Birdsong and meandering lines, sometimes solo, sometimes as a swarm movement. In their midst a park landscape, a staircase, and a man with a dog seem to emerge fleetingly. In Robert Breer’s minimalist drawn animation, the abstract and the figurative briefly overlap, then fall apart again. The permanent change of the forms follows the pulse rate of the birdsong recorded in nature.
Patrick Bokanowski subjects his own early cine film footage to a magical optical transformation. In the glistening drizzle of electronic sounds and the deep rumbling of drone waves by Michèle Bokanowski, light eruptions, sweeping colours and shadowy apparitions unfold while the original footage shines through. A diary of awake dreaming observation.
Icelandic musician Björk has always merged natural and technoid creativeness. She samples and loops environmental sounds and transforms them by means of electronic effects. Paul White translates this approach and aesthetics in the video clip for “Hunter”, morphing the singing Björk’s head and human features into an artificial polar bear that seems to be made of liquid plastic.
Michèle Bokanowski’s sounds have been a distinct part of Patrick Bokanowski’s film images since 1972. The origin of her soundtracks often lies in noises that are quite unlike music. Thus, she uses the clacking of billiard balls to describe people working on a field in the distance. Between tape loops and electronic devices, the composer talks about her craft of shaping sonorous material.
The earth never sleeps. The duo Semiconductor distils research data on earth movements and animates them in a five-channel installation. In a dark hall, visitors to the Sónar Barcelona 2016 festival are captivated by a huge, luminous band of ceaselessly morphing layers of colours and strange sounds, experiencing a cut through both landscape and time.
Geologically, layers of earth form over thousands of years. The processes are almost imperceptible to humans. A research project in a Spanish quarry reconstructs earth movements, models them and records them acoustically. Creaking, rumbling and trickling, the layers leave traces of sounds animated in an audiovisual five-channel installation by the duo Semiconductor.
The Whitney brothers are pioneers of abstract animation. In 1943/1944, they experimented in five film exercises with modernist form and a device of their own that wrote directly on the soundtrack of the film by means of an impact pendulum. The resulting analogue electronic bleeps and bits are accompanied by moving stencils in constantly alternating coloured backlight whose shadows change their geometrical shape.
Dark percussive sounds call forth anthropomorphic creatures. They come to life in short dance etudes. Optically manipulated, they stretch into gaunt shapes, unfold in a thousand layers like exotic animals, dissolve into abstract paintings. They are pure creatures of light: fleeting, immaterial. The rhythmic sound motif colours their movements with sometimes pithy, sometimes breathy variations.
A piece of soil with plants displayed in a cabinet – three-dimensional and yet only a digital image. The sound suggests a sterile exhibition space. As forest sounds start to play, the stems, leaves and blossoms dissolve in particles and layers. As if awakening from a coma, an organic rebellion flares up, a brief revolt against the technically perfect simulation of nature.
Beatriz Ferreyra enters a room and already stops with excitement in the doorway: “Look at all the sounds it makes, nieaowowowa!” The Argentinean composer and pioneer of musique concrète collects sounds made by everyday objects. Aura Satz’s minimalist portrait follows the sound hunter at work, shows her gestures and her still undiminished joy of discovery when arranging the sounds.
A washing machine less ordinary: The electronic music duo Matmos probes the music making capabilities of the “Ultimate Care II” by Whirlpool and weaves the sounds of its housing, laundry cycle and switches into a beat. Using animation, optical effects and advertising film quotes from the time when fully automatic machines had their breakthrough, a lively piece of music video is created that makes us forget all our laundry worries.
In 1974, the mathematician Penrose discovered pairs of tiles that form an infinite plane without repeating patterns. Inspired by this, Max Cooper uses a rhythm fragment of one instrument to compose a percussion ensemble without a single identical loop. Jessica In contributes animated tile ornaments without symmetries that are reminiscent of a mandala and visualise the idea of infinity.
An escalating neighbourhood dispute as a pacifist parable on the Korean War. The pixilation, which Norman McLaren is said to have pioneered, makes plot and scenery look more and more absurd. The madness is heihgtened by frantic electronic sounds, which were also created by a special technique: McLaren drew optical sound signals in lines and dots by hand directly on the soundtrack.
An app that assigns a sound and a connected graphic element to every letter of the computer keyboard forms the basis of this live improvisation by CFM. The game of patterns and breaks uses different sound-form combinations from Jono Brandel’s kit to create rhythms, loops and music as well as a video to accompany them.
Echoes, filters and rhythmic montage turn sound fragments into an audio piece about a seemingly wilful music box. Philippe Arthuys – a film composer for luminaries like Rivette and Godard and a filmmaker himself – varies the tempo from stuttering to quietly breathing, making sound particles emerge suddenly from the depths of space and disappear again. A cinematic mini-drama for the ears.
In an infinite expanse of black, a white nuclear entity emerges and is invoked by a woman. She triggers a big bang and a shamanic dance ritual set to Intelligent House beats. Bubbling energy is bundled into a ball of pulsating lightning by women with antlers. Their movements seem to direct the course of the universe.
