Audio-Visual Aesthetics in Contemporary Experimental Film
Author
Editor
Publisher, Location, Date
Oxford University Press, New York (USA), 2016
Keywords
Media Research, Arts, Sound, Experimentalfilm, artists' moving image, Projection performance
ISBN/ISSN/ISMN, DOI
- ISBN/ISSN/ISMN:
- 978-0-19-984154-7
Description
The aim of the article is to map the territory of the contemporary audio-visual cinematic avant-garde, which arose at the very moment of celluloid’s passage from mass use to obsolescence. The first group of films bears witness to the avant-garde’s ongoing interest in the formal organisation of sound/image-relationships. If one of the main concerns of sound in conventional film is to ‘naturalize’ the image, experimental film is interested instead in an anti-naturalistic use of sound. Films without sound or even without images (which still can be called ‘films’), the use of audiovisual polysemy, asynchronous or even synchronous sound as well as the visualization of code-based music are all means of revealing the constructed nature of the cinesonic event. But to pursue a productive reading of the contemporary cinematic avant-garde we have to broaden the scope beyond the formal level and lend an ear to the sounding of film’s material and its technological base. With the second group of films discussed we will enter the realm of the sound of technology itself, while the third group points out the creative potential of optically synthesized sounds. The fourth and last group, live generated sounds and images, attests to the agility of current projection performances.
Volume/Issue, Pages
397-425
Language, Format, Material, Edition
English, Paper
Activity List
-
- The Oxford Handbook of Sound and Image in Western Art. . 2016 -
-