In this blog post, I will brainstorm my current portfolio project ideas. I will highlight the necessary research and creative practices to undertake them. Firstly, and to help this breakdown, I will write down what is demanded from the assessment.
The Assessment
The Unit is split into two parts – Element 1 & 2.
Element 1 is focused on all the pre-production steps necessary to develop the projects.
“Anticipates the long duration and process of your portfolio and provides the platform, experimental support and contextual environment needed to craft and prototype your individual projects.”
It’s an excellent time to develop questions and explore new techniques.
By the end of the assignment, I must hand in 20 entries in my research blog documenting the process, a 10 min presentation relating to one of the guest lecturers, and a proposal with 2 portfolio pieces.
Element 2 is focused on producing the ideas and later presenting, testing, critiquing, and showcasing them at the highest standard possible.
I am expected to hand in 2 portfolio works – “These works will be fully articulated, staged and documented to the best of your ability for the hand-in date.” – accompanied with a written document of 2500 words.
This document should be structured in the following manner:
A) An overview of the portfolio (500 words): introduce the titles, overarching aims and questions your portfolio engages with. State the media use employed for both works and list specific durations and formal specifications.
B) Press release/programme note for each piece (x2, 250 words): please write this with a public audience in mind, e.g., as if the text would go on a gallery wall or programme note. Make it exciting, transparent and communicative. Ensure you have the project title at the top of each project.
C) Indication of the research undertaken (500 words): demonstrate your process by reflecting on the trials, experiments and any public presentation of the works. You can include (web-sized) images but embed them into the document rather than keeping them separate.
D) Critical appraisal of one of the pieces of work (1000 words): you should select one work from your portfolio to analyse in greater depth. This appraisal should interrogate your work concerning its practice-based and theoretical contexts. You should discuss your work within its relevant sound art contexts and articulate the aims, achievements and findings of your work and process.
My Portfolio
Audiovisuals and/or audio for visuals. For this Unit, I want to focus on the capabilities of sound when put together with visuals. In my professional and artistic future, I want to explore traditional audiovisual formats – such as feature films and short films – but also ways of applying audio and sound to different “visuals” – paintings and photography.
This choice of topics makes sense in my practice due to my prior relation to the moving image. For more than five years, I’ve been studying and working with films, reading a lot of film sound theory and participating in different positions in movie production.
This portfolio will allow me to continue researching the practice and expand the notion of implementing audio in visual art. By following the literal meaning of the format – audio + visual – I will work in unusual scenarios. It will be an exciting journey where I will also try to apply notions of practice as research, previously introduced by the tutor Mark Peter-Wright.
Piece no.1 – Sounding a Short-film
For Element 1, I will write, record, edit, design, and mix sound for a short film directed by the Canarian Jesús F. Cruz. This young director, which whom I have the pleasure of collaborating, has a distinctive film style. He graduated in 2021 from ECAM (School of Cinematography and Audiovisual of the Community of Madrid), where he studied Documentary Film. However, most of his films are fictional dramas with experimental aesthetical backgrounds. I will be working with him on a movie he recently shot and co-edited entitled Inbetween the Rocks (translated from the Spanish Entre Las Rocas), starring Javier Cruz Fleitas. On my side, I will supervise Jack Centro and Dereck de Abreu Coelho to assist me with the process of foley recording, and also Iñaki Romero Martinéz, who will do music design and composition. It is a film shot on VHS but has no location sound. The screenplay has little to no dialogue. It will be interesting to work around this project, knowing that most sounds need to be created from scratch.
The plot: In a Lovecraftian-inspired scenario, Javi, the protagonist dreams of a monster, Deu, that lives in a monastery up in the mountains where he lives nearby. He wakes up and follows the exact location where he thinks Deu lives through paintings of those same mountains. Once he gets there, his curiosity dies with him. In the end, it is inclusive whether Javi breaks, but the spectator knows Javi’s spirit is possessed by this creature.
Piece no.2 – Sounding a painting
Since painting is a visual art form, I will give it sound the same way one designs sound for a moving image. However, the process will only have something related to editing and designing sound for film.
Firstly, the paintings still need to be made. For that, I will collaborate with the painter Marta Paula, finishing her BA in Fine Art at Camberwell College of Arts (UAL), who will guide me through this process I’m yet to learn. I’ve never painted in my life. I need to figure out what tools to use or how to start. Marta will try to teach and guide me through the world of paintings. My goal is to paint a frame by the end of next term.
For this matter, I will apply methods of practice as research. It is a challenging and risky goal, but something, either good or bad, will come out of this process. I am already in talks with Marta, and she is happy to help and collaborate.
Additionally, I will help Marta help me create a sound piece, finishing the circle of reciprocal learning. Therefore, I will introduce her to sound art and teach her how to make sound pieces.
Thoughts
The portfolio layout makes sense regarding my professional and artistic future objectives. I want to work, explore and challenge visuals through sound. It will also allow me to explore and expand my horizons. It will allow me to challenge myself as well.
Some questions that come with Piece no.1:
- How will I record ADR voices?
- How to be a Sound Supervisor?
- How can I submerge the spectator in sound?
Some questions that come with Piece no.2:
- Which styles will I be aiming at?
- Will it work?
- Are there existing practices that relate to painting and sound?
- How can I transcend the painting itself with sound implementation?
In the next blog post, I will answer the questions.