"The Beginning of my piece was to be chaotic. I wanted the audience to be thrown in the deep end only to slowly transition into something familiar and rhythmic. This was achieved by random algorithms taking the audio being fed and turning it into a drone-like cloud of noise. These include sounds of airy recordings and chamber violins forming a quiet experience. This subtle sound appealed to me because it sounded so chaotic but empty at the same time. It was kind of like a void which in turn gave me the idea to expand on this idea making a piece that transitions from the chaotic emptiness of space to something living and breathing. In other words, a musical piece that represents the process of creation.
The noisy pushes of sound that happen around “00.35” are representative of the airy sounds from the beginning being breath in and breath out. It supposed to be instantaneous and sudden like a baby gasping for breath as soon as it’s born. I didn’t want the breathing to be recorded but instead simulated through musical sounds. A living thing’s first breath as it’s being removed from the womb must be a horrifying experience. This is why the transition was jarring. The actual waves of noise that represent this breathing are once again algorithms that produce randomized notes on the same scale. The individual layer of sounds are synthesizers, Violins and amongst other obscure noises.
Around the “01:10” mark I started to play the piano. The chords were improvised and chopped from one take. This stage of the song represents life being given structure but after all the cacophony at the beginning of the song, I thought this section should start slow. After a few repeats, orchestral elements are introduced at the “01:45”. 2 alternating chords are being played by the orchestral section with the piano now being pitched up not to clash. The piano is soon replaced by a mangled violin melody which helps transition into cinematic drumming that helps carry the song to the end. The second half of the piece (till the “01:10” mark”) is a section based on order and traditional song structure. After the process of creation represented by the randomized sections before the “01:10” mark, I wanted the sections after to represent that life growing into something automatic and creative. This is why the orchestral elements are slowly introduced in the song. It’s this life growing into something full and vibrant before fading away at the end. After that, the cycle repeats itself as it does in real life.
Since I was working in 3d I had a chance to create some distorted imagery, a chaotic twisted version of objects and scenes in nature. I found a lot of 3d scanned objects of things in nature provided by museums so these objects were to be the focal point of the film. I made several scenes but choose only 3 because they were aesthetically pleasing and easier to render. Something hard to convey in my sound piece was that the cycle repeats as does the cycle of life and death. The visual helped convey this better since the visual begins and ends with the same scene. I also tried my best to sync the audio with the visuals. The camera was not based in reality and flew around the objects as if they were sculptures. This I thought created a nice out of body effect for the audience watching. I was also studying Lawrence Lek’s 3d work at the time and loved how it felt like his work explored a vast and strange location."
