Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers - report

Electronic: From Kraftwerk to the Chemical Brothers - report

Before visiting the exhibition, I had selected a handful of Chion’s theories about audiovisual symbiosis within film. With these in mind I was able to apply such theory to the fusion of art, design and music represented at the show because sound superimposed over film has ties with visuals over music; the only difference being that between the two cognitive pathways there is not a 1:1 correlation. 

Chion argues that there are three aspects to consider when looking at temporalisation in film, the first approach being tightly synchronous sounds. Within the Electronic exhibition the best example of this was in any of their A/V demonstrations. When watching a Kraftwerk live performance, I noticed that the futuristic calculus and space-age words being projected behind the four performers matched tightly with the music with digital precision, Initially counting to four with each individual beat and spanning to morse code and a selection of random words. There was a clear correlation between the music and the visuals because each visual cue was matched perfectly with a specific point within the music.

A/V visuals are common within musical performance as they can be programmed synonymous with sound. This approach makes sense because, as is the nature of all music, one is able to break a symphony down to individual notes and adding visual stimulus in time with these notes is satisfying for an audience watching them. In an article with Ableton, it is described how A/v visuals “share a common geometric design language, which is almost always synched to the music.” Relating this back to Chion’s first theory, it represents the most basic of applications of sound within film. For example this would manifest when the image shows an explosion, which naturally would be paired with a loud bang. This approach is still useful to my practical work however, as part of the visual stimulus I display can match individual beats, and can do so in more diverse ways than film because of the multitude of audio cues within the electronic music I will explore.

The second theory applies a different and more illusive theory to audiovisual fusion, wherein we look at sound “directing our attention to a particular visual trajectory” and “temporal linearisation”. When a film plays, it is essentially a continuum of sound and image running at the same time working hand in hand to assist in the overall feel of the film. A succession of three shots could be linked together by the sound of footsteps or breathing (anything to give the shots a sense of succession). Many filmmakers will use such techniques to give a scene a sense of momentum. Often this theory can be manipulated as an illusion for an audience, with actions happening offscreen being cued in using audio. Simplified versions of this theory manifest in silent film, where music was the only audio stimulus to accompany footage and tie it together in a linear fashion. At the Electronic show, this theory interested me greatly as I observed a few of the exhibits. The first of which being The Square Cube, 2007, a small scale replica of 1024 Architecure’s projection mapping piece for the electronic artist Etienne de Crecy’s Beats ‘n’ Cubes tour. As I watched the various tessellations and folds within this light demonstration, I took audio stimulus from two different sources; the first being Laurent Guarnier’s dance set, which was the background music to the entire exhibition. As I viewed and listened to the two unrelated stimuli, I was stunned as it seemed each movement the cube made had some correlation with the music, which I theorise as the brain making cognitive links between the minute notes within the music and the transformation of light in the installation piece. The second way in which I observed the piece was by plugging my 9mm headphone jack into the piece which played the music the cube was accompanied with. It astounded me to find little difference between how I viewed the cube in relation to music designed to be in time with the visuals, and completely separate audio. I believe this relates with Chion’s theory because the temporal linearage of the sound and image which do not correlate are connected by the viewer as a processing centre. This is a theory I will also test in my work by creating visuals which differ from tightly timed A/V animation and experiment with ways we can process temporalisation within audiovisual performance, essentially testing our cognition in a looser way.