Sound in Pictures

Sound in Pictures is an audio-visual performing arts project exploring the subject of visual music. It is the creation of leading multimedia artists The Light Surgeons in collaboration with a group of creative practitioners from the audiovisual arts scene and developed in collabration with Live Cinema UK.

In October 2018 they held their first experimental animation workshop at Stour Space in East London. They invited a group of 14 participants made up of D/deaf and hearing artists to explore 4 different animation processes and techniques over the 2 days. This short film is the combined result of 2 of those processes.

Both groups were invited to respond to a piece of music I composed specially for the workshop. The music was broken down into stems and individual instruments to make it easier for the artists to respond to individual elements in the track.

One group focused on the creation of stop frame animations generated from drawings exploring movement and free-drawing led by animator Emily Scaife. The participants were encouraged to fluidity express the way the sounds made them feel generating personal, almost subconscious responses.

I led the second group exploring the interplay between different sources of projected light using overhead projectors to compose images that combined reflections and shadow play. These compositions were again captured using stop motion techniques.

The resulting animations were then edited and composited together with the music to create the short film above.

Here are all the videos created so far within the project beginning with a documentation of the workshop. Please see the end of each film for a list of credits.

P-S_Unit_Direct_16mm_01

This video was created from visual zeotrope animation, with this workshop module being led by audiovisual artist Reuben Sutherland. The source material for the music was also created during the workshop with Ruben’s lofi DIY instruments and loop pedal. I then re-cut these samples and arranged them to the animation.

P-S_Unit_Direct_16mm_01

This video was created during the workshop by working directly onto 16mm film. This module was led by audiovisual artist Christopher Thomas Allen. Again the music was created during the workshop and subsequentialy arranged for the edit by myself, Chris and Reuben.

Visual Music Showcase @ Rich Mix

We organised a live cinema event following on from the workshop to showcase the material created in the workshops at Rich Mix, London on 1st December 2018. The evening featured performances by Emily Scaife, Zach Walker, The Light Surgeons & Sculpture.