different ideas at once. This was the DSLR camera, soundscaping and film painting. Once the initial experiments were completed, it allowed the author of this dissertation to focus on finalizing both the sonic and visual practice. What form the final visual element would convey was still problematic at this stage. Bias on the author’s part meant the obvious answer of abstraction was dismissed, and quite frequently throughout the research process. This is because of a misunderstanding in regards to Jackson Pollack, and the author’s belief he was a child playing with paint to create art. The author still believes this to be the case, but by furthering the author’s understanding on the topic of art theory, and in particular medium and material – the bias against abstraction was overcome. Furthermore, the ideas of medium and material also helped the author realize these were both issues within technological practice. Finally, the recognition abstraction was a form of poetry was also key in removing any lingering bias towards using the concept, and helped in the creation of the final audio-visual creative works, freeing both the sonic and visual element of needing context. The art became representative of the collected ethereal materials presented through the digitized medium and blended with digital aesthetics. The ‘idea’ of The Romantics was also another breakthrough moment in creating the final form. It was the image of the romantic and creating art at the poet’s whim, that freed the author to create a form of visual poetry. 141 The sound at this point became the language to convey the author’s emotion, and if the viewer listens very carefully, the summited works are somewhat mournful due to the use of mostly minor music keys used within the granular music layer. For example, in the submitted work And So She Disappears https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BVOcEdqXTN0,which uses the key of e minor to convey a larger metaphor hidden in the symbolism of the slowly disappearing cloud. Other submitted works also used a minor key to convey a world-weary melancholy, such as And She Shone, which was composed in D# minor, and Golden Water Sang which used the key of C# minor. In fact, only Golden Jewel Sang, Kaleidoscope Jamboree and Look Up There Fools! used major keys. It was important when experimenting with music and key as a layer within the finished pieces, that sound and vision acted as a composite ethereal material – to not create a music video so to speak. The music
140 Andy Warhol, Sleep, 1963. 141 Yve-Alain Bois, ‘Eight Statements about Abstraction’ (historical essay), pp.7-8.
Page 45
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
layer was fundamental though in conveying the author’s realization another moment was slipping by. It was the use of musical keys that conveyed this poetic emotion.
Page 46
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
5 – Conclusion
In conclusion, this research thesis has investigated the question of ‘if visual culture is the dominate cultural medium, how do sonic artists transform sound only practices into audio-visual practices?’ A question that is particularly important, if sound artists like academic Barry Truax believe ‘we live in visually centred culture’, due to the fact it calls into question the validity and future of sound only practice. This doesn’t mean sound art is irrelevant, or as a practice in decline. Visual content displayed on multimedia mediums still need to have sound. Sound only practices like sound mapping are increasingly popular too. What Truax’s statement seems to suggest is – sound and visual artists need to start thinking holistically in the creation of technological based artistic practices, where neither ethereal material of sound and light (vision) is subservient to the other. Both act in concert to inform the whole. This is a key theme within the submitted created works, which also demonstrates the importance of The Convergence of Sound and Vision as the underlying framework of both the written dissertation and creative practice. This is because the convergence of sound and vision possibly validates Caleb Kelly’s postulation there is no such thing as sound art, by demonstrating the avant-gardes – historical, neo and rock – were in fact some of the first interdisciplinary artists, and their creative works utilized both sound and vision. Sometimes separately, but after the convergence of sound and vision mostly in concert. These artists and their proto-creative arts research which has been discussed throughout chapters two and three, also demonstrate how contemporary artistic practitioners could transform singular artistic practices and forms into interdisciplinary ones. This is how the author of this thesis transformed his sound only practice of soundscaping into an audio-visual practice. The submitted thesis serves as an example of this concept.
The main aim of this thesis was to practically answer the stated question of ‘how do sonic artists transform sound only practices into audio-visual practices?’ To achieve this aim, a content analysis was conducted of digital art, media and theory. This was because of the digitization technology being used in the creative practice and submitted works, along with what seemed to be the trajectory of technological art practice. The content analysis of digital art, media and theory which linked key phrases, theoreticians and concepts within broader contemporary and historical art, was subsequently used to build a framework for both the written dissertation and creative practice. This created a map – from Lev Manovich’s soft-modernism to moving image practice and the historical avant-gardes, which finally linked the author’s previous research on sonic art. The theoretical map created from the research contained in chapters one, two and three was fundamental in both the creative practice and the submitted creative works. This can be demonstrable in two clear ways, first the concept of film painting was a direct result of the early research conducted on both digital art and avant-garde film painting. The second is the research on sound and sonic art, of which all the relevant theories and techniques used within both the creative practice and submitted works have been set-out in chapter’s
Page 47
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
three and four. There are of course other links between both theory and practice, and discussed throughout the thesis.
The success of this thesis can not only be judged on the design of a new audio-visual practice using a practice-led research methodology, but also in the creation of a wider art theory lexicon and map demonstrating links between digital art theory, historical art theory and art history. One of the more important links to emerge from this map was medium. Whilst university trained visual and fine artists will have done art theory at an undergraduate level, someone from a sound or sonic arts background may not. The links between digital art theory and wider traditional art theory on the topic of medium, became an important discovery within the framework of the thesis. Whilst technological medium- specificity or the limits of the medium may be unfashionable to more tradition types of artists, the border understanding of medium-specificity has been extremely important to the author of the thesis. Technological medium-specificity, and understanding the limits of the various technological mediums was subsequently employed throughout the creative practice and submitted works. For example, the aforementioned 1920x1080p SRGB high definition Internet standard, and used on all video sharing platforms like Youtube as a defacto standard. The art theory discussed in this thesis isn’t designed to be comprehensive, or indeed to replace art theory taught at an undergraduate level. Rather the knowledge discussed in this thesis on said topic, is designed to be informative and help other sonic artists expand their own definitional understanding of art and theory.
Finally, the research contained and discussed within this thesis perhaps demonstrates how a multi- research methodology can be effective in the pursuit of knowledge within the creative arts – new or otherwise. Whilst the author of the thesis has only recently mastered the terminology of research methodology, something that hampered the progress of the research phase of the thesis, the author actually used correct research methodologies throughout the entire research process. Firstly, by identifying the problem of sound art and the conundrum sound art presents for sonic and sound artists who want to more fully utilize multimedia mediums like The Internet. The problem was then grounded with evidence from two practicing sound artists and academics, which led to the main question investigated within this thesis – ‘how do sonic artists transform sound only practices into audio-visual practices?’. To answer this question, the author hypothesized an answer could be found in digital art theory. This was not the case, but by employing a content analysis methodology and by applying weighting to key words found during phase one of the research process – a map of all the theories and used throughout the thesis was created. This map though was only designed as a beginning and an end. The beginning being digital theory, with the end the submitted audio-visual works. To answer the main stated thesis question required further research, using both the content analysis and historical research methodologies. This research was fundamental in the design of the creative practice and final form of submitted creative works. Furthermore, was the practice-led
Page 48
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
research discussed in chapter four and conducted to answer the main stated question of the thesis practically. Inadvertently the author also engaged in practice-based research by using the ‘web 2.0’ paradigm and virtual gallery concept to display the submitted audio-visual works. Coincidently the use of the virtual gallery to display the submitted works, due to the author’s reluctance to engage in the gallery system – an idea he got from Duchamp – has also perhaps answered academic Caleb Kelly’s posited problem in ‘Sound is in the Visual Arts’ academic paper. In this paper Kelly suggests art galleries don’t know how to create spaces for sound only art and installations. If this is the case, then ideas like the virtual gallery could be one solution to Kelly’s posited problem. The technology would need to be further refined first for this to be a serious solution. In particular, Internet speeds for a true high definition visual experience, and adoption of the 4k pixel as standard for high definition audio-visual content displayed on the Internet. This is only for non-360 degree film footage, which will require a different standard than two-dimension content. An intranet sever could also be a way to incorporate a local area network within the art gallery system. The server could stream content to different connected panels – headphones would contain the noise. This perhaps demonstrates how creative arts researchers’ could employ a multi-research methodology to answer questions within the creative arts almost scientifically – rather than the preferred singular creative practice methodology.
Page 49
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Bibliography
‘100 Greatest Beatles Songs - I Feel Fine’. Rolling Stone Magazine. 19th Sept, 2011. http://www.rollingstone.com/music/lists/100-greatest-beatles-songs-20110919/i-feel-fine-19691231. (accessed 8th April 2014).
Alain-Bois, Yve. ‘Eight Statements about Abstraction’. (historical essay).
Andrews, Ian. ‘Post-digital Aesthetics and the return to Modernism’. UTS-University of Technology Sydney Lecture, 2002, http://www.ian-andrews.org/texts/postdig.html. (accessed 29th April 2015).
Andrews, Ian. ‘The Expanded-contracted Field of Recent Audio-Visual Art’. Scan- Journal of Media Arts Culture 6, no. 2 (2009). http://scan.net.au/scan/journal/display.php?journal_id=134. (accessed 18th Aug 2015). Andrews, Ian. ‘Post Digital Aesthetics And The Function Of Process’. Proceedings of the 19th International Symposium of Electronic Art. Sydney: University of Sydney, 2013. http://ses.library.usyd.edu.au//bitstream/2123/9688/1/postdigitalaesthetics.pdf. (accessed 29th April 2015). Andrews-Meigh Chris. A History of Video Art-The Development Of Form And Function. Oxford: Berg, 2006.
Artists of The Twentieth Century: Marcel Duchamp. USA: Kultur International Films, 2004. DVD.
Jones, Johnathan. ‘Out of this world: why the most important art today is made in space’. The Guardian, 12 June, 2016. https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2016/jun/12/why-most-important-art-today- made-in-space. (accessed 12 June 2016).
Balsom, Erika. ‘Live and Direct’ Artforum International 53, no. 1 (2014).
Chris Baraniuk ‘Computer paints ‘new Rembrandt’ after old works analysis’, BBC News, 6 April, 2016, http://www.bbc.com/news/technology-35977315, (accessed 6th April 2016.
Base, San. 21st Century (4:00), MOCA Museum of Computer Art. http://moca.virtual.museum/digivid/sanbase.htm. (accessed 14th Sept 2015).
Bennet, David. ‘Modernist and Post-Modernist Arts of Noise, Part 1: From the European avant-garde to contemporary Australian Sound Art’. Sound Scrips: Proceedings of the Inaugural Totally Huge New Music Festival Conference 2005. Perth: Edith Cowen University. http://ro.ecu.edu.au/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1007&context=csound. (accessed 13th Dec 2015).
Benjamin, Walter. The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction. Historical essay (1936).
Beatles Electroniques. Nam June Paik. YouTube video 2:55. posted by lodifilm festival Aug 13th 2008. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V-Wj8e0gAu8. (accessed 2nd Oct 2015).
Bishop, Claire. ‘Antagonism and Relational Aesthetics’. Fall. Oct 2004. http://www.teamgal.com/production/1701/SS04October.pdf. (accessed 24th Nov 2015).
Bishop, Claire. ‘Digital Divide’. Artforum International 51, no. 1 (2012).
Blake, Elissa. Tacita Dean: act for a vanishing medium’. The Sydeny Morning Herald. 22nd April, 2014. http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/stage/tacita-dean-act-for-a-vanishing-medium-20140421- 3707j.html. (accessed 18th March 2016).
Bleidt, Robert (editor). Understanding MPEG 4, Technologies, Advantages, and Markets. 2005. Whitepaper. https://www1.ethz.ch/replay/docs/whitepaper_mpegif.pdf. (accessed 7th June 2016).
Bloom, Joe. A Journey Through the Arts. Self-published (2005). http://ajourneythroughthearts.com/index.htm. (accessed 20th July 2015).
Page 50
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Bonser, Kevin. ‘How Augmented Reality Really Works’. How Stuff Works-Tech, 2016. http://computer.howstuffworks.com/augmented-reality.htm. (accessed 2nd Oct, 2016).
Brennan, Carol. ‘Karl Heinz Stockhausen’. Encyclopaedia.Com (2002). http://www.encyclopedia.com/topic/Karlheinz_Stockhausen.aspx. (accessed 3rd April 2014).
Bridle, James. ‘Beyond Pong: why digital art matters’. The Guardian. June 19th, 2014. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2014/jun/18/-sp-why-digital-art-matters. (accessed12th March 2015). Brummbaer. Picasso Falling Down a Staircase (3:03). MOCA Museum of Computer Art. http://moca.virtual.museum/digivid/brummbaera.htm. (accessed 14th Sept 2015).
Cage, John. ‘The Future of Music’. Historical lecture (1937). http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/source-text/41/. (accessed 14th Dec 2015).
Campbell, James. ‘Barry Miles: 'I think of the 60s as a supermarket of ideas. We were looking for new ways to live’. The Guardian. 20th March, 2010 http://www.theguardian.com/books/2010/mar/20/barry-miles- sixties-indica-interview. (accessed 11th April 2014).
Cascone, Kim. ‘The Aesthetics of Failure: 'Post-Digital' Tendencies in Contemporary Computer Music’. Computer Music Journal MIT Press 24, no. 4 (2002). http://subsol.c3.hu/subsol_2/contributors3/casconetext.html. (accessed29th April 2015).
Cayari, Christopher. ‘The Youtube Effect: How Youtube Has Provided New Ways to Consume, Create and Share Music’, International Journal of Education and the Arts 12, no. 6 (2011). https://pujq8g.bay.livefilestore.com/y3ml_46IXY9XqpqPHP8xkJ_o5ldmxDQzqO41tsRUEQWdfm6Xl 55dXY2ftvnxDmjzlMv6jVvZY- RvYWsQHJcT6MCl7iAkecD8o2Mtg4jsFo5g9PF8vQjnnt6HGNHWdAjVb7vpXCXGqnOQGQExI5h qIdBRg/v12n6-1.pdf?psid=1. (accessed 18th Dec 2015).
Chaney, Mike. Video Frame Rates. Steve’s Digicams. http://www.steves-digicams.com/knowledge- center/video-frame-rates-24p-25p-30p-60i.html#b, last modified 2015. (accessed 5th Aug 2015).
Chayka, Kyle. ‘Can Digital Artist Tabor Robak Become Pixelangelo’. Vulture. May 7th, 2015. http://www.vulture.com/2015/05/digital-artist-tabor-robak-becomes-pixelangelo.html#, (viewed 7th Jan 2016).
Circuit Bent Eyes. Vimeo video 4:26. posted by PsychiceyeclixCircuit Bent Eyes (2015). https://vimeo.com/groups/audiovisualart/videos/126694773. (viewed 18th Aug 2015). ‘CVM’s Oskar Fischinger Research Pages’. Centre for Visual Music. http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger/. Last modified 2015. (accessed 27th July).
Clark, George. ‘How ‘expanded cinema’ rethinks the film screening’. Tate Gallery (blog). 21st Feb, 2014. http://www.tate.org.uk/context-comment/articles/how-expanded-cinema-rethinks-film-screening. (accessed 22nd July 2015).
Coleman, Dan. ‘Three ‘Anti-Films’ by Andy Warhol: Sleep, Eat and Kiss’. Open Culture video, posted 22nd Sept, 2011. http://www.openculture.com/2011/09/three_anti-films_by_andy_warhol.html. (accessed 2nd Oct 2015).
Colletti, Justin. ‘Why (Almost) Everything You Thought You Knew About Bit Depth Is Probably Wrong. Sonic Scoop, Aug 29th, 2013. http://www.sonicscoop.com/2013/08/29/why-almost-everything-you-thought- you-knew-about-bit-depth-is-probably-wrong/#sthash.uJpkUJzb.dpbs. (accessed 19th Oct 2015).
Comer, Edward. ‘Digital presumption and alienation’. Ephemera theory and politics in organization 10 (2015). http://www.ephemerajournal.org/contribution/digital-prosumption-and-alienation. (accessed 18th Oct 2015).
Cormode, Graham & Krishnamurthy, Balachander. ‘Key Differences between Web 1.0 and Web 2.0’, First Monday 13, num. 6 (2008). http://firstmonday.org/article/view/2125/1972. (accessed18th Oct 2015).
Page 51
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Cox, Christopher. ‘From Music to Sound: Being as Time in the Sonic Arts’, Sonambiente Berlin: Klang Kunst Sound Art (2006). http://www.arts.rpi.edu/public_html/century/MMC11/Cox-Sonambiente_Essay.pdf. (accessed 16th April 2014).
Cramer, Florian. ‘What is Post-Digital?’, APRJA A Peer Review Journal About Post-Digital Research. Published 23 Jan, 2014. http://www.aprja.net/?p=1318 (viewed 29/04/2015).
Crow, Johnathan. ‘Optical Poems by Oskar Fischinger, the Avant-Garde Animator Hated by Hitler, Dissed by Disney’. Open culture, 19th Sept, 2014. http://www.openculture.com/2014/09/optical-poems-by-oskar- fischinger.html. (accessed 27th July 2015).
Chris Cutler. ‘Plunderphonics’, in Music Electronic Media and Culture. ed. Simon Emmerson. Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2000.
Damisch Hubert. A Theory of Clouds. Stanford University Press (2002).
Davies, Hugh. ‘The Sound World, Instruments and Music of Luigi Russolo’ Resonance 2, no. 2 (1994). http://creativegames.org.uk/modules/Art_Technology/theory/authors/hugh_davies.htm. (accessed 28th Oct 2015).
Deshpande, Shekhar. ‘Tacita Dean-The Materiality of the Signifier’. World Cinema, (blog), Jan 31, 2013. http://world-cinema.org/tacita-dean-the-materiality-of-the-signifier/. (accessed 18th March 2016).
Department of Canadian Heritage. Quantifying the Audience for Ones and Zeros-Analysis of Digital Art Audiences: Literature Review and Methodology’ by David Berman, 2005. https://www.davidberman.com/wp- content/uploads/CHINDigitalArtAudiencesLiteratureReviewandMethodologyBerman20050418.pdf. (accessed 14th Sept 2015).
Dilberto, John. ‘Pierre Schaeffer & Pierre Henry: Pioneers in Sampling’, Electronic Musician. 1986. http://www.emusician.com/artists/1333/pierre-schaeffer--pierre-henry-pioneers-in-sampling/35127. (accessed 13th Dec 2015).
Donovan, Samantha. ‘Internet speeds: Australia ranks 44th, study cites direction of NBN as part of the problem’. ABC Online, 13th Jan, 2015. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-01-12/australian-internet-speeds-rank- 44th-in-the-world/6012570. (accessed 20th Oct 2015).
Dugdale, John. ‘Walter Benjamin’s Legacy 75 Years On’. The Guardian. Sept 26th, 2015. http://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2015/sep/26/walter-benjamins-legacy-75-years-on. (accessed 19th Dec 2015).
Duggan, Bob. ‘How Photography Changed Painting (And Vice Versa). Big Think (2015). http://bigthink.com/Picture-This/how-photography-changed-painting-and-vice-versa. (accessed 11th Sept 2015).
Durham, April. ‘Networked Bodies in Cyberspace: Orchestrating the Trans-Subjective in the Video Artworks Natalie Bookchin’. Artjornal 72, no. 3 (2013).
Durham, Penny. ‘Art-sceince collaborations bring a human perspective’. The Australian, 8 Aug, 2016. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/higher-education/artscience-collaborations-bring-a-human- perspective/news-story/c3a75f93e9e5aa5d125f14bb10d3fdad. (accessed 8th Aug 2016).
Ebert, John David. ‘Understanding Contemporary Art Class 3: Marcel Duchamp by John David Ebert’ YouTube video 11:33. posted 26th June 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1b1egysFRoY. (accessed 23 Aug 2015).
Elkin, A. Cemal. ‘Painterly? No, Thanks!. Kept Light Photography. Last modified 2015. http://www.keptlight.com/painterly-no-thanks/. (accessed 12th Sept 2015).
Page 52
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Emergence. Bill Viola. YouTube video 2:03. posted by sisterlighten April 2nd 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RTPf6mHKYD0. (accessed 12th Dec 2015).
Fine, Thomas. ‘The Dawn of Commercial Digital Recording’. ARSC Journal 39. no. 1 (2008). http://www.aes.org/aeshc/pdf/fine_dawn-of-digital.pdf. (accessed 4th June, 2010).
‘Fluxus’. Tate Gallery. Last modified 2015. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/f/fluxus. (accessed 11th Dec 2015).
From Anger to Sadness #3. Vimeo video 19:50, posted by Frank Millward (2012). https://vimeo.com/32734613. (accessed 24th July 2015). Furness, Hannah. ‘Artists no longer need to be able to paint or draw to be great’. The Telegraph, 29th May, 2014. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/hay-festival/10862412/Artists-no-longer-need-to-be-able-to- paint-or-draw-to-be-great.html. (accessed 27th Dec 2015).
‘Futurism’. The Art Story. http://www.theartstory.org/movement-futurism.htm. (accessed 21st Oct 2016).
Gale, Mathew (eds). Dali & Film, London: Tate Publishing, 2007.
Gambino, Meagan. ‘Ask an Expert: What is the Difference Between Modern and Post-Modern Art?’. The Smithsonian Website, 22nd Sept, 2011. http://www.smithsonianmag.com/arts-culture/ask-an-expert- what-is-the-difference-between-modern-and-postmodern-art-87883230/?no-ist. (accessed 11th Dec 2015)
Gampat, Chris. Manufactures Talk about the State of the Film Photography Industry. Phoblographer (blog), April 23rd, 2015, April 23rd. http://www.thephoblographer.com/2015/04/23/manufacturers-talk-state- film-photography-industry/#.ViSBTfkrJhE. (accessed 19th Oct 2015).
Gentles, Tim. ‘Comercial and Then Some: An Interview with Tabor Rabok’. Art in America, Dec 16, 2014. http://www.artinamericamagazine.com/news-features/interviews/commercial-and-then-some-an- interview-with-tabor-robak/. (accessed 7th Jan 2016).
Gever, Eyal. ‘Technology and art: Engineering the future’. BBC News, 4 October, 2012. http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-19576763, (accessed 28th Aug 2016).
Gibson, Andrew. ‘Exploring Metering Modes’. Digital Photography School. Last modified 2015. http://digital- photography-school.com/exploring-metering-modes/. (accessed 5th Aug 2015).
Global Groove. Nam June Paik. YouTube video 3:08. posted by starflyer2012 Sept 1st 2010. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7UXwhIQsYXY. (accessed 2nd October).
Gooding, Mel. Movements In Modern Art: Abstract Art. London: Tate Publishing, 2010.
Greene, Rachel. Internet Art. London: Thames and Hudson, 2004.
Griffith, Chris. ‘Illustrator Eric Lobbecke’s carving art in the virtual world’. The Australian, 7 July, 2016. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/life/illustrator-eric-lobbeckes-carving-art-in-the-virtual-world/news- story/cfdafd7c11b4bd213580aeb92da2efd5. (accessed 7th July 2016).
Halliday, Nigal. ‘Duchamp, Manray, Picbia: The moment that changed art forever’. Thirdway, 2008. https://books.google.com.au/books?id=tNht8QPSsfwC&pg=PA44&lpg=PA44&dq=marcel+duchamp+ nude+descending+a+staircase+and+its+rejection+by+paris+art+show&source=bl&ots=AOaEmkwTU u&sig=SwmXjKHCSLUsin60t2kP5Z8S4oc&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjel5PqmezJAhWlIaYKHY ipAGgQ6AEIQzAH#v=onepage&q=marcel%20duchamp%20nude%20descending%20a%20staircase %20and%20its%20rejection%20by%20paris%20art%20show&f=false (accessed 21st Dec 2015).
Harrington Richard & Krogh, Peter. 2015 ‘Video File Format Overview’. Digital Photography Best Practices and Workflow. 22nd Sept, 2015. http://www.dpbestflow.org/Video_Format_Overview. (accessed 20th Oct 2015).
Page 53
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Haskin, Stephen. ‘Video Compression Secrets: Smaller Files, Better Quality’. Learning Solution Magazine. July 8th, 2013. http://www.learningsolutionsmag.com/articles/1203/video-compression-secrets-smaller-files- better-quality. (accessed 19th Sept 2015).
Heiferman, Marvin.‘Photography Murdered Painting, Right?’. Smithsonian Institution Archives (blog). 2nd February, 2010. http://siarchives.si.edu/blog/photography-murdered-painting-right, (accessed 11th Sept 2015).
Higgins, Hannah. Fluxus Experience. California: University of California Press, 2002.
Higgins, Charlotte. ‘Turner prize won by Susan Philipsz for a sound installation’. The Guardian. 7 Dec, 2010. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2010/dec/06/turner-prize-winner-susan-philipsz. (accessed 23rd Aug 2015).
Hildebrandt, Darlene. ‘How to Use Histograms?’, Digital Photography School. http://digital-photography- school.com/how-to-read-and-use-histograms/. (accessed 5th Aug 2015).
Hope Cat & John Ryan. Digital Arts: An Introduction to New Media (1st edition). Bloomsbury: Kindle Electronic Format, 2014.
Hudson, Mark. ‘Marcel Duchamp: His influence is still everywhere in contemporary art’, The Telegraph. 13th Feb, 2013. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/art/art-features/9842887/Marcel-Duchamp-His- influence-is-still-everywhere-in-contemporary-art.html. (23rd Aug 2015).
Hugill, Andrew. The Digital Musician. New York: Routledge, 2008.
Hyman Izzy. ‘7 Strategies to Shoot Video in Low Light’. Izzy Video. Nov 1st, 2010. http://www.izzyvideo.com/low-light-video/. (accessed 17th July 2015).
Harmer Jim. The Difference Between Full Frame and Crop Sensor DSLR Cameras. Improve Photography. http://improvephotography.com/699/the-difference-between-full-frame-and-crop-sensor-dslr-cameras/. (accessed 5th Aug 2015).
Jarvis, JD. ‘An Art Lovers Guide to Digital Art’. (essay 2002, MOCA Museum of Computer Art). http://moca.virtual.museum/editorial/jdessay.asp. (viewed 14th Sept 2015).
Jeffries, Stuart. ‘Gustav Metzger: ‘Destroy, and you create’. The Guardian, 27th December, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2012/nov/26/gustav-metzger-null-object-robot. (accessed 7th April 2014).
Jones, Catlin. ‘The Function of the Studio (when it is a laptop)’ Art Lies: A Contemporary Art Journal 67, 2010, http://www.art-lies.org/article.php?id=1996&issue=67&s=1. (accessed 23rd Aug 2015).
Jordan, Larry. ‘Pick The Right Frame Rate’, (blog) 5th May, 2010. https://larryjordan.com/blog/pick-the-right- video-frame-rate/. (accessed 5th Aug 2015, 2013). Kelly, Caleb. ‘Sound is in the Visual Arts’ (Catalogue Essay), Sonic Spheres: Tarrawarra Biennale, (2012): p.10-13. Available from: Academia. https://www.academia.edu/8314115/Caleb_Kelly_Sound_is_in_the_Visual_Arts_catalogue_essay_for_ Sonic_Spheres_Tarrawarra_Biennale_2012?auto=download. (accessed 16th April 2016).
John Kennedy. ‘How digital disruption changed 8 industries forever’. Silicone Public, 25th Nov, 2015. https://www.siliconrepublic.com/companies/digital-disruption-changed-8-industries-forever, (accessed 3rd Oct 2015).
Kim-Cohen, Seth. In the Blink of an Ear: Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art New York: Bloomsbury Academic, 2009.
Kleiner, Fred. Gardeners Art Through The Ages: A Global History, 13th Edition. Australia: Thomson and Wadsworth, 2009.
Page 54
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Lalwani, Mona. ‘Surrounded by sound: how 3d audio hacks your brain’. The Verge. http://www.theverge.com/2015/2/12/8021733/3d-audio-3dio-binaural-immersive-vr-sound-times-square-new- york. (accessed 8th Oct 2016).
Le Grice, Malcom. Abstract Film and Beyond. Great Britain: The MIT Press, 1977.
Licht, Alan. Sound Art. New York: Rizzoli International Publishing 2007.
Licht, Alan 2009. ‘Sound Art: Origins, development, and ambiguities, Organised Sound 14, no 1. http://journals.cambridge.org/download.php?file=%2F2155_EFA82FD9317A47942E1A0A9D1D0C56 B0_journals__OSO_OSO14_01_S1355771809000028a.pdf&cover=Y&code=adfe27a5e259de64ead73 b8e039e5e6c. (accessed 15th Dec 2015).
Liquid Vistas. Portal. YouTube video, 4:05. posted by LiquidVistas 26th Aug 2011. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TsUhVywKFic. (accessed 17th Oct 2015).
Mad about the movies: What Salvador Dali saw in the cinema’. The Independent. 19th Jan, 2007. http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/films/features/mad-about-the-movies-what-salvador- dali-saw-in-the-cinema-432763.html. (accessed 5th Oct 2016).
Magdaleno, Johnny. ‘Nam June Paik Was The Defacto Father Of Video Art’. (blog) 2014. The Creators Project. http://thecreatorsproject.vice.com/blog/the-creators-project-remembers-the-father-of-video-art. (accessed 2nd Oct 2015).
Manovich, Lev. ‘What Is Digital Cinema?’. (essay, 1995). https://wp.nyu.edu/novak-mm13/wp- content/uploads/sites/41/2013/09/Lev-Manovich-_-Essays-_-What-is-Digital-Cinema_.pdf. (accessed 27th Sept 2016). pp.1&12.
Manovich, Lev. ‘The Language of New Media’. (essay, Georgetown University Washington 2001). http://faculty.georgetown.edu/irvinem/theory/Manovich-LangNewMedia-excerpt.pdf. (accessed 23rd Aug 2015).
Manovich, Lev. ‘Generation Flash’. (essay City University New York, 2002). http://manovich.net/index.php/projects/generation-flash. (accessed 23rd Aug 2015).
Manovich, Lev. ‘There is Only Software’. (article, 2011). http://manovich.net/content/04-projects/066-there-is- only-software/63-article-2011.pdf. (accessed, 19th Oct 2016).
Marinetti, Filppo T. Bruno Corra. Emilio Settimelli. Arnaldo Gina. Giacomo Balla. Remo Chiti. Futurist Manifestos. ed. Umbro Apollonio. trans. Robert Brain. R. W. Flint. J. C. Higget. Caroline Tisdall. London: Thames and Hudson, 1973.
‘Manray-The Rayogram’. The Metropolitan Museum. http://www.metmuseum.org/collection/the-collection- online/search/265487. (viewed 3rd Dec 2015).
Martinez, Mitch. A Few Notes About High Frame Rate (Slow Motion). http://mitchmartinez.com/a-few-notes- about-high-frame-rate-slow-motion/. (accessed 5th Aug 2015).
McDonald, Kari and Sarah.H. Kaufman. ‘Tomorrow never knows’: the contribution of George Martin and his production team to the Beatles’ new sound’, in Every Sound There Is’. ed. R. Reising (Vermont: Ashgate Publishing Company, 2002).
Meigh-Andrews, Chris. A History of Video Art-The Development Of Form And Function. Oxford: Berg 2006.
Mitrovic, Djordje. ‘Video Compression’, (essay, University of Edinburgh 2006). http://homepages.inf.ed.ac.uk/rbf/CVonline/LOCAL_COPIES/AV0506/s0561282.pdf. (accessed 20th Oct 2015).
Modernism. Saylor Academy Free On-Line Courses. Creative Commons. http://www.saylor.org/site/wp- content/uploads/2011/05/Modernism.pdf. (accessed 25th Oct 2015).
Page 55
Benjamin Phillips - 3131443
Moffat, Charles. ‘The History of Photography as a Fine Art’. The Art History Archive. http://www.arthistoryarchive.com/arthistory/photography/. (accessed 11th Sept 2015).
Morris, Paul. ‘Encoding Youtube Videos At The Highest Quality’ Video Makers. (Jan, 2014). http://www.videomaker.com/article/17034-encoding-youtube-videos-at-the-highest-quality. (viewed 19th Sept 2015).
Motley, John. ‘Review: Frances Stark's "My Best Thing" at Up for Contemporary Art’ The Oregonian, Sept 18, 2013. http://www.oregonlive.com/art/index.ssf/2013/09/review_frances_starks_my_best.html. (accessed 28th July 2015).
Moura, Gabe. ‘What Does a Cinematographer Do?’. Elements of Cinema. 2013. http://www.elementsofcinema.com/cinematography/cinematography-basics/. (viewed 5th Aug 2015).
Mullan, John. ‘A terrible beauty’. The Guardian, 19 Aug, 2000. http://www.theguardian.com/books/2000/aug/19/scienceandnature. (viewed 20th Aug 2015).
Morrow, Charlie. White Paper: Sound Art in Public Places. Charles Morrow Productions. (2007). https://www.academia.edu/1104105/WHiITEPAPER_Soundart_in_Public_Spaces. (viewed 15th of Dec 2015). Nagy-Moholy. Laszlo. Painting Photography Film, trans. J Seligman. (London: Lund Humphries, 1969).
Nalven Joe. The Garden of Eve and Lilith (5:00). MOCA Museum of Computer Art. http://moca.virtual.museum/digivid/nalven.htm. (accessed 14th Sept 2015).
Negroponte, Nicholas. ‘Beyond Digital’. MIT Media Lab (1998). http://web.media.mit.edu/~nicholas/Wired/WIRED6-12.html. (accessed 29th April 2015).
Negroponte, Nicholas. ‘Why MIT Lab is so important to the digital revolution’. Wired. 15th November 2012, , ‘Oskar Fischinger Organisation’. The Fischinger Trust. http://www.oskarfischinger.org/. (accessed 27th July 2015). Panofsky, Aaron. ‘From Epistemology to the Avant-Garde-Marcel Duchamp and the Sociology of Knowledge in Resonance’ Theory Culture and Society 20. no.1. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/240708552_From_Epistemology_to_the_Avant- garde_Marcel_Duchamp_and_the_Sociology_of_Knowledge_in_Resonance. (accessed 21st Dec 2015). Pearson, Dan. Millennium Forrest (27:45). Cornucopia Productions. http://www.cornucopia.tv/node/268. (accessed 17th Oct 2015). Perloff, Marjorie. The Futurist Moment. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1986. Philpot, Clive. 2015. ‘Fluxus: Magazines, Manifesto’s, Multum In Pravo’. George Maciunas Foundation., http://georgemaciunas.com/about/cv/manifesto-i/. (5th Dec 2015). Popham, Ed. Old Barns. Vimeo video (3:26). posted by Ed Popham ED.T.V 2015. https://vimeo.com/groups/ambientvideo/videos/142465039. (accessed 17th Oct 2015). ‘Post-Modernism’. Tate Gallery. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/p/postmodernism. (accessed 11th Dec 2015). Prehistoric Cabinet 2014. Youtube video 1:24. posted by olmo210 Jan 10th, 2014. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J7JQvGKZxVk. (accessed 7th Aug 2015). Pritchard, Ben. ‘Movement In Light: The Cinema Of Manyray’. The Quietus. March 28, 2013. http://thequietus.com/articles/11757-man-ray-movement-in-light-national-portrait-gallery-the-quietus. (accessed 10th Dec 2015). Page 56 Benjamin Phillips - 3131443 Pritchett, James. The Music of John Cage. Cambridge University Press: Digital Print Edition, 1999. Quaranta, Domenico. ‘The Real Thing/Interview with Oliver Laric’. Art Pulse. http://artpulsemagazine.com/the- real-thing-interview-with-oliver-laric. (accessed 20th July 2015). Rafman, Jon. 9-Eyes. http://9-eyes.com/. (accessed 3rd Aug 2015). Rees, Al. A History of Experimental Film And Video. London BFI Publishing 1999. Reeves, Alec. ‘The Past, present and future of PCM’. IEE Spectrum. May 1965. http://tkhf.adaxas.net/cd1/Reeves2.pdf. (accessed 26th Dec 2015) Reyburn, Scott. ‘On Screen and on the Block: The market for computer-created artwork is growing’. The New York Times. May 30th, 2014. http://www.nytimes.com/2014/06/02/arts/international/on-screen-and-on- the-block-digital-artwork.html. (accessed 12th of March 2015). Richter, Hans. Dada: Art & Anti-Art. Germany: Thames and Hudson, 1964. Roads, Curtis. ‘Introduction to Granular Synthesis’. MIT. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3679937. (accessed 9th October). Robak, Tabor. Heaven. http://www.taborrobak.com/site/2009/heaven/. (accessed 7th Jan 2016). Robak, Tabor. Digital Spiritually. http://www.taborrobak.com/digitalspirituality/. (accessed 7th Jan 2016). Robak, Tabor. Plateau. http://plateau.taborrobak.com/. (accessed 7th Jan 2016). Robak, Tabor. Memory. http://www.taborrobak.com/site/2010/memory/. (accessed 7th Jan 2016). Robak, Tabor. HDBoyz (17:15). http://www.taborrobak.com/site/2011/hdboyz/. (accessed 7th Jan 2016). Robak, Tabor. Cold Storage (7:00). http://www.taborrobak.com/site/2012/cold-storage-2/. (viewed 7th Jan 2016). Robak, Tabor. Exo (35:00). http://www.taborrobak.com/site/2012/exo/. (viewed 7th Jan 2016). Roberts, WA 2004, A new way of representing light in art, viewed 19th Sept 2015, http://www.wroberts.com.au/html/about_painting_light.html. Rolfe-Gilbert, Jeremy. Beauty and the Contemporary Sublime. New York Allworth Press, 1999. Rowse, Darren. ‘Full Frame Sensor vs Crop Sensor: Which is Right For You’. Digital Photography School. http://digital-photography-school.com/full-frame-sensor-vs-crop-sensor-which-is-right-for-you/. (viewed 5th Aug 2015). Rush, Michael. Video Art. rev. London: Thames & Hudson, 2007. Russolo, Luigi. The Art of Noise. (historical essay, 1914). http://www.artype.de/Sammlung/pdf/russolo_noise.pdf. viewed 5th March 2014. Samu, Margret. ‘Impressionism: Art and Modernity’. The Metropolitan Museum of Art. http://www.metmuseum.org/toah/hd/imml/hd_imml.htm. (viewed 23rd of Sept 2014). Simonite Tom. ‘First known digital music recording surfaces’. New Scientist. 18th June, 2008. https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14160-first-known-digital-music-recording- surfaces#.VVUr4_mqpBc. (accessed 19th Oct 2015). Short, Robert. Dada and Surrealism. Hong Kong: Calmann & King Ltd, 1980. Shrader, Barry. Introduction to Electro-Acoustic Music. Prentice-Hall New Jersey, 1982. Page 57 Benjamin Phillips - 3131443 Schaffner, Nicholas. Saucerful of Secrets: The Pink Floyd Odyssey. London, Sidgwick & Jackson, 1991. Sleep. Andy Warhol. Vimeo video (40:20). posted by screen-test 2009. https://vimeo.com/4880378. (accessed 2nd Oct 2015). Smith, John. Lost Sound. Vimeo video (3:51). posted by John Smith 2013. https://vimeo.com/74522428. viewed 12th Aug 2015. ‘Sound Art’. Tate. http://www.tate.org.uk/learn/online-resources/glossary/s/sound-art. (accessed 13th Oct 2016). Stiles, Kristine. ‘The Story of the Destruction in Art Symposium and the Dias affect’. https://web.duke.edu/art/stiles/KristineStilesDIAS_Affect-2.pdf. (accessed March 13 2014). Tamm Eric. Robert Fripp-From King Crimson to Guitar Craft. London: Faber and Faber, 1990. Tanenbaum, Barry. ‘How to Read Your Nikkor Lens Barrel’. Nikon website. http://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and-explore/article/gg1e57vo/how-to-read-your-nikkor-lens- barrel.html. (accessed 8th Jan 2016). Tarantola, Andrew ‘Giz Explains: Why Framerate Matters’. Gizmodo Australia. 15th January, 2015. http://www.gizmodo.com.au/2015/01/why-frame-rate-matters/, (accessed, 16th Oct 2016). ‘The DX and FX Formats’. Nikon Website. http://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and- explore/article/g588ouey/the-dx-and-fx-formats.html. (accessed 8th Jan 2016). This Is Modern Art. BBC 1999. Part 1-4. Thorpe, Vanessa. ’40 Years on, McCartney wants to hear ‘lost Beatles epic’. The Guardian. 16th Nov, 2008. https://www.theguardian.com/music/2008/nov/16/paul-mccartney-carnival-of-light. (accessed 15th Oct 2016). Tomkins, Calvin. Marcel Duchamp: The Afternoon Interviews. Brooklyn, NY: Bandlands Unlimited, 2013. Townsend, Pete. Who I Am. Great Britain: Harper Collins, 2012. Trenholm, Richard. ‘Photos: The History of the digital camera’. CNET. 6th Nov 2007., http://www.cnet.com/au/news/photos-the-history-of-the-digital-camera/. (accessed 26th Dec 2015). Truax, Barry. Soundscape. Acoustic Communication and Environmental Sound Composition. http://www.intr- version.com/truax_soundscape.pdf. (accessed 4th Oct 2016). Truax, Barry, Acoustic Communication. 2nd edn, rev. Westport: Ablexbooks Publishing, 2001. Truax, Barry. ‘Genres and Techniques of Soundscape Composition as Devloped at Simon Fraser University’. Organised Sound (2002). http://www.sfu.ca/~truax/OS5.html. (accessed 15th Dec 2015). ‘Understanding Focal Length’. Nikon website. http://www.nikonusa.com/en/learn-and- explore/article/g3cu6o2o/understanding-focal-length.html. (accessed 8th Jan 2016). Vanderbeek, Stan. ‘Dome’. Mediakunstnetz. http://www.medienkunstnetz.de/works/movie-drome/. (accessed 3rd Aug 2015). Verghis, Sharron. ‘Lost art’ lamented as drawing goes belly up’. The Australian, Nov 8th, 2014. http://www.theaustralian.com.au/arts/lost-art-lamented-as-drawing-goes-belly-up/news- story/e529279958033e0261561156188fbdc4. (accessed 27th Dec 2015). Vidalis Michael A. ‘Gesamtkunstwerk’. Greek Architects. 30th June. 2010. http://www.greekarchitects.gr/en/architectural-review/gesamtkunstwerk-id3185 (accessed 3rd October). Page 58 Benjamin Phillips - 3131443 ‘Video Synthesizer and “TV Cello” Collectables: Nam June Paik and “T.V Cello” Collectables’. Electronic Arts Intermix. http://www.eai.org/title.htm?id=4059. (accessed 2nd Oct 2015). Vierkant, Artie. ‘The Image Object Post Internet’ (2010). http://jstchillin.org/artie/pdf/The_Image_Object_Post- Internet_us.pdf. (accessed 27th July 2015). Vierkant, Artie. Immaterial vs Material, YouTube video 25:14. posted by post-digital cultures Dec 7th 2013. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YMFNB-Tqd2E. (accessed 16th March 2016). Visions of Light-The Art of Cinematography. DVD, 1992. (AFI-American Film Institute & NHK-Japan Broadcasting Cooperation). Waldock Jacqueline. ‘SOUNDMAPPING CRITIQUE: Critiques and Reflections On This New Publicly Engaging Medium’. Journal of Sonic Studies 1, no.1 (2011). http://journal.sonicstudies.org/vol01/nr01/a08. (accessed 22nd Aug 2014). Wallace, Ian. ‘The History of The Found Object in Art’. Artspace. 20th April, 2014. http://www.artspace.com/magazine/art_101/art_market/the-history-of-the-found-object-in-art-52224. (accessed 28th Oct 2015). Westgeest, Helen. Video Art Theory: A Comparative Approach. Wiley Blackwell: West Sussex, 2015. Whitelaw Tim. ‘Karlheinz Stockhausen’. SOS Magazine. March, 2008. https://www.soundonsound.com/sos/mar08/articles/stockhausen.htm. (accessed 2nd April 2014). Willette, J 2012, ‘Fluxus as Experience’, Art History Unstuffed. http://www.arthistoryunstuffed.com/fluxus-in- europe/. (accessed 22nd Dec 2015). Wilson, Andrew. ‘Gustav Metzger’s Auto-Destruction/Auto-Creative Art-An Art Manifesto, 1959-1969’. Routledge 22. no. 2. http://4.s32.scripts.mit.edu/fall2014/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Auto- Destructive-Art-Text-Routledge.pdf. (viewed 14th Dec 2015). Wilson, Ashleigh. ‘For Simon Mordant, art ownership is relatively virtual’. The Australian, June 6, 2016. https://www.google.com.au/#q=sean+gladwell+sells+first+virtual+reality. (accessed 6th June 2016). Wise, Lloyd. ‘Openings: Tabor Robak’ Artforum 54. no.3. (2008). Wolf, Justin. John Cage: ‘American Composer, Theoretician and Writer’. The Art Story. http://www.theartstory.org/artist-cage-john-artworks.htm (accessed 3rd Oct 2015). Youngblood, Gene. Expanded Cinema. New York: P.Dutton & Co, 1970. Page 59