Sol Hashemi S Portfolio

I enrolled in this course because I was I was curious to explore how pairing images with sounds causes shifts in meaning. I had been thinking about using sound for a while and thought that this class could help me figure some things out. My research questions were:

How can I use sound to cause viewers to reevaluate images?

How can I add sound to a framed image without taking focus away from the image?
How is sound used to market products?

My first project was a performance where I had to respond with video to audio created by Daniel Nelson. I used a software program that allowed live video effects to be produced as well as the mixing of multiple video channels. The vast possibilities afforded by the software allowed me to explore ways in which images can blend together, and also the ways they can be mixed with audio. The preparation for the performance involved learning the program and exploring how a piece of software could affect the production of an event.

My second project also involved a performance. This time the event was carried out over the internet. I created a web page where I created a form out of layered product images from a safety supply company. As the web page is reloaded, the images appear in a different sequence each time. The page can also be stopped during the loading while any number of the images have loaded one by one. For the performance, I played a song on my computer, “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, and reloaded the web page for the duration of the song. I would try to match the loading images up to the beat and intensity levels of the song. I would have to factor in the time it would take for the page to load, approximately one second. This was made tricky due to my wireless internet connections inconsistent nature. I recorded the performance using the motion screen capture software Snapz X Pro. In this project I used music to get viewers to reinterpret the images shown, images which are part of a viewers everyday environment. It is my hope that by creating a situation where these images must be seen as being a part of a larger group, an awareness of connections between images and things will continue on in a viewer’s mind.

I am interested in the way images can go unnoticed in daily life. Advertising, store displays, catalogues, instruction manuals, all utilize the image as a tool in the process of monetary production. How can these images be freed? How can attention be shifted from the product that an image refers to back to the image itself? This is a question that I am currently exploring with my online performance as a starting point.

My explorations during the quarter were primarily focused on my first research question: “How can I use sound to cause viewers to reevaluate images?” I didn’t get around to addressing the other two questions but hope to do so soon in the future. It was interesting to see how others in the class were exploring their research questions.

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