Project #2 Michaux's Miserable Miracle
The line in Kahn's Noise is a very ambiguous concept that concerns the "point" where video and audio meet. But there is no clearly defined point or tangible structure that we know of that represents this union. So that leaves the concept open to a whole mess of different interpretations. The stance that I took deals with audio as a form of visual storytelling. Or rather what images and memories can you "see" in your head when you hear a sound? A multitude of sounds?
Michaux took the whole idea one step further; well maybe more than one step. He took a "drastic overdose" of mescaline and plummeted into the audio depths of self. Visual disturbances in his field were accompanied by wildly convoluted audio perceptions. He became what he saw in the sense that his thoughts were all that he had in his twisted state. The messy combinations of visuals took on distorted and frightening images in his mind. But he could hear what he saw and described it with such images as steel being cut in a mill. Other descriptions included electric moles that bored their way into his psyche surely his own thoughts; maybe he could hear the electrical energy in his brain.
Essentially he stressed the fact that he was GOING DOWN into the depths of self. So instantly that was going to be what my audio representation was going to attempt to reveal. Thus right after the vocal samples, sounds of space come into audio play. While in space I try to include other sounds that might produce orbital associations. But the point was to GO DOWN, so I wanted to smoothly transition into sounds of the atmosphere. Sounds of wind and airplanes are used to this effect. Next I tried to move into sounds of the ground. All the while the piece is becoming more cluttered in order to mimic Michaux's growing anxiety. If I could go back, I would take out the sounds of bombs and guns. The last part of the piece ends up in the water and so reaches somewhat of a conclusion within the piece's theme. The structure is a line sounds are not looped musically and they do not return to the beginning.
Originally I wanted all of the sounds to sound as though they were "changing" into the next consecutive sound layers. This was really hard because I did not allow myself sufficient time to toy around with the plug-ins. But I did use the panning feature extensively so as to 'unclutter' the sound of so many layers. Also I had to carefully tweak the volume curves on each track. This procedure was extremely time consuming because I had such a high number of different clipped sounds. Because there are only 8 tracks available, adjusting the volume curve between each clipped segment proved to be annoying. As did the pan curves. These were my main creative obstacles.
Technically, I moved a little quicker this time than with the last project. Most of my sounds were taken from SFX CDs and the web, so I had to convert and import a lot of material. Some of the sounds were taped at home last week with a Nagra and a hammer mic (AE 16). Also I had to take a sample from a DVD, so I played it on the Mac and held a microphone to the speaker. The songs were from Phish and Squarepusher. I chose the Phish song because of its trippy nature and its anxious tone. The vocal tracks were recorded onto a mini-disc through an omni-directional mic inside the stairwell on the 4th floor. As usual, layering the sounds was complex probably the most fun part though. This time around I had to use the gain function a whole bunch to keep my levels set properly. Its just too bad that it sounded so much better through the headphones.