Output details
36 - Communication, Cultural and Media Studies, Library and Information Management
University of the West of Scotland
Substratum
Substratum is an audiovisual artwork by artist Alison Clifford and composer Graeme Truslove that explores the interstitial space between sound and image through collaboration. The collaboration is based around a series of photographic light paintings captured at night, investigating their interstitial nature through processes of reinterpretation and remediation in new digital contexts. The series proposes new ways of visualising and understanding notions of the interstitial articulated through new audiovisual responses.
Substratum is a time-based reinterpretation of the source photograph . It extends and combines creative strategies previously realized in the fields of generative art, visual music and microsound composition with regard to the creation and manipulation of form, resulting in new possibilities in audiovisual art. Clifford analysed and interpreted photographic light-forms based on their composition as individual lines of light-grains. She then translated this into computer algorithms generating subtly varying moving-image sequences with each new execution. Montage techniques common to filmmaking were subsequently employed to combine and remix sequences in response to the audio.
Similar methods were used to construct the audio: sonic grains were extracted from samples of acoustic instruments that were decomposed into their lowest units, demonstrating variation in motifs and phrases of improvised performance (i.e. the performer’s own sound or individual approach), these fragments were combined with granular processes to create the final composition.
Substratum investigates how human interpretation informing a creative work might be translated and extended by the computer, considering unpredictability and variation in form through programmed approaches. The role of the computer as a collaborative partner is therefore explored.
Substratum has been exhibited worldwide, including the International Electronic Language Festival, Sao Paulo, attracting over 800,000 visits, and the International Conference on Generative Art, Milan.
