To start this project, I attended a sound walk along with my peers around the meadow in Edinburgh where we send sound recording of peculiar noises to inspire us along this project. However, my attention quickly moved away from sounds from nature, but instead my interest was in the more intimate moments happening around the city. On the way back from the sound walk I noticed a pair of girls laughing and chatting whilst walking down the streets, a mother and son (assumed) talking in a parking lot. I didn’t eavesdrop on their conversations but I focused on the sound of their conversations, the blurry words exchanged between two individuals or more.
That was the soundscape I wanted to focus on so I went to cafes where each table of people had their own little sound bubble and just listened. I wanted to transfer that feeling of that intimate moment into a visual experience.
(Far Above) Untitled Canvas, (Below) On A Clear Day by Agnes Martin
An artist that came to mind is Agnes Martin, whose work captures micro-expressions and the subtlety of our emotions. Martin believed that “Art is the most concrete representation of our most subtle feelings”. In her pastel striped square canvases and intricate grids, I can’t help but be enchanted by them the same way I was enchanted by the feeling the outlines of the conversations I have been listening to around Edinburgh. That’s when I decided to use pastel colours and a continuous but simple line drawing to craft the visual responses to this piece.
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