This is a didactic film in disguise. A progression of brilliant geometric shapes bombard the screen to the insistent beat of drums. The filmmaker programmed a computer to coordinate a highly complex operation involving an electronic beam of light, color filters and a camera. This animation film, without words, is designed to expose the power of the cinematic medium, and to illustrate the abstract nature of time.
-- DESCRIPTION FROM THE NATIONAL FILM BOARD OF CANADA
The imagery and sound in Entering were performed 'live' by Donebauer and composer Simon Desorgher, and recorded in real time, using a colour TV studio at the Royal College of Art. Later Donebauer and Richard Monkhouse developed the Videokalos synthesiser, as an image-sound performance instrument. Entering was transmitted by the BBC in 1974.
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This and that thought. takes the form of a narrative. Visually, the project consists of the hex codes of the 216 web safe colors and a colorless box next to each, arranged in a grid. The arrangement is based on the van der Corput seqeunce which orders the colors from black to white through an unintuitive trajectory. The user is invited to click on any hex code which triggers an aural narration based on a fictional narrative of an episodic nature, jumping from subject to subject through connections sometimes obvious, sometimes oblique. Each segment of the narrative is visually associated to one of the colors by a reveal in sync with the narration. Furthermore, attached to each segment is its own unique introduction to the story. Depending on what color is activated, the user experiences a variable story in so far as the introduction and length of the narrative will change. If the user happens to click on black, then the narrative will be “whole” in the sense that the story will utilize all the segments created for the project, whereas any other color incorporates only every color between itself until the end color; white. All other elements remain the same, including the order of the colors and their associated phrase within the narrative.
-- EXCERPT FROM THE PRESS RELEASE FOR This and that thought.
If Don Buchla, mastermind of early modular synthesizers, was the technician behind the lysergically tinted spiritualism of countless ‘60s timbric explorations, Peter Blasser is an audio alchemist: technician, musician, and guru rolled into one. Blasser’s electronics company based in Baltimore, Ciat-Lonbarde, produces small runs on some of the most ingeniously quirky electro-acoustic audio systems on the market.
I visited the one-day exhibition “Sequence of Waves” last weekend at St. Cecilia’s Convent in Greenpoint. 40+ artists were included in the show, and it was a culmination of a two-week residency within the space. The building itself – a 19th century convent – is impressive, and it’s always a treat to see how artists respond to the environment. While “Sequence of Waves” was not exclusively a sound art show, many of the invited artists did work with sound.
Titled Lo Siento por Sonido by Victoria Keddie and Jessica Findley, this work was a playable zither instrument whose strings extended over two rooms, and fed through furniture found within the building. (You can listen to a sound sample here.)
Ben Wolf disassembled a boat and used the parts to complete a sculpture within the stairwell, which stretched out over three floors.
G. Lucas Crane piled amps in the basement, which amplified sounds from microphones placed throughout the convent.
Edwin VanGorder