Ok, heres to another round of 9 weeks.
First we need to solidify the guidelines, and we also need to gather some more support. We’ve deduced that the best way to engage people is through collaboration, so this round will be the end of “i’m going to do my thing in this corner, and you go over there with your thing” . IMO we should have at least 8 people involved to get a good dynamic.
We’ve also decided that it should involve combinations of images and sound, as it is an area with untapped potential, and an area where we can all sharpen our skills.
From there, its all open to discussion.
Visual artists can supply content and the audio peeps design an environment from there, or it can go the other way around. Additionally, for the people who have knowledge of both realms, there doesn’t need to be a clear-cut distinction. Both parties can contribute both types of media.
I think this project would expand our understanding of the relationship between images and sound and improve our ability to cross-over, or unify, the experience, even when there are separate people contributing each component.
lets get some thoughts going about how we can work this.
The Chisa | 09-Jul-06 at 6:48 pm | Permalink
Okay, here are some thoughts.
Today I was going over some great old 80s videos on YouTube and revelling in the hotness of the old school jams, and the weirdness of the visuals. I began to notice something: a lot of the songs were in a weird range of tempos, approximately 108-125, which in modern music we generally consider too fast for hip hop and too slow for house and techno. Examples:
* Billy Ocean, “Loverboy” - 110
* Art of Noise, “Paranormia” - 113
* Herbie Hancock, “Rockit” - 111
* Olivia Newton John, “Physical” - 125
* Human League, “Don’t You Want Me” - 119
* Chaka Khan, “I Feel For You” - 125
* D-Mob, “C’Mon And Get My Love” - 122
* Jane Child, “I Don’t Want To Fall In Love” - 112
* Swing Out Sister, “Twilight World” - 113
Of course there are exceptions (Hell, Thomas Dolby’s “Hyperactive!” clocks in at an amazing 210), but for the most part, it’s like an entire generation was literally locked into the same MIDI clock, and then that tempo never became trendy again.
So here’s my idea: for the next project, I propose that we concentrate as a group on the 110-15 range of tempos, and craft the individual songs to be intentionally easy to mix with one another. Each week everyone uploads their progress — a beat, a basslne, whatever. The other users listen to what you’re doing and use that as a focal point for crafting their own song. Rather than a series of remixes, or a literal extrapolation of sounds, the goal would be for each artist to create a track in this “80s” range of tempos that is stylistically similar to the other artists.
Who knows? We may even start a new genre!
ockham | 10-Jul-06 at 9:29 pm | Permalink
i think both of these ideas have some merit. i like the idea of being informed by both visual elements as well as the constraint of the music cross-informing our own work. …and i personally find 80’s tempos rather infectious.
Vauztehq | 11-Jul-06 at 1:04 pm | Permalink
Chisa, I love that idea, if only because i have also noticed this lack of representation in modern tempos. The past couple years I have increasingly been attracted to this tempo range. Its a nice ‘walking’ tempo. Go ahead, set your metronome to 115 and take a walk around your room. To be exact, 116 bpm is a common internal rhythm for myself, but it does extend to as low as 110 and up to 117. The range could be broadened to 108-125, but i think at the edges, one begins to flirt with different tempo categories.
I like how we build up the definition incrementally.
I also think visuals should not only further define the expression, but act as an integrated component. This can be achieved in the same way as the audio. Each week, visual artists upload small clips or images that will gradually define the visual aesthetic of the project, as well as having some sort of influence on the audio portion.
Everyone may be coming from different places, but by the end those places will have been molded into a single expression.
The Chisa | 19-Jul-06 at 9:29 am | Permalink
Cliff, I agree about the visuals. After all, I started noticing this sort of thing after viewing a number of 80s videos so, that style of video experimentation is I think somehow tied into the whole groove of the generation.
Let’s get started, kids.
The Chisa | 19-Jul-06 at 9:45 am | Permalink
Speaking of visuals, another idea came to me while I was mucking around in IMVU, a 3D avatar based IM client. We now have computer power that rivals the supercomputers that made such great 80s films as “Tron” and “The Last Starfighter”, to the point that we can utilize advanced (realtime!) 3D engines for such mundane uses as teenage chatrooms.
So I’m also thinking, along with doing a song, I might try to make my own video in IMVU, as a sort of homage to such 80s videos as Dire Straits “Money For Nothing” and The Cars “You Might Think”, which were at the time technical breakthroughs, but now look grossly inferior to games we can get for Playstation Portable.
Vauztehq | 19-Jul-06 at 10:54 am | Permalink
I was talking with Chronkite about narrowing down the visual style, and he brought up “Take on me” by A-Ha as a pinnacle example of the 80’s music video revolution. Indeed, that video probably cost millions of dollars and thousands of man hours to complete when it was made, but today we can produce a similar aesthetic with only a mini-dv camcorder, a common computer, and some clever processing techniques.
Vauztehq | 19-Jul-06 at 10:57 am | Permalink
BTW i would like to get started with it, but it seems a lot of people have their heads stuck up their asses.
The Chisa | 19-Jul-06 at 4:03 pm | Permalink
Well, my own head is firmly extracted from my buttock this time, so I’m getting right on it.
Here’s a preliminary loop of the basic ideas I came up with. Brandon can link to this if he likes, or I can send him an mp3 snippit.
Balls Out
ockham | 19-Jul-06 at 5:52 pm | Permalink
chisa, just sign on up if you haven’t already, i’ll give you contributor status and you can post audio and the like here.
whenever you guys want to get started just make sure to place a new category in the listing for “image-to-sound”… and that should do it.
i just got a hold of a “parenthetical girls” album recently that really took me down memory lane–at times i swear i’m listening to new order. (the aha comment reminded me of this)
–and i’ve been working longer hours for the last two weeks, so as soon as i can find my ass, i’ll be happy to pull my head out of it
ockham | 19-Jul-06 at 5:53 pm | Permalink
btw, chisa–really diggin this bass line. right on!
TheChisa | 23-Jul-06 at 9:49 pm | Permalink
Yeah, I feel you, I’ve been rocking out to Robots In Disguise recently, very hot retro shit.
So do we have some general guidelines here? And who all is going to be involved this time out?
Vauztehq | 24-Jul-06 at 7:20 pm | Permalink
3 people are commenting on the thread, so I would assume the same amount to be involved in it, unless there are people lurking in the shadows.
I’ll upload something by Friday.
ockham | 25-Jul-06 at 8:25 am | Permalink
I think maybe we should pull out some of the constraints we’re working with on this project and put them into a new thread. The extra clarification would help.
shadow lurkers, gasp!
cnnr | 28-Jul-06 at 11:59 am | Permalink
Hi, I just moved to NY from Ireland and stumbled on your site today. I’d love to get involved with this project. I’m probably not posting in the right are but let me know how I can get involved.
Thanks
cnnr
ockham | 30-Jul-06 at 12:48 pm | Permalink
cnnr,
Welcome, on the left menu bar click on “register”. Load in your info. And I’ll grant you contributor status. I’ll send you an email once this is done. Great to have your interest. Good luck in NY, it’s a great place to be. Definately swing down to Chelsea when you get the time and check out the galleries around 20th and 21st.
Feel free to email me with any questions you might have.
Cheers,
Ockham