AntiGravity

AntiGravity, Color/Sound, 2006, Duration 1:59;26
Daniel Kelly

This video is the result of a series of expeditions to Pere Marquette Park, Milawukee, Wisconsin in the week of Thanksgiving, 2006. What I found interesting were the sounds and sights of an empty midday city center on Thanksgiving day. I also have been exploring movement in the frame space, deep space, ideas of audio-visual conflicts, time-based audio resampling, and breaking the traditional space inherited from a television screen. All images and sounds heard in the video were captured the day before and on Thanksgiving. See previous posts for software used on this project. Click on the picture to play the Quicktime video.

Image-Sound Sketches and Clip Overviews

The posts in the stage of my project contain two types of media files, Quicktime and Flash. They have been tested in Firefox. So you can right-click on the larger images in each post to watch the Flash Movies, or left-click the small pictures for the quicktime versions. The conversion was completed with SUPER (freeware) from erightSoft, and the soundtracks were compiled with Audacity, and synced in AvidDVFree.

Downtown

This sketch is the empty sound of downtown Milwaukee, backwards. The intrusion of the sound is matched with the picture. At the end, the amtch creates action that breaks both spaces.


Click the small picture for Quicktime, right click below for Flash.

Cords

The cords in the park really bother me. This piece should make them bother you as well. The sounds are from the gravel pile at the bridge construction site north of Pere Marquette Park, and some distant, loud, pounding that was happinging on Thanksgiving Day.

Click the small picture for Quicktime, right click below for Flash.

Stone

This piece is about steel holding stone, the basic conflict of all structures- steel holding stones against gravity. The soundtrack is a compilation of traffic crossing the grate on the Kilbourne Bridge.

Click the small picture for Quicktime, right click below for Flash.

Bulbs directed by Birds

The lights seem at odds with their environment. They kill, they need cords. The birds in the soundtrack direct this piece

Click the small picture for Quicktime. Right-click below for Flash.

Transport

This has some interesting movement in it. I also recorded some "music" from downtown. Happy holidays.

Click the small picture for Quicktime, right-click the larger picture for Flash.

Wires

This group is the bundle of wires that christmas has brought to the park. Electricity as an unbalanced system, cords laid all over the grass in a park. I also like the fall light. I also like the low moving camera.

Click the small picture for Quicktime, right-click the large picture for Flash.

Transportable

There are some thematic contrasts in this group, like the garbage dumpster being shaped like the buildings, the bridge as a conflict with water, the waiting drawbridge gate; as well as some matchable action.

Click the picture for Quicktime, or right-click below for Flash.

Chairs in the Sun

The sun in these cameras is always interesting to me. The metal chairs offered an opportunity of screened occlusion. The screens also conflict with just about every other form I could choose.

Click on the small picture for Quicktime, right-click the larger picture for Flash.

Tiles and Shadows

Here I am looking at the angular forms of the tiles against the conflicting forms of the shadows. There are also many matchable structures here.

Click the icon for Quicktime, right-click the image below for Flash.

Metal

These clips and stills are interesting to me as examples of matchable structures, and chaotic forms contrasted against orderly forms. My approach will be one of matching these qualities in later videos.

I have been experimenting with using Super to convert my Quicktime movies into smaller Flash files. If you want to see the flash version, right-click the image below and choose play. To see the Quicktime version, click on the smaller still to the right.

Project 3 Video, Last Light Capturing Trek Strategies (estimated date)11.24.2006

I am hoping for some video and still capture only of busier streets to go with some of the "quiet" background I have from riverwalk on the previous outings for this project.

Situation #1: Busy Streets. The emptiness of the downtown makes a sort of chaotic bubble, especially one from a holiday to the biggest shopping weekend of the year.

Situation #2: The curiosity here is more about strategy. Will I be able to catch the images that go with curiosities?

Project 3 Video, Last Sound Trek Strategies - 11/23/06

I plan to return the location outlined in my last two entries on Thanksgiving Day to collect some ambient sound with an improvised barrier microphone. I didn't feel the need to create anything lasting, so I looked around my house and found this great structure from a box that my hard drive was shipped in. It's a rigig inflated packing barrier. The grooves between baffles hold the mics in position. I taped them in place and I used an old small tee-shirt to cover the entire structure. Super light. super quiet as long as nothing touched it. Wind noise was not a problem from my porch on a brezzey day. The stereo image in headphones was very wide in testing.

Soundscape #1 : Ambient sound from the area surrounding Pere Maquette park on Thanksgiving Day.

Soundscape #2: Ambiaent sound from the Kilbourne bridge.

Both soundscapes relate to my search for conflict, order vs. disorder in the environment of and surrounding the park. This has become, more and more, my main focus for this project.

Project 3 Video, Light Capture Trek 11.13.2006

This area around Pere Marquette Park has interest for me because it is an urban greenspace. It has many different forms and functions and is alongside a busy street, a river, a bridge and an intersection.

Setting #1: I hope to capture several images, moving and still, looking out from the park. Specifically I am looking for compositions of order vs. disorder, people going to and from work and animals in an urban setting.

Setting #2: I hope to capture a series of matching structural images, and matching individuals if possible, throughout the afternoon. Here I am looking for compositional matches to make connections between dissimilar people and structures, and to look for something in their motion that is common enough to concieve it as a mark of living in Milwaukee.

Production Strategies:

#1- All images will be close-ups that include deep space in the frame.
#2- All images will be captured with a match on a previous image in mind.

Click the map for an expanded view of the area.

Project 3 Video, Sound Trek 11.12.2006

Pere Marquette park is a greenspace located in downtown Milwaukee. I have never been there. What I hope to find on my sound trek tomorrow are quiet close mic sounds unique to the park and the surrounding area.

Soundscape #1- Sounds specific to a Sunday afternoon in a downtown location. Park, intersection, river. I am looking for an ambience of quiet

Soundscape #2- Bridge crossing sounds. I hope to mic the bridge on Kilbourn that I see in as many different locations as possible and record the sounds of cars crossing it from many different aspects.

Click the map for an expanded view of the area.

10 curiosities

10. What kind of visual compositions of order vs. disorder exist in a dense area?
9. What are the sights and sounds connected to green space in the midst of commerce?
8. What is the nature of reflected light from large glass structures?
7. Is there a audible connection between time of day and the soundscape of a bus stop downtown, and what is it's defining character?
6. Is there a single repeated audio-visual that could define the lunch hour in a neighborhood?
5. If I spent 7 hours in a place where people worked just recording it, would I be noticed?
4. Is there a defining element to my trek area, a repeating structure or form?
3. Do the people of downtown have a common visual trait or gait that is part of the working day?
2. Who else will be downtown but not for work?
1. What are the secret close-mic only sounds of downtown Milwaukee?

Dead Fish.

I saw a lot of dead fish on my last trek. They were lying in the water, floating, or on the beach, or the pier. At one point I watched a guy on the pier yelling at his fishing buddy not to lose whatever it was on the line. After struggles with nets and hooks and line, they hauled a large salmon or lake trout out onto the pier. It gasped, but it was obviously exhauted from being drawn in and raised the twelve feet or so up the side of the pier. The fisherman finally removed the hook and took a picture of his exhausted prize. He said something to some passers-by about just catching for the picture that sounded like he had some concern or respect for this creature. Then he grabbed the fish and gave it a high lob out into the lake again that ended with a smacking splash.

I walked on with my recording gear. On my way back, I saw the fish, floating on his side in the water. A seagull was perched on it like it was a handy raft. He was pecking at the fish's side. At least someone got something from that fish's death other than a snapshot, I thought. I passed the fisherman once again, thinking about my own neighborhood, and my upbringing and litter. Such waste and littering still seems strange to me, even after living on both coasts and spending years in large cities, as well as rural towns. It never ceases to baffle me when someone drops their garbage on the street, or leaves the dead refuse of their hunting behind at a campground. It's as if as the number of people around increases so does the denial of community responsibility, of basic respect for other beings.

Trek 3 Area

Google Maps View