Output details

VISITATION ADAGIO - audiovisual composition. Composed in 2011. Duration: 8:03. Sound by Diego Garro. Visuals by Richard TC Nelmes.

First Performance: Seeing Sound 2’Research Symposium, Bath Spa University, Bath, 29/10/2011.

Prizes: Winner of the 'Visionen Prise 2012' at the 'Visionen' Festival of Sound and Moving Visual Arts, Hannover, Germany.

Subsequent Performances: ICSRiM Student Conference on Music, Multimedia and Electronics, University of Leeds, Lightworks 2012, Grimsby HE Institute. 16/3/2012. Visionen festival of Sound and Moving Visual Arts, Hannover, Germany, 26/5/2012. FILE Hypersonica Screening, Sao Paulo, Brazil 16/7/2012. XIX CIM Music Informatics Symposium 2012, Associazione Italiana Informatica Musicale (AIMI), Trieste, Italy. 21 /11/ 2012. Sonic Visions, Kansas City Electronic Music and Arts Alliance, Season 6, Kansas City, USA. 24/3/2013

This collaborative work explores the relationships between electroacoustic soundtracks and film, in particular the role of organised abstract sonic morphologies to support and re-contextualise the visual narrative contained in a short video track. The piece investigates the continuum between diegetic and emotive sound, assigning an intentionally ambiguous role to the acousmatic soundtrack in comparison to conventional cinematographic paradigms: this is realised by means of a selective implementation of synchresis [1]. For instance, part of the sound palette provides the diegetic counterpart to a glimmering orb, exploring thus the concept of abstract diegesis: a sound gesture that is not causally related to a certain visual event is superimposed on the latter to imitate and extend the function of the diegetic on-screen sound, thus encouraging a non-cinematographic re-evaluation of the resulting audiovisual construct [2]. We also experimented with synchronisation between sonic gestures and visual cuts/transitions, thereby extending conceptually the remit of synchresis beyond image-sound to include the correspondence transition-gesture. Consequently, montage points acquire the status of idiomatically significant visual gestures, and, as a result, this work also investigates and articulates the distinction (or blurring) between film montage and musical phrasing. Finally, we examined the relationships between sound textures characterised by pitched and nodal spectral typologies [3], and chromatically defined visual patterns. Specifically, a variety of inharmonic chordal streams were designed and appraised to study their effectiveness as sonic counterparts of mono-chromatic (blue & black) and bi-chromatic (green, red & black) colour schemes.

[1] Chion, M. (1994) Audio-Vision. New York: Columbia University Press.

[2] Rudy, P. (2007), ‘Three requiems and a dream: The language of electroacoustic sound in film’, EMS Network Conference Proceedings, Leicester. http://www.ems-network.org/IMG/pdf_RudyEMS07.pdf.

[3] Smalley, D. (1986) ‘Spectro-morphology and Structuring Processes’ in S. Emmerson (ed.) The Language of Electroacoustic Music. New York: Harwood , 61-93.