Short film/video exploring the encounter of electroacoustic music composition and moving image practice

Cope, Nicholas

Howle, Tim

English

Sunderland University Institutional Repository

Howle, Tim and Cope, Nicholas (2008) In Girum (version/round 1.3, 2008) – Dir. Nick Cope: Video/DVD in collaboration with Composer Tim Howle, 6’05”. Awards: Abstracta International Abstract Cinema Exhibition, Rome, August 2009 – Honourable Mention of the Jury. [Video] (Unpublished)Downloaded from: http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/3346/Usage guidelinesPlease refer to the usage guidelines at http://sure.sunderland.ac.uk/policies.html or alternatively contact sure@sunderland.ac.uk.In Girum (version/round 1.3, 2008) – Dir. Nick Cope: Video/DVD in collaboration with Composer Tim Howle, 6’05”. Awards: Abstracta International Abstract Cinema Exhibition, Rome, August 2009 – Honourable Mention of the Jury.  Online: http://youtu.be/Myf0F3sOrZ8    Sceenings:  MeCCSA (Media, Communication and Cultural Studies Association) Annual Conference, Cardiff University, January 2008.  'Electroacoustic Movies and other films - a case study in media practice based research’ - Research Seminar; University of Sunderland, Media Research Centre, April 2008.  ElectroMediaWorks 08; Athens, Greece, May 2008.  Expo Brighton - Sonic Arts Network; Brighton July 2008.  Habitacion del Ruido/Arte Sonoro; Universidad del Claustro de Sor Juana, Mexico City, Mexico, August 2008.  Mexican Centre for Music and Sonic Arts; Morelia, Mexico, August 08. The Works: Sounding Out 04; University of Sunderland, September 2008. Journeys in Film - Beyond Film, Experimental Film Festival; Gala Theatre and Cinema, Durham, November 2008. Edinburgh International Film Festival; Edinburgh, June 2009.  Abstracta International Abstract Cinema Exhibition, Rome, August 2009  Noise Floor Festival; Staffordshire University, January 2010. Sichuan University Jinjiang College, Chengdu, China, August 2010  Invited Paper Presentation and Performance of Work; Seeing Sound - Practice-led Research International Symposium, Bath Spa University, September 2009.   In Girum continues the collaboration between film maker Nick Cope and electro-acoustic composer Professor Tim Howle in electroacoustic moviemaking. Their previous work has been screened internationally and published on DVD by The Computer Music Journal and ScreenWorks/Journal of Media Practice. In Girum constitutes the fourth short film in the series of collaborations Cope and Howle have called Electroacoustic Movies.   For In Girum, abstracted visuals shot on DV digital video and Super 8 film at a variety of funfairs was montaged and edited using Final Cut Pro software, exploring the liminal spaces the funfair offers, the carnival of consumption. The actual stomach churning disorientation of the rides and their mechanical hydraulic constructions being reworked into a simulated visual space which intends to explore augmented realities. Virilio’s ‘over-excited man’ meets Debord’s analysis of the Spectacle. The title echoing Debord’s use as a film title of the Latin palindrome In Girum Imus Nocte Et Consumimur Igni, translated as ‘We go round and round in the night and are consumed by fire…’ The treatment in post-production of lens based/gathered information treated and reworked, counterpointing electroacoustic compositional practices derived from recording, working with and treating acousmatic source material. In Girum saw the collaborative methods take on a more dialogic form. Discussions during the production process informed early edits and workings of the source material. Exchanges of each others’ outputs during this process, being worked into and woven together, through an ongoing production process; passing developing versions of the work back and forth between composer and filmmaker leading to the final version.  Exploring stylistic conventions of electro acoustic composition and moving image practice and the new area opening up of electroacoustic composition and moving image combinations, Tim and I have defined this work as both Aesthetic Research and Process Based Research according to the taxonomies of research developed by the Journal of Media Practice, ScreenWorks project.1   In realizing a practice ‘ “on the cusp” between two states’ where working with visuals is a way that ‘electroacoustic music can be made visible’ (Howle, 2009) Electroacoustic Movies evidences Kit Williams’ notion that in certain forms of music video ‘sight becomes musical and what you listen to is visualized. Seeing, then, becomes a nonlogocentric experience, a sensuous (indeed, cross-sensual), tactile, sonorous, and visual activity’ (Williams, 2003, p.13). Birtwistle draws attention to                                                  1 Aesthetic Research: stylistic innovation; finding new ways of using screen grammar; finding new means to say new things. Process Based Research: work in which the production methods, ethics, relationships, ways of generating material, research etc., all of which could be innovative. See: Dovey, J. (2009).  Deleuze and Guitarri’s address of audiovisual relations which are resonant with visual music informed practices, …[Deleuze and Guitarri’s (1988, p.314)] formulation of audiovisuality embraces a range of possible relationships between sound and image, but most importantly, it allows for those moments when sound and image fuse and become indistinguishable (Birtwistle, 2010, p.227).  The ‘new paradigm’ (Piche, 2004) engendered through the encounter of electroacoustic composition and moving image results in ‘a temporal visual artwork that exists in time and whose constituent elements evolve over time just as music elements evolve and exist over time’ (McDonnell, 2007). Birtwistle drawing attention to the audiovisual flow that work exploring the fusing of milieu can set in motion,  …synaesthetic audiovisual experience presents a sublation of sound and image, in which binary relations, hierarchies and identities are liquefied, where no one milieu is sacrificed to another, but in which each milieu becomes permeable to the point of dissolution (Birtwistle, 2010, p.271).  The constituent pieces of Electroacoustic Movies, utilize the flows of sound and image to effect temporal and contextual transformation, a key theme throughout all my work under consideration here. The work gathered as Electroacosutic Movies  itself drawing on, reworking and revisiting themes and original footage from my earlier practice, as well as forging new explorations with new technologies and practices.  Electroacoustic Movies (2003-2008) constitutes a body of work that informs new developments and contributes new knowledge to electroacoustic composition and emerging and historic visual music practices. The Computer Music Journal recognizing the significance of ‘this new medium’ (2005, p.4) by devoting their Winter 2005 issue to Visual Music. Composer and academic Jean Piché describes the extension of electroacoustic composition into working with moving image as ‘a new paradigm for composition… The means of production for visuals now are extremely interesting, catching up to what we’ve been doing with sound for over a decade.  It’s an exciting new form that has a lot of depth to it… the combination of abstracted image and sound make a fertile ground where an entirely new poetry can grow’(Piché, 2004). Piché chooses to describe his work as ‘video music’ to distinguish it from music videos and from other forms of generative visual music. Tim Howle (2009) recognises that our work is distinct from generative/algorithmic and electronica based practices, and also distinct from single authored work. The coming together of two distinct compositional practices to produce the collaboration is significant and important, and we believe gives an originality to the practice recognized in its selection for national and international screenings and performances. The work can be seen as an exemplar of new work emerging in these contexts, and contributes new knowledge to the study and understanding of new developments in electroacoustic and acousmatic compositional potentials and practices. The work also contributes an exemplar practice that can contribute new knowledge to the ‘fusions of practices’ Derek Scott (Sim, 2011, p.193) recognizes as warranting further analysis with regards to musicology. The live sound diffusion of the work is also of significance and contributes new knowledge to Randolph Jordan’s analysis of ‘Film Sound, Acoustic Ecology and Performance in Electroacoustic Music’ (Jordan, 2007, pp.121-141).  (See Nick Cope’s PhD: Northern Industrial Scratch: the history and contexts of a visual music practice, University of Sunderland, 2012)  

In Girum (version/round 1.3, 2008) – Dir. Nick Cope: Video/DVD in collaboration with Composer Tim Howle, 6’05”.

Awards: Abstracta International Abstract Cinema Exhibition, Rome, August 2009 – Honourable Mention of the Jury.

In Girum (version/round 1.3, 2008) – Dir. Nick Cope: Video/DVD in collaboration with Composer Tim Howle, 6’05”. Awards: Abstracta International Abstract Cinema Exhibition, Rome, August 2009 – Honourable Mention of the Jury.

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