Afro-Sonics is a term that refers to the diverse range of musical and sound practices, traditions, and auditory cultures deep rooted in African and Afro-diasporic lives and experiences. It encompasses many traditional aspects of African music whilst also the more contemporary aspects like Hip Hop or Afro-futurism. Prior to the lecture I was aware of multiple different forms of Afro-Sonics, however not all and so it was really interesting to learn about them in a chronological structure, understanding the relationships between different genres of music as well as hearing and acknowledging the links between them. In this blog I have just involved the aspects I was previously unaware of to help better my understanding of them.
The ring shout
The ring shout is a Christian religious expression practiced by enslaved africans during the period of slavery. It is a kind of call and response, involving multiple people, some clapping their hands to create the beat, some using wooden sticks, whilst others sing and dance to the rhythm- often moving in a circle. There is a folkloric explanation that says the term “shout” comes from an older West African word meaning “to move in a circle.”
The ring shout was used as a kind of resistance, helping to preserve their African cultures under the strict, ruthless conditions of slavery. It was a way of recognising values that were shared between their different communities before being enslaved, values such as; ancestor worship, contact, communication and teaching through storytelling. Having watched videos of ring shout performances, the sheer importance and power of the music was immediately evident. You were able to understand the culture significance the music held, as well as the raw side to it.
Underground Railroad Songs
Underground Railroad Songswere used by enslaved African Americans to communicate secret messages about escape routes, safe houses, and plans to flee slavery via the Underground Railroad system. This was a secret network of routes, safe houses, and allies willing to help slaves escape from plantations is the South, to freedom in the North of America and Canada, mostly during the 19th century. The songs sang carried hidden, deeper meanings of the path to freedom. Not all carried hidden meanings, some were used expressions of faith and community, they had more of a spiritual meaning.
Some famous songs include;
“Wade in the Water” – Warned escapees to travel through water to throw off tracking dogs.
“Follow the Drinking Gourd” – Gave directions using the stars (the “Drinking Gourd” was the Big Dipper, which points to the North Star).
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” – Symbolised hope, freedom, and the desire for deliverance.
Maroon music
The word Maroon refers to slaves who escaped and created their own independent communities within remote areas of Jamaica, Suriname, Brazil, and the United States. The term comes from the Spanish word ‘cimarrón’ meaning wild or untamed, which was used to describe the escaped slaves.
Maroon music strongly links back to their African roots, involving traditional techniques and rhythms, however also evolved into a unique thing as it had a blend of influences. Maroon music uses mostly drums and other percussive instruments to create those more traditional rhythms. Similarly to The Ring Shout, Maroon music is call and response as many African-derived music forms were often performed in groups. Music was often accompanied by dance or ritual performances, as Maroon music was also a religious expression. These dances helped strengthen communities and preserve the African cultures.
Afro-futurism
Afro-futurism is a movement that blends elements of science fiction, fantasy, and African culture to reimagine the future of Black people. It combines technology, space exploration, and speculative narratives with African traditions and cultures, creating a vision of the future that centres around black experiences and identities.
From my understanding, one of the main themes behind Afro-futurism is this idea of reclaiming identity. Having been snatched of their own history and ancestry knowledge, bloodlines of enslaved Africans lost the connection to their past and this idea of ‘home’, and so began to think of their future. The concept involves the use of technology and this kind of sci-fi future as metaphors for freedom, transformation, or alienation.
(This blog post consists of notes taken from my synthesis lecture, as prior to this class I was only aware of small aspects of synthesis, and so I thought it was best to create a blog post documenting the key parts.)
Synthesis is the process of creating sound electronically, synthesisers generate sound waves using electrical signals, which are then shaped and manipulated to produce a wide range of tones and textures.
There are several major types of synthesis, some include:
Subtractive (Removing frequencies using filters.)
Additive (Sounds are created by layering multiple sine waves.)
FM– Frequency Modulation (One waveform modulates the frequency of another.)
Wavetable (Waveforms are digitally manipulated to create a wide range of sounds.)
Granular (Divides sample up into tiny grains that can then be played back at different speeds, in different frequencies.)
FM Synthesis-
A technique where the frequency of one waveform (the carrier) is modulated by another (the modulator).
John Chowning, a composer and researcher at Stanford University, invented FM synthesis in the 1960s.
You can multiple modulators with fm synthesis.
Consists of multiple oscillator that you can change individually and each one affects the other, with the carrier being the final outcome.
Yamaha DX7 is the most famous FM synth.
Fm synth allowed a much broader range of sounds and really made a change in digital music production in the 1980s.
Synthesised sounds begin as audio signals generated by oscillators, as signals pass through the components of a synth, the basic waveforms are shaped and sculpted by filters and envelopes. Sound wave forms include;
Sine wave
Square wave
Sawtooth wave
Triangle wave
Amplitude envelope – An envelope is a path through which a sound will pass, determining the length of the sound. -It determines how there sound will evolve.
ADSR-
Attack= Amount of time it takes for sound to come in.
Decay= Amount of time it takes to reach the next level of volume/ the decay level.
Sustain= The sustain level is volume based, the second point in the envelope is the sustain level.
Release = How long it takes to die away after releasing finger of the key.
More than one note at the same time= Polyphonic
One note played= Monophonic
Filters-
Low pass filter- Removes high end frequencies. You have a cut off point for the sound, the point at which the cut of is made can be emphasised by moving it up and down- changing the cut off point- this is called the resonance, however in EQ this is called the Q (it describes how narrow or wide a filter is around a certain frequency). Depending on the db number, the filter can be more or less efficient, 12db is most common.
High pass filter- Removes low end frequencies.
Band pass- Allowing you to preserve a certain range, removes sound from the left and right of the cut of point.
Notch filter- Creates a notch (a dip) so the sound at that range is removed and the sounds from the left and right remain.
Modulation-
Modulation involves changing parameters over time.
LFO- Low frequency oscillator, an interaction between the sound waves- commonly used for tremolo or vibrato. The LFO has its own waveform. Used to influence change in volume or pitch.
VIBRATO= varying pitch
TREMOLO= varying volume
Glide control- A pitch bend, the sound will guide from one pitch to the other, the dial on the synth controls the time taken to reach the second note.
Sampling, the process of taking an existing source and repurposing it to create something new. A true foundation to hip hop, it developed in the 1980s, when DJs like Kool Herc and Grandmaster Flash began sampling funk and soul records, often times isolating the drum breaks and looping them live to create new beats. Having originated from hiphop, sampling soon began to expand all over the different musical genres and communities, creating a huge impact and new outlook on sharing music.
There is quite a lot of controversy around sampling, when does it become stealing, paying homage, or creating entirely new art? How can you differentiate? Personally I believe sampling is never stealing, the whole point of creating art is that something or someone has inspired you to create what you’re making, your process can’t ever stem from nowhere. Sampling is just one aspect of this inspiration, when you hear a piece of music and feel you can take that one particular section to create something new, this is not stealing, its evolving and sharing inspiration. In todays day and age I believe that there are so many people making art and have been in the past that nearly no idea is truly ‘original’ (in the sense its just you making it) or new. Art is a reaction to a situation, it’s a portrayal that often can’t be as impactful through words or other actions, and so it is something that should be constantly shared between others, used and adapted freely. However, that said I do understand the controversy around money and artists being fairly paid when it comes to using samples. I think each situation is different in those regards and it becomes a more complex viewpoint.
I use sampling a lot throughout my work, both sonically, but also with my visual work, I have previously worked a lot with collage, taking imagery from so many different sources and using them to create an entirely new meaningful piece. Also, within my film work I have experimented with archive footage and sampling all this existing material that is just sat online, unused. I really do think if something is available to you and you can see an idea evolve from it, then you should utilise your access to it and use it.
For example here are two simple- a4 collages I have made in my sketchbook.
In Fridays lecture we spent a little time using audio samples to create a sonic piece of work, I really enjoyed this task, although my outcome is messy, underdeveloped and simple I still had a lot of fun creating it and gave me a new found inspiration for sampling.
There are so many aspects of sound and music that I have only briefly worked with or learnt about but have never gone deeper into, and as I progress through this course I am made aware of certain aspects that I know I need to dive deeper into as I am attracted to them. Sampling is definitely one of them. I would like my next focus to be sampling using vinyl as I have so many tracks that stimulate my creativity that I use more as an entertainment than a source of work.
For today’s session we visited 2 exhibitions in the Chisenhale gallery & Auto Italia, 2 galleries I haven’t previously been made aware of. The first of the two was Chisenhale, an artist named Claudia Pagès Rabal whom’s piece- ‘Five Defence Towers‘ “intertwines words, bodies, music, and movement. Five Defence Towers marks Pagès’ first institutional solo exhibition in London and the premiere of a major new moving image commission.” “Pagès’ new commission locates five defence towers built throughout Catalonia’s former borderlands.” “These historic frontiers of legal, economic, political, and cultural power struggle are the starting point for Pagès’ new moving image work, which spans scripted dialogue, choreographed dance, light, and sound.”
As you can see from the image below, the film was portrayed through this semi- dome shaped collection of LED screens. Shot on a 360- degree camera, the curation and execution of this artwork was incredibly unique and had a distinct effect on me as a viewer. On each wall was a collection of photos, picturing the remains of the 5 towers. I found these to be very beautiful photos, the colour and actually, darkness of them was what made them most interesting, they weren’t really capturing much, simple pictures of ruins, however she’s managed to embrace and portray her own phycological connection with the issue through these images. I knew nothing about the towers before entering the exhibition, and yet I began to feel as if I had a connection to the them, and the deep emotional presence of the topic became much more prominent.
Claudia Pagès Rabal – Five Defence Towers
Although I did feel massively emotionally connected to Rabal’s film work, I did take a liking to the structuring and arranging of the portrayal of her work. Having worked with film, I have never thought to present it in this kind of way and so this opened my mind up into why and how it has certain effects. Because you’re lying down, looking up to watch the film, you automatically feel in a more vulnerable position, in which you’re almost a subordinate to the film. Without this positioning of the screens, I think the film would have much less of an effect on an audience. The eye contact was a huge part of what made this lay out so interesting, it became very intense at parts with these harsh eyes almost gawking down at you, you’re left with nowhere else to look but directly into her eyes and so you start to feel a relationship form between you and the character.
Nazanin Noori – THE ECHO OF PROTEST IS DISTANT TO THE PROTEST
The other exhibition we went to see was; “THE ECHO OF PROTEST IS DISTANT TO THE PROTEST, the first exhibition in the UK by Berlin-based Iranian interdisciplinary artist Nazanin Noori. The exhibition features newly commissioned works examining the emotional (im)mobilisation of the public in the context of political protest. Created in response to the death of Jina Amini and the uprisings that followed in the Islamic Republic of Iran, the exhibition reflects on the country’s sociopolitical landscape in recent years and explores the complexities of witnessing political events from afar—an experience shaped by paralysis, turmoil and longing.”
The aspect of this work that captured my attention the most was definitely the sound and spatial installation, ‘IF THERE IS GOD NO ONE WILL BE DAMNED / A HOLLOW SONG SUSPENDED‘. An entirely red room with 9 plastic garden chairs placed in a circle, 4 speakers surrounding these chairs playing a 27 minute track composed of ‘electronic textures, orchestral swells and choral fragments’ an incredibly beautiful, layered and developed sound piece. As the redness of the room begins to play with your eyes, the spacial sounds begin to play with your ears, unsure on what quite you’re listening to, you begin to feel quite disoriented and lost within the work. There are these two personas in the piece which are these very powerful choir like singers, and as the piece goes on you’re trying to understand the relationship between them. The piece flows in and out of pockets where it’s as if the voices are trying to fight each other, contrasting and pushing the other, then suddenly they both move into these harmonious sections in which they work together to create an even more powerful sound. This fluctuation is something that really made the piece individual and kept you engaged.
I think overall the biggest impacts these exhibitions had on me, was less so about the artists themselves, but more about curation, spatialisation and the layout of your work. This is something I haven’t really taken into consideration when thinking about displaying my work. When I have done so it’s been in very conventional, normal ways which I can now see how this can have a massive effect on your audience. I am thankful to have been made aware of the importance of this is such a way that I can understand how it has had an effect on myself and therefore am far more conscious of it now.
Having recorded the script, music and sound effects we now have a much clearer idea of how we want the final outcome of our radio show to sound. The use of collage is becoming more and more prominent, although originally only intended for the script, since recording we came to a united decision to collage both the music and the recordings of the script, to keep creating new sounds. This choice happened very naturally, as the project has been evolving there have been these unanimous decisions for certain aspects that everyone in the group agrees on and they just work very well. As a whole our group has not faced any disagreements or challenges regarding ideas for the piece, we have all been bouncing off each other in a very fun, adaptive way.
SCRIPT RECORDING (unedited)
When it came to recording the script, we realised that our 3 pages of collaged script might not be lengthy enough to for fill the 15 minute piece. We first thought about repeating the script twice over, then about slowing down the pace of the reading to lengthen it out. Both ideas would have worked well for the project and our theme of perception, however when we began recording the music (live to the script recordings) Josh started to cut up, layer and distort the script reading and as we played music live simultaneously, it began to sound very put together and professional. Therefore we decided to stick with that process of collaging the voice, which of course fits the original collaged script and supports the concept for this piece well.
In regards to recording the music, this has been my favourite aspect of the project by far, it has been the most free flowing and natural part. We met up at a studio, I brought my electric guitar and a Zoom 505 pedal, Zain brought a kalimba that had an output, and inside the studio were multiple synths, an electric bass and a microphone we also used. As Josh began added effects to the script recording we began to play live with it, into Ableton recording multiple different layers- different instruments, different people playing and different effects. From this, our piece started to come together very fast, forming a distinct atmosphere and character, which we began to understand and then add to.
The next process for our group is to start to edit the radio piece together, as we now have almost our entire sound bank finished, including the script, music, foley and sound effects, we will soon begin to collage of these recordings together to create our radio piece. I am incredibly excited to see where this project goes, as although we have a loose plan of how we want it to sound, as a group I think we have learnt to leave leeway for the piece to grow and expand in ways were not quite in control of. Through doing this it causes less forced work, less problems within the group and just a more interesting, unique sounding piece.
Radiogenic- ‘Well suited in style or subject for broadcasting by radio.’
In Friday’s lecture we were learning about radiogenic factors, and I began thinking about what kinds of work are designed specifically for radio, compositions that don’t work in any other form. How can you utilise the distinctive qualities of radio to create an optimum piece?
“Radio affects most people intimately, person-to-person, offering a world of unspoken communication between writer-speaker and listener.” (McLuhan, 1964, p. 299.) This quote from Marshall McLuhan in his book ‘Understanding Media’ describes radio in the exact way I think about it. It’s different from other forms of media like film as there is this ‘unspoken communication’ which relies so heavy on the persons interpretation and integration with the piece. Of course this does exist within film as everybody connects the story to their own experience’s, however because of the visual cues you are given, it manipulates and directs your thoughts into more direct, synchronised feelings that most other viewers will be experiencing. When it comes to radio, it is a very different situation, first of all when you’re listening to radio you’re normally alone, which makes a huge difference to how you perceive and react to it, as listening to the radio can give you the sense that you’re the only one who can hear it, which is (most of the time) entirely not true. – This makes for a much more personal connection to what you’re hearing. Another factor relates to two of Sieveking’s laws – ‘Imagination is central’ & ‘The voice carries personality’, I think these two ideas around radio connect massively, and influence each other. Firstly, imagination is the sole reason radio is so different from other medians, without visuals, your whole perception of what you’re hearing is made in your imagination, you’re constantly constructing images in your mind based off of the sounds, voices, and atmospheres being created, which makes for a deeply unique experiences. As each person’s experiences have taught them to how relate themselves to and conceptualise the things they hear. This ties in with the idea of the voice carrying personality, as each tone in a voice, or slight movement in sound has a meaning, and emotionally, we have been trained to pick up and understand the slightest of differences in someones voice. This is of course differs for varying cultures, however there is a universal understanding when it comes to expressing emotions. This understanding of tonal changes crosses over with interpretation as depending on your upbringing, your ideas of what each change means may slightly differ and cause for a variety of interpretation throughout people, therefore also effecting how they’re imagining the sounds in a visual way.
Although when I started this project I was unaware of the term radiogenic, the concept of it was an important factor for our groups radio piece. As I have mentioned in other blogs, we wanted to create a piece that plays on perception and the idea that each person perceives a radio show their listening to uniquely. We aimed to create something that felt very surreal, and you could join in at anytime, a kind of surrealism that is much easier to portray through radio. Playing with silence and chaos, realistic and unrealistic sounds, creating an atmosphere that can’t have one definition, it is distinct for each listener. When it comes to this idea of subjective perception by individual listeners vs objective reality, we want them to overlap, our objective being that the content we have created doesn’t entirely make sense (we have created a story based off of our own interpretation of the script, but this story is not our objective), it doesn’t have a literal meaning, other than to show how relations and perceptions between listener vary.
So far we have written and recorded the script, using different voices and different amplitude levels of speaking which we are then going to collage and create (like we did with the script) something new and manipulated using layering and editing. Our next task is to record the foley which we have a distinct list of sounds, separated into two sections, realistic and surreal sounds, which I think will be the main factor into creating our atmosphere. Of course the voice will help to portray our concept and radiogenic feature, but the sounds that are attached will allow the listener to fully submerge into the piece and therefore allow deeper interpretations.
McLuhan, M. (1964) Understanding media: the extensions of man. New York: McGraw-Hill, p. 299.
Gregory Whitehead is an American sound artist, radio producer, and writer. His work focuses on experimental, abstract radio and sound art, blending unique soundscapes with storytelling to create an incredibly emotional and immersive experience for listeners.
I first came across Gregory Whitehead through his work “Pressures Of The Unspeakable”. He was invited to spend six weeks in Sydney, Australia working with the Australian Broadcast Corporation in the role of Dr. Scream and his Institute for Screamscape Studies. A 24 hour phone line named the ‘screamline’ was set up and people were invited to phone in their screams, thus creating his ‘screamscape’. Whitehead then used these screams to curate a rather beautiful, unsettling radio artwork.
“Pressures Of The Unspeakable” -1991
“In radio, not only is the voice separated from the body, and not only does it return to the speaker as a disembodied presence- it is, furthermore, thrust into the public arena to mix its sonic destiny with that of other voices.” (Whitehead, 1992, p. 253). After researching his work, I thought this quote of Whitehead’s expressed a main theme for his work as a whole. Gregory uses voice as a central element in the majority of his work, often deconstructing and manipulating them to create a new interpretation of the story. He focuses on this idea of the voice being a separate entity that exists independently, which is something that can only really be done through radio, (music and sound art pieces too) but compared to film, it’s an entirely different thing. In radio there is no visual context, or visual depiction to rely on, your brain almost has to work harder to understand what’s going on, the listener is using their own interpretation to create an image and relation in their head.
Whitehead’s work often has a rather eerie, haunting aspect to it, which, from my understanding, is what he wants to create, to show how disconnecting the voice from the body can create an unknown, entirely new sensation formed from a sense we use everyday. In his work, voice no longer belongs to a person but is floating in a disorienting soundscape. He manages to capture these incredibly uncomfortable atmospheres and plays around with them in ways that is very distinct to his work, using collage, layering and voice effects to create his radio style.
It’s all very physiological, both due to the fact that every listener will have a different perception of what they’re hearing, and also due to this separation of voice from the body that Whitehead talks about. Sounds link very closely to memories and traumas and so without the visual cues that TV and film give us, we relate the sounds to our own personal experiences to give what we’re hearing relevance and context. Whiteheads uses fragmentation to cut up the voice and orchestrate the story, and this disruption to the work not only represents and relates to the the mental fragmentations of our memories, but also gives you these periods of silence that your brain fills in the gaps for. And these gaps are filled with the relations made previously, relating the eerie, ambient noises to your own eerie, uncomfortable memories. -Thus enhancing the atmosphere even more, just through perception.
Shake, Rattle, Roll. -1993
“I used every category of material at my disposal, and every compositional and editing technique, explored in shorter castaways; digital audio tape was part of my studio by then, used in tension and interplay with my workhorse Otari reel-to-reels. To decay or not to decay, among my questions.”
Sound is used in his work to show how words and communication fail to fully capture the depth of our experience as humans, and that there are so many layers to our brain that hold intense emotions, that can’t really be accessed through speech alone. We need music and sound to reach and confront them. I have found a lot of inspiration through Gregory’s work, he works with these themes of memory and trauma that I am incredibly interested in and have already created multiple pieces of work on the subject matter. His work is incredibly complex and there are definitely aspects of our radio piece that are similar to Whitehead’s work, especially this idea of creating disconcerting spaces through speech. As we’re using this collaged script that doesn’t have any context, structure, or main theme to it, I think we will be able to create an atmosphere that does have an uncomfortable, slightly ominous feel to it.
Whitehead, G. (1992) ‘Radio as a prosthetic imagination’, Wireless Imagination: Sound, Radio, and the Avant-Garde, edited by D. Kahn and G. Whitehead, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, pp. 253–270.
For our script, we decided on a concept where Zain wrote a block of writing, diary entry like writing- circulating a range of different topics that don’t really connect, however all written in first person and linking small factors together. This writing was then given to me as this ‘raw’ material which I printed out and began to cut out phrases/words and collage them together to create an entirely new script. This cut up script is even more discombobulated and disorientating, however is a cyclical script, where the end of it connects to beginning- almost as if it’s a never ending story.
Below is the original material written by Zain.
“BASE” SOURCE MATERIAL-
I’m smoking foreign cigarettes on a beach. The heat beats me into a haze. If i could stay here, i’d want to live forever. The past weeks have been a blur. Bars, nightclubs, work, taxi’s, night buses. I can’t sleep but I’m tired and my body aches. Two black dogs followed me on my way home tonight. Straight down beck road and left on mare street, they watched as I waited for the bus.
I’m on the a12, 23:10. The driver plays Marvin Gaye while his app gives him instructions on the route home. “In a quarter mile turn left on the high road”. The trees are wrapped in fairy lights and the whole road has a warm orange hue. I can’t believe I have to work tomorrow.
I wonder if the sun will ever come back – I’ve been sleeping through the day and I can’t face leaving the house.
I told her I’d been thinking about my own mortality recently, how visceral it feels. How my skin tightens my body becomes static, almost paralysed. I wonder if I’ll be scared, If it will hurt, if I’ll be alone. She goes to speak, then pauses. We stayed silent.
I’m often thinking of starting over, or if I could go back and do things differently, I wonder if I’m stuck in the past or just scared of the future.
We’re sitting in a cafe and he’s talking about himself, but I can’t quite make out what he’s saying. He’s sitting right next to me but I feel so far away from him – he keeps talking. “So what about yourself?” I don’t know where to begin.
I feel like a psychic, we’re sitting here in a dark room, eyes locked and It’s almost like we’re talking. I’ve never felt so connected. I spent the next three days doomscrolling.
Me and Frankie leave the house, I can’t remember what for. But it’s the same as any day. Keys, phone, wallet, check. There’s two ambulances on our doorstep and, just down the road, the paramedics are fast at work. Our pace slows and the intrigue takes over. I glance. It’s clear he’s gone but they can’t stop yet, they have a job to do. They’ve covered him. The female paramedics movements are clinical, death is no stranger to her. She retrieves the stretcher and the two of them take him away. I’m thinking about his cat, the white one with patches of black and amber.
The fireworks shops have had steady business this week. Tonight’s the night. 23:55. Some start early. Small shrills and bangs echo and build into a cacophony of sound. It reaches its climax as the windows shake & rattle, dancing to their rhythm. The sky is painted in swathes of pink, orange, red and green. It feels like the clouds are breathing. Weaving in and out of the choreography. I’m here, on the ground, but I want to be dancing with them.
I worry my brain rot will give me dementia. Although I think the asteroid will probably take me out long before I cause any serious damage.
A reoccurring dream of a deer in the forest. The midnight sky is a deep indigo, almost black. But the stars are keeping everything clear, breaking through. Its antlers are touching the tree branches, Almost melting into them. It’s staring at me. It runs and I follow. I’m Inching closer and I can see it through the tree line. I push through leaves and foliage and enter an opening. A fairy ring, untouched by the woods surrounding it. Still. The deers centre and I’m on the edge. The ring is made from rocks and cairns inscribed in a language I can’t understand. Which I can only assume is either an attempt at my brain filling in the gaps or is language long since forgotten. I step into the ring and look down. my hands are vanishing before me and I can feel myself fading. On the down beats of my exhale I watch myself becoming increasingly transparent. I am a ghost and I can’t leave. I watch the deer dance as it begins to catch alight. Whipping itself into a frenzy. I watch the deer dance in the fire. Dancing until its tissue is gone and it begins to fall. The white heat is burning me up. As soon as it hits the ground I awake, drenched in sweat. I’ve fallen asleep with the space heater on.
It’s 11:33 and I’m walking barefoot down the high street. The ground is hot to the touch and I’m hoping for respite in the park down the road. Further down the street, he’s leaning against a wall outside the cafe. Denim tuxedo, brown boots and a wide brimmed cowboy hat. He looks so out of place, from another time. I approach him and we exchange pleasantries. He tells me he’s waiting for the showdown at noon. I told him he’s got a long ways to go. We share a smoke and part ways. I never saw him again.
I’m spending the day ripping the logos and tags of my clothes. Wearing my t-shirts and sweatshirts inside out. I’ve either sold or given away any prices of clothing with colour. I’m feverish, jittery and agitated. Jumping from task to task. I manage to organise the laundry. A black wash. I take a break to rest and wake up a couple hours later. The suns gone.The dogs are back. This time they’re doing loops around the block. I’m on the top floor, watching them from the balcony. His neighbours have the front door open and are arguing. I can’t tell what about. The dogs are on their third lap. Round the corner, out of sight, then back again. They stop, jaws agape and tails wagging. They’re trying to call me down. Dark clouds above.
Blonde, Brunette, Bleached, Crushed, Compressed, Composed, Distorted, Void. Black walls, Leather interior, Cowhide rug, Crawling, Like a baby on all fours, Screaming, Crying, Knife. Eclipsed, Engulfed, swallowed, Spit, Cuffed to the radiator, Waiting, Damaged, Mother, Child, Holding, Cell, Prison.
I can feel the kinks in my spine as I’m pressed against the doors of the train. It’s rush hour and we’re all fighting for air. I can feel the nylon of his suit against my face, there’s no respite against the biting cologne he’s covered himself in. Her bag is stabbing my thigh and I’m flinching every time the carriage bumps. The people here are tense. You can feel it, building and building through murmurs and mutters under their breath. It comes to a head, In the middle section, someone started screaming – he’s reached his crescendo.
SCRIPT COLLAGE-
This script is comprised of multiple different sections, each involving different story lines but being told by the same man. The script itself doesn’t have a linear order, it is surreal and doesn’t quite make sense. Going into making this I had no idea what was going to come out of it, I didn’t go in with an idea of the story I wanted to tell and so making it was this very free, loose experience. This complete lack of planning was intentional as I wanted to expand on our theme of perception and show that my perception of this base material is completely different to what somebody else’s would be.
Whilst creating this script, a clear concept shone through; there is this man who is telling quite unhinged and unrelated stories that are essentially dribble which he is either thinking or saying, its unclear at times which one it is. He took on this quite psychotic personality as he’s created these other personas in his head, whom he thinks are real people he is interacting with. This portrayed throughout the script a whole becomes a very surreal story, yet is something that does affect people in everyday life. Therefore making this connection between surreal and real, which will be used through the radio piece to give the listeners snippets of context.
MARKED SCRIPT-
Once everyone had read the script, as a group we went in and marked the script, we first sectioned off each scene in the script to understand timings for the sections. Then went in highlighting each scene, annotating whether the sound effects should be foley or more abstract ambient sound effects. The reason we chose to do this was so we were able to distinguish what sounds we would need to record in studio and out of studio (field recordings). We want our radio piece to feel very abstract and surreal, however still have these very recognisable sounds from everyday life. The reason for this is so that the listener gets lost within the world we create, unable to identify quite what is going on, however still have these aspects of sounds familiar to them so they don’t get too lost in the piece, as I feel, sometimes when people aren’t able to connect or relate to a work, they often shut off and disengage.
Annotating the script meant that we could plan studio bookings and other aspects of the project like the music, it showed us what sounds we need to collect, which we can then use and manipulate to make other sounds. We have since began accumulating our field recordings and have booked out the foley room for a day this week to record the studio sounds and record the speech.
In terms of references for this radio project, as a group we decided we wanted to use multi media references to each portray how we have interpreted the ideas we created for the piece. Making sure to references music, films, artworks, etc. This diversity in references means that when it comes to making the radio piece, not only will each member of the team understand everyones ideas of what they want to create, but it also allows for this plethora of styles and artworks to be used within our work. Making it overall a more stimulating and interesting piece to listen to.
Below are two of my references-
Cassetteboy- Fly Me To New York. -Music/sound collage.
I chose ‘Fly Me To New York’ as a references for this project, less for because of what the piece is saying but more because of it’s collage aspect. Going into this project this idea of collage was a strong theme that as a group we wanted to work around and so I thought this music collage is a great reference as it does it so well, whilst also portraying a message very clearly. Having completed the script now, collage was indeed a huge aspect to it as I used three pages of writing by Zain, which I then cut up to form an entirely new concept and script idea.
Takashi Ito- Spacey. -Short film
Although quite a different piece of work, forming entirely around the visuals, I thought to include Takashi Ito’s ‘Spacey’ for its surrealism and constant looping. This artwork is incredibly disorientating and as you watch it, it becomes harder and harder to place yourself within it and grasp an understanding on what’s going on. This lack of realism is something again, we knew we wanted to include in our radio piece, we wanted to portray a very surreal, abstract show that the listener becomes lost in, never really having a grip on what is going on. As well, this cyclical structure of starting in one place and ending up back there by the end is another aspect included in our script. I made the conscious decision to connect the end to the beginning by cutting up sections from the same block of writing and separating it, placing one sentence at the beginning and the other at the end, both set in the same location. The reasoning behind this cyclical structure is so that as a listener, who will become lost, you can almost jump into the show at any point, trying to grasp an understanding on what’s going on but never fully doing so, therefore playing on this idea of perception.
As well as my own references, here are some from other groups members.
Having these group references makes it so much easier to grasp an understanding on how we want the outcome of this radio piece to be, it allows for a look into each persons interpretation on our ideas. -This in general is just one way were working with perception.
This first reference- ‘That Thing with the Rabbit’ is a great reference as it combines music with this speech that all connects but doesn’t make much sense as the listener. This has a similar effect to what we want to create- a lack of awareness. The speech itself in the video is represented through text messages which are cut up and then assembled together, which makes for a story to be told, but one that doesn’t quite make sense, it almost does, but it doesn’t. This concept of having each part of the speech connect, but not be understood, is one that I adopted when reassembling our script. It all connects but doesn’t give enough context to make it comprehensible. Similarly with ‘Blue Jam’ the randomness of it is what makes it so beautiful and unique. He is telling these quite arbitrary short stories that somehow become so gripping and interesting because of the way he chooses to tell the story.
Overall these references have had a very helpful part to play in not only creating the script and final piece,allwoing different opinions on the work to be represented, opening up a new level of communication throughout the group.
Having used foley before in filmmaking, I am aware of just how hard it can be to create an accurate representation of the sound you are visually conveying. The slightest increase of a movement or positioning of a mic can completely destroy the sonic image you’re trying to create.
In todays session we were using the foley to create sounds that we didn’t have visuals for yet and what I took from that was, without a visual guide for your sounds it is even harder to accurately reproduce the sound. When paired with visuals your brain has something to work with and can match the movement of the visuals to the sound. But without, it separates the sound from the image and makes it an entirely separate thing, which of course it is, but as a viewer you never make that separation. If that separation does come into play for the viewer, it can completely take them out of what they’re watching and so it is incredibly important to make sure your sounds are as accurate as possible.
However, when it comes to radio, our perceptions are very different as we are relying purely on the sonic aspect. Perception is so important for radio, you’re thrown in blind and each individual will interpret the sounds differently. Perception is the main theme to our groups radio piece, and upon reflection of the challenges of creating foley, our group has made the decision to create our foley + sound effects once we have written the script. The reasoning to this is so we have something to work off of, without it, our foley sounds would be lost and not relevant enough to the script and our piece in general.
When creating foley for radio, the importance of the sound comes more from how you want your piece to be portrayed and interpreted. As you’re not creating sounds for visuals, you have much more freedom into how you make the foley sound. Playing with this different way of creating foley will be interesting to work with as it is a new perspective on it, one that is quite different from using foley for film.
