David Downes
Noise (theme and variations)
Vidéo expérimentale - 5’ - the Ex-change Project - Nouvelle-Zélande - 1998


This video is a continuation of an exploration into an idea of perception of sound and image as blocks of texture. As a composer I have been working with ideas of texture based music music for several years. This was my first serious attempt at working in the video medium on this idea.

The piece is a juxtaposition of many different visual and aural textures chosen for their contrast and concord with each other. They are presented together as “blocks” in time.(By texture, I am referring, visually to an image that doesn’t vary in its space, and sonically to a sound that doesn’t change throughtout time and by this, I am referring to the human perception of these principles rather than to their scientific reality). Some of these textures have been taken from “real life”. The sound of a waterfall, or the image of
human skin, and some have been created electronically. These textures are essentially “formless” until they appear next to each other and seen as part of a greater order. This idea of form out of noise is also the basis of a circle motif which is gradually appears throughtout the piece. The lenght of each texture was decided intuitively during the editing process. This formed a rythm. In this respect the time aspect of the piece is purely rythmical and and in a musical sense, the form is deveolpped throught tensions and
releases generated from this rythm.