Initial Development

With my rationale in mind, I started producing rough paintings in response to pieces of electronic music. Within these I decided to use a range of different materials that I felt could be used in a visceral and energetic way so as to catch the movement, energy and noise of the music in question.

Process

In particular I found ink and paint to be the most successful given that they allow bold, expressive mark making whilst still having little nuisances to them. These little imperfections, I felt, helped further visualise the feedback and static of the musical recordings.

This got me thinking about how I might manipulate and apply the ink and paint in different ways that might best visualise the different elements of a recording. For example, dragging the paint with card across the paper can be used to visualise overwhelming drones and bangs whereas the use of a small brush to create more intricate patterns can be reflective of subtle synth lines and melodies.

Joe Seaton aka Call super

When looking for further research and examples of how music can be represented visually I discovered that an electronic music artist named Call Super (real name Joe Seaton) also works as a visual artist creating much of the artwork that accompanies his music.

In an interview for wire he described how for him there is connection between the process of painting and creating music.

I feel this is really evident in the artwork for his music. For example, on his album: Suzi Ecto, which is mainly comprised of fiddley, meditative and intricate sounding music a loose painting, rich in layers and textures has been created to accompany it. In contrast to this a bold, geometric design with a minimal, graphic aesthetic has been created for his EP: Migrant which contains much simpler dance floor orientated around strong beats rather than intricate melodies and textures.

                          Suzi Ecto                                    Migrant

Reflections

Although my first visual explorations of music have been useful in understanding how to translate sound into a image, I think I could do more to create a varied response to the music in question. In particular I need to take into account the process used by Joe Seaton whereby to vastly different final images are created so as to better reflect the differences in the music in question.