Month: June 2022

I want to keep this project personal and not overthink my ideas. I’ve made an initial mind map that documents my thought process.

The root of this general idea of exploring the subconscious and its relationship with the conscious mind came from my experience listening to Kanye West’s recent album ‘Donda’. I was going through a bit of an identity crisis at the time and whilst this album inspired me to be more free and unrestricted with my practice, I was actually more fascinated when I dug a little bit deeper into the creative process behind the album. The entire rollout in my opinion marked a groundbreaking moment in music promotion, as West ran a total of three listening parties/performances, with the album changing each time. It was like the process of creating the album was completely public, and where every other artist waits until the album is finished to show anyone, West decided to use the shows as a way to highlight his ongoing relationship with his work and it served as a refreshing and exciting way of promoting an album. On one hand, when the album finally reached streaming services most of it had already been heard by fans which took away from the magic of a first listening experience, but on the other hand the transparent nature of the rollout added a sense of depth to the project that included fans into the process and made me personally feel like a part of the album.

Tangent aside, this way of slowly revealing the full scope of the album resulted in fans speculating about what would happen next and analysing everything in detail, myself included. There was an Instagram post from Kanye West that I thought looked really amazing, and I came to realise it was already and album cover for Oneohtrix Point Nevers’ incredible album ‘R Plus 7’. After a bit of research I discovered that the cover was a screenshot from the 1982 animation titled “Le Ravissement De Frank N. Stein” by George Schwizgebel. The ten minute animation focuses on the birth of a conscious mind (Frankenstein’s monster) and his realisation that he is a conscious being. The film starts with very abstract shapes and motions, then for the majority of the rest of it the camera moves through these rooms and doorways, which are at first empty and then begin to slowly fill with static figures, windows, then moving figures and duplicates of Frankenstein’s bride. It feels like you are watching it from the perspective of Frankenstein’s monster walking through these rooms, which I interpreted as the monster walking without believing he exists, or being aware of what he is. By the end of the film he understands that he is real and people had been watching him the entire time, and the final scene changes perspective and shows the monster trying to show love to his bride, instead frightening her.

Kanye West seemingly used this to influence the deeper meaning behind his album, which revolves around the death of his mother, how that has affected him and channelling her spirit through how he lives and breathes his art. He sees himself as the monster who up until this point hasn’t realised how the world perceives him truly, and feels that his ideas and creations scare people. It’s such an interesting parallel to draw in my opinion because it points to the ever-present theme of creative people having crazy ideas and scaring the world, as well as either scaring themselves away from manifesting these magical ideas or moving through life without knowing that the reason people are scared is because they are different.

In relation to my project, I feel like ‘Donda’ and its main influence are reflections of the artist being so different that it frightens others as well as themselves. This identity crisis that I had was largely a result of this feeling of people not understanding me or my art, and therefore I connected with both the album and the animation in a very emotional way. I want to use this as a stimulus to build from. I aim to continue to research into the subconscious, conscious and unconscious and understand the relationship between the three because I believe a lot of the misunderstanding that people have of artists, as well as artists have with themselves is rooted in the deeper parts of the mind. This gives me a point of reference when researching and creating my piece.

The other ideas and influences recorded on the mind map will inform my research and experimentation going forward.

The second option I have decided to go for is the ‘Studio Praxis’ module. Alongside spatialisation, I think I will benefit massively from this because it will allow me to develop my skills in the studio from a more artistic standpoint. I am already deeply involved with mixing, processing, recording and mastering on a day to day basis in my personal practice, but most of this is done using software. I want to get to grips with the hardware in the hope that I will fully understand the characteristics of each mixing tool and develop more of a hands on approach to making sound art. I believe that by immersing myself in the professional standard studio, synthesizers and performance equipment I will strengthen my artistic identity and build the confidence to try and execute some of my ideas that have previously seemed far fetched.

Our tutor, Milo, explained our projects for this term, with the first being an original sound piece that can be presented in any way and can draw from one or both of our specialist options, and the second being an installation that could potentially be exhibited in ‘Gallery 46’, which is located in Whitechapel and run by Sean Mclusky. Sean is a well-respected music promoter, nightclub impresario and film producer, and after briefly reading through his career I am driven to get my work shown in this gallery. The amount of people he has worked with and his innovative approach to club life in London stood out to me straight away, and I am most excited by his affiliations with the UK rave scene. Artists that I regularly listen to and take huge inspiration from such as Goldie, Leftfield, Orbital and A Guy called Gerald have all performed in his venues or worked with him in some capacity, and to have an opportunity to have my work experienced by him and people around him is honestly so exciting for me. With that being said, I am eager to work as hard as possible and trust in my ideas to make sure my work gets chosen.

I will write up another post with my initial brainstorm of ideas for the gallery project, as I will for the separate sound piece project as well. But immediately after learning about Sean, I was struck with the idea to focus on UK rave music but in the context of a sound art installation. At the moment I have so many ideas speeding through my mind that I need to write them down in a more simplified way like a mind map. The general ideas, however, are centred around taking influence from jungle, breakbeat, drum and bass and dubstep and bleeding them into more abstract territory, which I think I would start doing by identifying all of their nuances and trademarks, and then completely turning them on their heads through the composition, manipulation, sound selection and processing and then doing that all again repeatedly. Due to the fact that I make this kind of music on a regular basis anyway, I believe I already have the technique and ability to produce professional standard tracks from these genres, and as a result I feel excited to truly challenge rave music and re-contextualize its aesthetic through breaking rules and pushing boundaries. As is written in my notes above, what hasn’t been done in the area of sound that I am practicing? I think I can use this project to try and bring new ideas to such an interesting area of music and sound.

For the task this week we had to draw out a score based on a piece we’ve made already, with the aim that it could be interpreted and performed by someone else. In all honesty I think I terribly misinterpreted the task, and instead of drawing out a score I drew out the performance setup for how I would do it myself. As a result I completely missed the point, but I’m still happy with the idea I came up with.

I won’t go into much detail about this idea because at this moment it is not really relevant, but the concept of having treble, bass and middle frequencies interacting with the space in different ways is something that I feel I could develop moving forward with the projects. The high end could have the most movement because within spatial sound the higher frequencies tend to have the most impact when they are panned around the speakers, as opposed to bass tones where the wavelength is too long to create a real sense of movement.

I also feel like the idea of having a multichannel setup in a rave or club environment could be interesting, and as this is sound arts I feel as though deconstructing the core principles of dance music and subverting the expectation of what a rave ‘should be’ would lead to some intriguing results.

After arranging the sounds in Ableton, I dragged the stems into Pro-Tools and ended up using the DearVR Micro plugin instead of the FB360 plugin because I couldn’t get the audio to work properly with the FB360 plugin on a track. I think this was because I had to decode the plugin to work in binaural, as it was operating in multi-channel sound. I didn’t really have the time to figure this out so I just used a different plugin instead. The DearVR Micro plugin worked absolutely fine, and the parameters were a lot more simple to use which made the whole process a lot easier.

Once again I worked quickly and efficiently, making sure not to overcomplicate anything in terms of my mixing decisions. My main focus was spatialising the sounds to mirror the position that the sound objects were in and the direction they were moving, for example another bee flying past the screen would be spatialised from front to back. Most of the sounds moved very subtly in the binaural stereo field, for instance the wind slightly changing position based on where the bee was facing.

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1pP0qPKfJaUXLw_QQB88JxYgsWym_X9VA?usp=sharing

I will explain my process in more detail in my reflection.

For my own submission I have selected a 2 minute clip of the long playthrough video that the team sent in our group chat. I put the clip into Ableton and identified the sounds I would need to enhance the environment of the game and mirror the virtual world with an interesting sonic world. I wanted to keep the sound design very simple, only adding ambience and sounds that would be naturally found in the world of the game, as my partner Rafaella had already done the synthetic sound design for things like when the bee pollinates a flower.

Above is my checklist for the final video sound design. I sourced all of the sounds off of Splice, a sound library that contains high quality samples. If this was a real job where I was designing the sound for a game and getting paid for it, I would have spent time gathering my own samples and making them more unique, but in the context of this project I felt the overall point was for me as a sound designer to arrange a soundscape that would fit the world as opposed to spending a lot of time creating and sourcing my own sounds.

Screenshots of Ableton project:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1AodHtXFgAuczk3NOCAY2aH4M5vO8ttIu?usp=sharing

As these images show, I kept things very simple, grouping similar sounds together and limiting myself to only using volume automation which often came in the form of fading the actual clips out. Grouping sounds together but having different samples that I chopped up allowed me to play around with textures without losing the characteristics of the sounds I was adding. I also changed the soundtrack because I really didn’t like the quick changes between the two scores, it felt awkward and sloppy. I decided to use one of the soundtracks I made that I feel encapsulates a slightly atmospheric and sombre mood as well as a hopeful and light mood, which calmly underscores the ambience of the surroundings.

It was refreshing to work in this way as I am used to heavy experimentation with processing and using effects/digital manipulation techniques to lead my workflow. In this instance however, I had a clear plan in place with specific sounds I wanted to add, which made the process a lot more manageable. I feel I did a good job and I’m excited to mix it further in pro tools using FB360.

This week I had one to one tutorials with both Jose and Ingrid, with both of them giving me positive and constructive feedback. From the talks I’ve gathered that I need to add more detail to the sound. I will include the video that was submitted by the Masters game design students, which includes my soundtrack and my partner Rafaella’s sound design. Jose recommended that I take a 2-3 minute section of the video and add my own sound design, trying to analyse the video to see what is needed/what I could include to enhance the game experience.

I have an option to work on Unity to create sound events that can be applied to the actual game, however as time is against me I will be using FB360 through pro tools to spatialise the sounds I use, working with a clip from the playthrough video. My aim is to identity the sounds I need and find them online (i.e. field recordings) or make them myself, and then arrange them to go along with the video on Ableton. From there I’ll take the stems into pro tools and spatialise them through FB360.

Here is the original video that I will select a clip from and rescore.

Playtest_3.mkv

Leslie Deere is an audiovisual and performance artist. She is currently working on a VR project called ‘Array Infinitive’, which draws inspiration from meditation, colour theory, dream states and psychedelic journeys. 

NOTES – 

• Immersion and Presence in VR – Mark Grimshaw- Listening across disciplines – Salome Voegelin
• Researching deeply into the human relationship with the virtual world, investigating how we are a part of the digital experience as we intake the information
• Catherine Yass – ‘psychology of architecture and space’, ‘works with perspective’, first time Leslie had seen an artwork impact people so profoundly
• Heightening a sense of fleeting sensory phenomena- James Turrell – minimal and meditative- ‘seeing yourself seeing’ – idea of becoming aware of the sensory experience
• Hilma Af Klint – very transcendental aura about work, channeling spiritual reality experienced through meditation
• The Colours of the Mind – Jeff Cornellis
• Maryanne Amacher – sound characters, the third ear – the more intently you listen the more clear a picture can pop out 
• Democratising VR
  
  REFLECTION –

Leslie has a unique way of working because she focuses on the experience she wants to create before piecing the details together. It feels like she draws from anything she can to piece the puzzle together to create the wider image and realise her vision. In relation to the collaborative project that we are currently doing, it is interesting to see the process of someone who is on the other end of the spectrum as Leslie is managing every aspect of the project from technical process to sound to light to moving image to VR animation. In my instance, I am one of the collaborators being managed so it is very different. But there is still plenty to take from Leslie’s approach, most notably the restless pursuit of refining every element of the work to fit into a very specific experience for the audience/user. This interdependent network of multiple mediums and how they interact with one another links to my project because I feel I need to continue to refine the sound a bit to resonate with the world that has now been built by the game designers I’m working with. Before I only really had ideas, moods and references for the sound for the game, however now the game has been finished I will be able to shape the sound more to fit into the virtual world that it will exist in. 

I have read ‘Spirit of Place and Sense of Place in Virtual Realities’ by Edward Relph (2007), which has offered me a brilliant insight into the dynamics of virtual reality, the meanings of place and the ethics of building worlds virtually. Below are my notes and thoughts.

THOUGHTS

• Spirit of place – idea of place being the home to its own spirit, giving identity to that place by its presence and its actions
• Sense of place – synaesthetic, combining sight, smell, hearing, touch, movement, memory, imagination and anticipation. Can be learned and developed through careful observation and openness to/appreciation of the differences between places
• “the electronic age presents a deep paradox for place design – electronic and modern communications enhance appreciation of distinctiveness yet simultaneously undermine the factors that have always been instrumental in creating distinctive places.” – virtual places online could begin to rediscover this sense and spirit of place, communities attached to forums artificially embedded in the internet that host a strong and powerful energy
• or, on the other hand, intensifying this post modern diversion from a sense of spirit and place towards an acknowledgment of different perspectives
• where does sound sit within this? sound enhances the sense and spirit of a place by reflecting the energy that the place produces into a phenomenological abstraction, whilst also being a key component in what the place is, what it represents and how it identifies. Changing the sound of a city for example from what you associate with it to something different automatically alters the place, it begins to transform it into a new place
• in reality a virtual world cannot possibly be authentic as it is not real, it will forever be a depiction of something else (simulacrum). I feel in the future virtual reality will begin to develop its own presence, away from resembling what is real, especially with AI. For example the Unreal 5 engine that was showcased in the Matrix game beta used AI to render cars, pedestrians and buildings along with their interiors in real time. I think AI will definitely be used to fully construct virtual places in the future once the technology becomes more advanced.
• Ethics to consider, such as what are the purposes of the simulation and what is it capable of encouraging? Addiction and real world implications like spending money, as well as the influence of feeling like something is real and your mind becoming warped can be very poisonous.
• Virtual reality has limitless possibilities compared to the real world – there is no bureaucratic regulation, no real life scaling and developing. A framework that can be morphed and transformed to create a meaning – a spirit and sense of place – through interaction can lead to amazing possibilities. An everchanging, fluid and adaptable environment that can defy physics and promote a collaboration between environment and user is an exciting difference to the real world.

We recently went on a trip as a class to Otherworld VR, a virtual reality gaming experience complex in Haggerston. Only around 15 of us turned up, which gave us more time in the VR world, which was great because I felt I got a lot more out of the experience. The experience was extremely disorienting and strange, as I could see my arms and could walk around in the virtual world without walking in the real world, which would often totally mess with my balance. I found it really enjoyable interacting with everyone in the virtual world, and as this was my first proper experience with VR I left imagining the possibilities of avatars, world building and immersivity with a reference point of actually experiencing it myself. I firmly believe you learn the most when experiencing something first hand, and this was no different.

I played various games, most of them being first person shooters with other people in my class and one being a game called ‘Supahot’, which was a slow motion game where you had to evade attacks and retaliate. I found this the most enthralling because I was on my own and the slow motion altered my perception of time, which really drew me in to the virtual world, totally immersing me. I was picking up on how the sound was used with the space to trick me into believing I was really there and that if a bullet hit me I would die. The panning, distance and textures of the sound would create an intimacy that felt claustrophobic or a vast sense of space that felt liberating, depending on the game and how the sound was deployed.

I will be considering my experience here and reflecting on it when I come to start adding more detail to my game sound design, trying to mirror the feeling that I had when I was in this virtual terrain.

I sent my tracks into the group chat and received a very positive reaction. Everyone thought the sounds fitted the game really well and were impressed with my professionalism and hard work, which was great to hear as this is something new for me. Working within a group is really fun when everyone is proactive, and I’m lucky that I was a part of a very hard working and communicative group. The general consensus was to choose experiment 1 for the hopeful mood and experiment 2 for the desolate mood. A couple of people said they were particularly in love with the pad sounds in both tracks, which made me happy because I felt that the pad sounds were the best representation of me projecting my own voice through the work, so it was great that they picked up on that.

I was planning on producing more experiments based on the tracks that they liked the most, but when I mentioned that idea the group insisted that I keep the two they selected and just mix them a little more. Although I didn’t produce a massive volume of work, they felt there was enough to choose from and felt that I had reflected the mood they were after well. This is a good thing about working as part of a group because if I was on my own I would have continued to try and develop something more ‘detailed’, whereas here I was encourage to stick with the less is more approach.

In terms of mixing the final tracks ready for the game design and animation students’ deadline, there really wasn’t all that much for me to do. I didn’t want to overcomplicate anything and I just trusted my ear. Also, there is still plenty of time for me to re-mix ready for my own deadline. All I actually had to do was EQ the individual sounds slightly and then compress them to bring up a consistent level and glue them together. From there I used a limiter to bring up the volume and the tracks were pretty much done. I was happy that I didn’t need to do too much in the end because it showed me that I had chosen the sounds and composed them in a careful and considered manner, which meant the frequencies worked well with each other.