Abstraction

My partner frequently points out that my photographs are very representational while my music is very abstract (& since she makes far more abstract pictures & likes more structured music this “isn’t as good” since everything she does is better than the way I do it ;-) ).

As I’ve started developing my visual skills with Blender and other 3d software I’ve been musing on this a bit. Just as my music making has shaped the way I listen to the world around me I’ve started seeing things in a fresh light. I’ve begun to collect images I like and make photographs that are intended as source or reference material rather than an end result in themselves. However I’m mentally struggling with that leap into abstraction.

So I set myself an exercise - to just doodle until it turned into something and see if that freed me up a bit. And here is an image I made that I quite like….

In doing this I realise that one feature of a lot of my 3d work is that they often have complex and deep backstories (like insanely deep sometimes. I’ve got a two minute video of a “corridor”, a bit house of leaves style, in my basement that has enough back story for a vast space opera and I’ve thought of several stories set in that universe. I intend to explore this a bit before putting the video up). It’s kind of odd to not think that deeply about an image but just to follow the form and composition while still looking for “the feeling”. Which I guess is far closer to the way my music comes about. In fact my favourite pieces just appear from doing not thinking. I guess I’m just not as confident in my visual skills. I write software for a living and after nearly forty years writing code I find I write better and faster when I just do it than when I carefully think about it. I’m just not used to visual work as to be able to trust what I’m doing.

I’m not displeased with the result though so I’ll keep exploring……