Late Night Rant of a Troubled Mind...

Need the artist be the story-teller from start to finish? That, simply will not do.

We as artists can either chose to be the story-teller or the person whom without would make for less interesting stories. In other words A body of work or say, even a single photograph can be made with a specific voice, tone, and intended outcome (as it ought to be) however if only one outcome is offered to the audience than how interesting can it truly be. If the work is to be looked at and only one message from it drawn then has it truly enhanced the viewer's experience. Is a multiple choice answer more engaging than one which takes the form requiring an open ended response?

Art, all art's intention should be to provide a gateway to the senses, the imagination, or the experiential existence of the mind. If this intention is not at the forefront of the artist's thought process then they can be said to be creating simply declarative statements with their work. The artist creates and displays while the audience observes and concludes. Ladies, gentlemen, this is not art! An artist should create and display works that cause the audience to ponder, emote, react, and hopefully articulate internal responses. Art should not be something that is merely comprehended.

The world needs to stop cowering behind the 'safe' idea that photography is and only can be a stationary art form depicting only a static moment in time voiding all interpretation of movement. Rather the mass populace should realize that like the brush-strokes of a painter may denote movement that occurred at one time, the movement of the viewer's eye across the surface of a painting should be treated equally as the movement of the eye across a photographic print. If the eye moves throughout the frame then there is indeed movement within the image. In fact,  I say it's near impossible to create an image that denotes absolute stasis and if it's been done I cannot say I've witnessed such an image.

Now, I'm sure this is bound to continue off in some Microsoft Word document within my computer but for now it's rather late. My schedule is beyond that which our understanding of time will allow and I'd like to get some rest this evening. I'm off to bed where this mind of mine, stirring with thoughts is sure to give me a seriously difficult time settling and allowing for some repose.

If ever I am to finish and proof-read/expand this rant-cum-critical essay I'll be sure to post it.

Sincerely


-S.

My friend Thomas alerted me to a great piece of music and and exceptional dancer. Now seeing as it's achieved over three million views it's certainly new only to well, yours truly... however I've got to say that whatever style of dance this is (some sort of swing/disco/hip-hop fusion) I'd love to learn it!

Watch and enjoy my friends.

Sincerely,

-S

Another Addition of "Web-Presence"

Though I've held off on the Tumblr craze, the Twitter tummult, and only had a brief encounter with the pointless social whatever known as Formspring I have been known to enjoy my Last.FM account, A Pandora profile, and of course a Facebook and now I'm adding my Soundcloud account which you can access.....HERE.

Currently I've only got one track up and it's what I'm calling a 'Condensed' Symphony. Now, I've only read about a weeks worth of music theory and even that was only done in about five days so I'm sure there are time signature shift errors, key signature messups and a number of other issues.  I've got a few changes I already know i'd like to change so I'm waiting to upload the final 'condensed version' until i'm sure it's finished...enough haha.

Here is the description of the piece as it appears on my Soundcloud page:

This is a CONDENSED Symphony because at the moment i've only got about a weeks worth of music theory reading under my belt.
The music is ment to accompany 10 photographs that were all recorded of and within a single space, an abandoned dairy barn's feeding chamber in my home town.
The music presents and expresses several of the emotions felt by myself somewhat chronologically.
This is still a work in progress and will eventually be finalized into a complete symphony of appropriate length. I've got until the 19th to present it and by then I hope to have it at about five to seven and a half minutes, it's currently at three minutes and thirty-three seconds.
There is a solid chunk of silence that occurs within the piece, this is meant as a representation of the self reflection, meditation, and then appreciation of the surroundings that occurred while making the exposure.
LASTLY: There are also several moments where the song becomes relatively quiet so turning the volume up a bit or using headphones is advised.
Thank you for listening.

Sincerely,

-S.

Quite excited for THIS. Should be coming out soon. 30 Minute animated short by Terri Gilliam featuring the voice of Tom Waits as the monster.

Check it out.

Sincerely,

-S

New Challenge

I've come to the conclusion that while photography is a glorious medium it's not the perfect one for me or my work. While I'm sure I'll still be pursuing it as a main focus I've begun to incorporate other mediums into my work such as sound and music. I've always attempted to include sound/music with my work but what's different about  now is that I'll be recording my own sounds and writing my own music to accompany my two dimensional works.
I've created a Soundcloud account and I'll be posting links to where you'll all be able to hear samples of or complete works of mine.

This is the result of attempting to boot-camp music theory over the past week. After that week, this is what I've begun to create.

You can click HERE to be taken to my Soundcloud page and listen to a sample of a piece called Studie eines Raumes Op.1 (Study of a Room Op.1).

As of right now it's been exported with a tempo of 90 bpm and I'll be eventually changing that to around 73 bpm.

Sincerely,

-S

NOTE: There are instruments written with the piano-piano-pianissimo dynamic (extremely quiet) so if you are going to listen it is STRONGLY advised that you wear decent headphones and turn the volume up some. Thank you.

Trailer for Accidental Hero: Hazard Guy

Check out the trailer for Accidental Hero: Hazard Guy

CLICK HERE