nORA vITALI
Glasgow School of Art
REFLECTIVE JOURNALS AND PROJECTS
BDes SOUND OF THE MOVING IMAGE
YEAR 4
On line classes and the first project for this semester is 'The Work'. I came face to face with my first Editorial Moment (Becker 2008:194).
For my DH&T, I decided to write about the lost women of the DADA movement, so after I read the brief of The Work project a couple of times, immediately, I had in mind what do I want to do.
SOUND SCULPTURE.
A sound sculpture represents for me two of my favourite things to do—sound design and handicrafts, and it's a great opportunity for me to combine those two things.
As a first thought, I would like to make an 'audio dress'. A dress form because it is mirroring the female sex, the coquette behind every woman. And this dress will produce sounds but not very pleasant, represents how DADA women overshadowed by the “progressive” Dadaist men and how rarely their names come to the fore.
Last year on my Critical Studies class in GSA I had a deeper understanding of Dada movement, and I was surprised by the fact that an artistic movement with no traditional art forms faced those women rarely as an artist in their own right. Always lived in the shadows of their famous husbands, brothers, lovers or colleagues.
Size. The dress will be 3-4 feet tall. This Size will give me more opportunities to highlight my skills and my knowledge so far regarding sound design, it will allow me to experiment more with different kind of things like recordings, sounds, speakers’ positions, acoustic, instead of making an actual size dress with small objects that can generate deafening noises, on it, as the dress will be worn from someone. Also, the interior of the dress would work as a loudspeaker.
And of course, due to all those limitations of space and equipment, because of COVID-19 it will be easier to build a smaller scale sculpture.
I am using a lot of public domain sources at the moment since I am still in the beginning, and I will go deeper as time pass. The fields that I am focusing on the most now are from different industries. Fashion, constructions, art, sound design, technology. I quite enjoy the research process, and I find the topic really interesting.
Of course, many decisions will change in the future, such as many have changed since the first thought of this project, but I believe that it has started to take a specific path.
I started looking at related techniques to the construction of inner sculpture frames, and I found Pinterest (https://www.pinterest.co.uk/)very helpful. It has many craft ideas, cheap and light, something I needed it. So, I discovered the idea of a cardboard frame.
One of my best friends is a Conservator of Antiquities and Work of Art, and I was talking with her about my sculpture. She gave me the idea of using plaster bandages for the outer surface, a material that although I knew, I had forgotten. I was really excited because this is a material that will make my work easier than paper pulp, which I was thinking of using. It is lighter, and it is easier to manipulate it. It will make it more beautiful, although beauty is very objective for each person, what I mean is that I prefer the appearance with the plaster and not the paper pulp, It will make it look like a wedding dress, which is symbolic since many women artists remain in history as spouses of famous male artists. It will also make it smoother and second by having a larger surface I will be able to have more decorative opportunities, Moreover, this material makes it steadier. It is so manageable which allow me to even remove big pieces from it. After all, it was quite typical for Dada artists to use everyday materials. So, I follow in their footsteps.
The reason that I am looking for all those light materials is that I am building this sculpture on my house and not on some art workshop or an exhibition place, and I would like to be able to carry it over if Covid allows us to have a physical degree show.
Honestly, I have no idea how to build a sculpture. Every idea that comes to me it's from my experience by watching, a lot of times in the past, my friends and also artists, plan their degree shows in the Athens School of Fine Arts or by also I used to help them set up art exhibitions. I was always fascinated by their discussions about art, and I am thrilled right now that I can understand some of what they were talking about.
Sound. During my research, I found an amazing gadget, the Adafruit Capacitive Touch HAT (Hardware Attached on Top) for Raspberry Pi. Basically, a development board can join on a Raspberry Pi and react to human touch, with up to 12 individual sensors. Raspberry Pi is a full credit-card-sized computer. It has millions of uses. Connecting it to a screen and adding a keyboard and mouse can be a complete computer supporting specific Linux distributions. The fans of Minecraft can use the Raspberry Pi exclusively for this special Minecraft Pi edition. Those interested in retro gaming can load emulators and have a machine with countless NES, SNES, Megadrive, or even Arcade games. By connecting an external drive to set up a personal Cloud service. It can be used as the "brain" in home automation systems, and even with voice commands via an iPhone, even create robots. It can manipulate a camera or servos.
So, the basic idea behind that is to touch an object in the sculpture and produced a sound.
The idea for using a Raspberry Pi comes from the fact that there are three of those in the house, and one of them is not even used. But my main reason is that I am quite fascinated by this small computer and the possibilities it can give to a sound sculpture. The first time I used RPi was last year on a project for GSA. I wanted to create a cloud in a storm. I used paper lanterns and cushion inners to make the exterior, and by connecting a breadboard with the RPi, led lights and a speaker, I managed to create a storm simulation. Thus, on the soundscape, when thunder was heard, the lights acting like lightning.
But this year is that I discover the HATs, and they are awesome. For example, this Hat I am using for this project is connected to anything that is electronically conductive, like fruits, and make a drum set from bananas.
Furthermore, the idea of touching a piece of art in the time of Covid-19 might make a nice gesture for the future when this adventure is over, to remind us of the importance of the human touch.
Decoration+Audio. The elements that will decor the dress will be inspired by those amazing women and by their costumes, paintings, drawings etc. For example, Emmy Hennings was dressed as a spider, referring to the Greek mythological figure Arachne who has to offer Eternal Truth.
I also examine the possibility to put in the spine will add some bass strings. I believe that this can be an analogy of how a person feels when to subject some injustice and cannot react.
Like feeling that in your spine. Heavy like the sound of the bass.
Might this work be about Dada women, but also related to every person who cannot acquire rights which are given unobstructed to other people.
I read and wrote a lot about those women. More information can be found below on my Extended Critical Journal document. Drifting by their strong feminist message, I expanded my thoughts, and I decided to change my approach regarding the sounds that frame each artwork, and I had two reasons for this decision.
1. As I mentioned above, I aimed to bother the visitors, but since there are no visitors due to the pandemic and I only have one speaker, which is not annoying at all, I chose to follow another path.
2. I always loved the tiny drops of stories behind an object or a song, and all started when I heard for the first time the story behind Beatrice Wood drawing. Starting from the Dada female artists and after a historical retrospect to the feminist movement, I concluded that they all played a critical indirect role in bringing these women to light.
So, I decided to bring them all together. Poems, stories, and quotes gathered on a sculpture.
But, not only those I learned from books but also the women next door. My female friends. They might not be famous, but they are giving their fights, big and small, every day because this is what we all have in common.
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Elsa Hildegard Baroness von Freytag-Loringhoven, "hat with spoons"(not ready yet). Audio: "Still I Rise" poem from Maya Angelou and Julia in Greek.
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Florine Stettheimer, Costume design "Georgette" for artist's ballet Orphée of the Quat-z-arts. Audio: part from an opera performance that Florine had designed the costumes, 1912 + Four Saints in Three Acts.
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Beatrice Wood, drawing 'Mariage of a female friend.' Audio: the story of the drawing, part from the documentary 'Beatrice Wood, Mama of Dada.
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Suzanne Duchamp, painting 'Chef d’oeuvre accordéon' Audio: Quote from Simone de Beauvoir and Katerina in French.
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Hannah Höch, painting ‘Bouguet of eyes.' Audio: Tomaso Binga/Bianca Menna poem from Paola in Italian.
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​Sophie Taeuber-Arp, cardboard costume. Audio: "Dancer" poem from Emmy Hennings and Maira in German.
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Clara Tice, painting “the war mother". Audio: fragment by Sappho and Hazel in English.
Demonstration
Click the little note symbol on the bottom right to hear the video.
Many changes happened during this project. I never managed to put the bass strings, but I hung up an artwork above the dress, which pleased me a lot because this drawing is called 'the war mother', and she is like hanging above all, in times of war. I was hoping to use all the HAT sensors, but I am still hoping that I can do it in the future.
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