From: Randolph Jordan (email suppressed)
Date: Sun Jan 01 2006 - 23:41:13 PST
With apologies for cross-posting:
Synoptique, an online journal of film and film studies
(www.synoptique.ca), is seeking short written contributions for an
upcoming edition on sound in the cinema and beyond. As guest editor I
invite you to tell us what would make the world of audio-visual art a
better place. We are particularly interested in comments on
audio-visual art outside of the cinema.
The Visual Music exhibition, currently showing in the US, documents a
century's worth of experimentation with the pairing of sound and image.
It thus seems like an appropriate time to ask ourselves the following
questions: What do we expect from sound/image relationships in the
audio-visual arts, and are these expectations being met? Have any of
the audio-visual arts, whether cinema, site-specific installation, live
performance, etc., truly reached their inherent potential to present
sound and image as symbiotic entities? Is symbiosis even the right way
to think about the pairing of sound and image in the arts?
If you're like me then you have your share of frustrations with the lack
of audio-visual balance found in most art based on the co-existence of
sound and image. So much of the world's cinema continues to treat sound
as a necessary afterthought to the image. Meanwhile, laptop music
performers are throwing visuals up on screen with increasing regularity,
but only rarely with any real thought about how the seen relates to the
heard. And if you're like me, you probably also have your short list of
favorites in the audio-visual arts to which you hold everything else up
for comparison. Perhaps a film such as "In Absentia" by the Brothers
Quay and Karlheinz Stockhausen stands out as a model for audiovisual
symbiosis in the cinema. Beyond the borders of the fixed frame, perhaps
the collaborations of Janet Cardiff and George Bures Miller explore the
seams of the audio-visual envelope just waiting for the right time to
burst.
Here is your chance to weigh in. Tell us what you love, and what you
hate, about trends in audio-visual art both past and present. Share
with us what you think the pairing of sound and image needs in order to
meet the expectations that so many of us have for audio-visual media.
We're seeking contributions of 250 - 500 words for a forum that will
head-off a special section of the edition dedicated to audio-visual art
outside of the cinema. We will publish a selection that reflects the
diversity of the works received.
Submissions are due by January 15th 2006 and should be directed to:
email suppressed
Include a bio of 50 to 100 words.
Visit the following page for an example of a previous forum we conducted
in memory of Susan Sontag:
http://www.synoptique.ca/core/en/articles/sontag_index/
We look forward to hearing from you.
Randolph Jordan.
www.randolphjordan.com
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For info on FrameWorks, contact Pip Chodorov at <email suppressed>.