Overkill

It's 11 minutes until the deadline has officially passed. With my dissertation in this Wednesday just gone (yesterday), this Independent project in today, and all of the rewriting/finetuning I have had to endure (plus three hours sleep over the course of 4 days) I can officially say thank God the ordeal is over.

I have been working absolutely nonstop for the last week, no exaggeration, and whilst I wish I could have rewritten and added a couple more things to this blog for a start, I am so glad to be able to finish writing this post, shut my eyes and sleep without the feeling of impending doom washing over me. Now all I have to hope for is that my work is good enough to be a part of the exhibition - I think after far too much to-ing and fro-ing, I got there in the end, and I'm rather proud of it all. So yeah. UWE, it's been fun.

My image so far

Here is my image for the reinterpretation of my review. I was inspired by the original Loveless artwork, as seen here:

But in order to correspond with my 'vision' of the album, I tried to enforce more of a feeling of the album being a dreamworld, so I merged the original photograph I took with another image I have taken of clouds. The original shots I took for editing when creating this image were this:

(Yes, I'm left handed!) and the following, which is the image that ended up being the one in my final piece;

I felt the image already shared a few of the same qualities that were brought to my attention through Loveless' artwork. For me, it was important to signify the blurring of sound, the ambiguity and indistinguishability. I feel that the image turned out pretty well, definitely capturing some of the same emotions I would get from reading rhe piece.

EDIT: Bugger, far too small for the Sideways Looks website.

Works in progress: Kezzia

Works in progress: Eilish

Here are some closeups of Eilish's painting. I really love the blend of colours in the sky and the sand;

Works in progress: Debbie

Works in progress: Steve

These are work in progress shots of Steve's drawing. Considering he claims he can't draw, I was very impressed! Neither of us can read music, so we are awaiting laughter from those who can, but it's very much a metaphorical representation of music progressing from quietness to loudness, as far as I understand it.

Creation

Tonight, I have been really pressing on with getting everyone's contributions submitted for website formatting. Everyone's had their colouring pencils, paints and Google on standby. It's a bit of a shame that my brother, Josh, didn't have the time to contribute a piece of his own. He's been on standby for much needed web coding advice though.

Review

Here is the final draft of my review of the website;

Two decades since their latest release in 1991, shoegaze pioneers My Bloody Valentine have finally decided to stun fans and release a remastered reissue collection containing their Creation Records back catalogue – with an EP collection, 1988’s full-length debut ‘Isn’t Anything’ and, most notably, their breakthrough album Loveless. This set has been in the making since 2004, and after years of setbacks and delays, is finally hitting shelves on 7^th May.

Since forming in Dublin in 1984, My Bloody Valentine have endured a number of image, sound and line-up changes. The band started off as a gloomy, gothic Birthday Party homage, fronted by ex-vocalist Dave Conway. Soon after, bassist Bilinda Butcher joined the band, Conway left, and the Valentines signed for Alan McGee’s Creation, drastically changing their sound from the aforementioned whimsical fuzz-punk to the blissed out, tremolo arm-bending sound the band are critically acclaimed for creating today – exemplified in their 1991 masterpiece Loveless.

Frontman Kevin Shields, when approached about what it is Loveless is attempting to achieve, often urges listeners to disregard what it is about popular music that draws them to it – whether it’s lyrics, vocal strength, typical song structures or anything else, and appreciate Loveless for what it is – a sonic soundscape, like an orchestra decked out with Fender Jazzmaster guitars documenting a dream sequence. But the album does not become lethargic, despite all of this. There are moments that grab the listener by the throat and force them onto the dancefloor all the same.

Opening with ‘Only Shallow,’ in which the guitars see-saw their way in and out of focus before settling down into clean, jangly strums and Butcher’s sleepily hazy vocals, Loveless relies heavily on this idea of blending textures, layers of soaring guitars and making instrumentation and voice indistinguishable, which it does to great effect.

Follow up ‘Loomer’ assumes the same sort of recipe; overdriven guitars in the foreground, layered in textural guitars in behind – which gives their aesthetically simple pop songs a dynamism that hasn’t been replicated since. Sure, bands have tried, with Americans Fleeting Joys’ 2006 album Despondent Transponder being branded as nothing more than a pastiche by some, but the gulf in song-writing quality, stemming from Shields’ rumoured Brian Wilson style perfectionism (Shields was declared clinically insane at one stage, and the album took two years in the studio to record, costing at least £300,000 of Creation’s funds to produce, almost bankrupting the label) is plain to see.

‘Loomer’ brings the pace of the hard-hitting opener down to a steady, yet guitar-laden lullaby. The thing with Loveless is that none of the songs are overbearingly ‘heavy,’ per se. The songs just almost use the layers of guitar to blanket the listener, making for the more upbeat songs like ‘Only Shallow’ quite a claustrophobic feeling, with nowhere to escape. The densest of songs coming in the form of ‘Touched,’ which is a short keyboard driven instrumental piece bridging ‘Loomer’ with album high point ‘To Here Knows When,’ that could almost accompany a 1950s silent cowboy film. Cinematic in one of the truest senses of the word, you have to hear it to believe it.

‘To Here Knows When,’ arguably one of the album’s defining moments, pitches Butcher’s soft vocals soaring over the gentle roar of Shields’ guitar, characteristically bending in and out of key, backed with a beat that wouldn’t be out of place in a Happy Mondays song. Before launching into ‘When You Sleep,’ which slaps the listener back into focus, there is one of a number of codas placed between each song, which helps to set Loveless apart from most of its peers. The one following ‘To Here Knows When’ is similar in atmosphere and feeling to ‘Touched,’ which really, in truth, serves as not much more than an extended coda itself.

Off the top of my head, it is difficult to really think of any other rock albums from the early 90s that try to redefine sound and structure in music in a similar way to how Loveless does. There is always talk of genre-defining records; Nirvana’s Nevermind defining grunge, The Beatles defining pop music, Elvis Presley with rock ‘n’ roll, The Stone Roses synonymous with Madchester and so forth; My Bloody Valentine sound nothing alike their ‘shoegaze’ peers – bands such as Ride, Lush, Chapterhouse – but Loveless is still regarded as the sound of the genre ‘that celebrates itself.’ Something that the band themselves weren’t too keen on.

Following on from ‘To Here Knows When,’ the album starts to take more of a grip on traditional rock music. Enter ‘When You Sleep.’ Don’t get me wrong, all of the My Bloody Valentine traits are there; Shields’ indistinguishable vocals blending with the music, the recognisable drum machine that adds to Loveless’ charm, but this time there is more of a verse/chorus/verse style dynamic. Well, not really a ‘chorus.’ More of an instrumental break­­­­­. But the thought is there.

‘When You Sleep’ ends in a crescendo of energy, culminating in yet another coda, shimmering its way into ‘I Only Said’ like the sun ducking into the ocean’s horizon. The next song maintains the energy that its predecessor musters up; the guitars bending in and out of pitch more so than ever, again creating that feeling of being blanketed by the guitars, as they blend and once again, use the same verse/instrumental break/verse structure introduced in ‘When You Sleep.’ ‘Come In Alone’ follows this surge in energy, keeping steady but hitting hard, maintaining the dissonance and swooping guitars that make the band who they are.

‘Sometimes,’ featured in Sofia Copolla’s 2003 film Lost in Translation, breaks the mould that the preceding tracks have built up; an acoustic song drowned in thick, warm feedback, defining the very heartbeat of the album, complimented by Shields’ hushed vocals. The song builds up to a climax that ends with a driving keyboard accompaniment that really sums up the diversity the album has to offer.

Culminating in ‘Soon,’ via ‘Blown a Wish’ – the album at its most airy and shimmering, and ‘What You Want’ crashing its way like waves against the shore, highlighted by more synthesized lead melodies, the album builds into what is arguably the highest point of the band’s entire output, let alone this album. Enter ‘Soon,’ a seven minute dance inspired track with a hip hop drum sample. The song starts off with guitar feedback lingering, its ghostly trails leading into a slick drum sample, before the rest of the instruments kick in. The bass line bounces chirpily before Shields’ ethereal guitar shrieks and squallers, layering the song with that signature MBV sound without detracting from its edgy and unique dance floor filling capabilities. Perfection.

The album is often accused of a high degree of studio trickery, and whilst the band strongly denies there is anything in the rumours, it’s no wonder that the average listener would make the mistake. Loveless does not sound like a cheap production by any means. It is the sound of an unstable perfectionist on the cusp of a breakdown, entranced and determined to achieve this elaborate musical vision, no matter the cost. Like Brian Wilson and Syd Barratt before him, Shields provides all of the elusiveness and mystique needed to be deemed an eccentric and reclusive genius; but Loveless definitely proves that Shields knew best.

Hans Belting

One of the key points from talking to Michelle was Hans Belting and his book 'An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body.' - Michelle thought some of his ideas were inkeeping with my plans, and as it turns out, his theories could be key in defining what it is I'm trying to achieve. Michelle pointed out two passages in particular that were of great help;

Human perception has repeatedly accommodated itself to new pictorial technologies, but in keeping with its nature it transcends such medial boundaries.
Like perception, images too are inherently intermedial. They transcend the various historical media that are invented for them, pitching their tent in one new medium after another and then moving on to the next. It would be a mistake to confuse the image with these media. For a medium is but an archive of dead images until we animate the images with our gaze.

And the last phrase is the key one. Music reviews don't come 'alive' until the reader takes all of the imagery and creates a vision of it. When I began this project, my original idea stemmed around the idea of cutting out the middle man, so to speak, and aiming straight for that vision. But of course, there are complications; the vision will then be reanimated in its own right, with the cycle never ending.

Belting goes on to discuss how we "conceal a photograph's existence as thought we wanted to make them immaterial images dwelling in our imagination." That's what my project is; a construction of these visual images and an analysis of the response.

Redrafting

Ok, so now my project will consist of a 'gallery' format rather than being a mocked up news site. I have struggled all throughout this project with my approach, and now, after meeting with Michelle and talking over my ideas and where to go with them, I have decided to do a sort of case study of my family and see how different perspectives play a role on how we interpret creative writing. Music itself is known for being open to different interpretations, but when it comes to writing a review, the process is very similar. I am going to write a review - and I have a few records in mind - and I will have my own sources for inspiration in how I want to frame the album in question, which will be dissected and re-interpreted much in the same way the music itself is once I've written the review.

I've started looking in to writings by Hans Belting, as well as Nigel Holmes, Peter Wiebel and Bruno Latour, Komar and Melamid. Michelle's input has helped greatly. We discussed giving each subject a set of strange rules to undertake when approaching their pieces, but since the majority of my subjects don't recognise themselves as 'artists,' this may not be the best route to take.

SHIFT IN APPROACH

Ok, so I've finally realised my original idea was too subjective; to really gauge whether or not my original proposal of whether images can replace text in reviews, I need a wider spectrum of views. Be that in varying artistic skill, different tastes in music by the interpreter etc. - I think it would be more interesting to analyse how different people 'visualise' music in their own ways.

Exhibition Ideas

Sideways Looks, the exhibition featuring students from my course's work, is coming up on May 15th. I was just thinking about how I'd like to display my work (in mid-panic over impending essay deadlines - 4000 words in 2 weeks, and I'd totally forgotten!) and thought that it might be nice to have a monitor with the images in rotation, as well as an audio dictation of the original text. Then I was thinking that this could apply to my website as well. I could have a clickable link to a popup of the original text, but have the audio reading playing by default (unless switched off.)

I was thinking of asking my brother's advice on how to lay the website out, as he is a graphic designer and may suggest things I haven't considered. A fresh perspective would be nice.

Sleigh Bells Review - Wordled

Lots of demonic imagery. I can't imagine it stems much more from the album's title alone, 'Reign of Terror,' but that's the entire point of this project. To see whether or not the images/words are actually that relevant to the piece.

I have had an idea - on the completion of the collaborative experiment, I may try and find a way of getting users of the website I create to determine which image corresponds best with the text/makes most sense of the actual audio itself. I am conscious of overdoing the whole survey thing though, and asking too much of my Facebook friends. I will select a few closer friends to 'BETA test' the website, perhaps, so I can disguise the fact that really, it's just another survey. Haha!

Experiment Correspondence Update

Pretty self explanatory. I just chose one of the newest reviews on NME.com's reviews page. As with the others so far, I haven't actually heard the record. I decided on choosing this review because I know it would have been one of the highest featured on the website. The writing, thankfully, is full of strong visuals and should provide a nice variety of work in response. I am particularly looking forward to Eilish and Alex's hand-rendered pieces. I plan on spending all weekend working on my image and giving the website a complete overhaul, converting it into a Flash format, hopefully.

Survey Update

It's been a hectic couple of weeks. I have had to work on my dissertation for a meeting this Thursday, work on a group presentation for Games, Simulation and Media, and there has been a death in the family over the weekend. Endless distractions. I have managed to gather up 31 responses to my survey so far though; the results are as follows...

Questionnaire Summary Progress Report #1

I only put the questionnaire up last night, and have only had 5 responses so far, but I thought I would post the progress of it so far. Here are some screen grabs of an analysis page;

As you can see, question 2 and question 5's answers are varying quite a lot so far. It seems that before things have even started, people only 'sometimes' read music publications in the first place, which puts into doubt whether or not the industry could afford to take such a big risk in propelling image reviews over text ones. At the moment it seems the two could go hand in hand. I think I should have posted a question about whether users would prefer an indexical or creative approach, however. If it isn't too late, I could add this question into it for future participants.

Design Revamp

Just realised I have never posted a screen shot of my reviews site for my pilot. Revisiting it has made me even more aware of how basic and unimpressive it is. I want to revamp everything to include more graphical buttons at the very least. It's too plain and boring at the moment. As well as working on my Isotype index, I will get to work on Photoshop, Dreamweaver and possibly Flash to give the site the update it sorely needs.

I am gravitating towards scrapping the 'music news' site approach entirely in favour of a simplistic linear, chronologically listed gallery approach, in order to maintain the 'up to the minute' aspect that music news websites incorporate. I want to avoid it being a static gallery such as that of an artist, because the entire nature of music reviews is its interchangability, with new releases achieving top spot within layouts etc.

I am kind of glad I revisited this work today, as I feel a lot more inspired to update it now, because it's a little embarrassing. I know I wanted to go for 'simplistic,' but there's that and then what I created. It belittles my skill as a web designer, really. I don't think I'm fantastic by any means, but looking back, this is a little embarrassing.

I still like the idea of a plain white background and basic black text, but something a little more dynamic and interactive would be preferable, such as the websites I mentioned previously. Kill Pixie's gallery amongst others. This past week has been very much research and background focused. Now I need to put all of the theory into practice.

Hmm

Have noticed a lot of traffic from a Russian/Ukrainian meme site today, very strange. Hello to my 13 Ukranian readers, I guess. And hello to Germany and the United States. No idea what is interesting to people who aren't involved in this project, but yeah.

Isotype Index

I thought I would post a few pre-existing Isotype images to see if anything currently existing could correspond with reviews I could translate. This is mostly for reference and to avoid cross-referencing.

As you can tell, the images seem to serve a very different purpose to what it is I'd use them for. Mine would cover far less propagandist imagery, and would serve more as an image-dictionary. Here are a couple of pieces I put together for my pilot;

The images are fairly crude and didn't take long to make, but as of today I plan on making at least 25 different images for a small index in time for next week's lecture.

Review Ideas - Maribel

Just come across a review for Maribel - Reveries. Whilst the text shows room for creativity, this word cloud I've made shows that most of the key words are just band-related and aren't really about the music. An interesting turn this has shown is that if you cut out all of the background information, it doesn't leave the review with much to 'visualise.' It's more a biographical review and that takes away from the image potential and highlights how much some reviews rely on the text element of their message.

Without all of the key words related to the band (i.e. Maribel, Reveries, Record, Aesthetics (the name of their first release)) and all of the words needed structurally (i.e. 'although,' 'much' etc.) all there really is is 'dreamy, stensil, radiantly, haunting' and so forth, which are very vague terms and almost rely on the text for a context, as I also noticed 'danger' on there, and I believe the review references a lack thereof, rather than saying the record sounds 'dangerous.' With a review like this, I think it would be much more interesting to create some original artwork which depicts the tone and mood of the album rather than try to simply replicate certain quotes, which may have been the case with my M83 review.

I was considering using this review for my experiment, but I don't think it's written well enough from a creative perspective - but then again, my project is designed to highlight this, rather than rely on something that translates well. Whether it works as a medium of replacement is what I'm trying to discover; but on first glance, I would say this particular review won't have much resemblance to the original text.

Genre Diversity

I have had a change in plan for the experiment I posted a group for earlier: Now, I think I will assign each participant the latest reviews I can find in different genres - one in Alternative/Rock, one in Hip Hop, one in Pop, one in RnB or whatever, and I will make a corresponding image for each. So I will make 5, and each other person one each, if time permits. If they could each do two each, that would be great, so there is more variety, but I think so far, all of my pieces have been too similar from a genre perspective.

I will pick a reviews website - gravitating towards Pitchfork right now because some of their pieces can be quite controversial, and select the latest review in each genre so there is no favouritism and more of a random element. Hopefully no one would have heard the albums in question, so there will be no bias and each participant won't know what to expect. I might not even read each review myself until the links have been distributed. I think it's a better idea to include some diversity. By this time tomorrow, I would have started on my images at least. I will put together a rough sketch for a layout update before I see my tutor in the morning.

Whoops

I could not figure out for the life of me how to check results for the first survey I created, so I made a new one. The link is http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/2QFLJ68. There is an option to provide graphical reports on the results (which may be for premium members only) which could be nice. This survey takes up to 100 responses too, which is better.

Questionnaire

 As previously mentioned, I have just designed a short questionnaire to help with my research. It's only 5 questions long, but I was interested to see what people thought of the current state of music reviews and whether image-based reviews could have any impact on the industry. The survey will only take up to 50 results and lasts for 10 days, so hopefully I will get 50 of my Facebook friends to help me out. The results will just help to flesh out my research and could be included in future essays, if nothing else.

If any tutors reading this would like to help, the link is http://freeonlinesurveys.com/s.asp?sid=7hqio6h5n3jo24u10508 - thanks! Haha.

EDIT: Disregard the picture and the link to the survey - I couldn't log in to the website to check results! New one in next blog post.

Wheels Into Motion

Just created a group on Facebook for my experiment. Hopefully people will respond soon; my girlfriend, who excelled in art throughout her academic ventures, has also put herself forth to help. I will get a really interesting mix of graphical perspectives - myself taking a more collage-based approach, Nick, Josh and Kyle taking a more graphics-inspired outlook, and Eilish and Alex a more traditional artistic approach.

The response could be very interesting, paired with some of the reading I've been doing on language and linguistic interpretation (Barthes, as previously mentioned) and semiotics. Do reviews say the same things to everyone? Hopefully I will find out soon. I am about to create an online survey to advertise as well.

The Death of the Author

Been reading up on Roland Barthes' 'Death of the Author.' Interesting quotes;

We know now that a text is not a line of words releasing a single 'theological' meaning (the 'message' of the Author-God) but a multi-dimensional space in which a variety of writings, none of them original, blend and clash. The text is a tissue of quotations drawn from the innumerable centres of culture. Similar to Bouvard and Pecuchet, those eternal copyists, at once sublime and comic and whose profound ridiculousness indicates precisely the truth of writing, the writer can only imitate a gesture that is always anterior, never original. His only power is to mix writings, to counter the ones with the others, in such a way as never to rest on any one of them. Did he wish to express himself, he ought at least to know that the inner 'thing' he thinks to 'translate' is itself only a ready-formed dictionary, its words only explainable through other words, and so on indefinitely

Really interesting stuff. So related to my project, the author of the review is not a 'voice of God,' dictating facts, according to Barthes. Instead they are merely compiling a variety of previous experiences in reading. And in turn, us as the reader is interpreting each text in relation to our previous experiences also. Barthes is questioning the need of the contemporary author, insisting that everything written these days is merely a reproduction of previous ideas. I could argue that my images do the same job, rendering both as essential (or non-essential) as the other. My original attempt at the project, in a way, was an aim to challenge language and linguistics, and the need for them. A lot of the readings I have done aren't really helping to guide me in a different direction. I think I need to look more into 'image interpration' and the legitimacy of indexical imagery. What makes Isotype, for example, as legitimate a source as it's perceived to be? Tomorrow's aim is to get Photoshop working and try to mock up a better draft of the 'gallery' incorporation.

Frustration/Isotype Revisited

It's incredibly difficult finding resources on Google sometimes. Pages and pages of results from searches such as 'image translated to text' bring up articles about how Google can translate foreign text embedded within images. A library day is needed, for sure.

On another note, I have been browsing for critiques on Isotype (during which I found the transcript of a talk given by Michelle Henning at Reading University, interesting!) and came across this video. My German isn't great at all (practically nonexistant) but it's a nice insight into the creation of Isotype and some artists' own versions.



I'll post my reactions to certain images included etc. in the next update.

Design Aesthetics

I have been rethinking my approach to the website aspect of my project. I agree with Rod in his thinking that there is no need for my website to function as a 'music news/reviews' site, in the same vein as NME.com's layout. Instead it could be even more minimalistic than its current form, mimicing a gallery. I have been looking for inspiration online, and have come across the Saatchi Gallery website.

I love the way the website is simplistic yet striking, no-nonsense and straight to the point. If I can hone my Flash skills, I would love to make a similar looking website. Simplistic but sleek and futuristic. 3D graphics buttons and the like.

As I've mentioned on here before, I also really like Kill Pixie's online gallery. The only danger in taking an approach like this is that then, the work becomes far more about whether or not the 'artwork' is good or not, and less about what each image can achieve as a translation. When approaching my pilot, I felt that I needed to put it in a contemporary journalistic context, because what I was aiming for was a replacement for the current format. The images are reviews in themselves, and the way you display reviews on the internet is on music websites like Pitchfork or the NME, who both utilise this blog-like, rolling, up to the minute layout, in chronological order of events.

As far as my pilot is concerned, it was a little disjointed in that I tried to incorporate the 'news' aspect by just using an RSS feed (which I thought was rather clever in that it was upto date as of whenever the viewer saw it) and keeping the 'reviews' separate in a kind of gallery-esque medium. So I think I need to decide on one or the other. At the moment I think it's more likely to echo a gallery. I would like a sense of chronology involved though, otherwise it becomes too static, which isn't particularly reflective of the industry I am critiquing.

Associative Imagery

After discussing my project with Rod this week, he introduced the idea of 'associative imagery' to me. After digging further into the area, I came across this piece by BJ Bueno of Cult Branding. Whilst the entire article may be contextualising an advertising website (I'm not sure, I have only read this article), some interesting points are made. This quote is particularly interesting;

Every image signals to consumers whether or not your brand is especially for them. Open up an L.L. Bean catalog and you’ll be struck with images of outdoor and indoor tranquility, with products on old, wooden docks, people engaging in dialogue by a lake, sitting on rocking chairs looking out at the trees, or indoors by a roaring fire with a yellow Labrador Retriever nestled on his bed. If you don’t have an affinity to nature, hiking, and quietude, these images probably won’t speak to you. If you do have a love for what this imagery represents, you may dive into their seasonal catalogs with joy and excitement.

Why do images have so much power? Our logos and marks are symbols. Symbols are triggers of archetypal images—energy patterns that rest in the unconscious. These primordial images are not personal to each individual, but are aspects of the “collective” of all of us. Eminent Swiss psychoanalyst Dr. Carl Jung highlighted that these archetypal images are the building blocks of thought. These unconscious, archetypal images lay the foundation for the experience customers are going to have with your brand. The images you create in your logos and marks—the symbols—are a signal to the customer of what the brand represents.

So with my original approach, what it seems I am achieving, according to Bueno/Jung's theory, is stripping away all of the imagery, getting rid of all of the filler lines, needless anecdotes and untranslatable pieces of text, and saying "This is what the author wants you to see." It is then up to the audience to determine whether or not the review works as a review, and ultimately whether or not the music is to their taste. The immediacy of using images instead of text in a context like this is interesting to me; it cuts a lot of time out of reading a 750 word review when within a few seconds, you could say 'the picture this review paints is quite bleak/dark/not to my taste.' All text-based reviews strive to do is paint a visual image of audio. Why not just cut straight to the visualisation instead of re-interpreting an interpretation? I am not saying the medium is better, necessarily, I just want to see if it works as a replacement.

I think in my work so far, using the M83 piece as an example, the 'branding' as such is within each individual image that makes the collage. The background I used was an image of the Joshua Tree desert; so if you read that as thinking there is a specific reason the artist must have decided to record there, this may be a key aspect. There is a visual interpretation of the quote "One sees clearly only with the heart. What is essential is invisible to the eye" - which again sets the kind of tone the author thinks the record conveys - in my work, I think the inclusion of the heart and eye metaphor will clearly state that this isn't going to be a death metal record about going on a murderous rampage or whatever. Each part can be dissected and overall, I think the impression the viewer will get between the image and the text is fairly similar. I think the project will work out well; but all of these attempts at reimagining it aren't really working for me, to be honest.

Bueno sums up what it is I'm trying to achieve when saying 'These primordial images are not personal to each individual, but are aspects of the “collective” of all of us.' - I know the specific images I have chosen to convey my work on the collages is 'individual' or subjective, but I am trying to use the imagery in an indexical manner. I just want the viewer to acknowledge what the image is 'saying,' not whether it looks pretty or not. Whether it is better suited to do that with some kind of visual dictionary is neither here nor there. I think it would still achieve roughly the same thing. I either interpret reviews as they are written, as accurately as possible, or I listen to an album and simply list all the elements of each song with some kind of Isotype I have created myself, one for 'loud guitars,' one for 'male vocals' or whatever, but then how is that any better than what I have created already? So much to think about.

Mini-projects

I really need to kick start my progress with this project. By this time next week, I am aiming to produce about 5 different approaches to the project.

One will hopefully be this research experiment as previously mentioned. Another will be a more extensive Isotype-style index, another a 'recipe' based off a review. I have an idea to fuse the creative aspect with the indexical, and will try and use Juan C. Dürsteler as inspiration by including frequency spectrums (famously used by Richard James of Aphex Twin in some of his songs, as pictured below) or images of the sound files themselves, as to indicate whether the songs in reviews are loud or quiet.

Aphex Twin frequency spectrum; viewable through audio editing sofware after opening up his song 'Windowlicker.' The image is Richard D. James of Aphex Twin himself.


I am interested in getting art students to paint an interpretation without any use of Google image search. Still struggling to find an actual conclusion to reach, though. My original aim was to juxtapose text with image in order to see if an image could do the same job (albeit probably with rollover captions to explain things a little better, or else there would be literally no context) but with each stage of production comes more and more problems with my approach. Not sure where to turn, really.

Need to start reading into text visualisation. Finding the search terms has become a bit of a problem though. "Reinterpreting text as image" as a quote on Google brings up literally no results. It seems a lot of the research I can do at the moment is a little too vague to really directly impact my work; I'm having to reinterpret a lot of meaning, as I felt like I was with previous research, which I'm not really too sure about in regards to using legitimate theory. Time has ran away with me a little; so much work to do on my other modules, a lot of back-and-forth between England and Scotland trying to sort out living/working arrangements for next year. This month has passed incredibly quickly and I need to pick up where I left off as fast as possible.

Research Experiment - Drafting

Since my last correspondance, I have decided it would be interesting to do some research to find out if my approach really is as subjective and linear as it may seem. I have put out an advert on my Facebook page to try and gather some of my more artistically minded friends to help me determine whether or not my current approach to the project works.

Here is the specifications;

1. One review will be chosen by myself and given to 3-5 participants in confidence; none will know each other/be able to compare work.
2. The approach can be anything the participant likes; a collage, like mine, or a hand rendered sketch. Nothing too time consuming.
3. All final pieces must be a 600x600 image file, preferably PNG to maintain consistency with the rest of the work.

Since putting the advert up, I have had a positive response; my brother, Josh, a current first year Graphic Design student here at UWE, has said he will try to help if time permits. His housemate, Alex, has said he is interested in hand-drawing a piece.

Nick Alden, one of my coursemates, has said he will help also, along with one of his housemates.

Kyle Pritchard, a housemate of mine currently studying Product Design is interested, time permitting, also.

I am quite happy with the positive response; all of these volunteers got back to me within hours of putting the message up. I have an idea for which review I would like to use; there is a new record by a band called Maribel who I think could conjure up some interesting imagery. All of the work I have seen produced by each of the people I have mentioned have been to a very high quality. I don't want my project to turn into something more heavily reliant on people I know who can draw better than I can, haha. So I won't make a habit of asking for other people's help.

I will look into reviews shortly and let the participants know which I would like them to attempt. How far this experiment goes depends on the output - if they are just quick 5 minute knock ups, I will limit it to merely a blog research project, but if something greater comes of it, especially from the Design students, the artwork could feature more heavily in my final project. I think at the moment, in my head, the final project will be a collection of approaches to text translation and interpretation, as I cannot see one definitive path to follow. More on that later.

Moving forth

So I've got the marks back for my pilot - pleased, I suppose, but very frustrating to be one mark off the next grade classification. I have been assured it's nothing to worry about though. The feedback is interesting; suggestions that my images may differ if I had just read the review and not heard the music (which actually is the case - I haven't translated reviews of any records I've actually heard yet, interestingly) which make me think it could be interesting to conduct some kind of poll on one of the websites I review for (such as Guide2Bristol.com) to see if users agree that my images say the same things the reviews do. For now, it may be more viable to simply ask friends of mine, via Facebook or something similar, whether or not it works. I could conduct a small online questionnaire to gather research. Questions featured could be;

1. Have you heard the record before? Yes/No
2. How well do you think the review is written? Poorly/Okay/Well/Excellently
3. How well do you think the image replicates the review? Poorly/Okay/Well/Excellently
4. Do you think the image could work instead of the text? Yes/No

Or something similar. Nothing too tedious so it doesn't scare anyone who helps off. Just a very short one to conduct some quantative research. Another approach I could take is e-mailing around with my contacts within the industry to see if anyone will do a little interview about this concept. I have a feeling the only people willing to oblige might be those I know in the PR business rather than actual journalists though. Something to think about. So from here, I need to plan a few different approaches to try out, fine tune my current one to see if it can realise its potential, and lots of other stuff. Time to get cracking.