Chapter 7 Reading Response
In the section that describes designing for strangers, I really liked the statement, “Music is a fitting activity to explore social design for strangers. Like all art, it embraces our common humanity, transcending cultural, economic, and political differences.”
As we have been designing audio visualizers, I have thought a lot about how they are incorporated into live music shows. While visuals can obviously add to the shared musical experience, there is definitely a balance between audience participation, visuals, and the actual live music. As I was discussing concerts with some friends, one of them remarked that it is almost a concurrent performance between the artist for the audience and the audience for the artist. Live music is such a unique artistic presentation compared to some other more “static” art presentations, like an art gallery. The performance of the artist hinges quite heavily on the audience participation, response, and energy, and the audience has definitely impacted the experience of shows I’ve been to both positively and negatively. The artist in charge of not only performing well, but reading the crowd’s energy and understanding how to adapt and encourage engagement on the spot. The audience in turn, should return that energy to keep the performer motivated and allow both parties to build up energy to finish off the show.
Visuals are an interesting component to this though; there is an interesting phenomena that I’ve noticed as I’ve tracked artists through the years, where some artists have become more famous for their visual presentations rather than their music. Like Thomas Turino states, “deeply participatory events are founded on an ethos that holds that everyone present can, and in fact, should, participate in the sound and motion of the performance. Such events are framed as interactive social occasions.” In trying to build an engaging space for such a diverse crowd, visuals can be a focal point for the audience to watch that adds to the musical experience. Artists like ODESZA, however, put so much work into their visuals now and ride their fame stemming from their older music that I feel like their actual music has not been the same quality as it was before (in my opinion, the excessive pyrotechnics, lasers, and smoke don’t necessarily add to their concerts a ton since their quality of music doesn’t match the FX quality). Many people who are older fans now go because they know it will be a great visual show, but maybe not have the best music. I think for an artist to be truly incredible and make the performance amazing, there is careful balance between visuals and music where the visuals support the music while still allowing the artist to shine. At a recent show I attended, the visuals were the perfect balance since it used live camera footage of the artist and applied interesting image filtering techniques that allowed the audience to see the artist if they were far away, but with some interesting visual qualities that matched the vibe/aesthetic of the music. I’m super excited to try and implement some of the image processing techniques I saw and integrate them into my own performances to see how they help me create that social environment live music is able to provide.