As part of the JavaScript output to my project I wanted to incorporate animation within the reaction to mic frequency input. To begin experimentation with this I first needed to figure out how to import a Blender animation using an armature to a three.js scene. This involved loading the addon for Blender that allows you to export it as a .json file, which you then load into JavaScript and play the animation embedded within. Initially this proved difficult to even display the animation and then the test became getting it to display correctly (the exporter has a habit of distorting the object and flips the directions). I finally managed to get this to load and play using a simple animation of a tentacle curling up, this looks really effective but the next test becomes more complex animations and then assigning these to triggers.
Taking the notion of restrictions and the creation of tension between the voice and the body I explored another object of restriction in the form of a chain. This again incorporated with the mouth to show this physical tension and textured in fleshy colours to create a contrast between the cold, hard effect of the object and the soft, malleable biological voice. Whilst this does work to show restriction, the fact that by its intrinsic nature a chain is metallic and therefore a solid object goes against the idea of the plasticity of the body. Even when textured as such it still doesn’t reflect something that should be wet, viscous and fleshy.
However when we combine the chain with the tentacle you can view this as a layering of the voice and the body, the hard chain evokes the skeleton or teeth and the fleshy tentacle evokes the tongue. Constricted together we can breakdown the form of the human and re-form it and the voice with the synthetic to develop a device that shows the intensity of a fleshy plasticity equally viscous and horrific.
Linking back to an experiment produced as part of Project 2 I explored the use of physics simulation in Blender in order to animate the mouths and tentacles. The three experiments here give the tentacles the materiality of rubber, of a plasticity to be shaped, and the mouths retain the effect of a hard shell. Then different ways the rubber tentacles can be manipulated or manipulate the hard shell of the mouth are explored through dropping a tentacle onto the mouth, the tentacles within the mouth falling but the mouth remaining static and both the tentacles and mouth falling simultaneously. Each of these affect each other in different ways and produce some interesting results, mostly the fragility of the rubber material of the tentacles is exposed as no match to the hard shell of the mouth. The rubber still retains a sense of viscosity, continuing to stick to the face even under serious deformations. Viewed from the perspective of the voice you can begin to see the mouth being a harsh exterior, cutting up the voice and causing a rift in its intensity.
Following on from some of the inspiration from the exhibitions I visited, this experiment takes the twisted and fleshy intensity of the tentacle further to wrap two of them around the mouth. Forming something that incorporates tension through the tight constriction around the mouth, violence in the invasive positioning and a level of beauty through the final texture applied. Setting up a conflict between each that works to mimic the intensity of the voice, especially in relation to a voice beyond sound.
I went to the Daydreaming with Stanley Kubrick Exhibition at Somerset House on 26/07/2016, this was less for my final project research and more as a personal love of Stanley Kubrick’s imagery and intensity in his filmmaking but the pieces on show threw up sources for inspiration I hadn’t considered. The exhibition as a whole was intense, the pieces were housed in rooms off a gloomy corridor with an overwhelming orange glow aided by the geometric floor pattern created by Adam Broomberg & Oliver Chanarin to evoke the carpets in The Shining. The opening confronts you with PYRE, a mountain of fireplaces by Stuart Haygarth that not only looks intimidating but also blasts out heat to further amp up the confrontation found in Kubrick’s films. For me this confrontation with intensity was the best part of the exhibition, the way it made you feel slightly claustrophobic and forced you into a journey through the different pieces. Again contrasting this with beautiful lighting, including Haroon Mirza & Anish Kapoor’s ‘Bitbang Mirror’ that bathed the room in a ultraviolet esq blue light intensified by the sound of a motor reflecting off a curved mirror surface. Also James Lavelle and John Isaacs ft Aziz Glasser’s use of red neon words gave the space of the room a violent feel, again intensified by oversized teddy bears depicting Lolita (with her heart sunglasses and red lollipop) and Alex from A Clockwork Orange (complete with mask, cane and cod piece). The light piece Mr Kubrick is Looking by Chris Levine situated at the end of a corridor vibrated with energy until it showed you a ghostly image of Kubrick in your peripheral vision.
Two of the pieces I responded to most were housed in The Maze, this was a room filled with different pieces and while the setting of these left something to be desired (they felt more like a student exhibition with standard screens and plain lighting) Pink Twin’s video piece and Polly Morgan’s Metanoia stood out. Pink Twin’s piece depicts a stately room with ornate furniture and wood cladding created as a 3D render and textured in vivid colours again evoking an ultraviolet glow. The video goes through the room floating, distorting, falling apart, coming back together again and finally a tidal wave of red gushing from the fireplace to cover the room. The use of 3D imagery here is very effective and whilst appearing visually stunning, holds a vast amount of tension in the distortions and feeling as if at any moment the whole thing will break down. Contrasting to this Polly Morgan’s work is a taxidermy sculpture showing a twisted, fleshy snake crammed into a concrete triangle inspired by both Alex’s pet in A Clockwork Orange and the cod pieces they wear to enact violence. The materiality of this (Jesmonite, Burmese Python skin and polyurethane) have a beautiful finish with the skin of the snake having a almost varnished effect, yet contrast the violent constriction and intense energy of its positioning. This again contrasted the fleshy snake with the rigid concrete to further show the conflict between the two.
On 26/07/2016 I visited the This Is A Voice exhibition at Wellcome Collection in London, this takes the theme of the voice and explores it through the voice as instrument, melodic contours, strains of the voice, egophony and located and un-located voices. The exhibition itself was sectioned into these themes and allowed you to move through from the human voice at the beginning to the synthetic voice by the end. This sectioning was done using screens rather than separate rooms, allowing the exhibition to still feel one whole space but to not feel overwhelmed by different pieces fighting for attention. The main aspect of the exhibition that worked well was the use of sounds to sculpt the space, you were able to hear sounds from previous pieces as you moved through it. This created a sonic landscape that worked outside of the pieces on show, the sectioning by way of screens complemented this as sounds began to merge together and played off each other. The birdsong of Marcus Coates Dawn Chorus (2007) merged beautifully with Meredith Monk’s Dolmen Music (1981), which again played off Imogen Stidworthy’s Castrato (2012-16). At times I felt that this over-arching soundscape was more interesting than the individual pieces, especially towards the end of the exhibition where it relied too heavily on items in glass cases rather than something you could interact with. The use of sound inspired staging elements made the exhibition feel whole, in the beginning sound proofing material is used to pad the walls and ceiling and throughout listeners are used as a contrast to headphones to listen to individual sound/ video pieces. Again these listeners allowed you to still tune into the soundscape of the space, whilst also focusing in on individual work.
The pieces I responded to in regards to my current project were Anna Barham’s Liquid Consonant (2012), a video loop featuring a 3D render of a face that rotates to reveal a mouth interior that is cold and mechanical rather than warm and fleshy. This was further enhanced by the face speaking, not in words, but in blocks of sound synthetic and mechanical in nature. This made you question the role of the synthetic in the voice and highlighted the contrast in the sounds you would expect the human to make and those produced by this computer generated version.
The work of Marcus Coates’ Dawn Chorus (2007) and Imogen Stidworthy’s Castrato (2012-16) were particularly inspiring more in their staging than the theme of the work, both works are video based but use of multi video and the positioning of them immersed you into the vocal experiments on show. In Coates’ work this was in the form of six screens placed in a circle at varying heights in a black space, allowing you to be in the centre and hear the birdsong being played at you from different sources. With Stidworthy’s work this was placed in a round space covered with a fine mesh screen, the three videos were then projected onto this again placing you at the centre and encasing you in the vocal sounds produced to create the castrato vocal range.
Another piece I found interesting for the imagery produced was Thomas Godart’s three pieces Respiratory Passages from a Case of Croup (1862), Head and Neck of a Man, Showing a Fistulous Opening which Exposes the Epiglottis, Resulting from a Throat Cut (1883) and Papilloma Spring from the Neighbourhood of the Left Vocal Cord (1883). These are medical watercolour illustrations showing vocal pathologies, in particular the piece Respiratory Passages shows the biology of the voice as a horrific and graphic image whilst also being supremely beautiful. Godart’s work in general has a contrast being beautifully illustrated images and the horror of what he is depicting, these evoke a parasite quality that shows the strain of pathology on the human body. To expand this wider the images show the intensity of the voice and the intensity of actions that restrict or cut off the voice.
Finally, the piece Conversations with Eliza (2011) by Steven Cottingham was fascinating in its simplicity. It features a conversation by the artist with a computer program that emulates a Rogerian psychotherapist that restructures answers into questions. The work is a simple video of white text on a black screen of the conversation playing out, then headphones are used to allow you to hear the back and forth between the artist and machine. The conversation centres around fears of becoming an inadequate artist and is humorous in the machines way of continually asking questions that delve further and further into the artist psyche. This simple back and forth is an interesting way to explore the voice of both the inner monologue of the human and the possibility for machine sentience, establishing an interaction between both that makes you question your own conversations with synthetic voices.
Further experiments in the formation of the tentacles, exploring the notion of them linking together as a merging of different forms of communication. Shown here are the tentacles twisting together to echo the shape of a tree or of growth from an unknown creation point. Also the linking in the sense of two chains interlocking, as if a fragment from a wider network. This notion of the merging and the proliferation through a network is interesting to consider in relation to the voice, not only in the biological sense of its origin and movement through the body, but of the voice merging with the machine network through devices and technology.
Further initial experiments using the idea of the tentacle to showcase the intensity of the voice and the process of communication exploring outwards for a sensory input. These evoke the horrific and horror imagery that give an interesting connection to the violence of sound on the body as described by Alan Montrose in his Human chapter from Inhuman Nature (2014), whilst also taking inspiration from how cephalopod’s explore their environment. The connection to the wet, fleshy and viscous descriptions of the mouth from LaBelle’s Lexicon of the Mouth works well and brings to the forefront an encounter with the voice as a substance, as a life form, as a living organism.
In his chapter Humans taken from Jeffrey Jerome Cohens’ Inhuman Nature (2014), Alan Montrose discusses the intensity of sound as a form of parasite. Here he uses Chaucer’s Prioress’s Tale in order to explore a song as a parasitic creature, as a static noise that alters the state of things by interrupting trajectories and reorienting relationships. We can also read this from the point of view of the voice, of the intensity of the voice on the body working as a parasite in relation to it. The voice holds the body captive and uses it to reproduce itself and give a sonic output, the body is an instrument of the voice and is manipulated in various ways in order to continue that reproduction.
‘Once infected, the Prioress’s child unwittingly becomes a captive of music’s indelible need to manifest and reproduce its own being… The Prioress’s boy is simultaneously an instrument for the production of music and a host from which the Alma Redemptoris continues to replicate. Song much rely on the host/ instrument to give shape to its accidental properties.’ (Montrose, 47, 2014).
Chaucer’s story follows a young Christian boy who is ‘infected’ by the hymn Alma Refemptoris Mater, he is then murdered and dumped in a privy by Jews for singing this. But despite being murdered the boy’s body continues to sing post-mortem. Montrose’s reading of this from a sonic viewpoint is interesting and he brings out the notions of intensity to turn the violence away from the human and onto the sound itself. He goes on to discuss the song (or the voice) being in the position of power, able to use its intensity to erupt from the body of the boy in order to be in the world. This intensity is only evidence when the song/ voice is within the host, without the body it is just a crippled object unable to transmit its information. ‘The Alma Redemptoris is the crippled object, relying on the organic body’s mobility in order to transmit its information… The song is the position of power, erupting unexpectedly and controlling the vehicle in order to perpetuate its own beingness in the world.’ (Montrose, 47-48, 2014). This violence within this eruption of the voice from the body is further explored to consider that every sonic event/ voice event can create a physical assault on the body, this can be thought of as a physical representation of the violence of sound. The voice can be viewed as a conflict within the body made up of varying sounds and manifestations competing to force themselves out into the environment. This act itself has an intensity we don’t perceive, but when written down you see the full horror of a process enacted constantly to put the body under conflict. ‘It is the noises themselves that square off as the inherent violence of their withdrawn essences confront each other on the aesthetic plane. It is a battle of wills between two sonic events, with little regard being paid to the status, effects or outcomes their battle will have on the human hosts.’ (Montrose, 53, 2014).
In the end the idea that the song/ voice will continue to proliferate as long as the host body can produce sound, even if that host body is dead, transforms the body in a tool for the song/ voice. Transforming the body into ‘a creature at once part human and part music’ (Montrose, 55. 2014). The body becomes purely sonorous and the body and song transform from something that was only embodied to the two becoming enmeshed together. Again this intensity to proliferate after death can be seen not only in a physical sense of the body, but in our communications and devices. The voice is within our extended network and will continue to be so without the human body there to transmit it. Ultimately this idea of the intensity of the voice and a violent act erupting from the body is interesting to consider alongside my current experiments in the creation of a synthetic voice, exposing this intensity on the body to highlight the processes already at play. Perhaps this coupled with our extensions into technology and the machinic we can begin to expose the true horror of the voice.
Following on from my initial experiment to make a polyurethane resin cast from the silicone mould of a set of 3D printed teeth, this time I incorporated a polyurethane pigment in order to colour the resin. This followed the same process as previously but once part A and B are mixed for the base resin a small amount of the pigment is added. Here a tiny amount goes a long way and it was surprising how little is needed in order to achieve a vibrant colour. The first experiments tested how much pigment is added as to what colour is produced, this then became a test to create a gradient going from an intense to a softer colour. This worked really well with the more vibrant colours bringing out the synthetic qualities of the object, particularly highlighting the plastic material used to create it.
Next I experimented in using two different shades of resin in the same cast, this was done by mixing up either the lighter or darker colour and pouring this to half way and letting it set for 20 minutes. I then mixed the contrast colour and poured this to fill the rest of the mould, letting the full cast cure for an hour. I also tested creating a marbled effect by not mixing together the resin and pigment fully before pouring into the mould. Both of these gave interesting effects to show the layering of materials and bringing your attention to the materiality of them.
Here is the aftermath of my room after resin casting:
