Upton | Remix rampage ( II ): “Sing Out”, statement for Utsanga

Remix rampage ( II ): “Sing Out”, statement for Utsanga
by Lawrence Upton
(June 2017)

Utsanga remix rampage
a project by Volodymyr Bilyk

The source of this work is my visual poem founsoun # 3.

That title’s root, “founsoun”, is, “found sound”, though I have written it to reflect an aspect of my South London accent if it’s somewhat let off its leash.

founsoun # 3 was an illustration to a newspaper article. I “found” it in the belief that it might serve as the starting point for a performance, as a non-directive score.

It offers no guidance as to performers, performance type etc though, to my mind, the image “contents” may suggest that it is acoustic. That would have been my assumption. I added nothing to it.

The original of what was press-published was, I believe, photographed microscope imagery.

It was, therefore, when I had retitled and presented it, a kind of thought experiment: if one cared to engage with it: how might it be employed?… and so on, perhaps into some specifics and perhaps eventually into artistic activity.

The Utsanga invitation this year, UTSANGA REMIX RAMPAGE, has spurred me, and I have developed founsoun # 3 into Sing Out.

I still do not know for certain for whom it might be a score, but it might become relevant that I am currently putting together ideas for further work with an improvising viola player who is a maker of exploratory scores.

I have extracted from each of the original 19 frames of founsoun # 3  the bulk but not all of the material. I did it freehand, using a mouse, and aimed to go ahead with my first extraction. (I did not have to repeat any actions although a number were not that close in shape to my intention!) Having made each extraction into a separate image, I changed and standardised the aspect ratio of each, and each was different, to produce a 4 inch square image.

I completed all the processes in Photoshop 14. I used to employ several software packages for each work, but I am tending towards less complex interventions now.

After resizing, I enhanced the images, to use Photoshop terminology, by sharpening the image; but, amongst other things, I did so by asking for greater sharpness than there is detail to sustain it. This compels, or seems to compel, the software algorithm to invent detail.

At this stage of the process, various outcomes became possible and I accepted some alternatives; as a result I finished with 24 frames.

After that, I composed what was now a potential sequence rather than just a set, by renumbering them.

I find Sing Out more performable than founsoun # 3  though it is, perhaps, less of a thought experiment. It is an asemic text. It is a graphic score.

My collaborative artistic colleagues and I find that we are able to work from the same marks whether we are sound-singing, playing an instrument or treating sound in a studio. (My essay Sound-singing Carlo Carra, a chapter in One hundred years of Futurism: Aesthetic, Political and Performative Assessments ed by John London (to be published by Intellect and due January 2018) may be pf interest in connection with my approach to realising a score.

I have made the new images at 400 dpi, with the intention of making inkjet prints for exhibition), with lower definition copies for screen presentation.