Development : Recording human noises and tree noises

After getting the contact microphone I now could try and record sounds of the human body inside myself. I'm wanting to do this since my themes of the project have been the human body and trees. Experimenting with a contact microphone allows me to play around with the noises and sounds from what the initial project and subjects have been about.

To get the most clear sound without much static and unwanted noises picked up I tried taping the mic to parts of my body so it could be close and flat to the sources.

I tried drinking water, breathing and swallowing for the first few tests I then went on to try and do further recordings in the sound studio. I got some interesting sounds but sadly would pick up the drilling of the builders every now and again.

After getting a wide collection of different body functions and sounds I then tried recording the other theme of the project trees and the forest. It was at times really difficult and tricky since tree's on their own don't really make that much sound. But what did help where the elements of nature which created very surreal and atmospheric sounds.

Putting the microphone into a hollow tree let me hear the wind blowing through it as well as the amplified surroundings as it made a sort of giant speaker.

Recording against tree's surfaces sometimes didn't always give me much feedback but I would sometimes pick up insects. Being a nature sound recorder can take a lot of paitance. 

But natures elements helped a lot as well as the general sounds of forests and I got a lot of sound clips to work with. I edited the sound in audacity to create a mixed track of overlapping human and tree recordings. I had the idea to do the audio in this way since most of the project since the photography is nearly all mixed images of the contrasting themes.

Here is some samples of the sound clips unedited.

To just show some examples of the types of clips I had been recording and will be using for the final movie soundtrack. I will be adding this sound to the contrasting Photoshop images from the previous post. I will be setting up my assessment space very soon to show my work and sketchbooks. And getting all my files ready for submission just the final push now.

Here is the final audio track with progress photography.

Development : Arrival of Microphone and prints and change of plan for assessment

After a while was starting to get concerned about my order of prints and contact microphone. It seemed that they weren't going to arrive in time with it being Christmas time and also worry because of stress.

My prints did eventually arrive and I'm happy with how they turned out and can't wait to make them into a little flip book. I've checked the binding part with the library staff and their happy to help me when I get the images laid out and ready in the right order. Been planning out each image and it's position and the book will have a curl binding so that it can be flipped all the way around and be able to hopefully stand. I just hope pairing three piles of images to be bind will work al right with the machine.

This idea was originally started by the previous photo manipulations created in Photoshop a while back they have been turning out really successfully. So I wanted to expand on this idea and create a physical object for the viewer to interact with. The inspiration also comes from this as being a sort of playfulness from childhood and problem solving as from the original memories and playing in the forest being important to the start of this project.

My contact microphone did also eventually arrive in a round about way, it accidently got sent to my parents house. In my stress and forgetfulness I had forgotten to change the shipping address to my studying address. Thankfully my parents called me to ask about the package and gave it to me just in time. I was so worried that ordering another one wouldn't arrive in time that I nearly went to all the trouble of making one from scratch.

In the meantime been busy editing and putting the contrasting footage of the forest and my body from the Photoshoots with projections. Been using Final cut pro for editing and it's been good practice since not used it for a while.

After spending a good amount of time working on this short film piece visually I did not feel that positive about it as I had with the contrasting Photo manipulations. Plus film isn't my strong point as I'm usually in front of the camera or helping out with equipment with others. But I did pursue the film till the end without any sound since the delay of the microphone. But after discussing the process for assessment for this semester with Pernille and viewing the footage. It seemed that using my photography would be a more fruitful option that I felt more comfortable with to show as a final piece.

But I will keep the film to show as part of my development experiments for comparison of why I ended up using my images instead. So instead I created more images to be used in for a film that will eventually go with sound. Some of them are previous ones that have been altered.

Been working with these now instead to submit for the show reel we have been informed about. Been also planning out my work space for assessment as gathered more information about what is expected and how we can present our work. Sketchbooks have also been getting done on the side but the main pieces and sound is now my focus. I'll record my process of recording sound as well as the final days before assessment.

Development : Projections on the human body (Warning nudity)

After showing my progress and discussing my project with my tutor their was an idea I had to try and do projections of tree's and natural textures on the human figure. As a way of taking the human form and the collected photography into a higher progression of combining the two themes. Other ideas were of to paint my body and make it part of the landscape but projection's seemed to be medium that would portray these themes just as well. That doing this would also back up my research and theory in previous posts about the human condition and why we try to bring our humanity into the natural world. As well as the visually imagery that has been portrayed so far for this project.

I've also had my open tutorial with Graham Fagen who was also one of the artist's included in the McManus exhibit I saw. We had a really positive talk and it made me feel a lot better about my project and we discussed the theme of  'place' a lot. Since my project was about a place I felt safe in and most of the project was taking shape in a natural environment. He suggested the importance of place and trying other places to document and explore my project. Of places that feel safe to be in for me such as the forest but maybe even places that make me feel uncomfortable. That's why I wanted to do some work in a studio setting as well which is a urban environment instead of the forests. Even the progress of my project has been contrasting with humans and nature as well as urban and rural environments. Graham made this idea more clearer to me and for me to think about which I appreciated and will explore this a bit further.

I had never worked much with projectors before even for displaying my work so it was a learning process to use one in this project as well. I had the help of my two classmates Aimee Stewart and Sarah Smart which I appreciated greatly. We had a couple of issues with the projector as in the colour was pink for a while but we managed to make the settings go back to normal again.

We tried lots of different compositions and body positions to get different effects and visuals since this was us trying out for the first time. I tried putting my body in the same positions of the branches and trees as well as using textures of the bark and fauna. It made a lot of interesting imagery and camouflaged my body a great deal almost as if I was part of the scenery. None of these images have been edited so far but I've included the ones that I felt were the most appealing visually and have a range of colour, mood and form.

It reminded me a lot of when I was little and would play hide and seek in the woods and we would hide behind trees or in bushes a lot to be concealed. I tried to direct my classmates as well and they me cause I couldn't see very well from the projector shining directly at me. So sometimes it was a little tricky to know where I was positioned with the image.

Got a lot of different visuals to work with and experiment with the only thing that was an issue was the shadow out ling my form. So I'll be back in the studio to retry this technique again but without having shadows against the screen. And possibly try some different lighting but it is a little tricky since the projector is most of the light source. This was an experiment some of the images worked and some of them not so well as well as different poses. We also took some video footage but I have yet to edit that but would like to do some of that again as well possibly. Will take some of these and edit them and will have to get back into the forest as well for more photographs and materials. Will try some other images next time maybe of just single trees and make them the similar to my body. Possibly could project my limbs and body onto tree's in a rural environment as well. Will have to see because of time wise as well.