OUGD505 - Studio Brief 1 - Ambient Music - Initial Ideas Sketches

Initial Ideas Sketches and Mock Ups

On idea was to create an object based on the quote describing ambient music as 'an all round tint to my sonic environment'. It was considered that the word tint could be cut from tinted perspex then layered in front of one another so that when you looked through all of the letters the colours merged and changed the colour of the environment the work was in.

However it was considered that in order to layer them different letters would have to be cut quite small in order to align within the final T of 'TINT'. To get around this it was thought instead of lining the letters up as they are in the word. This would allow the viewer to look through each of the letters individually to see the environment beyond in a different colour each time. 

Playing with the same quote and material it was thought that making an abstract landscape from tinted perspex could reflect the idea of an environment in a more literal sense. However the abstract design of the landscape would also reflect the abstract quality of ambient music as well. With this design different curved section of tinted perspex would be used to recreate a hill like landscape. These would be layered on in front of the other to create a staggered design allowing parts of all of the pieces to be seen from the front of the design. These could then be rearranged and taken out to form different combinations

Another idea was to reflect how table music, which was a form of ambient music, was designed to 'mask the clatter of knives and forks'. With this in mind it was considered creating a design that reflects the moments when knives and forks make this noise.  It was considered that making sculptures of the positions that knives and forks make a noise when eating a meal could be a way of documenting the sound of this in a visual way. Another idea was to create a wind chime from knives and forks so that when they interacted they made a sound in a similar way to when they are used. Alternately creating a mock set up of a dinner party in a traditional sense could represent how the music was played at dinners. 


The final idea would be to create a compost heap to reflect a quote by Brian Eno which described the process of making his ambient music as being 'like composting; converting what would otherwise have been waste into nourishment'. He describes how he would use non instruments such as chain, sticks and stones as well as found sound of things such as rooks, frogs and insects, whilst also reusing his earlier works. In this idea it was considered that a clear acrylic box could be created that has layers of coloured sand within to represent the layers of a compost heap. Symbols for each of the elements described in the quote would be created and placed within the sand so that you could see them from different sides of the box creating something similar to a cross section of a compost heap. This would have a similar feel to it as a scientific diagram or a skeleton dig kit. Alternately it was thought that perhaps the symbols could be places within a pile of soil so they stick out however this potentially looses the idea of a compost heap in this format.