With
this piece I wanted a visual representation as well
as an auditory one. I used the piano sound and animated
the keyboard (using GarageBand, Photoshop and Final
Cut Pro) because a keyboard is iconic; as a visual it
can call up previously established patterns and associations,
particularly if you've ever played a piano at all. And
it's linear and easier to understand. So along with
the sound representations of Pi, there is also
an evoked kinesthetic representation in many of us (studies
have shown that if you think about playing the piano,
electrical impulses register in the the muscles of your
hands). I'd venture to guess that using oboe finger
patterns and an oboe graphic would not be as interesting.
I'm
particularly interested in how these visual and auditory
elements combine and how difficult it is to create a
situation where they are equal, where one is not dominant
over the other. In several of my installation pieces
I have had to "dial back" one or the other
so both were noticed, not just one. For example, in
the Sonified Weather Installation,
shown elsewhere on this site, I had to decrease the
color saturation of the rain drops and clouds that were
projected on the floor of the gallery. Even at
that, the visual element was too compelling for some
viewers, they really didn't pay much attention to the
"Sonified Weather".
Here's
another example. The image above is a gallery view of
a floor mounted, 5 foot by 10 foot "city"
I recently made mostly out of old circuit boards that
I collected over the past 15 years. The city is called
Henryville,
after the folk song John Henry, because the theme is
obsolescence and the displacement of labor by machines.
Under the piece are 5 speakers and a 20 minute long,
looped sound narrative played in surround sound. At
one point in the installation, using an aerial video
projector, I projected onto the piece a movie I had
made of storm clouds, simulating clouds and their shadows
passing over Henryville.
Very cool I thought! Trouble was, when the clouds were
added the sound narrative almost became background noise.
So I projected it on the wall behind Henryville. Even
worse balance. I dialed it back, and didn't us the storm
video at all. It turned out to be a good decision, especially
since the piece was intended to be a "balanced"
piece from it's inception.