The change from a physical to online show has altered a lot of things. How will the work be represented when it was conceived to be experienced in person? Do I give priority to expressing underlying ideas or representing the work as faithfully as possible? These are just two of the many questions that have arisen during the process of transition.
Alternative forms of showing can give rise to many solutions. I came across this one in Hyperallergic about a woman creating a Art Gallery for her pet lizard. It is both hilarious and pertinent to how I am thinking about the online show. I am working with the idea of making videos that reproduce how the work might appear in an imagined physical setting (see this post).
The tone it takes is one of complete seriousness showing what you can do with a cardboard box, some paint and a lizard for critic.
The theory behind making a binaural microphone system is pretty straight forward. Geeks might argue over which is the best set, the £6000 one or the latest in ear gear. If binaural is going to be listened to over the internet using some average head or earphones, then I imagine that the following plan would work well enough.
The idea of doing this came when looking at the Whatsapp conversation in the ‘fineartdigital’ group. Friederike has posted some binaural pop tracks which were so effective that it really did sound as thought the music were coming from outside the head and not in the ear.
The effect is not only due to the proximity of the sound being recorded nearer one microphone than its stereo other. This panning alone can be done in a sound editor, but it results in a rather flat movement from one side to the other.
The art of creating a spatial effect is somewhat more complicated than simply panning. For it to be as true to life as possible, the gain (or volume) of the sound does not alter all that much as in panning. I noticed as much in the Friederike’s music track. This made me think as to what else could be causing this effect.
If one ear is closer to the source of the sound than the other, and there is little or no connection between the two ears on account of a dense head being between the two, then the only other reason for the spatial effect must be the time it takes for the sound to reach either ear.
The nearest ear to the source will receive the sound a fraction of a second before the other ear. Perhaps as little as 1 millisecond. This delay then creates the sense of space as the brain triangulates the location of the source with respect to the head. And as the source moves further away from the microphones, the gain also diminishes and gives the sensation of being placed further away, or further outside the head.
How clear this effect is probably depends not only on the arrangement of the microphones but also their quality. But as I mentioned above, I think a pair of average lavelier microphones would do.
All this could be achieved in an editor or digital audio workstation or DAW. However, the amount of work in graduating not only the panning but the delay would make this a very complex task. Perhaps there is some software out there that can achieve the same thing but I suspect that most if not all such recordings are produced using a binaural setup rather than in postproduction. Post production could be used, however, to enhance the effect.
One of two microphones ordered today – chosen for its dynamic range for its class in relation to price.
I could build a binaural recording setup with two lavelier microphones, the Zoom H5 recorder as a preamp and some other bits and bobs. These would include: a dense material with which to simulate the width and mass of the head to isolate one mic from the other. The mics would have to be placed one head width apart. And I could fashion something resembling ears to act as actual ears and simulate the directionality of the listening organ.
I know of set ups which use a polystyrene head. I think there are better materials that can be used. Polystyrene is nowhere near as dense as a head and beside, the whole thing become unwieldy and silly looking. There is a set that can be bought which consists of a rectangular material one head width apart with very large, what appear to be, silicon ears. It is very expensive so I imagine that what maters is the distance apart and the density of the intervening mass to create the right amount of isolation.
The microphones have to be mono, which laveliers usual are and most importantly omnidirectional. Apparently electrotet mics are the ones to use. These are small so they need a preamp hence the Zoom. I could buy the mic capsules, but this would involve me in having to rig circuits with resitors and jackets and what have you. It really is not worth the trouble: it would only save a few pence and I would end up spending valuable time building the mics from scratch.
I could experiment with the ear configurations and make say, jackal’s ears – what the divine Anubis heard in the tomb!
The camera tracking dolly arrived today three weeks early. I assembled it and took it for a short run.
I took a video rather than a stop-action animation just to get a handle on how it works.
Review
Easy to assemble and nice and heavy for stability
The tracks are fairly smooth but I need to push the camera along carefully to avoid vibration due to friction. A little lubricant might help.
I bought a short track to see how it would work. I can see now that a 30 cm effective track distance (taking the centre of the camera lens and starting and endpoint) is fine for small things but is not enough for more extensive tracks. However, tracking for say 1 metre would probably need a smooth ride such as on a wheel and track dolly where friction is not an issue. I shall look into making such a contraption before considering buying a longer track.
The camera mount is a bit of a problem because the camera base stops along the mounting screw off centre. I managed to get around this problem by using a screw adapter and mounting on this the quick-release monopod mount.
Tracking the camera while videoing makes it impossible to focus at the same time: hence focus pullers in film studios. This is one of the reasons why I am going to film using stop motion animation. At each frame, I can adjust the focus. I can also control the lens focal length on the zoom and the lighting.
Today on the Skype meeting we discussed more in detail the curation of virtual spaces. I am still not so sure how this will pan out. The collaboration offers some challenges in that there are very distinct paradigms coming together in one virtual space. How one will affect the other is still to be seen.
It is difficult to visualise how the show will work when I do not even know how the space will be designed. I am making some sketches on paper to send to Aristotle. This is very much a one step at a time process of heuristic feedback.
Challenges
Lighting – I have no experience of working in this way. How does ‘Unity’ function; how will virtual lighting affect the work? It is difficult to envisage and design a space with no knowledge of the software, little or no experience of this sort of thing, and without real control of the aesthetic/curatorial process. At least with the show in Camberwell, I knew what the spaces were like and what was and was not possible. This is not the case with the online show. I hope this does not prove too much work for Aristotle.
Dimensions and Numbers – With respect to the physical show, I had a good idea of what I was exhibiting. The online show has thrown everything up in the air. I feel well adapted to the change but I have no idea of how work will behave in the virtual space and how it will be perceived. What are the characteristics and properties of the space; how ‘large’ can it be without loosing sense? Is it one space or can there be several interconnected chambers? This latter point is something that I am not yet clear about: in Skype chats, things can get a bit muddled. All should become clearer once the process of preparing spaces begins with a few one to ones.
Jonathan did hint that the online show could also be a simple, elegant website in the style of a gallery site. I have this in mind for after the MA as a website. For the show, this solution would be much simpler but essentially it would put everyone’s work together cheek by jowl so to speak. Curatorially that would be a bit of a mess. I think Aristotle’s idea at least gives each one of us a degree of curatorial individuality within the constraints of keeping the whole thing together by means of, as Jonathan put it, small things. Things such as the consistent use of a single font to describing the work.
Thumbnail sketches sent to Aristotle to get the conversation going.
Today I continued with the modelling of Logos in miniature. I can see how this can translate for the online show. The actual large scale work would be too uncontrollable to capture in the studio satisfactorily but the model could be placed in a more manageable environment where I can control the lighting, surfaces and so on. It would be in effect a diorama. It is also comparable to what can be done virtually only a) I have a tactile object at the end of it b) it takes a fraction of the time to put together giving me more time to do other work c) making it functions as practice for finishing the large work.
I remade the smaller spheroid in proportion to my original intentions which seems to work much better, more balanced. I started making the connectors and still have to make the anterior components.
Supporting the pieces with wooden blocks gave me an insight into how I can find alternatives for supports. In the case of these blocks, a more architectural approach, or perhaps as a conceptual landscape, Logos perching, roosting, surveying its domain. As for the scaffolding, that is perhaps a more formal solution that isolates the sculpture in space. This has yet to be tested. I shall have to wait until all this COVID-19 business is over and the pieces to be fired to find out how it works on a large scale. However, in the meantime I could experiment with the model, time permitting.
Logos is clearly not going to be finished on account of the large kiln not being connected due to isolation. So, I have decided to use it, as described in previous blogs in its ‘green’ (unfired) state. However, I am also making small scale models of the pieces to play around with and create miniature scenarios for physical exhibitions.
In this case, I have laid out the four pieces completed so far in the large work. The round form on the left is slightly smaller proportionately with respect to the original. I shall make another to the correct scale but also use this one to create alternative forms.
This miniature scene helps me think in terms of animations for the online show. On a small scale, the handling of the pieces and space required to do so, become much more manageable.
I find this an exciting prospect as I can make a ‘theatre’ of the works very simply, thereby making the process much more agile.
I wrote this some time ago, at least on 26 November 2017, long before the current situation with COVID-19, and certainly before even contemplating embarking on this MA adventure.It seems apt to bring it out in the light of the cessation of physical exhibitions for the time being.
A Response to William Tucker 1977
Wood, J. Hulks, D. and Potts, A. (2012). Modern sculpture reader. Leeds: Henry Moore Institute, pp. 325-332.
In this address, William Tucker describes the field of sculpture in 1977 as in crisis. This sense of crises arising out of the inability to describe what sculpture is exactly. The lack of identity to the term sculpture, intrinsic and comprehensive, creates ambiguity or even lack of purpose in society. Sculpture eludes a general description, unlike painting, music or architecture. This state of affairs probably came about due to the proliferation of techniques, materials and ways of making which diffused the essence of what a sculpture is. In addition, historically sculpture represented the human condition, mainly through the figure, it no longer does so to the same extent and is therefore somewhat irrelevant. The term statue once described the object aside from the way of its making. The word sculpture now encompasses both the object and the means by which it comes about. By extension, a sculptural object has no longer an existence in itself, at least semantically. The sculptural object is therefore denied its own existence without which it cannot have a clear purpose outside the patron, commission or gallery. Tucker says that sculpture has lost its human dimension (in 1977) and in order for it to regain its relevance and purpose, it needs to once again become mythical. That is to say, denote narratives and descriptions that are rooted in, and transcend the real world, but are in themselves a reflection on the world, the artist being part of the world. In short, expose nature and its essence as it once did.
Online showing further degrades the sense of physical myth, of the living presence. What I am presented with is a facsimile of experience. Online, the sensation comes from visual and auditory responses, but the human scale, the presence of the object is erased. For this reason, I have decided to show work as an unfolding of ideas more than a sensual experience. In the context of showing work online, I find that sensuality is highly restricted, sound being the predominant sense engendering feeling: the eye is relegated to the level of passivity in which responses come primarily from the head. Sound becomes the principle vehicle for feeling. Watch a film without sound, and in the vast majority of cases the experience becomes a sequence of images that I respond to intellectually, analytically. That is the state that sculpture is reduced to in contemporary online offerings. This, in turn, has given rise to a plethora of images that belie the actual presence of the work, its affecting power or, more often than not, the lack of it.
My imperfect solution for this state of affairs is to extract the myth from sculpture and make the sculpture the origin of the poetry it embodies, not its expression. The myth is translated from a transmutative process to a translational-illustrational one in which it (it being the work itself) becomes an altered reality from what it was originally.
Having said all this, I continue to create the physical presences: transmuting dreams that do not need intellectual intervention in the first instance on a palpable human scale.
Logos begins to appear not as a departure from Oracle over a year ago, but an extension. The two titles speak of language, the former of ritual, mystery and prophesy, the latter of reason, order and creation. It seems almost as though Oracle foretold what would come in Logos but I did not know it at the time. There is a kinship between the two sculptures with the current one being a more evolved synthesis of ideas, materials and process. It has incorporated Oracle beside other notions weaving together words, form, myth and ritual with the potential for freedom to evolve into new interations in the future.
I have just created this font. It needs a few adjustments but it serves for now. I will not write all of my blogs in the font. That would be just too cryptic… but it is tempting.
Used: High Logic Scanahand. A basic but useful programme from converting handwriting into a useable font in various formats which can be embedded into graphic and writing programmes.
I have variously written about changing direction in previous posts. These reroutings have been about process and content but always with a physical outcome in mind that has absorbed and embodied the notions and feelings that have led to its emergence. The virus has imposed a change of circumstances that has made me rethink how I can work what I have done so far into an online experience.
Sample virtual rooms as indicators by Aristotle
I have also written about how the online presentation cannot substitute for the physical presence of the work. So I have adapted my thinking to this new set of circumstances by shining a light into gaps that would have remained out of sight in a gallery show. I see this adaptation as enriching my practice by explicating in some way the content of the work.
However, yesterday’s Skype meeting resulted in something more profound in terms of outcome. I needed to ask questions of Aristotle in order to fully understand both what is required of me and what is actually possible: it can be so easy to get carried away.
It has taken a while to digest the implications of what Aristotle has developed and so generously made available to us as a group. I have communicated with him since, and have come to realise that this is the moment of changing direction in the way I express my ideas. I am by no means rejecting any of my current way of working, but for now, I need to concentrate on how things will develop online and envisage how I shall present it online. This will necessitate a different way of thinking and content form.
The online environment offers a very different way of communicating and importantly, I will not be present, at least in reality. You see, just saying that makes me think that I can have a presence. Perhaps more on that later. I see this online show as an opportunity to develop a new strategy to reach out in different ways and people, and start developing a methodology for:
a) working with others – so far my work has been a solitary endeavour b) putting together complexes of ideas in a synthetic way c) transmission d) to be more in line with platforms, institutions and so on.
