APD - Week 9

Method

Using short sound recordings from 6 different sources and attempt to animate it without knowing where the source of the sounds.

Response

I had requested voice memos from six of my friends online. I didn’t give them any specifications on what kind of sounds it has to be. The only rules are for the sounds to be 3-5 seconds, it has to be taken right from the chatting app, it has to be sent to me within the next 10 minutes and they can’t tell me what they’d recorded. In this instance, half were taken using WhatsApp and half were taken through Discord. I later stitch them up together to create a relation between the sounds in Clip studio paint and animate it.

Reflection

Instead of choosing the sounds and knowing the sources, I like the element of surprise in this project. I sent 6 different people (who are also stuck in isolation) the exact same copy of text, and received very different sounds that aren’t exactly the same. Spontaneity is also a big factor, as I ask them to send me the sounds within 10 minutes. At first I thought of making separate animations for each sounds, but when I’d listened to them all I caught a sense that it could blend and support each other to create one continuous animation.

To keep the element of spontaneity going, I animate as I go. I had initially thought to try and animate what I think the items are, but it will just produce short animations of literally illustrating the sounds, and it’s not playful enough from my point of view. I let my imagination take me as how I would be able to tie these sounds together.

It resulted in a few second clip of an abstract play in terms of sounds. It almost made a narration or relation with each other, if I had the chance to animate it further, I would probably try to make a story out of the sounds. But at the moment, thinking what Play is to me, this is as far as I would go.  Play in this project is an exploration, experimentation and a chance to evoke creativity out of me spontaneously.