To inspire our 30-60 second soundscape projects, we were asked to base our submissions on a provided piece of artwork. I chose Kandinsky's Yellow, Red, Blue (1925) based on initial impressions. Instinctively, the visuals sparked the most ideas sound-wise, and I consulted with some friends to cement my decision.
After some research, I discovered that Kandinsky was very much inspired by music in his painting, which becomes clear looking at this piece - it resembles musical scores created through graphical notation as opposed to traditional methods. His abstraction drew the viewer's eyes in an intended path around the image, such as in this piece - left to right, then all around along the rhythm of shapes. Form and colour work together to create a flow that would be interesting to represent in the form of a soundscape, so I feel this is a great prompt for the project. Composition is carefully considered through the intentional placement of elements in a fine balance of order and chaos, ensuring that every corner of the piece stands out as an exploration of hue, saturation and value. Kandinsky felt the need to provide the viewer with a sensory experience when looking at art, in the same way music is crafted to tap into the senses. I believe he achieved that with this painting.
Here are my chronological observations & ideas:
- Blue wrapping around the bottom and left side, almost like a cascading river or a brewing storm.
- Authoritarian yellow figure centre-left in front of a brown glow, elements exploding out from them, absurdity & complexity of inexplicable human emotions.
- Simultaneous symmetry and harmony of both sides - echoing parallel bar lines, flat & orderly, somewhat removed from the action in the image - on the "sidelines" in the corners, overshadowed by stronger visual elements, outliers.
- Red elongated triangle top left, almost like a knife/dagger/needle/arrow/dart, violent connotations of blood/rage colour & thin, sharp appearance.
- Centre upwards line with three light peach-coloured beak shapes, like feathers or a flag, reminds me of pirate ships and Oriental dragons, directly above this lavish floral red rectangle shape, like passion contained.
- To the right of red rectangle are smaller geometric forms in pastel shades reminding me of stained glass windows, religious connotations or more like fragile tissue paper, explosion of colour, celebratory, against large blue circle implying lunar festival.
- Fluid comb shapes emerging from blue circle - desaturated, dripping, beside bubble forms, quotidian daily routine versus festivities & drama, essential human experience is a smorgasboard.
- Multicoloured checkerboards spattered around the scene, the futilities yet prevalence & necessity of logic, importance of composure within chaos, grounding anchors within entropy, road markers amidst everyday emotional stress, puzzles, confusion, effort.
- Punctuating circles dotted around the image - holes, entryways, exits, opportunities, landmarks, static, immobile forces, brief occurences, demand attention, elusive.
- Wavy black line dominates the image - descent, smoke, curves like a river, fluid but not stable, human lifespan, holds more meaning than other elements.
- Black line with dark triangles, almost like a stegosaurus or lizard, sharp imagery, obstructive, life's obstacles & challenges, puncturing other brighter elements, inner doubts & inhibitions tripping up the human experience.
Those are the key things that I would like to potentially explore in my soundscape piece. Altogether, I interpret this piece as a commentary on the multiplicity of the human experience. To this end, maybe I could record human-generated sounds to use in my project, such as vocalisations, humming, coughs, interactions with relevant objects (e.g. sharpening knives, crinkling tissue paper, etc.) and breathing.
My next steps would be to research things I've mentioned in the reflection above and see how I could further develop my concept - e.g. history of graphic notation, colour psychology, chaos theory (humans have a desire to control the chaos that surrounds us, yet ironically that chaos nurtures our growth), etc.
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