Lilybelle’s Capstone Proposal
I am trying to learn about how a single sound source inspires creativity, even in a non-audial representation of its data. I want to find out how audio data can translate into a visual aesthetic in order to help my reader understand how the line between technology, mathematics, and art are blurred.
My project explores the relationship between the technical, the vocal, and the creativity inherent in a single sound source. I will create a sound art installation piece that consists of vocal track repeating the word “Lilybelle” and an inspired artwork. I complied the sound source in Audacity using a female vocal track. Minimal distortive affects were used in order to prevent attention diversion from the sound intonation in the natural state. For the artistic component, I chose the medium of crayons because I wanted the most control over the drawing instrument. The artwork sought to represent the Audacity waveform representation only, not the connotation in the vocal track. In other words, the artwork didn’t need to personify the sound source because the personification was inherent in its graph. I choose to use the representation of the waveform to allow creativity to flourish. This understanding of the graph representing the sound is amplified in its artistic expression. The concept of my final project was drawn from Ayako Kataoka’s sound art piece, A girl said.
I am in marvel with the fusion between sound, art, and math. By manipulating the mathematical aspect of sound, specifically its acoustic graphical frequencies, the potential artistic expression is unbounded. Kataoka’s “exploration to capture sound in solid form” parallels my own fascination with audio and tangibility. By allowing one to complete an artistic work based on one’s musical interpretation exploits the infinite understandings sound creates. This relationship excites and challenges me. The correlation between ‘visual sound’ and art is rich with meaning because of its recent emergence and its infinite interpretations. By being apart of this dialogue concerning sound and art, I insert my own interpretations and perceptions on the power of sound.
How music translates into the physical works symbolizes the personal and cultural norms one holds. For example, one designer might create a spring resort collection and be convicted that the runway soundtrack should be tropical, while another designer would demand punk. I have long been a fashion runway junkie, specifically interested in the combination of the choice of runways music with the theme of specific clothing line. Therefore when I was introduced to the Ayako Kataoka’s idea of taking a sound, reducing it to its graphical components, and then making art, I was hooked.
I decided to focus on one voice repeating the same word because critical awareness is more easily contracted when a listener is forced to engage with the repetition of a consistent vocal. The vocal track consists of the looping of a female voice saying ‘Lilybelle’ three times. In the composition of the track, uniformity of the thrice-repeated Lilybelle was not stressed. Rather the natural intonations were encouraged. I wanted to avoid having the vocal track sound like an emotionless machine. Rather I wanted to engage with a normal, natural voice inflection of my name.
The single voice calls for deeper listening and contemplation. Although multiple sound sources would create varying sonic frequencies allowing cross-examination, this work spotlights the emotional impact of forced awareness by way of reiteration. Moreover through this repetition, the listener will hear different qualities and inflections, further amplified by seeing the drawing. Pamela Z says it best: “when a machine repeats something, it changes with each repetition because the ear begins to listen to it.” (Rodgers 2010, 219) We are bombarded with vast amounts of audio information each day that we will only truly listen to a sound once it has been reiterated. Moreover, by the participant’s requirement to use headphones in order to hear the sound, it isolates the voice and allows fir the viewing experience to be independent and self-reflective. A chance is given to hear the layers of the sound, the different frequencies and pitches. We are introduced to what makes up this waveform.
Through this final project, I sought to participate in the burgeoning dialogue on the disappearing boundary between machinery and artistry. The line between where the technology stops and the art begins is blurred with every new technologically contingent art installation. For instance, in Ayako Kataoka’s ensemble at High Zero 2010, her performance was contingent upon the MaxMSP Jitter. The audience would agree that without the machine, the dance performance would not meet the artist intentions: the machine in combination with the dance is the art. In addition, visual and sound artist, Carrie Bodle’s sound installation and sewing performance reconceptualizes how one views pure machinery and inspired artistry. In Bodle’s work “sound is translated from data, then visualized and made tactile by the artist embroidering the combined waveform into a continuous sound wave.” (Bodle 2009) With regards to the innovative sound art field, artists often rely heavily upon technology, allowing the technological medium to be apart of the art concept itself.
Notably, in this sound installation, in order for the participant to hear the vocal track, headphones must be used. The dominant interaction is streamlined towards the artwork. Visitors are guided to contemplate on the waveform, read the word text, and finally hear the source track. This separation allows one not to become biased or conditioned in the reaction and understanding of the work. Moreover, participants never see the original Audacity waveform. The precise mathematical details are not necessary in the purpose of the piece. The reflection of how this drawing originates from the technical aspect of sound is the foremost objective.
Culturally, when one embarks upon rendering sound in a physical, artistic form it usually results in the creation of an accessible, typical scene from everyday life. In particular, if one is asked to complete a Deep Listening exercise, the classic pictures drawn are of nature landscapes or familiar faces. Deep Listening, first introduced by Pauline Oliveros, is an experience where one enters an intense state of meditation and becomes at one with one’s surroundings by solely focusing on the environmental sounds, with the option of sketching images that are conjured. Oliveros expands, “Compassion and understanding comes from listening impartially to the whole space/time continuum of sound, not just what one is presently concerned about.” (Oliveros 2005, xxv)
However my piece, as with Kataoka’s which came before, takes this notion and turns it on its head. Upon hearing ‘Lilybelle’ repeated, a typical artistic representation would be to draw a flower and a bell, or a girl. This work strips sound to its most technical root: a graph. This representation of waveform is then used to allow creativity to release. My project allows me to expand upon the notion of the mathematics of sound-influenced art.
Upon beginning this project, I was immediately faced with the realization of the infinite possibilities of a seemingly simple audio source. In particular, since I choose such an emotionally weighted word for my sound art inspiration, my interpretation spiraled into many different possible paths my drawing could embark. From the beginning of my piece I wanted the vocal phrase I analyzed to have personal intrinsic meaning. Similar to Kataoka’s sound source, I wanted to have an emotional reaction to the vocal independent of the repetition and the artwork. Unlike Kataoka’s piece, the sound source of ‘I love you” does not have a universally common connotation. ‘Lilybelle’ will not conjure a multitude of emotions for the audience in the same way of ‘A girl said.’ I choose this word in spite of that reality because I knew in order for my artwork to reach its fullest potential, I should be emotionally invested in what the piece as a whole conveys. In essence, through this sound art installation, I not only explored the technical perception of sound, but also the creative expression of my identity.
When I began the process of compiling the sound piece of my sound art installation, I was faced with two distinct paths I could take. Both of these approaches were discussed in the Dr. Tara Rodgers’ interview with Annea Lockwood in Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound. When discussing Lockwood’s avant-garde approach to electronic music, Rodgers makes the distinction between to roads musicians have taken when working with sound: “there’s the spirit of musique concrete, with composers like Pierre Schaeffer who would catalogue and classify sounds and their properties so extensively. And then there is … discovering as many sounds as you can, but mostly accepting them and leaving them as they are.” (Rodgers 2010, 125) I concurred with Lockwood’s view that the untouched sound holds the most beauty. Once I uploaded the sound source into Audacity, I did not distort the file (in stark contrast to my Sample Mix Assignment), with the exception of minor vocal enhancements because my voice in its natural state, saying my name was a concept that needed no ‘fixing.’
Bibliography
- Rodgers, Tara. Pink Noises: Women on Electronic Music and Sound. Durham: Duke University Press, 2010. 125,219. Print.
- Oliveros, Pauline. Deep Listening: A Composer’s Sound Practice . New York, London, Shanghai: iUniverse, Inc., 2005. xxv. Print.
- Kataoka , Ayako. “A girl said.” Ayako Kataoja: Installation. Mills College, 12 2008. Web. 9 Dec 2012.
- Bodle, Carrie. “Sewing Sonifications (In Progress).” Carrie Bodle. 4Culture Individual Artist Project Grant, 10 2009. Web. 9 Dec 2012. <http://www.carriebodle.com/sewing_sonifications.html>.