Visual Arts and New Music: A Seminar at the Contemporary Music Centre

As part of its 20th Anniversary series, the Contemporary Music Centre held a seminar focusing on collaborations across music and visual arts on Wednesday, 8 November. Niamh Tumelty, CMC's Music Information Officer, reports.

COLLABORATION across different visual artforms and music is an area that has been gaining momentum over the past number of years as more composers and artists collaborate in different ways. At an information day held in the Contemporary Music Centre on 8 November, a number of these different methods of collaboration were examined along with the issues surrounding them. A diverse audience consisting of composers, film-makers, animators, photographers and other visual artists heard presentations from a number of guest speakers.

Composer Trevor Knight and visual artist Alice Maher have been working collaboratively since 1995. They began by going to concerts and plays together and sharing their opinions of works. Through critical discussion of the work of other artists, they developed their own artistic method, living and working together in what Alice described as a 'cauldron' of activity rather than working separately. Their method of working is process-driven, working day to day rather than towards a set performance date. By working so closely together, they found that their collaborative work moved more quickly, while their individual work continued to develop alongside this process.

Film-maker Nicky Gogan and composer Dennis McNulty presented a promotional video of Uisce Marbh: Still Water, a documentary about an accommodation centre for asylum seekers at Mosney, a former holiday camp in Co. Meath. Instead of the usual approach of making the film and adding the music at a later point in the production process, the composer has been directly involved throughout the film. The process began with video and sound workshops with some of the residents at Mosney, and the intention is to use some of the material produced in these workshops in the film. Two main strategies were used to generate soundtrack material. Sounds around Mosney were recorded and used to create some of the music, and the composer made recordings of his own improvisations in various buildings in Mosney in order to capture some of the ambience of the place.

The combining of sound and visuals takes place at the editing stage of the film, with layers of sound being added as appropriate. Because the third member of their team, Paul Rowley, is based in New York, they also had to make use of technology, uploading files to a website for Paul to download and work with, and communicating via email and Skype.

Music is generally introduced in the last stages of post-production, putting composers under enormous time pressure and often diminishing the opportunity for the film to obtain a fully justified, integrated score. In both the morning and afternoon, musicologist Danijela Kulezic-Wilson presented some musical approaches to film, as demonstrated by film-makers such as David Lynch, Anthony Minghella or Jim Jarmusch as well as sound-editors/designers such as Walter Murch. In her view, these are film-makers who understand music and are inspired by music, or who involve composers early in the creative process. They structure their films with musical forms in mind and often play music on the set so that the actors are more aware of the atmosphere that is to be created.

A lively discussion, chaired by Karen Hennessy, CMC's Promotion Manager, followed the presentations, with a number of audience members debating many of the issues raised. The presentations generated considerable interest among those in attendance and the day provided many of the artists with an opportunity to network as well as to find out how CMC can assist in helping them find interested composers to work with.