(I)MAGESOUND(S)

A set of screenings from the (I)MAGESOUND(S) project, hosted by the Centre for Audio Visual Experimentation (CAVE).

(I)MAGESOUND(S) is a project that embraces an expanded experience of the cinematic, locating historical and contemporary artists’ work alongside the work of Jim Hobbs and Andrew Hill. The concept for the programme was originally born out of a research project/commission by Mono No Aware and The New York Public Library (NYPL) for the Performing Arts, as part of the annual Cinema Arts festival MONO X.

Working with the NYPL for Performing Arts film archive, contemporary individual artists, musicians and film distributors, the original project created a programme that brought together a variety of approaches to cinema, ranging from single screen films to more performative and expansive works. Its intention was to celebrate the relationship between image and sound, and emphasise the collaborative and generative possibilities between artists of different disciplines.

In this spirit, Hobbs and Hill have chosen to invite additional musicians/artists from each city where the project will be performed. For the Leeds event, artist and University Academic Fellow Sam Belinfante will join to offer additional sonic elements throughout the evening.

Please reserve your place here via Eventbrite.

The programme is divided into four movements:

Nature Morte, Jim Hobbs (10 minutes)

Jim Hobbs’ 16mm film Nature Morte is a suite of 16mm films composed of different floral arrangements, whereby the subject matter also transforms into a source of sound.

Looking back towards Robert Mapplethorpe’s early flower photographs, Hobbs takes on board the ideas that the flowers represented here are simultaneously life and death – and as such have a frequency that hums with tension. With a focused and durational gaze, each “still life” explores the visual beauty of a staged composition, while at the same time searching for moments within the frame that utilize the optical soundtrack on the film’s surface to create sonic equivalents. The output of these sounds is manipulated live creating alien noises that challenge and shift the imagery. (10 mins)

Score and (Re)Score, various artists

Score and (Re)Score is a curated selection of both historical and contemporary artists single screen works which focus on the image/sound relationship. Scores, both original and new are paired with 16mm works to expand and explore the influence on the films.

Works selected from the New York Public Library of Performing Arts (New York), Light Cone (Paris), The Conner Family Trust (San Francisco), LUX (London), Image Forum (Tokyo), and from individual artists include:

• Mary Ellen Bute, Rhythm in Light, 1936, 5 mins (new live score)
• Stan Brakhage, Garden of Earthly Delights, 1981, 2 mins (silent)
• Bruce Conner, Cosmic Ray, 1961, 4 mins (original score)
• David Leister, Headgear, 1998, 6 mins (new live score)
• Guy Sherwin & Lyn Loo, Washi 1, 2014, 4 mins (new live score)
• Hiroshi Yamazaki, Heliography, 1979, 6 mins (original score)
• Ben Rivers, House, 2006, 5 mins (new live score)

Projections, Andrew Hill (10 minutes)

Projections is an electroacoustic composition for 16mm projector and pre-recorded sound.  Sounds of the projector are sampled, transformed and spatialized bringing the humble projector into focus. Instead of light it is the sound which is projected out into the space, shifting, moving, circling and transforming our relationships to the projector.

In this postacousmatic work the sound source takes centre stage where the physical sounds of the projector are mixed with the recorded sounds. Sonic materials were originally recorded in Hobbs’ studio in St Leonards-on-Sea UK, and composed/edited by Andrew Hill at NOTAM in Oslo, Norway. (10 mins.)

Vientos Fuertes (Strong Winds), Jim Hobbs (15 minutes)

Vientos Fuertes (Strong Winds) is the final work in the programme and is a performative piece using multiple projectors/screens and manipulated improvisational live sound.

Taking Miguel Cervantes’ Don Quixote as a starting point, the work forefronts windmills as mechanical and monumental sculptures in the landscape ― giants whose presence is felt visually, sonically and physically. Loops of film are run through projectors, mixed and overlaid onto each other, while the sounds are composed from the optical soundtrack on the films and various digital sources. It is a cinematic imagining of the experience of Quixote ― at first amazed and frightened by the sight, then charging full ahead with confidence, yet ultimately being churned up and spit out at the other end by the spinning arms of giants. (15 mins).

Film still: Stan Brakhage, Garden of Earthly Delights, 1981

(I)MAGESOUND(S) has been made possible with generous support from the School of Design at The University of Greenwich, London.

Hobbs and Hill would like to thank the following people: Guy Sherwin & Lynn Loo, David Leister, Ben Rivers, Elena Rossi-Snook, Steve Cossman, Light Cone, The Bruce Conner Family Trust, Image Forum, LUX, NOTAM, Christopher Sand-Iversen, Sam Belinfante, Mat Fleming, Maria Glyka, and Vassilis Vlastaras.

(I)MAGESOUND(S) was originally performed at The Bruno Walter Auditorium in Lincoln Center, New York on 1 December 2016.

This event is hosted by the Centre for Audio Visual Experimentation (CAVE), based in the School of Fine Art, History of Art and Cultural Studies at the University of Leeds. It is funded by Arts Council England.

For more information, contact Sam Belinfante.

Images

Jim Hobbs, Vientos Fuertes, 2018; Stan Brakhage, Garden of Earthly Delights, 1981