HEAR ME RAW

Arthur C. Clarke's Third Law 

“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic”.

With the advent of mobile photography and the digital image taking precedence over the analogue, more and more software became available to process and edit images on mobile devices. Whereas major editing and post production had long been the province of Apple Mac computers and the industry standard Photoshop application, the power of handheld devices meant that a multitude of 'apps' began to appear to allow users the one-stop-shop approach to shooting and editing on the fly, with a view towards getting the results online as soon as possible. Most of the apps were simple image maniulation affairs, allowing straightforward contrast and tonal corrections, but gradually they began to rival the creative power of Photoshop and other Adobe applications in their scope and ability.

Probably the biggest change in image manipulation came with the introduction of the RAW format, which allowed cameras and later phones, to capture an image which could later be edited in a much more comprehensive and non-destructive fashion, making corrections previously only available at darkroom level, possible in digital images. Suddenly, I found I was able to take old, grainy and fuzzy images taken with very early digital cameras and give them new life, by using RAW image processing tools to enhance and correct bad exposure, soft focus and colour deviation easily. Capturing an image from the outset in RAW allowed even the most difficult shot to be corrected quickly and simply.

Given the incredible speed with which developments in the camera and also the phone industry were taking place, technology seemed to be quickly approaching a 'Star Trek' level of complexity and usability, with some mobile devices even resembling the flip-top communicators in size and capability. Today, the current darling of the technology stage is Artificial Intelligence and its application in almost every aspect of the creative arts, with A.I images being produced which are indistinguishable from actual photographs and chatbots able to converse and create materials which would have Alan Turing turning in his grave. The plethora of A.I generative apps being used to create images brings into question the essential nature of photography and how it can be compared to human created materials.

HERSCHEL

Science fiction author Arthur C. Clarke famously postulated his three laws, the last of which suggested that at some future date, technology would become so advanced, that its operation and workings would appear mystical and magical to is users and its output would be so far beyond the range of general understanding to appear almost divine. Given the average user of most current technology has almost zero interest in how things actually work, as long as the results are delivered according to demand, its seems like this period is almost upon us. What is now possible with a handheld device is so far removed from what was generally available twenty years ago, is amazing and what may appear in the next twenty is unfathomable.

While studying for a Masters in Creative Writing in 2016, my interest in photography and imaging bled over into my writing and I began to use my photographs both to illustrate stories and poetry and also as the basis for writing themselves, either as an ekphrastic prompt - using an image as the basis of a written description or rhetorical or literary exercise, or as part of the piece itself. This meant I was able to combine two of my most consuming passions to create art forms in different media.

Shortly after and during my diversification into the more abstract fields of art and photography, I found a way to move into still another creative realm, that of audio.

◒

I had experimented with macro shots using an old analogue lens and various bellows devices to capture really close up shots, including the inside of glass balls and marbles. The lens flares and aberrations caused by reflections and refractions in the flawed glass, made wonderful swirling patterns and shapes, which I captured with the camera. 

INCUNABULA

SIGNAL TO NOISE

In the process of writing a poem based on the shipping forecast radio transmissions, I saw parallels between the sea imagery and concepts in the poetry and the shapes found in the images, so I overlaid the text onto different images, to create a new visual representation of the poem.

SEASTATE

In the process of researching the idea of the shipping forecast and radio signals, I became fascinated with the nature of sound waves and their manipulation. Looking online for a simple means to record and manipulate sound files, I came across programs which could generate a spectograph of a sound, as a graphic image and wondered if I could use this as the basis of a different approach to the poem, possibly using a spectograph of my own voice reading the poem.

EDRO III aground at Coral Bay, Cyprus

An earlier visit to the Telegraph Museum at Porthcurno in Cornwall, had inspired me to look at the nature of maritime communications and I contacted them to request some recordings of the various telegraph devices, which I could use as a background track to some of the pieces, which they very kindly supplied!

However, in the course of looking for something to illustrate the soundwave, I found a small piece of software which could translate an image into a sound wave, by reading the tonal variations in the image and translating them into a spectograph!

So I quickly took some of my abstract images and fed them into the programme and eagerly listened to the results. Most of the files which were produced were pink noise and static, but some of the images had elements which could be clearly connected to some of the sounds produced, such as the curved line on the image above, made a rising squeal sound, while the diagonal line produced an oscillating howl.

The resulting spectograph also reflected the original image very closely and viewing the sound wave itself as it played, next to the image, it was possible to see which parts of the image were responsible for the various sounds. As a result, I was able to alter the image to make custom sounds, such as the repeating white lines across the bottom of the main image would produce a note like a heartbeat and affecting the brightness of parts of the image would change the pitch and frequency of the sound.

Ultimately, I became familiar enough with the process to be able to create images by overlaying various photographs and adding streaks or swirls, blocks or dots onto the image to generate sounds that I found quite ethereal and otherworldly and used them, with a little editing and tinkering as the basis of a series of sound poems which I used as part of my final dissertation, which I submitted along with the a hardcopy of the original poem and a concrete poetry sculpture to complete the triptych.

'Shadow Aspect'

'At The Mercy of the Waves'

'Seastate'

The audio sequence - 'Shadow Aspect' - taken from the Jungian concept of a deeply set unconscious aspect of the personality, can be heard here: 

(HEADPHONES RECOMMENDED)

Postscript - Trying to find my own newly created blog on Google, I entered the address wrongly and came up with results related to my screen name. Weirdly it flagged up something remarkably relevant..

https://dosits.org/galleries/technology-gallery/observing-ocean-currents-and-temperature/wotan/