by Olga Mink

Sophie Clements is a visual artist working specifically in relation to sound and music. Graduating from the Royal College of Art in 2005, her work takes the form of film/sound artworks, installations, live performance and collaborative work with musicians, all unified by her approach to the ‘visualisation’ of sound (or vice versa), and the expression of the two languages of sound and visual as a singular voice.

How did you get involved in making video art? What is your background?
I first started making video works when I was studying my BA in Graphic Design in London. Making work that was time-based (and so incorporating sound) was a logical step for me to be able to connect the three disciplines that I was involved in – Music, Science and Art. Before Graphic Design, I had studied Biochemistry, and at the same time was playing a lot of live music (as a percussionist) as well as starting to become really inspired by the work of experimental musicians and sonic artists who were taking an almost scientific approach in the exploration of their medium.

What ideas or desires drive you in making work?
I don’t have one general direction or ‘theme’ in making work, but it is all linked by my interest in the relationship between sound and image. I am interested in the translation between the senses – in the expression of one medium in the language of another. This can be physical form into sound, or sound into image, or any combination. I’m interested in solving problems I set for myself – how to make something happen, how to figure out techniques. The deconstruction and reassembling of time and material – the use of video as a form of sculpture has become a major driving force in my work – thinking about video not just as a linear sequence but as a way to view an object in a different time frame.

Your work is mostly based on analog and hand-made technology, How does this influence your work and its aesthetics? Why do you prefer working like this, instead of using digital manipulation / effects?
Doing things by hand or ‘taking the long way round’, has always been a major part of my work – this is because I am interested in the process of making work just as much as the final piece. In a lot of my pieces I have used painstaking techniques that create by hand what I expect could be done quite easily using digital manipulation or effects –  This is because I am interested in the inaccuracies or unexpected results  – the mistakes or ‘happy accidents’ that occur due to human error, environmental factors or other unpredictable variables that come into play with my way of working. Take ‘Evensong’ for example; you could work backwards and recreate the lights in post production – but if they had been made digitally from the beginning, they would never have been the same – it’s the inaccuracies and qualities I didn’t plan or couldn’t have imagined that are most interesting to me and give them a life of their own. Most importantly though, Evensong, like a lot of my other pieces, is not just about the end product – it is about my process of problem solving, constructing and planning, the process of filming, and the physicality of the work.

In Evensong -but also in other works-, there’s a fascination for ‘otherworldly’ dimensions and alternative realities.  Can you tell us more about this?
I’m interested in the idea of alternative realities in so much that Evensong and related experiments, are concerned with the notion of physical reality in relation to time and memory, the way we perceive physical matter, and the ambiguities that are thrown up in theoretical physics in relation to this. I guess this is not so much an investigation into alternative realities or otherworldly dimensions, but rather a fascination with the question of what is real, and how the idea of creating something that at the same time exists and doesn’t exist, relates to the ideas presented to us in quantum physics. It’s the elusive nature of matter – the incorporation of chance in the seemingly objective ‘deterministic’ world – the idea that when we really try to look deeply at our physical world we are faced with impossible truths regarding the behaviour of the basic constituents of matter – that the very act of observing matter changes its state (showing that subject and object are inseparable), that I find relates to these light objects I am making. Not so much alternative realities but alternative ways of understanding reality… What we see is an altered memory of an event that happened – a movement in time seen in its entirety. So the objects did exist in their environment for a particular moment in time, but it took the action of the camera looking in order to see them in our time frame. I guess it is the mixing up or deconstruction of material, time and the ‘real’ that is suggestive of ‘otherworldly’ dimensions, and although not really scientific, I like the idea that the lights could be understood to be just as real as the landscape they exist in, It all boils down to a question of perception anyway.

In the work evensong there’s a strong relation between technology and nature. It visualizes something that is only becoming visible by capturing and adding layers of time. You’ve created customised rigs to capture light and create motion. Can you explain more about your approach in making everything from scratch?
I didn’t have a budget to make Evensong, and it didn’t even occur to me not to do this all by hand from scratch. I actually didn’t expect that it would end up such a finished piece – at the time of starting I was exploring a technique that I had figured out that would allow me to create these light objects without using slow shutter speed (because slow shutter speed filming gives no control over the motion of the light – there’s no fluidity in the movement). I was open to the piece becoming either something finished or more of an experiment, but either way I was keen that it was to be about these constructed objects or light sculptures, and not so much associated with ‘light writing’. So the rest was basically problem solving; design and build cheap lightweight portable rigs that would allow the precise movement of a light in geometric shapes out on location, that could be fitted around objects like trees, and that could be used on my own with no power. So the rigs were extremely lo-fi – wooden frames and a bicycle wheel attached to a chair, with no mechanisms or anything complicated, just me moving the light by hand using the rigs as a guide. We were making adjustments to the rigs and how they worked in the landscape throughout the filming process, and this was a big part of the fun – being open to changes and constantly solving problems of how to make things work.

“The piece is somehow a melancholy celebration of dusk and stillness – an essence of something else – the ‘planned’ unforeseen, seeping out of the systematic process of filming. These objects are at once sound and light, real and unreal, kinetic and frozen, and the beauty that comes with them lies on the edge between these opposites.” You describe the momentum of the beauty of evensong as an almost ambiguous entity. Is this ‘dichotomy’ an essential part in your work?
Yes, absolutely – it’s the moment where the work takes on a life of its own, where it becomes something that I didn’t plan, that something special happens. This is often in the ambiguity between real and unreal, when it is not immediately obvious how the work is made – when things have been done by hand or have taken a long time to make. I think we have a tendency to want to know how something is done or to understand it, and although I am not into gimmicks or doing clever things for the sake of it, I think there is something kind of irresistible about not quite being able to understand what you are seeing. There is always a reason for doing things by hand and encouraging chance – because it sets the material free, you get beautiful effects like fluctuations in light or odd discrepancies that are beyond oneself, and it is in these moments that the objects become their own. For me creating objects or work that describes a certain dichotomy has a seductive or irresistible quality that is important to me – that you want to reach out and touch it, you want to understand it but can’t quite, like a sound you want to hold in your hand, or a sound you want to consume or be consumed by.

In your work there’s a strong connection between the visual and music/sound. How do you connect both elements in your work? Do you find one’s more important then the other?
I work with sound in a variety of ways, sometimes making it myself, and often in collaboration. The way it is connected with the image varies depending on the project, but what I am always aiming for is a state where the sound and visual become one – that they can’t be separated – so they become two characteristics of one object. In my own work I have often tended to begin with a sonic idea that would then develop into a video (ie. Colour=Sound or Bicycle Samba) – in this case the sound and image would develop together. With Evensong, the visual element came first, but the sounds that the lights would eventually have were always prominent in my mind, and informed many of the visual decisions during filming and especially during editing. When it comes to ‘visualising’ sound, I tend to listen over and over to the sound or music, so that I can get a feel for the shape of it – the dynamics – what I want to express and what I want to leave ‘silent’ (visually). I find working this way really interesting because there is no formula – to visualise everything often kills the power of the sound, so it’s about leaving space and working with the subtleties of both sound and image. One of the things I find powerful about sound is that it leaves space for the imagination – for personal experience. Sound and visual are so different in the way they affect us – sound is such a powerful medium, it can evoke feelings or reactions in a way that I don’t believe that the visual can. But I can’t say that one is more important – I am interested in putting the two together rather than one being subservient to the other.

How do you feel about the increased use of digital tools by artists? Is technology overrated? What’s your general feeling about emergent technology in media and performance art?
I feel strongly that technology should follow the idea and not the other way round. It would be naïve of me to say outright that technology is overrated, but I think we have to be careful with how we use technology, – to use it because it is right for the work, not for the sake of it. Whether something is analogue or digital, what is important is the response we can create in the audience – if we can really make them feel something. I find that technology or complicated digital work can often create a barrier between the art object and the audience (even though it is often designed to do the opposite!) – that the feeling we get from a piece can stop at an appreciation of how clever or how ‘cool’ a piece is, and for me this isn’t doing justice to the potential of digital work. If you think about the way we experience music, we are free to make our own associations, have our own experiences, and so it can be incredibly stirring: Sometimes I feel that digital/technology-based work can tell us too much, that there’s no space left for suggestion, for us to have our own experience.

You also make abstract geometrical forms and shapes to express musical rhythms and tones. How do you connect this idea in relation to Oscar Fishinger, a pioneer in moving image and sound?
I know Fischinger’s work, but probably not as well as I should do, and I can’t say that he is a conscious influence – the reason for that is probably because although I’m a visual artist, it has often been the work of sound artists and experimental composers that inspired me and informed my work, more than experimental film makers or visual artists. I have always gravitated towards non-narrative work, and people exploring film and sound in a materialist or structural way. I guess the piece I made for Nancarrow’s ‘Study No. 7’ would be the most direct reference to his type of work, as we purposely referenced the style of graphics and experimental film around at the time of the music’s composition. However, the reason I like to use geometric shapes with music is that they allow me to work with the subtleties of light and texture in a purer form. Often when I work with music I try not to push too much content onto the audience, so as not to dictate their whole experience – I like to leave the space that the music deserves, to see how sound can be expressed by the simplest of form.

What, besides Evensong, can we expect to see from you at Plazaplusfestival?
I’ll be showing a series of small experiments that are a continuation of my work with light objects, and performing a live show with J.Peter Schwalm. I’ll also be screening some of my past film works.

Plazaplusfestival

January 14, 15, 16, Eindhoven, The Netherlands

‘Rheo’ is een audiovisueel concert getoond op drie schermen gebaseerd op bestaand en HD geschoten materiaal. Dit wordt weer met allerlei digitale processen bewerkt. Het levert een oogstrelende stroom beelden en geluiden op, die vloeien van een complex systeem van kleine draadjes naar natuurlijke landschappen van bergen en mos. De horizon verandert langzaam in een simpele lijn, die alles met elkaar verbindt. De performance bouwt langzaam op naar een abstracte sequentie waar de beelden als een windvlaag over de drie schermen worden geblazen. Deze scène is absoluut een hoogtepunt; de dynamiek, hoe Kurokawa de drie schermen gebruikt – want laten we wel zijn, meestal zijn die er toch alleen voor de show – , allemaal erg sterk.

Maar live is het niet. Alleen het geluid wordt live in  5.1 surround gepositioneerd. Op de drie schermen zal bij elke optreden hetzelfde worden afgespeeld. Vergelijk het met een muziekoptreden; je voelt je toch een beetje aan het lijntje gehouden als de band precies doet wat op de cd staat. Juist omdat het achterliggende idee van deze performance de Griekse uitdrukking ‘panta rhei’ is, oftewel ‘alles stroomt’. Oftewel, zoals de beschrijvende tekst van de performance aangeeft: “iemand kan nooit dezelfde rivier twee keer oversteken, omdat water en persoon niet meer dezelfde zijn.” Is het dan niet toepasselijker om de live software meer z’n werk te laten doen? Is dat niet juist het spannende aan generatieve software dat het elke keer anders is, dat elk optreden uniek is? Natuurlijk heb je als performer dan minder controle en zit het misschien allemaal minder strak in elkaar, maar waarom werk je er anders mee?

Kurokawa gaat zonder twijfel een succesvolle tour tegemoet, maar hopelijk werkt hij in de toekomst het live aspect van zijn optredens verder uit.

Voor de trailer en meer info: www.cimatics.com

Artistic animation made with digital means is no longer confined to movies and television but is now found in a wide range of other media, from interactive installations and virtual environments to digital theatre. In his new book, Robert Russett describes the rich diversity of this creative work and sets out to document “concepts that were once realised but, because electronic and digital technology become quickly obsolete, can no longer be made manifest in their original form”.

Russett interviews an impressive array of artists about the variety of concepts to be found in this field, which he dubs ‘hyperanimation’. He keeps the jargon to a minimum, so the book is highly readable. Paul Kaiser, Karl Sims, Char Davies, Dan Sandin, Jeffrey Shaw, Rebecca Allen, Miroslaw Rogala, Roy Ascott and Paul Glabicki are among those describing their sources of inspiration, their shift from analogue to digital and the context of their work. Breaking his subject down into different themes, Russett maps the most important aspects of hyperanimation, including its organic character and a shift towards open-ended works, which is currently preoccupying many of the artists working in this field.

It’s an interesting approach among the many available books about digital media. What marks out Russett’s work is his apparent ambition to connect current developments with the sixties. Several of the featured artists mention as sources of inspiration film-makers like Maya Deren, Oscar Fischinger, Larry Cuba and John Whitney. His thesis is a logical next step from his last book, Experimental Animation, co-written Cecile Star, which features all the heroes of visual music.

It is important for each generation of artists to understand the work of their predecessors, but when you flip through the book it is striking how outdated pictures even from the nineties already look. Given its title, you might expect an exclusive focus on the latest developments, but Russett does arguably overdo that sixties perspective. The interview format certainly brings the reader close to his subjects, but the author’s preoccupation with a bygone era and perhaps also Russett’s selection of subjects do stop the book falling short of greatness. For the new generation of artists the subjects might already be too far away from their own practice and experience.

John Libbey Publishing
256 p.
ISBN: 0 86196 654 6

Dataisnature focuses on current developments in audiovisual and generative art, but also on scientific research and historical work, like early computer art. The study of these contexts and Paul’s artistic practice are two sides of the same coin. His interest in computational and visual feedback systems have resulted in works like Talysis – geometric forms that keep transforming into new ones, folding and unfolding in a never-ending loop. From these studies sonLattice has evolved.

Paul Prudence: There are a lot of similarities between the artistic and the scientific world, and in the computer and video arts area this is especially clear: you have scientists that try to model nature using algorithms and cellular automata, and artists using these same things to create art. The mathematics behind something like videofeedback is very similar to things you find in nature, like for example interference patterns and waves.

Working with videofeedback, is almost like working with a natural system. Artists are scientists again. They can put everything in a petri dish and watch what happens. What happens when we change this system, take parts out, or use different frequencies? You have this constant interplay between individual elements which also affects the whole. This creates generative aspects that are totally outside the person and the program. They exist within their own right. To me that is verging on a level of alchemy or mysticism. It’s not determined any more by the program – it’s some ghost in the machine.

It’s interesting to notice that when you start building from the visual system first, you listen to sound visually. You become less obsessed with what it sounds like; instead you get interested in what the sounds look like.
From the patterns that are formed, you pick out different parts from a certain system and then move on to the next system, in that way constructing the work. But I definitely don’t want to make these closed systems that I can plug into any sound.

For Node08 I started experimenting with audio responsive generative pieces that I use in my VJ work. The fundamental question about audio responsive generative graphics for me is: what are you trying to say in terms of movements? How do you approach the method with which you translate audio into visuals? What’s the code, the language you’re using? What does it mean?

Tell me something more about your latest work. What is sonLattice exactly?

sonLattice is a version of Talysis, the piece I made before. All my pieces are versions, constantly alive, but the essential structure remains the same. So sonLattice is essentially a feedback loop, which creates very complex structures through recursion. I got interested in the harmonic properties of video feedback, which allow you to make visual representations that act like waves. You get very complex systems, not through elaborate textual programming, but through simple feedback loops.

sonLattice is essentially one square dot, which is fed through a recursive feedback loop to produce a space of many items. This original, creator dot can move in different directions or change size or appearance or colour according to certain frequencies. One set of frequencies effects the colour parameter – the high frequency might make a horizontal movement, and the low frequency has a vertical direction.

The data from the incoming sound is analysed, and a frequency or volume will inform certain parameters. Because this a put through a feedback loop, you get a very specific reading of sound which fills the space on the screen.

Why did you create sonLattice?

I made my first videofeedback film because of an invitation by Wilfried Houjebek, who commissioned me to go to the Crystal Punk workshop for Soft Architecture, which of course sounded so good I couldn’t refuse.

When something comes along I always say yes, regardless of whether I think it can be done or not. My best work usually comes from commissioned work, when there is a certain audience in mind. If not, you tend to lose yourself in all the paths it can take. A restriction helps me to pull off my best stuff.

So when another festival in Brazil asked me to make a version with user interaction, I started experimenting with a lot of VJ software. But I couldn’t really find the answers I was looking for, so I started to think about programmable software and came across Max MSP and later 4V.

As with any piece of software there is always a learning curve. But then you have a breakthrough moment, and meaning comes from it, for example the idea of the machine interfacing with itself, is something I am really interested in.

What software do you use and why do you use it?

I used to work with Flash a lot – now I work mostly with 4V. Occasionally with VJ sets I work with my own processed video, sometimes used in conjunction with other software like Resolume, but then it is really in a club or VJ setting.
Sometimes I use footage I’ve shot and process that in some video editing software and then use those textures and feed them into 4V. Texture shapes are then informed by sound, so the work becomes audio responsive.

4V is purely set up for video, so it has all the tools to make really complex animations. Also the program has powerful nodes that allow you to make complex process procedures very easily. There are so many things I really like about 4V – the speed, the interface, also the community… The developers are some of the nicest people I have met.

I get a bit bored if I only write pure strict code. Of course it serves it’s purpose but it can take the fun out of making art. I feel that the greatest work of artists that work with digital means usually springs from some kind of revelation, a combination of accident and chance.

What is your view on the developments in your field of work? It seems a lot of people are still obsessed with technique.

Mitchel Whitelord on his blog ‘The Teeming Void’ proposes that generative art is the akin to a kind of neo-baroque, because it is has a lot to do with visual stimulation and decoration. I quite like that idea. But I don’t mind that artists are obsessed with the technique they use, as long as they get beyond that.

I am very much interested in aesthetics and formal visual representation. Meaning comes from it, once you start interrogating what’s below, or the surface of the system, if you’re interested. I don’t really care if people are interested in cybernetics, videofeedback or recursion – concepts that are dear to me. If people want to know more, I am happy to explain things to them, but I also like the idea of making something purely aesthetic that people can engage with on their own level.

www.transphormetic.com

Paul Prudence will give an artist talk at the Playgrounds Audiovisual Art Festival in Tilburg (30-31 October).

Playgrounds heeft laten zien oog te hebben voor eye-candy en sterke staaltjes motion-graphics; een festivalfavoriet is dan ook terecht de Franse studio Pleix. In Treats zijn ze vertegenwoordigd met ‘Sometimes’, waar we een gebouw zien dat uit elkaar valt en ook zichzelf weer opbouwt. Andere hoogtepunten zijn ‘Paint Balling’ uit de serie ‘Love Sport’ van Studio AKA, een animatie waarin pixels enorm expressief blijken te zijn (zie afb.). Ook de Nederlandse Roel Wouters is een ontdekking, met onder andere de videoclip ‘zZz’ voor de band Grip, waarin mensen op een trampoline ‘I/O error’ en ‘particle blur’ uitbeelden. Zoals hopelijk duidelijk wordt door deze omschrijvingen: visueel spektakel dus dat het goed doet op groot scherm.

Nog te zien:
donderdag 12 juni Plaza Futura Eindhoven
vrijdag 13 juni Verkadefabriek ‘s Hertogenbosch
www.playgroundsfestival.nl

If you think Rupture is the ideal place to drop your fascination for experimental and new forms of animation and audiovisual art, do not hesitate to contact us. Interviews, reviews, essays, reports or papers on the subject of experimental film/animation, hyperanimation, hybrid film, absolute film, visual music, live cinema,… can be sent to: info (at) rupture-online.net

Het festival besteedt ruim aandacht aan de rijke geschiedenis van de cinematische ervaring; van toverlantaarns, lichtorgels en zoëtropes tot ervaringsmachines en immersieve omgevingen. Ook wordt er vooruit gekeken. Biedt celluloid nog aanknopingspunten voor de cinema van de toekomst? Gaat cinema zich in de nabije toekomst ontdoen van het representatieve narratief? En wat is de rol van sensorische overload in de cinema van de toekomst?

Conferentie
De driedaagse conferentie biedt een veelzijdig en diepgravend overzicht van de cinematische ervaring. Internationale sprekers afkomstig uit de film, beeldende kunst, muziek, wetenschap, literatuur en de kunstgeschiedenis gaan vanuit hun eigen vakgebied in op de historische ontwikkelingen en de huidige positionering, en ze laten hun licht schijnen op de nabije toekomst. Met onder meer: Jeffrey Shaw, Douglas Kahn, Erkki Huhtamo, Arjen Mulder, Timothy Druckrey en Ken Jacobs.

Live performances
In het performance programma een hommage aan de Drone als manier om aan tijd te ontsnappen; een keur aan cinematische performances met oude en nieuwe helden van de audiovisuele avant-garde; en een reeks optredens met speciaal voor het Acousmonium gemaakte cinematische geluidswerken.
Met onder meer: Stephen O’Malley, Mika Vainio, Fennesz, Signal, Ulf Langheinrich, D-Fuse, Cluster, Ryoichi Kurokawa en Pomassl.

Filmprogramma
In het filmprogramma wordt aandacht besteedt aan de essentiële bouwstenen van cinema met programma’s als Absolute Frame, Absolute Time en Absolute Sound. Daarnaast zijn er speciale programma’s rond de filmmakers Ken Jacobs, Rose Lowder en Mika Taanila. En verder is er aandacht voor cinema van de toekomst.
Met onder andere films van Mika Taanila, Peter Tscherkassky, Stan Brakhage, Jose , Tony Conrad, Gerard Holthuis en Pierre Hebert.

Expositie
De expositie in het NIMk (Nederlands Instituut voor Mediakunst) en Melkweg Mediaroom loopt van 22 februari t/m 22 maart 2008. Alle werken die worden getoond gaan over het creëren van een vorm van cinematic experience. Ze zijn zeer uiteenlopend van discipline en vorm, van muziek tot beeldende kunst en van installatie tot mediakunst. Met werken van onder anderen: Julien Maire, Ulf Langheinrich, Boris Debackere, Leerraum [ ] en Kurt Hentschläger.

Van 23 januari t/m 3 februari vindt er weer een editie van het Rotterdam Film Festival plaats. Omdat cinema meer is dan een film in de bioscoop of op televisie, besteedt dit festival ook aandacht aan videoinstallaties, live optredens en bewegende beeldhouwwerken in het programma Exploding Cinema.

In het Centrum Beeldende Kunst TENT. is de tentoonstelling 3Radicals te bezoeken, met werk van drie filmmakers die door het festival Free Radicals zijn gedoopt, waaronder Paul Sharits. Van Filmmaker in Focus Robert Breer zijn traag kruipende beeldhouwwerken te zien, die sterk contrasteren met zijn razendsnelle korte animatiefilmpjes.

Andere Rotterdamse kunstinstellingen tonen werk van makers met een vergelijkbaar radicale instelling. V2_ projecteert Modell 5 van Granular Synthesis, een intense opeenvolging van menselijke expressies, van grimassen tot schreeuwen, met bijna onmenselijke intensiteit.

Meer over het festival en het programma: www.filmfestivalrotterdam.com

Donderdag 10, vrijdag 11 en zaterdag 12 januari staat Plaza Futura in Eindhoven in het teken van Plaza+, een internationaal programma met innovatieve film- en theatervoorstellingen die op sublieme wijze gebruikmaken van nieuwe technologieën. Plaza Futura begeeft zich hiermee op een onontgonnen pad binnen het film- en theaterlandschap van Nederland.

Op het programma staan louter kwalitatief hoogstaande live-cinema voorstellingen en innovatieve theatrale acts die in Nederland niet of nauwelijks te zien waren, maar veel waardering hebben geoogst op internationale festivals.
Naast een programma met gerenommeerde internationale film- en theatermakers, uitvinders en audiovisuele kunstenaars, zoals o.a. Hiroaki Umeda, Kijkshock, Visualnaut en Ryoichi Kurokawa, is er ook ruimte voor verdieping, met lezingen en presentaties van o.a. Koen Mortier, Annet Dekker en Xárene Eskander.

Meer informatie: www.plazaplus.info

We meet Jochem Paap and Scott Pagano at NWE Vorst theater in Tilburg where the Playgrounds audiovisual arts festival is taking place. Rupture curated a program at this festival, containing the world premiere of Region Free 77, a collaboration between Jochem Paap, aka Speedy J and Scott Pagano, visual artist and curator of the Reline dvd series.
Though separated by the North Atlantic ocean – Jochem lives and works in Rotterdam while Scott is based in Los Angeles – they teamed up to create both Umfeld, a one hour long 5.1 surround sound hyperanimation film and Region Free 77, a collection of 77 randomly playing micro-compositions of surround audiovisuals.

JP: It all started when I decided to do something with surround sound some three years ago. I had no idea what it implied so I just started experimenting. When things started to shape up I started playing with the idea that I should make it an audiovisual project so I began looking for visual artists. I knew Scott’s work from his website and approached him with the question whether he wanted to work with me on this. He was very excited, said yes and that’s how we hooked up.

SP: I was living in San Francisco at the time when I got Jochem’s email. At first I was surprised: “What? I’ve got an email from Speedy J?”. We met in Rotterdam and I started with making a music video for one of Jochem and Chris Liebings “Collabs 300″. In the meanwhile Jochem had been talking about this idea of making a dvd. We started thinking about going down this rabbithole together and doing a large scale project each taking care of the image and the sound respectively.

What are ‘Umfeld’ and ‘Region free 77′?

JP: They are the result of a lot of experimenting within the audiovisual field, it was never pre-designed to be what it is now. I felt there were so many possibilities for audiovisual productions with surround sound that I just wanted to dive in. Surround has been around for over 30 years and is being used in a lot of movies. In electronic music there are so little people touching the surround domain, although the format provides a lot of possibilities which are very interesting to experiment with. I wanted to make something more structured than typical academic works but also less easy to consume than big Hollywood productions.

SP: I see Umfeld as both a final product and a process. It is an hour long graphics flim in concert with a really intense 5.1 soundtrack. The name is German and means ‘environment’ or ‘surrounding’ and essentially that is what it is: a series of environments engulfing the listener/viewer. Instead of guiding them or wanting them to have a specific reaction or emotional response, we provide different worlds of experimentation which they can explore, perhaps enjoy. There’s very aggressive section that might be a little discomforting, sections that are challenging to consume, but I also think there’s a kind of meditative nature to the whole arc of the piece. What I like about this sort of work is that you can let go of the expectations you have in dominant cinema, music videos and all these tropes we’re being fed.
One of the most challenging things was how to deal with composition over so much time. I’ve done a lot of experimental animation work, but never before did I produce a movie this long. One way I deal with this is to look back at the history of experimental animation, at the whole lineage of the medium. I try to understand what has been done and make some sort of movement forward or contribution to the historical arc of this kind of work.
I’ve learned a lot as an artist, producing that much content. I really focus on the synchronicity of image and sound, both in specific hyperanimation [A new and expanded form of animation using advanced digital technologies] and in mood, texture and tone.
We finished Umfeld over a year ago and in its aftermath we created Region Free 77, which I thought was going to be like a short 10-15 minute piece…Instead it expanded into a 45 minute massive undertaking. I remember when I first got the audio from Jochem and I thought…Ok… I’m going to have to block out a couple of months for this one…
It was really nice to go from the linear format and make it into individual segments with an esthetic consistency and an overall visual and oral concept.

This poses a whole new dramaturgic problem. How do you go about solving that?

JP: To be honest, when we first started this piece we didn’t really understand the technical issues around it. It went through a couple of incarnations.Because of technical reasons, some esthetic decisions couldn’t be made. Since it is a dvd we had to program it in order to have dvdplayers play it in random order.

SP: Exactly. This has been done before to a certain degree, but never with this many sections.

JP: It was a trial and error project for everyone involved. We had to alter the nature of the composition while we were making it. It ended up as a series of micro-compositions which clearly have things in common. We were considering making it tighter, have the pieces merge without gaps, but now we’ve built silence and blackness into the composition. It was an experiment but I’m happy with the way it turned out. We had to deal with the limitations of the dvd format and we were disapointed about the possibilities and the amount of freedom. It works on every dvd player we’ve tested in on so far, but we had to scale back since it’s not a computer and you can’t do certain things like cross-fades for instance.

SP: It’s nice because it functions differently on different systems. On the dvd it randomizes differently than in the installation version which runs from a computer. There’s also a bit more gap because players can’t jump to the next section that fast.
It’s good to have it here at playgrounds in the installation form where the randomization is more true to how we’ve intended it originally. It’s also much more instantaneous.
Even though the pieces are playing in a random order, they are designed specifically for that. Jochem experimented with using silence, using gaps, changes in intensity,… It’s hard to describe the myriad of subleties in the music, but they are all done with the randomisation in mind. On the image front there’s a huge range of images, almost even moren than in Umfeld. Pure cinematography, complex audio-synchronised computer generated work and everything in between.

What software do you use and how important is it to use this specific software?

JP: For the audio it was quite hard because most of the things I wanted to do with surround were not possible with existing software. I started out doing things in very crude ways. Do one task in this program, take it over to another program, another platform,…
Every sound in every stage of the production has gone through different platforms and a series of programs, both custom and commercial.
My driving force is always the idea and I’ll do and use whatever it takes to realize what I have in mind. In some cases this was impossible with existing software so I worked with Telcosystems who developed some tools for these specific tasks.

SP: I use a range of 2d and 3d animation programs. To a degree there were less format challenges for me. The main thing for me to figure out was new ways to work with my tools and create a level of synchronicity to sound which I never achieved before. Although the work is delivered on dvd, I’ve developed everything in HD. This brings about a whole new set of issues for an individual artist in a small studio: having to deal with massive rendering and storage needs. None of that is really interesting, you just need a lot of computers and spend a lot of time dealing with them.
As the end of Umfeld and the beginning of Region Free 77 approached I came up with, for me, new ways of audio analysis and mapping audio to animation. It’s been very educational. I’ve misused existing tools in order to get some effects. I’ve also been using Houdini, a high-end 3d animation application. It’s very good in taking any sort of information and turning it into other information. Using that for audio-synchronous 3d has been a real eye-opener.

In terms of cinema, where do you stand? Go to a random big budget, action-laden Hollywood movie and you see that they are more and more built around special effects. It’s basically just a thrill, the dramatic experience is based around audio-visual effects and in a way it is really abstract. The story is so thin that when the action sequences start it becomes completely irrelevant.

JP: In a sense that is true. It’s very abstract if you’re used to seeing film as a story. It becomes more like a rollercoasterride. You’re bombarded with audiovisual impressions and eye-candy. Take a movie like Transformers for instance. Technically they’re absolutely brilliant, but besides that,… well…
In the end that’s just about money. It’s taking the safest possible route to getting as much revenue as possible.

Do you think it’s possible that people start to realise that what they’re watching is not longer the story but just the audiovisual ride?

JP: I find it an interesting route to take. If you would completely abandon the narrative and make a production that is as technically advanced, with an equally high production value, but completely abstract. I would definitely be into something like that…

SP: …and a lot of people with you. Overall we’re very well trained, very coded to wanting to see representational images. Even if there is a paperthin storyline we still need that suture in the end to provide the satisfactory “I understand what’s going on, these images make sense to me, these emotions are triggered because I’m used to having them triggered in this way.”

JP: This subject has been investigated by so many artists. For years people have been trying to find the balance. How abstract can I go untill people are completely lost and lose their attention?

SP: What we’re doing is outside the commercial cinema realm, but it’s also outside what’s being done in terms of music video. It think there’s space for this and that interest will grow because there’s enough people out there looking for exciting audiovisual content that isn’t triggering all the conventional responses and that isn’t just a marketing tool or a corporate message.

JP: It definitely has a chance. If you consider the fact that a mere 15 years ago people would dance to very ‘defined’ music, with a song structure like we’re used to for over 50 years. And now, hundreds of thousands of people go out every weekend to dance to music played by a guy behind a computer screen, made by other guys behind computer screens. It’s very abstract, very repetitive, but we’ve become used to dance music. If you would play this to people 20 years ago and tell them this is the future, they would respond with “no way, this is sci-fi!”.
The same thing could happen with other disciplines and artforms in the next decade. It’s very difficult to predict how peoples minds get adjusted to new formats and new ways of consuming. It can happen really fast, look at mobile phones and texting for instance. I you consider that I have two kids, of 5 and 8, their first mobile phone they will own will be this really flat touchscreen device capable of playing video, audio,… I think audiovisual media will go through a very big change in the next decade, where you’ll be able to consume and access it everywhere. Things change a bit slower in popular cinema than in music but we have no idea how people in 50 years will be able to understand certain ways of storytelling or experience film and music. Those shifts can go really fast.

SP: One other thing I want to bring up is that all this brings about whole new distribution modes. Our project for instance is not just this beautiful packaged dvd with amazing artwork by Keepadding, but the main piece is available as a free downloadable dvd image. We’re trying to bring this work out in the world, but it’s also with a total understanding that there are huge barriers. A lot of people wont go “oh there’s an abstract hour-long crazy surround sound dvd? I want that!”.
So by offering it on our website, people will be able to experiment with the idea,…

JP: …get familiarised with the work. That’s just the way people’s minds work these days. If you stumble upon something which you think you might like, you want access it instantly, sample it for free. And if you support the idea, you pay the people behind it some money or you buy the physical product. Specifically this project is not something that would work if it were only available as a dvd in shops. So the way to reach an audience is to make it as easily available as possible. As a consumer I think like that as well. If I like some work and I can’t get to it legally, I’ll look for other ways to get to see it. I can’t order a dvd and wait for 2 weeks for it to arrive… that’s the past.
We’ve spent so much time on this project and we’re are very happy with the way it turned out. And we both know that a lot of people around the world who would be interested in this sort of work are completely unreachable through traditional distribution mechanisms. So by making it available as a download, which is the most accessible way for most people who would be interested in this kind of work, they can sample it, enjoy it, and that’s the most important thing. We want to reach them with this work.

More info, the downloadable dvd image of Umfeld or information on how to order the dvd which includes a short documentary and Region Free 77 can be found at www.umfeld.tv