The (Im)materiality of Film in Music Composition: "Bog Bodies" and "Leap of Death"
- Submitting institution
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Canterbury Christ Church University
- Unit of assessment
- 33 - Music, Drama, Dance, Performing Arts, Film and Screen Studies
- Output identifier
- U33.041
- Type
- J - Composition
- Month
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- Year
- 2014
- URL
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- Supplementary information
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- Request cross-referral to
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- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
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- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- Yes
- Number of additional authors
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- Research group(s)
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- Proposed double-weighted
- Yes
- Double-weighted statement
- This research developed over an extended five-year period (2014-2019), resulting in 12 residencies and performances in the UK and Ireland, involving both the scoring of an ‘imagined’ film and a particularly complex series of workshops assessing the viability of the 16mm film projector as a musical resource. This process of testing, rehearsing and recording found that 16mm films could effectively function as both sound sources and ‘audio scores’ in the creation of
recorded improvisations.
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- This research explores the use of film media as a creative impetus in the compositional process. Bog Bodies focuses on the materiality of the medium, and is structured around three research objectives: to test the viability of the 16mm film projector as a musical resource; to establish this resource’s role in and influence on performed and recorded improvisation, and; to examine how this resource impacted the ensemble’s musical approach in subsequent projects. The work was created by the ensemble Bog Bodies (Sean Carpio, Robert Stillman, and Anders Holst) in collaboration with filmmaker Benjamin Rowley, and is presented as a practice portfolio comprised of documented rehearsals and public performances, as well as the recording/film gallery Sligo.
In contrast, Leap of Death explores the immateriality of a film production as a basis for its research: building upon research conducted at the 20th Century Fox Film Archives at the Margaret Herrick Library, Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Hollywood, the project seeks to create a new artwork based on the 1929 F.W. Murnau film 4 Devils, all copies of which were ‘lost’ shortly after its release. The main output of the project is a limited edition of 50 bookwork/LP’s that uses music and image to construct an abstract, non-linear ‘impression’ of the narrative of the original film. This work proposes a methodology in which research materials are synthesized through artistic practice, resulting in a new artwork which stands in for the lost text as a ‘hypothetical artefact’. As such, it is intended to serve as a creative archival material, and as an expressive medium for the artists’ subjective ‘reading’ of the source material. The piece also explores how the use of formats like experimental bookwork and web design can challenge the linear presentation and interpretation of narrative. https://robertstillman.com/immaterial/
- Author contribution statement
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- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
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