Photographic research collab - Music & Photography

The Lounge General Discussion
#1

TL;DR
Would you like to collaborate with me as part of my master’s studies in photography? You make a short composition/beat - I make a photographic animation. I use the experience to write an academic report. Details below.

Click here for full briefing and instrux on my website.

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Full brief!

My idea and photographic practice
As part of my studies towards a master’s degree in photography, I’m working with different forms of collaboration during September through December 2021.

The resulting work will take shape as a research report and a work-in-progress portfolio.

One idea for collaboration is working with musicians, beat makers and producers. I’m envisioning interesting synergies when the static nature of the still photograph meets the inherent temporality and rhythmicality of music of all sorts.

At this time, I’m imagining the finished pieces to end up as scored photographic animations or cinemagraphs.

My research focus is currently phrased as: “…a photographic research process where I use my own body and physicality to explore space and structures with special regard to non-human agencies and agential realism.”

I explore questions of subjectivity, agency, nature-culture and socio-materiality. I’m leaning on scholars such as Donna Haraway, Karen Barad and Cary Wolfe.

If you’re curious on the type of work I do, please have a look at my web portfolio, my latest assessment or listen to my podcast.

What’s in it for you?
I’m just assuming we’re mutually curious and driven by pleasure principle towards doing creative work. In addition to that I’ll send you a photographic print representing our collaboration and credit you (of course!) in the report and portfolio. Seeing this as a symmetrical collaboration - you are equally free to share, build on, and publish our resulting work.

The actual collab workflow

  1. Make a composition of 8-16 bars in any tempo and time signature.
  2. Optionally come up with visual clues (for example color, mood, feeling…) that goes with your music, for me to take into the photo session.
  3. Compose a text document holding: 1) Your name/alias, 2) your email adress, 3) your Insta/SoMe details if you like, 4) your physical mail adress, 5) visual clues to complement your music and 6) a statement whether you’re comfortable to edit music to video and want to refine, redo or update the music once my photo/animation/cinemagraph is done.
  4. Zip the recording and the text file. Upload the file to my Dropbox through this link.
  5. At this stage I’ll photograph and edit in tight collaboration with your composition and visual clues.
  6. If you’re up for it, I’ll send the work-in-progress-edit back to you. For you to update or revise the music in relation to my photo/animation.
  7. Send the final piece to me.
  8. I’ll write a report and build an in-progress portfolio.
  9. Fame, fortune and fulfilment!

Questions and dialogue?
We can talk here, through PM or through the contact form at my website.

I’m really looking forward to this collaborative artistic research. Let’s make good shit!

16 Likes
#2

This sounds like a great idea! Presumably your 8-16 bars is just a guideline - are you looking for something like 10-30 seconds? Or it doesn’t really matter so long as it’s short and succinct?

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#3

8 or 16 bars is easy to work with should I want to loop the photo animations. But yeah - pretty short is the way to go.

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#4

Sounds like a brilliant idea. You’ll no doubt be flooded with responses, if I get time I’d like to get involved.
Best wishes.

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#5

I’d love for you to get involved!

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#6

This sounds ace! I’ve always wanted to marry up audio with visuals… haven’t got time to do it all so collaborations are definitely the way to go.

Time… time, man. If I can I will :+1:

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#8

Oh - yeah. Go for it!

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#9

@CarlMikaelBjork, I would love to have a crack at doing something for this. Is there a deadline for getting something over to you?

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#10

I have no clue if this can be of any interest for you, but there is a study from Gunnar Johansson in 1973 that talks about the perception of human motion, very interesting scientific approach you might get some inspiration from…

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#11

This is such a cool thing, would love to be involved…

This seems like the type of project my Pulsar 23 would be perfect for!

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#12

Well the deadline for my report and portfolio is december 6th. :wink:

But preferably much sooner than that, if I’m gonna be able to do the actual work. So if I can have music the coming weeks, or no later than the end of September, I’ll have good chances to work with the different submissions.

I’ll most likely get to work with whatever comes in… and if that turns out to be overwhelming, I’ll just draw the line then - whenever that is.

Cheers for getting involved.

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#13

Thanks! Found it:

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/237065739_Gunnar_Johansson_Events_and_Biological_Motion

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#14

Yeah! Pulsar 23!!!

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#15
If you want it in a few words

let’s say we have a raw motion capture sequence, recording the motion of 15 table tennis balls glued to the articulation of a human subject.
If you look at the very first image, not moving, you can vaguely recognize from the white points the shape of a human silhouette (we tend humanize anything unconsciously, take the Pixar lamp for instance).
Now get the sequence running: in a tenth of a second any human will identify if it’s a man or a woman, the action performed, and even tiny details such as the age or the mood of the person.

I found in my PhD that a lot of such information was in the coordination of the movement of the different parts of our body. So if you want some unreal, straightest path would be to break such coordination.

Hope this can help you in some way :slight_smile:

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#16

Ooh, it would be cool to get involved with you and your work. I’ll get to work on something right away. :beers:

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#17

Lovely. Thank you!

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#18

I’ll try to create something for you. :sunglasses:

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#19

Hey @CarlMikaelBjork. I’ve uploaded a short track called Ether under my alias 100% Failure Within 72 Hours. I hope you like it. And if I did anything wrong or you need more info, hit me up any time :slight_smile:

And best of luck with the project!

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#20

Great. Thanks. There was a ping in my Dropbox during the night. Cheers!

I’ll keep you posted as I progress.

  • now off to listen *
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#21

There are a rough handful of pieces submitted to date. There’s a broad range of genres, moods and tempos represented. I have another few vague yes-I’d-like-to-but-have-not-yet-submitted, that I’m hoping for. But honestly - I have submissions that will probably be enough to keep me busy!

Now follows a (most likely pretty slow) process of scouting locations, making sketches, shooting and editing. At this point I’m not sure whether I’ll share work in progress or if I’ll save everything until the collection and the accompanying paper is done.

In any case, work in progress would drip out through Instagram. When it comes to a proper “release”, I’ll let you know in this thread.

I really appreciate the submitted pieces and your willingness to be part of this academic/artistic exploration.

:heart: :heart: :heart:

4 Likes