Application to electronic music performance

Application to electronic music performance 

My exploration into electronic music could provide answers as to our perception of music. Instead of tailoring harmonies to accompany the visual, the music will essentially come first. This section will continue to use Chion’s theory in correlation with other audiovisual artists while drawing comparisons to my practice.

The transition of theory from film to live performance involves reverting which stimulus is prominent. Although this ratio differs between every project, the narrative within a motion picture will often take the spotlight, with items such as sound being applied later on. Chion states that the soundtrack can “directly express its participation in the feeling of a scene, by taking on the scene’s rhythm, tone and phrasing”. Our ability to process the visual and other elements comes from the speed of our cognition and provides explanation as to why we will latch onto what is happening on screen. The Psychology of Sound blog evidences that “The visceral, emotional reactions that strong visuals can evoke are even quicker for our brains to process than emotion-neutral visuals — 13 milliseconds on average. Responding to sound is only slightly slower, at 146 milliseconds on average” this essentially explains why a viewer would latch onto visual stimulus quicker, while accompanying it with the other senses in a proceeding fashion. When bespoke soundtracks are made for a film, they are usually blended harmoniously, allowing for the music to take the back seat while directly affecting the way we respond to them. Although “we persist in ignoring how the soundtrack has modified perception”. Here one can see how even without awareness of audiovisual symbiosis, the brain is able to process miniscule details to accompany them seamlessly. 

A reiterating theme within electronic music naturally comes to sound reacting visuals, meaning that different visual stimuli will appear determined by what bass, lows and highs are playing. This is important because it connects to Chion’s first theory of temporal animation in film: “to varying degrees, sound renders the perception of time in the image as exact, detailed, immediate”. This highlights the simplistic method of applying sound to fit exactly to what is happening on screen. The equivalent in the case of music performance would be synchronous visual stimulus accompanying aspects of the music. Many a/v artists use geometric shapes to match with the music and react in different ways. Unlike in cinema, this form of visuals does not generally contain a narrative. As electronic/visual artist, Frank Bretschneider states “I use more or less abstract forms – simple shapes, geometrical patterns – rather in an animation style than cinematic. Like the status lights on electronic sound equipment, representing the parameters of a music piece: flashing and moving bars, dots, lines and numbers.” Even without the presence of a story or narrative, comparisons can be made between this form of a/v and cinema because apparitions on screen accompanied with a specific sound provide a complimenting relationship between the audiovisual. I recreated this within my own work to personally explore how the synched sound works with visuals and the effect it has when processing them together. Bretschneider elaborates to say “I love to have the visuals connected to the music, synchronized and tight. In the best case, it should represent the sound on the visual level.” This has been coined in my work, wherein I have created a 3D installation piece. Using projection mapping, I have represented a number of Chion’s theories in correlation with audiovisual practitioners’ work. I chose projection mapping in order to have multiple plains and dimensions to animate on. I felt this would best represent a three dimensional performance space and mimic a live electronic music performance on a small scale. Therefore I have built a scaled down 3D house to represent the type of installation an audience might expect at a live performance.