Process Piece

Here's the link to our audio piece:
https://soundcloud.com/sam-reimer/audio-process

Process Piece Artists’ Statement

            If you haven’t guessed by now, the audio process we chose was making on omelet.  Even if the listener wasn’t able to nail down specifically that it was on omelet, they were probably able to deduce that some form of cooking was going on.  This is one of the reasons we chose this process.  We liked the idea of portraying something familiar in the interesting audio-only point of view. 

            However, we didn’t just choose this based on familiarity.  We considered how interesting it would actually be and determined that the various sounds ranging from the hiss of the fryer, to the cutting of the ingredients would have enough variety to hold someone’s attention as novelty evolved into familiarity.  At least, after it had been edited down to the required time frame anyway. 

            Our process piece is like some of the viewings we were assigned for class last week in that we tried to portray an average, everyday occurrence from an interesting perspective.  Granted, the interesting perspective was our only choice, but in terms of relating our choice of process to the examples of processes in class, we went more the way of A Christian Farmer Barbecue than say, My Mom the Taxidermist.  Instead of shock or bewilderment at strange and foreign noises we felt it would be more relatable for our audience to hear sounds that they could recognize and piece together as the process went on. 

            While doing this piece, we were reminded of Foley artists in the film industry and how they deal completely in sound, often doing the very thing of creating processes through sound.  Though they are doing the reverse of what we did for this piece by creating sounds for an existing image, the thought process is related.  In both efforts, a conscious effort was made to form a coherent process through a specific medium that you may not normally think about as being able to stand alone.   

              

Tiny Stories

#1: Two people walked down the street uttering an unintelligible language intertwined with shrieks and gasps of laughter.  Others looked on, confounded at the abnormal duo.  And yearned for the same. 
 

#2: I didn’t want advice or instruction or opinion or wisdom or joking or telling or touching.  I wanted a listening ear.  And he gave me his.   

#3: Frodo and Sam, Han and Chewie, Marty and Doc, Jerry and George, Harry and Ron, E.T. and Eliot, Kirk and Spock, all got nothin’ on me and mine.

 

#4: “I’m confiding in you…  I liked The Phantom Menace.”

“Dude.  I loved that movie.”

“We’ve created a circle of trust.”

“Yes, indeed.”

“So, can I borrow your LOTR extendeds?”

“Never.” 

#5: Everyone had one but me.  Apparently it was invitation-only.  As I wondered how to get home without calling my mom in front of them all, I realized he stayed behind. 

Artist's Statement

When attempting to come up with stories, one of the first sources I tend to go to is my friends.  And I don’t mean asking them for a story.  I remember all of the stupid things they used to do, and the ludicrous things they used to say and from those memories usually comes a pretty decent story.  So, when I had think up a unifying principle for my 5 tiny stories, I did this yet again.  However, the random stories my memories provided were individually funny and a moral could even be attached to each one, but they seemingly lacked a unifying principle or theme.  Until of course I realized that they all were derived from my friendships. 

I then proceeded to represent my feelings of friendship in a few different ways, by comparison, by actual story, by definition and by example.  My mom has a small book entitled Friends that isn’t too far from this.  It’s a collection of short poems, sayings, pictures, etc. about the idea of friends and friendship.  It’s a nice little book, albeit a little cheesy at times.  After being reminded of this old book, I tried my best to stray from the potential cheesiness of my tiny stories by having each one rooted in some truth.  Whether or not I succeeded in that, I’m not yet aware because to me each story is not generic, but a real instance in which I experienced friendship.  Each story was a time in which I was grateful for my friends, or they were grateful for me. 

On a different note, I obviously don’t possess the ability to draw in any capacity, but regardless I tried to make my illustrations match my stories.  They are utterly simple, possibly comical, maybe sad, and hopefully at least a little happy, because in my mind that’s what my stories are.