Futurist/Abstract Art Composition
This week's composition was a similar curveball to last week's.We were each given an envelope with a piece of art inside. This was to be our graphical score.
Interpretation Of Piece
The piece I was given was Abstract Speed & Sound by Giacomo Balla. |
| Source: http://www.guggenheim.org |
My first point of call was to interpret the image into a score. The first decision made was to avoid other interpretations of the piece before I produced my composition. This was done in an effort to avoid outside influence on the piece and make it a work that was solely between myself and the image.
I split the image up into 4 sections based on the 3 curved lines running from the top to the bottom of the picture. I had opted to use each of the 4 colours as individual sounds and use the intensity and size of the colours to represent dynamics and pitch.
Finally I chose to turn the picture onto it's side (left becoming bottom) and sketched out maps of the progression of colours throughout each part.
 |
| Movement 1 Score |
 |
| Movement 2 Score |
 |
| Movement 3 Score |
 |
| Movement 4 Score |
In regards to the length of the pieces I chose to make each movement the length of around 3 minutes to conform to the normal compositional guidelines for the module, but made the 4th movement shorter to reflect it's smaller size on the picture.
Choice Of Sounds
I had interpreted the colours of the image to represent 4 things.
Green - land/earth
white - moving air/clouds
blue - sky
red - sound
I wanted to use sounds that I felt either represented what they symbolised or reflected their use in the image.
- For the Green i chose a low smooth sound to reflect the rumble of the earth and the smoothness of the hills in the image.
- With white i used a glockenspiel type sound with delay to give it an airy feel.
- For the Blue I opted to use natural ambience to give the whole piece a background setting whilst also reflecting the nature of the colour's use in the picture.
- The red was very much the lead colour in the painting so i chose to use a string sound to represent it.
- I also decided to link the melodies that the red and white play as they both appear layered onto the image as opposed to the green and blue which represented more of a background to the image.
The sounds for Green, White and Red were created using NI's Massive. The creation of the sounds was done by a method of preset-tweaking rather than scratch building. I scanned through the presets until I found something close to what I wanted and then modified it to suit my needs.
 |
| "Green" settings |
 |
| "Red" Settings |
 |
| "White" Settings |
Playing By Sight
I used the charts i had drawn as guides to when to play each part and it's dynamics and pitch. I simply overlaid each part in a single take to allow the score to dictate how the parts interacted with each other as opposed to practice and refinement.
The resulting Movements are thus:
 |
| Movement 1 |
 |
| Movement 2 |
 |
| Movement 3 |
 |
| Movement 4 |
Post compositional research
Didn't want to research beforehand as i wanted to interpret the picture in my own way without influence from others. How did my interpretation equivocate with the artist's intent?
The artist's intent on this piece was for the red to depict the speed of an automobile passing and the white would represent the sound it makes
"It has been proposed that Abstract Speed + Sound (1913–14) was the central section of a narrative triptych suggesting the alteration of landscape by the passage of a car through the atmosphere.1 The related Abstract Speed (Velocità + paesaggio, 1913) and Abstract Speed—The Car Has Passed (1913) would have been the flanking panels. Indications of sky and a single landscape are present in the three paintings; the interpretation of fragmented evocations of the car's speed varies from panel to panel. The Peggy Guggenheim work is distinguished by crisscross motifs, representing sound, and a multiplication of the number of lines and planes" (Guggenheim Museum. 2014).
No comments:
Post a Comment