Quickly after our group was assembled we decided we wanted to do something mainly photography based which was easily linked to my assessment 1 as I used photography as a media mode. After Teresa’s presentation about her assessment one project which was about the entanglement of music and people, as well as individually through music taste, I put forth to the group to go with Teresa’s concept, which we all agreed upon. In a class that Paris and Teresa weren’t present for I started reading into research about music therapy used with Alzheimer’s patients and was amazed about how powerful music’s effects on our memories are as well as the capacity the brain has to store memories seemingly longer/clearer when music is attached to them.
This research grew our concept into an exploration into how entangled our memories are with music and the beauty of how each piece of music with a certain memory attached can be so overwhelmingly personal, fragile and unique to the individual. We realised we could further Paris’s concept of the fragility of entanglement through paper by getting our talent to write out their memories on paper, this use of written media re-enforces all of our original concepts. This new concept now covered Teresa’s, Paris’ and my original concepts from assessment 1 in short, Teresa ‘The individual nature of entanglement’, Paris ‘The fragile nature of entanglement’ and myself ‘The personal nature of entanglement’.
From this new concept also arose questions on how we should go about our practice “Should we photograph and interview strangers or friends? Should we photograph and interview our talent together or separately? How many people should we photograph and interview? How many photos should we take? How will we display the memories? Should we record our friends? What questions should we ask? How should we proceed? How should we share the workload?”
We decided to photograph and interview friends separately, because of the personal nature of the project. We also decided that because there are three of us it would be best to photograph one or two people each due to restrictions of page size. We also decided to take two photographs of each person before and after listening to a music piece that they have strong memories attached to and then ask them to write out their memory and ask how it’s affected them. We decided it best to record our friends as the answers could vary and we also wanted a recording of their memories as it would add to the personal nature of our piece. Sharing the workload was really easy to split up between us three, from deciding to each take photos we then decided to each find a piece of academic writing, from there we split up the three main media modes between us.
I was in charge of getting all of our academic research together, finding other sources I could pull ideas/information from and combining them into a short but thorough piece of writing as an opening and closing to our project.
Teresa was in charge of sorting through all of our raw photographs, finding the best two that complimented each other side by side (listening/not listening to music) while also working in conjunction with the other photos of other people and creating an overarching aesthetic to each image through photo editing.
Paris was in charge of page design, curating images Teresa had edited, curating memories to create flow in the piece, hyperlinking my referencing, sorting out our sound files (for the most part) as well as adding in my writing and making sure all of the written format looked nice and organised.
These various modes of media encourage our audience to engage with our piece visually through photography which is also used as a visual storytelling device. The recorded memories give our audience the option to engage with our piece on a more personal level which helps create a connection between the audience and our subjects. The writing within this piece comes in three different writing styles academic, creative and memories, this entanglement of styles work together to encourage our audience to enjoy the academic writing. The included written memories help aid in the construction of our story and also work with our academic and creative writing to build the interpersonal connections our audience can make with our piece. I was really inspired with the ideas I learnt through my research about when we first interact with sound and how that changes as we age, but in the end of our life cycle our entanglement becomes similar to the beginning of our lives.
This split up of the workload played to our groups strengths and was one of the main things that worked really well with our project. We also had a lot of trust in one another and kept each other updated as well as organised on what was completed inside and outside of class. I feel like the entanglement of our ideas worked so well which is something I’d love to develop further and see where the concept can grow.
I think the only things that didn’t work on the project was the personal timing with careers, university, moving and family issues within not only our group but also with our talent. Which can’t be changed, as it’s out of our control but I feel we all handled the unexpected nature that can come with working with others really well, with understanding, proper timing and organisation. I feel like we all had issues with using a small page, but worked with what we had throughout the scrollable option which ended up becoming a swiping option and I’m really excited to see what we can do in a larger space.
For our next project I would really love to explore the concept about vulnerability, it’s seen as a weakness but I think it’s beautiful. When my friends spoke to me about their very personal memories, which I may have never known about if not for this assessment, I felt so good. I like being personal with people and I want our next work to destigmatize the idea that being being personal or fragile or an individual is a weakness, it’s to be shared and celebrated. I have already thought about doing a 4D artworks, maybe involving our audience sharing their fears and then destroying them, or sharing happy memories on physical items and then using them to build something together, or using a big canvas where people can paint a colour and then write about their first love, or their first heartbreak, or their first pet, or their first date in a collaborative piece. Or maybe creating a dark immersive space where it must be total silence (no phones or talking are allowed), or a light immersive space where you can only communicate through compliments we’ve written out on paper for you to give to someone else. I just want our audience to see how entangled we all are with one another through our vulnerabilities and encourage them to create new entanglements.
Bibliography
Academic Readings
Thompson, WF. and Coltheart, M. (2008) The Role Of Signal Detection And Amplification In The Induction Of Emotion By Music. New York: Cambridge University Press. Volume 31 Issue 5.
Chanda, ML. and Levitin DJ. (2013) The Neurochemistry Of Music. Montreal: McGill University. Volume 17 Issue 4.
Medcalf, B. (2017). Exploring the music therapist’s use of mindfulness informed techniques in practice. Australian Journal of Music Therapy, 28, 47-66.
Antrim DK. (1944) The Musical Quarterly. United States: Oxford University Press. Volume 30 No. 4.
Idea about reaction photography
People React To Being Called Beautiful, video recording, Chicago. Directed by Shea Glover, Published May 27th 2015, Viewed on the 8th of April 2019. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aW8BDgLpZkI
Mehmet Genç, Started January 2015 – Published October 30th 2016, Man takes photos of people around the world and photographs their reactions to being called beautiful, “You’re Very Beautiful”. Viewed on the 8th of April 2019. http://www.rotasizseyyah.com/cok-guzelsin-demenin-etkileri.html
Johanna Siring, Article published Aug 23 2017, This photographer shot portraits of strangers before and after she kissed them. Article posted on i-D by André-Naquian Wheeler. Viewed on the 8th of April 2019. https://i-d.vice.com/en_us/article/bjj7qv/this-photographer-shot-portraits-of-strangers-before-and-after-she-kissed-them
Ideas of Sound Helping Memory Which Was Used In Creative Writing
(original) Man In Nursing Home Reacts To Hearing Music From His Era, video recording, New York. Directed by Music & Memory, Published November 18th 2011, Viewed on the 8th of April 2019
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyZQf0p73QM
Anderson, 2018, ‘Increased Functional Connectivity After Listening to Favored Music in Adults With Alzheimer Dementia’, online journal, published by The University of Utah.
https://musicandmemory.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Utah-Univ-of-Health-Journal-of-Prevention-of-Alzheimers-Disease.pdf
Idea Of Weaving Academic Writing And Creative Writing Together
Walker, 2016, Micrograms, New Michigan Press, Tucson Arizona. Viewed 18th of April 2019.
Quote
Stevie Wonder Quotes. BrainyQuote.com, BrainyMedia Inc, 2019. Viewed on the 18th of April 2019 https://www.brainyquote.com/citation/quotes/stevie_wonder_463227
Link to Work
https://drive.google.com/drive/u/0/folders/1IeC39I1dfRiT4Nd8vLEl8i75UACZDXxL
Let me know if you need any permission for access to this work Sophie! 🙂
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