liminalspacedub

For a long time I thought about visual problems in audio terms. This led to me producing geometric abstract paintings where the proportion of elements in the images were significant - based on the simple harmonic principle that small whole number ratios are consonant. (Vertical musical axis.)

More recently I have sequenced still images and explored the work of other photographers doing the same thing. (Horizontal musical axis.)

introduction

1. Pigeons in Pin Lane, Plymouth 2. EEG recording of 5 seconds of Cummins’ left temporal lobe brain activity

Pigeons in Pin Lane, Plymouth

pin lane pigeonsScanning Pin Lane for points of interest I focus on pigeons, photographing them with approximately one second shutter speed. The resulting images are intriguing - Turneresque. I grid them, arrange them in rows and layerthem in Photoshop to obtain deep and rich frames. Vector graphics sit sweetly on top of these images.

As with my previous temporal images, I am interested in preserving qualities of time in still images.

audio visualisationI make a 55 second audio recording at Pin Lane, of passing cars, people chatting and background noise. I generate a PureData array and pass it though some patches. I’m currently more interested in visualising the data using Adobe Audition.

55 second audio recording in Pin LaneAbove; top & bottom left, bottom right: Spectral Frequency Displays secs x Hz, resolution varied.top right: Waveform Display secs x dBs.Below: Frequency Analysis Hz x dBs

liminal spaceLiminal space is a transitional space, between places or states, where boundaries break down and ambiguities set in. It includes borderland, airports and hotels - places that people pass through without staying pemanently.

Liminal space was introduced to anthropology in 1909 by Arnold Van Gennep in his ‘Les rites de passage.’1 Van Gennep broke down the ritual of obtaining manhood into three phases, the second phase being the transitional phase; liminal space. Van Gennep’s studies were expanded by cultural anthropologist Victor Turner, who noted that during the transitional phase a person is not part of society but dwells in communitas, where social hierarchies dissolve.2

Homi Bhabha defines liminality in terms of cultural hybidity:

By “liminal space,” Bhabha means the site of conflict, interaction, and mutual assimilation that every encounter between cultures involves....Therefore Bhabha insists on inhabiting the “liminal” or “interstitial” space between disciplines... for Bhabha, this liminal space is not merely an idea: it is the material and ideological site from which one speaks, the site of an always complex encounter between at least two nations, cultures, or disciplines.3

Pin Lane is liminal. People pass through it. It is a space between buidings. It is called a Lane; it is a hybrid of an alley and a road, maybe a cul-de-sac. Double yellow lines ensure vehicles don’t stop there.

Pin Lane is liminal space.

dub

Dub engineer and producer King TubbyA DJ and MC on the Coxsone Sound Sytem

The dub genre has evolved since it began in the late ‘60s. It originated simply as B-side versions of Jamaican reggae songs on 7” singles with the vocal track removed. At the beginning of the 1970s sound engineers began to add sounds back into the B-sides -

• key words or phrases from the vocal track with added delay and reverb• accentuation of the bass and drums with delay added to snare drums and high hats• percussion and sound effects

Dub singles were widely played by sound systems (groups of DJ’s with large speaker stacks) who toasted back over the tunes, and tracks were released with toasting incorporated. Sub genres have developed since the 1970s, including spacious minimal recordings, tracks saturated with effects and sounds, and dub from many countries.

DUB IN LIMINAL SPACEEduardo Navas claims that Dub thrives in ‘liminal space’3, as defined by post colonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha as transcultural space.

DEVICES IN A KING TUBBY DUB MIXOpening bars have intact vocals and melodic instruments, which then get taken down in the mix with lots of repeat delay on the final syllable, note or beat. Drum and bass are accentuated, with delay on snare and hi-hat. Key words or phrases are brought back in, with lots of delay upon removal. Guitar is brought in and out, lots of reverb, often lots of delay on removal. Removal of vocal or guitar often leaves very stark ‘spacious’ drum and bass passage, with delay or reverb on drum strikes. Sometimes passages with bass only. Opening bars with vocals which end abruptly leaving only drum and bass create high contrast, as does guitar repeat delay coming to an end to leave drum and bass. Sometimes the vocals or guitar are cut off part way through a word or phrase, creating a glottal stop effect, other times the cut off is saturated with delay which fades to an end revealing the drum and bass.

King Tubby: ‘He is often cited as the inventor of the concept of the remix’4

visualdub

I photographed the route from Plymouth Uni to Pin Lane, getting these pictures by ‘shooting from the hip’ - a way to keep my camera out of sight and get less planned compositions.

I arranged this suite in a 3 x 3 grid, making no selective decisions. When I began to consider transfering dub devices to other disciplines this was available.

Initially I just looked for equivalents to accentuating the drum and bass; the central structure of the piece. I decided to accentuate the lowest and highest tonal values; like the bass guitar, snare drum and high hat.

This tonal adjustment eliminated most of the subject matter (narrative) of the images, equivalent to the vocal track of a song being removed.

Next I applied directional blur to the high values in reference to reverb, as well as pasting the high value areas back into the image slighlty offset from the original position to suggest delay. It seemed natural to work in a left to right direction for these time related effects.

At this point I wanted to drop some selected subject / vocal back into the mix, but here I stumbled. Up to now I had been happy with the results from my randomly selected images, but I couldn’t get an aesthetically pleasing result bringing them back in. So I decided to follow a different route - to dub in the style of Adrian Sherwood (producer and sound engineer of On-U Sound records.)

I played with the image I had at this point, and distorted it beyond traceability. I then used some circles to suggest extended delay, and dipped into my archive of images to find some Seizure Mapping graphics, which I overlaid.

SUMMARYI have taken drum and bass from one piece of work - the route to Pin Lane minus its narrative, and used this as the central structure. I have added ornamentation, and highly developed elements from another project, Seizure Mapping, that were put to one side and not exhibited, that work well with this project.

EVALUATIONI think I failed in that I set out to apply Tubby’s devices to a visual work, and abandoned this aim when it became difficult, opting to work in a more Sherwood style. However, this was due to selecting the wrong starting material, and I developed a working procedure. It can be developed.

I like the fact that a social artwork has been inserted into an aesthetic artwork, somewhat parallell to toasting over a musical drum and bass rhythm - albeit far less accessible or readable. This quality can also be developed.

phase 1

co-opdub

phase 2

References:

1. Les rites de passage. Van Gennep. 1909.

2. Drama, Fields and Metaphors: Symbolic Action in Human Societies. Victor Turner. 1974.

3. Dub, B Sides and their [re]versions in the threshold of Remix. Eduardo Navas. 2008.

4. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Tubby

Bibliography:

Looking for Liminality in Architectural Space. Catherine Smith.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Homi_K._Bhabha

http://parole.aporee.org/work/hier.php3?spec_id=19650&words_id=900

http://www.liminality.org/about/whatisliminality

http://www.indigogroup.co.uk/edge/liminal.htm - The metaphors and rituals of place and time - an introduction to liminality or Why Christopher Robin wouldn’t walk on the cracks. Bob Trubshaw

http://epc.buffalo.edu/authors/perloff/bhabha.html -Cultural Liminality / Aesthetic Closure?: The “Interstitial Perspective of Homi Bhabha. Marjorie Perloff.

http://borderpoetics.wikidot.com/liminality