Month: March 2021

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Creative Sound Project//PIXELSYNTH

During lecture on Sound Creative Project module, we’ve been acquainted with Lofi video synthesizer, created by Olivia Jack, called “PIXELSYNTH”. What interested me the most, is how creative and fun to work is this synth. Sound you can design using controls, no matter of combination, is always on high pitch. It’s definitely not for everyone, however it’s surely worthy trying out. You can not only play with sound, but also create your own drawing, play with existing background image or upload and modify one, you have uploaded.

My favourite combinations are: Chinese Pentatonic starting from C# and Kuomi Pentatonic starting from G#( both starting from first octave).

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Global Sonic Cultures(3)// Italian opera “Turandot”

Pavarotti’s talent and artistic belongings are undeniable. Sound piece I would like to focus on the most, is called “Nessun Dorma” from “Turandot” opera composed by Puccini. Composer first began working on the opera in 1920. “The world of Turandot is a place of absolute cruelty and horror, but somehow love still exists within it.” says udiscovermusic. According to one theory, work is response to overturn of World War I. Paradox between cruel reality and beautiful, almost magical vision of love we believe in, is fascinating and states Puccini’s favorite topic as he expressed this subject in all his operas.

Pavarotti’s performance of “Nessun Dorma” is full of emotions. Every time I listen to this piece, I feel like it wasn’t meant for listener’s ears but for the only person in the world he truly loves, what makes the perception of this aria honest and even more beautiful. You can understand my shock when I read lyrics and I found out that “Nessun Dorma” instead of talking about this true love, presents story of blind lover who forces his chosen one to marry him. Pavarotti’s emotions in performing this piece completely mislead me which ,except disappointment in my adjudication, is really fascinating process in psychological meaning.

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Global Sonic Cultures(2)// K-POP

I was introduced to K-pop by one of my friends in 2015. As a person, who was growing up on American Pop and Hiphop, at first I didn’t like it at all. It was too colorful, music video was too fast-paced and generally there was too much of everything. After first, not so successful, approach, I tried to listen to this one particular song again and I completely fell in love. Aspects I found weird, were now incredible. I loved how it was different from western music. A well compared to most american’s music videos, in K-pop MV is like a movie. Unfortunately at the time I started listening to K-pop it wasn’t that popular, as it is now, and I faced a lot of criticism because of that. However this experience didn’t change my attitude towards Korean music, as I know that it’s natural behavior for people to hate stuff they don’t understand. I don’t know why is it like that, why we all cannot just respect everyone’s opinion and music taste.

K-pop is music genre you cannot just pass, you will love it or hate it. It definitely changed the way I think and see things. In K-pop everything is possible, artists change their aesthetic every time they have a comeback and sometimes as well completely new artistic vision every year. Korean music showed me that we have complete power over ourselves, not society we live in. It doesn’t matter if someone does not like how we look and what we wear, it’s our body and our life and we can do with this whatever we want. K-pop gave me also confidence to dream big and to be not afraid of being different.

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Global Sonic Cultures(1)// GRIMES

Grimes is an example of an artist who created new persona separated from existing human’s body through sound. With human’s body come limitations and expectations from society. There is no freedom when we are trapped in cage of what people think we should do and who we should be. Sound is about designing new reality based on our artistic vision. Liberty and room to develop are essential. As Grimes said: “humans need to put humans in boxes. Therefore I would like a non-human self that more easily escapes the boxes”. With separating personal life and art comes freedom and space for creating, we can see that mostly in artist adopting their stage name. Singer not only did that but also adopted completely new artistic body called “WarNymph”. Grimes accurately pointed out that:” The avatar allows us to play to the strengths of digital existence rather than be human trying to navigate a world that isn’t made for us”. With alternative persona comes alternative world which we need to understand in order to appreaciate.

based on the interview with Grimes by “The Face”

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SOUND PROCESSING AND EMOTIONS

SOUND ART FOR ME

Sound helps in designing sense of space. Movie or advertisement without sound is flat and inexpressive. Sound influences our emotion and their appearance. When we hear birds singing, we feel calm; hearing someone, we don’t like, make us annoyed and hearing something, we love, make us happy. Sound is everywhere and makes everything different, more pronounced.

For me Sound Art is a mean to express my emotions, thoughts in a way words won’t be able. Sound is like a letter filled with my feelings, which accompanied moment when I created it. And finally sound is my way of doing art and transforming my artistic vision, from my head, into real product.

inspired by Alan Licht’s article: “Sound Art: Origins, development and ambiguities”