Music Mosaic

Song: 363N63 by King Krule
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QgL2q2t1KEA

Artist's Statement

I’m excited to be inspired by the talent of the young King Krule, who adapts different styles and creative influences into unique, nuanced music. So in my visual adaptation of his instrumental piece “363N63” while I visually adapted some formal elements, I decided to use my own individual authorship to take the sensual and cerebral response I had while listening and create an accompanying piece. In creating this work, I found myself thinking about a particular part from Annie Dillard’s essay “Seeing,” in which she says “Seeing of course is very much a matter of verbalization. Unless I call my attention to what passes before my eyes, I simply won’t see it.” I was worried that I wouldn’t know enough about music to be able to express what it is that I was hearing, and how I could translate that to visual art. I noticed an “echo-y” quality about the song and I identified that as reverb. Once I was able to verbalize that, I could understand it formally and how it contributed to make the song's narrative exploration of the innovative minds of youth. Finally, being able to verbalize how the reverb contributed to the tone, allowed me to make a visual piece that accompanies both that form and its effect.

Formally, my work is divided up into two parts. My double exposed pieces, which I double exposed within my camera and have otherwise not been manipulated. The idea of the double exposure came from a formal element in the song. The song consists of this bright, youthful guitar riff which we are introduced to, and then blended with a lower cerebral bass that is cohesive musically, yet a variation which completes the sound. Visually, I represented this by double exposing an image: sometimes a variation of the same image, sometimes a completely different image that completes the picture. Plus, the initial guitar is reverbed, evoking a sense of auditory multiple exposure.Then there is the second part, which are the unaltered single exposed photos. These photos visually represent the stiller moments of the song as well as the the contemplative bass which remains steady throughout the song as everything else reverbs, weaves, waxes, and wains. The pictures are also mostly underexposed, which gives the collection a darker tone that matches the lower bass, yet the subjects (the two making art, the girl in the snow suit, and the girl on the laundry machine) represent the youthful, creative voice of the layers of reverb, guitars, and drum pad. I have ordered them from lightest to darker photos to accompany the progression of the light guitar reducing eventually to the lone dark bass. The realism of photography and the dark, underexposure of the photos matches the raw, gritty recording style of 363N63 as well.

There is a young artist from New Zealand who does drawings and paintings of people, but she adds a flare to the drawings which make them more than just portraits. Sometimes she adds clouds or distorts the drawings so there is repetition in features. (http://henriettaharris.com/paintings-gallery/) She is one of my favorite contemporary artists and there are qualities in her work that complement 363N63 as well as my collection. There is a common theme between her work and my mosaic of the innovation and celebration of youth. She does head portraits of young people, suggesting through the alterations that there is something outside the box and expressive about their minds. I wanted to provoke a similar idea instead through the medium of photography.