Music Inspired Graphic

Artist Felipe Skroski

In Drawing, we are looking at sound-art and graphical scores, i.e. different visual methods by which a sound sequence (or music) may be portrayed / represented. I am currently attempting to produce sound notations in development of a graphical score for a piece of music by Pitch Black, titled "Fragile Ladders" which is on their latest album titled "Rude Mechanicals". I have found that I keep returning to certain motifs that almost certainly arise from having learnt to read traditional musical scores. In particular, I keep moving across the page from left to right as if space on page represents time in a linear fashion and using height (up the page) to relate to pitch - almost as if there is an invisible treble and base clef and the lines of a musical score already underlying my blank page. Perhaps this is acceptable, however I feel the need (desire) to shift away from these traditional approaches and perhaps experiment with time and pitch in other ways.
I discovered the above graphic in a search of images under "attribution licence" in Flickr, by Felipe Skroski (click on link above):
"A poster with graphic style inspired in Curitiba´s eletronic music movement. In english vida means life. This is a time line that starts in a born and finishes in death (from up to down)."
Time in this image does not move from left to right but top down and not even in a straight line. There are curves, kinks, periods of relative sameness and order as well as many changes in direction - such is the path of life. Height on page does not appear to correspond to pitch either, rather pitch seems to be indicated through colour and perhaps intensity of sound by thickness of line. There is a main thread that carries through the whole image, however, numerous additional lines and shapes that appear to interact and have important (even path-changing) relationships with the main line- perhaps these are parents and family, friends, relationships....etc.
This image, while relatively simple, I feel says a lot to me and has provided me with new ideas about the way a graphical score maybe constructed.
Let me know what you think of it!!!

Bookmarking

Hmmmm... as it still seems I am denied entry to the Windows Live page, I am not able to check out the favourites/bookmarking system.
Today, I have been introduced to del.icio.us. Very self-explanatory and easy to use. Super handy that it is not computer dependent (always racking my brains to think of web addresses when I am away from my home computer) and pretty cool that it is socially networked. I like it and will definitely be using it from now on!

What do I think about tagging?

Tagging? or street art? Where is the division between the two here? Possibly another grey-area, like music/sound.
Personally, I really distain the defacement of other peoples' property. Tagging is vandalism and is destructive, self-centred and RUDE!!! However, (call me a hypocrit) I really would LOVE to see more street-art out there. By street-art, I am meaning the sneaky, cheeky, often thought provoking art (stencil or freehand) that pops up in various places around town, as well as graffiti art that brings to life otherwise dreary, grey, industrial /city walls... (e.g. the cool graffiti down on the walls of the Leith under the fourth-street bridge). I think its great!!!... But tagging, the scrawl of a signature as a way to mark territory, is under another category, or 'tag'...i.e. 'vandalism'...
I was fully being facetious with that above response. I realise the question relates to the type of category tags on blogs and on 'favourites' / 'bookmarks'. Pretty handy, I think. In this case, a blog response on 'tagging' could be under the tag 'categorisation' or 'street-art' or, as I feel, 'vandalism'. The usefulness of the 'tag' system of categorising is highlighted here - it helps to eliminate confusion where there could be a number of possible interpretations of content or content key-words.
Also very handy for both the blogger and the bloggee (is that the right term for someone who reads a blog???). Tagging helps the blogger to organise his/her log and the reader to quickly select and go to the appropriate entry. A win-win...yippeee!!!

Categories I envisage using:
Digital Literacy 1; Social; Surfing; Painting; Ponder This!

I imagine categories will arise as blog entries are written.

Now, what DO I tag this entry?

Noise Blog!

Hi,
Just checked out the following blog, found under the window:scene category (tag) 'noise'. Having just come from a very ...interesting... sound experience in Drawing, I felt it was pretty relevant.

http://window.org.nz/search/label/noise

Powersound at Te Tuhi...Sound art? or Music? The objects of sound used at this gig are referred to as instruments. Made of a 'bridge of wires at various tensions, with pickups for amplification' sure sounds like a description of a familiar instrument...but what did it SOUND like?
Sound as an artform : well there is the generally appreciated category music - with melody, harmony, rhythm and perhaps lyrics, and then there is 'sound-art'... A realm which I have, before today, never actually given more than a cursory glance (whats the audio-version of 'glance'??) (and perhaps a raised eyebrow at what sounded just weird).
But now i am curious -at what point are the two delineated? What is 'music' and what is simply 'sound' (or 'noise')?
Enlighten me...

Play-Doh Bunnies!!!

Follow this link below and watch the making of the Play-Doh Bunny advert.
http://bravia.sony.eu/bravia.html
Absolutely amazing!!!
Interesting that once, not that many years ago, we may have been shown a digital image (or digitally enhanced image) that challenged the laws of nature. Our response would be to gasp and wonder "Is that real? how did they DO that?"...and then it would be revealed; digifiddling.
Now, we see the Play-Doh Bunny add (I have asked around and all of those surveyed drew the same conclusion) and presume "ah, that must be a computer animation" and so, it seems reasonable; after all there are THOUSANDS of coloured bunnies leaping all over down-town New York, that then merge into a great purple ball, then huge play-doh wave etc etc so, of course its digital animation! Very cool add, but the most spectacular revelation comes in watching the making-of... those bunnies are REAL!!! Whats more, each and every bunny must have half a dozen or so replicas of itself in different stages of the bunny-jump... and at each movement transition, a person has to run in and swap greenbunny1 for greenbunny2, yellowbunny4 for yellowbunny5 etc. ... and the final 30 ft redbunny.... is REALLY THERE!!!
WOW!!!

What I think about computers...

Hmmm... as useful as the user perceives, I think! For a techno-phobe attempting reformation, computers still make me slightly nervous: the ever evolving black-box of infinite information and possibility... However, the more I learn, the more I feel inclined to make use of them and the more they actually seem necessary.
There is still an element of the "big-brother" fear that soon I will be personally micro-chipped and watched (policed) 24/7... but perhaps this is a wee way off still.