Sound Familiar?

The ability to hear is probably one of the greatest things that we as humans are able to do (aside from seeing, that is).  There are infinite combinations of sounds and things to hear that sound itself can create the landscape that we are in.  The article entitled "Acoustic Ecology" was one I found very interesting.  I feel that a main point of the article was that we should be more in tune with natural sound.  Going off of this point I would say that, while natural sounds are beautiful and help us deal with and define reality, I find more enjoyment in listening to manufactured sounds.  One prime example is electronic music.  I really like that we can create sounds and make music out of them and despite how alien they feel to us.  These sounds themselves are truly innovative.  I think that they allow us to be jarred from our daily lives and experience something new in the realm of sound an hearing.

Animation experimental vs. cel

I love animation.  I love the old hand draw Disney movies and am a big fan of most of the newer stuff.  I also really enjoy experimental animation.  I felt that this article did a good job distinguishing between the two; however, i feel that it was a little biased.  To me it seemed that this article was saying that experimental animation was better and I don’t necessary agree with that.  I think that both forms of animation have their merit and a lot of hard work goes into the animation.  I think that for narrative cel animation is better while more emotional driven story experimental animation is more effective.  That being said I can easily see the drawbacks of cel animation.  One show that comes to my mind is the old Scooby Doo.  I remember laughing about the fact that they always ran past the same background and it never changed until the end of the chase.  I don't know whether to classify that as laziness as the article suggests or whether this was simply just the standard style, perhaps it was a combination of both.  Animation has also been evolving over the last years.  Thanks to the introduction of Pixar, animation has taking a different route.  Pixar’s style of animation allowed for greater camera movement with the animation.  Backgrounds and characters are allowed to have much more detail than in previous cel animation.  I feel that the emotional level of this type of animation is able to be on par with that of real film and we can see that in films like Toy Story and How to Train Your Dragon.  Experimental animation crossing over into narrative animation is also a very creative and interesting.  A fantastic example of this was Fantasia, which was a great film.  

Synesthesia and Cymatics

This is about the fifth time I have read this article on synesthesia.  I find the topic to be fascinating.  I think one of the main reasons I keep reading about this phenomenon is that I’m secretly hoping that I will wake up and have spontaneously manifested this trait.  My first interest in this topic came from the neurological standpoint.  I am intrigued by the way the human mind works, reasons, and processes information.  I love reading about human cognition and everything that falls under; synesthesia does just that.  I like to consider this type of ability from a philosophical viewpoint as well due to the fact that the senses determine our reality.  Because synesthetes have these connections between sound and color, sound and taste, and graphemes and color it is quite easy to make the assumption that they perceive reality in a different way than the rest of us.  Therefore, the people who experience synesthesia experience reality in a completely unique way that I can only hope to image.  Which brings me to the next point:  synesthesia in art.  In my experience, art in simply a medium in which people express their unique views on reality and the way they experience life.  Synesthesia in art allows non-synesthetes to experience what synesthetes experience on a daily basis.  The film we watched in class served as a form of synesthetic art that translates music into a visual medium.  Each sound corresponded to a different color or shape creating for a beautiful visual embodiment of the musical piece.  I thought that the scientific field of cymatics goes hand in hand with synesthesia.  This is mostly due to my belief that through cymatics a new art form can be born.  In the video, we see that sound is used to create shapes; I think that this can be developed and musicians can begin to make visual art.

Initial film response:  I really liked this film.  Visual music is beautiful to watch.  I fell like this film really captured the music in an unique visual way that reflected the music itself.  The music was vibrant and “jazzy” and I really felt that in the visual aspects of the film as well.  I saw that in the designs and shapes especially.  I also liked how the designs, shapes, and lines came together at certain points as the music built and then exploded into more color and designs as the music crescendoed.