Guy Goldstein -

Minus Green

This series continues the transferral action that began in Partitura for Blue Noise (2013). After translating the drawings into sound (which served as the soundtrack for the animated video), I proceeded to render the sound into an image. The results I received were spectograms, or visual representations of the spectrum of frequencies of my original drawings. The program translates image into sound and vice versa using physical and mathematical forms, and is based on the same principles as the first ANS synthesizer, which dates back to the early 20th century. The received images are inverted black and white and have various formats, resulting from distortions between the various transferrals, readings and renderings as well as due to some elements overlaying others within the same image.

These received images were then printed, with no further processing, cropping or formatting, using a pigment inkjet technique on archival cotton paper. They were framed with UV glass which returns the white light as a pink-hued reflection.

Pink noise is rife with energy in the low registers, which makes it the opposite of the high-register energy blue noise. The piece’s title refers to the theory of colors assigned to light, which claims that there is no pink light in our world, that it does not exist on the spectrum. Pink is an optical illusion formed in the space between red and blue, at the opposite ends of the spectrum. The formulaic description claims that white light minus the green light at the spectrum’s center creates the illusion of pink light, or in shorthand: Minus Green.

Sound Like a Plan

Sounds Like A Plan is concerned with the marks of past time: performance time, live action, extended work. The drawing forms the basis for a sound performance and video, and hints at (but does not prescribe) the rules of its composition, reading and interpretation into time-based media. “Recordings” such as the tape imprint of graphite patterns depict time and process, and other elements (drill marks, etc) reflect the work that went into their making. In contrast to these automatic gestures, the framing lines refer to and reconstruct the rules of a timeline: be it a musical score, video/sound editing program, or minimalist drawing sequence such as Sol Lewitt’s and his contemporaries.

The different elements of the piece exist in conversation, though none of them is a one-to-one translation of the other: they each use their medium’s creative freedom to depart from the formula. The drawing seems to have an algorithm guiding it, but any search for a consistent rule is futile, as the controlled parts are combined with elements that disproportionately “enjoy“ their own process: transparent and solid layers, structures and patterns often continue joyfully beyond the borders set for them. A baseline pattern is set but constantly overrun, determined by actions within the process and not by any master plan.

The musical version of the piece assigns the mechanic reading to the human drawing machine. Goldstein uses software that reads the drawing, which is structured as a timeline, and transforms it into sound. Each drawing technique is treated as a separate tool and recorded separately. Using these raw materials, Goldstein creates a composed sound piece.

The live performance iteration consists of playing the prepared composition and screening the drawing simultaneously, with each meter of drawing corresponding to one minute of sound. Goldstein add another layer of live music, improvise on bass guitar. The drawing implies rhythm and progression but does not dictate it, so that the final composition depends on a combination of mechanical translation together with human improvisation.