Scan-Hands

Okay, here's a brief digression from the wonderful sketch theme we have going on (which I will add to in just a moment). As I was scanning a few sketches to add to the blog and listening to some amazing tunes I was struck with an idea. So here's the idea...

As I was manning the scanner and listening to Animal Collective's album Merriweather Post Pavilion (no blogging-pun intended) I was tapping my hand and loving the moment. Then I began to think of this tapping in terms of my body acting as an extension of and marker for the actual music. In a way, a physical manifestation of an audible creation. For the record, I have been think of the human body in relation to architecture, site, creative processes, forms of measurement and many other contexts quite a bit lately. Meanwhile, back at the ranch: I started to wonder how this movement/extension/marking could be used to possibly make a visual manifestation of the sound as well as a physical one. If I could some how map the movement caused by the music, would I then actually be mapping the music...or at least an interpretation or derivative of that music? I think so, but I just had to try and see what could come of it.

So I realized, as I sat next to the scanner that I should put my hand in the scanner and tap, wiggle, shake, etc...(or hand-dance) to the music as I scanned images of the movement that was then generated. The scanner is key here, because I photograph would copy all of the movement, but in a blurred fashion. This would also map the music, but in a more over-all manner rather than as a collection of brief instances. A photo (with a left open aperture) would capture the space of movement, not the rhythm of it. On the other-hand, the scanner, with its limited recording depth would only capture the moments when the hand was close enough to the bed to actually register the placement. This shows instance more than movement (I think).

So then I did it. I listened to two songs from the album. First, track #2, "My Girls" (because this is the song that started the tapping in the first place) and #5 "Daily Routine" because it is what was playing after I got the first set of images organized and named. Needless to say, it was done quickly. then I just started to play with it to see what would happen. I took five of the scans from each song (as in five fingers) and layered and grouped them as I saw fit. Then In Photoshop I deleted the background of each image and then just played with a tool that I do not use very often (the hue, saturation and lightness command). I would pair a hand scan from each set do a similar edit to each and then re-pair each with a new scan from the other set and edit each pair similarly. I did three quick iterations. One for each component of the command explored. Yes, there is some arbitrariness to this process. Remember, I was just taking a break from my other work and playing.

Anyway, the set below are the results. the first column holds the scans from "My Girls". The last column are those from "Daily Routine". The middle column are the combinations of the other two corresponding columns. The first iteration is at the top, and they are organized sequentially from there. It's not much, but it was fun and I got some practice on both a creative and technical level. What do you brethren think?