COP3: To what extent do visual tropes exist within design for electronic music?

Practical investigation

Rationale

Concept

When starting this project, I wanted to work with a concept that would help further my investigation into the question: To what extent do visual tropes exist within design for electronic music? However, I am keen to make sure the work doesn’t simply become about illustrating the essay.

Therefore, rather than creating work in response to the factors (social, economic, geographic etc) that shaped the visual tropes associated with electronic music I instead wanted to create a body of work purely in response to the sounds and rhythms of electronic music and in essence create a series of images that would visualise the music in question.

With this in mind I am also interested in what, if any images, motifs and overall aesthetic themes may emerge throughout my work and what connections can be drawn between these and the music.

Approach

I want this project to have quite a visceral feel and for it to be mainly process driven working in a free manner where by the music will shape the visuals. This is because I feel that, at the moment, texture is one of the key aspects of my practice and I feel that working in such a way will allow me to further develop and refine this aspect of my practice.

Furthermore, I want to use this project to focus on print, specifically screen printing. This is because it is a process that I really enjoy and feel adds value to my work given that much of my work is comprised of bold shapes and bold lighting within carefully considered compositions which I feel translate well on to paper when screen printed. My use of, usually no more than 4, colours within my compositions has also impacted this decision as I am keen to further explore colour separation within screen printing.

Key influences

There were a few things I wanted to avoid within this project, these include the use of literal motifs relating to music such as depictions of the instruments/people associated with the music in question. This is because I feel it is quite a cliché and stale way of approaching the subject matter with very little meaning to it.

I was immediately drawn to artists that creating work in response to music rather than simply to illustrate it. The work of Ed Cheverton immediately came to mind given how in the big heads talk he gave in first year(2015) he talked about how jazz music is the biggest influence on his work despite no immediate motifs relating to it being present in his work. Instead you can see its influence in his compositions which often have a loose, erratic feel to them with an intuitive feel to the placement of individual elements.

 

The work of Stephen Carley also helped inform my initial approach to this project. Much of the work he has produced in the last 5 years has focused on how to visually interpret things in a non literal way whereby he uses lines, textures, shape and general mark making to represent the world around him. His work seemed even more relevant given his recent audio maps projects whereby he created visual work in response to music producer’s/sound artist’s work and then in turn got them to respond to his images.

Studio Brief 3: Cop 3 Research Proposal

Critical Analysis: Final Essay

Theory Into Practice: Poster Pitch

Theory Into Practice: Study Task 8 - Rationale

The main theme of my work is the concept of pastiche vs parody and replication vs referencing within modern contemporary practice. By this I mean to explore whether or not contemporary practice, existing in a post-modern era, simply reproduces and copies what has come before it or whether or not, despite drawing from pre-existing reference points, practitioners can establish a unique voice visually through how they choice to combine, interpret and build upon these points of reference.

The main theorists I have referenced are Walter Benjamin and Mark Fisher for their writings on the effect of technological developments on creative practice and culture. In particular I was interested in Bejamin's focus on how technological mass production had removed 'aura' from artists and their process as well Mark Fisher's notion that a post internet world had led to popular culture succumbing '...to its own inertia and retrospection.'.

To me these theories opened up a dialogue of whether or not modern contemporary practice is simply a process of blindly copying what has come before (pastiche/replication) or whether or not it is about how different points of reference are combined and built upon to create something new (parody/reference). This line of thought also led me to consider the idea of lineage and progression within the arts.

Visually I decided to explore these concepts through the use of collage, both traditional and digital. This is because, given that my project was all about the role of past work/points of reference impacting the work of contemporary practitioners I thought the re-appropriation of pre-existing iamges was the best way to explore this.

After some initial experimentation I landed upon a process of combining and altering the same set of elements within a series of pieces to create a different final outcome in each piece. This was meant to show how practitioners can draw from the same set of influences and build upon past works/points of reference to create something new and unique to them rather than simply engage in a process of pastiche.

Theory Into Practice: Lineage

With a shift in the focus of my work I thought it would be good to try to better demonstrate this idea of practitioners coming from the same visual or conceptual starting point but ending at something completely different based upon what other experiences,references and processes they may also apply to their practice.

Therefore I experimented with producing two, five image series where by each series both starts at the same image that is gradually worked into and altered into something different. The idea was that both sets would still contain elements of the original image but would be drastically different from each other and would have reached their final form through a different set of applications.

I further tried to reinforce the concept by making the start image for both a traditional ink drawing from China that was then worked into digitally so as to show the idea of tradition and lineage and how this is referenced and altered in contemporary visual practice.

Geographical Location

So far I had only explored the idea of pastiche vs parody/ replication vs reference through the use of drawing from past influences/the work of others. However I thought it would also be worth exploring how technology has closed geographical distances as well meaning that practitioners can drawn from and reference work from all round the work to create something new.

Therefore I began creating a series of collages that combined traditional Chinese prints with drawings of Greco-Roman statues show as to show this combination of influences from different geographical locations.