I Haven't Stopped Dancing Yet

In narrative film, synchronised sound is linked causally to onscreen action or dialogue. Even when the source of the sound is not immediately visible such as approaching footsteps behind a door, the dynamic is such that the short term absence of the visual is designed to create anticipation that is then dramatically and visually resolved on screen by the sound source becoming visible. The addition of wild track sound, such as say birdsong on a country scene helps to further cement the hermetically sealed narrative construct, papering over edits and providing continuity between disparate shots. Add in music and one has a self- contained story world.

Outside of this narrative go round filmmakers such as Guy Sherwin in his optical film series including Railings (1977) and Musical Stairs (1977) use the footage itself transferred onto the optical track as a sound source. It becomes literally the manipulated image of the railings and the stairs that produces the sound rather than the representation of onscreen action. This process helps to break open the hermetically sealed sound and image film world.

I have been experimenting for sometime, across a number of pieces with using digital techniques that mirror and extend these optical sound experiments. In the case of I Haven’t Stopped Dancing Yet (2017) an image taken back in the early 80s when visiting my parents in Kent is manipulated in various ways. The image flips from side to side and twists in a crude and humorous approximation of dancing. Unlike optical sound here it is the data from the digital manipulations of the image that are then numerically turned into audio. So when the image flips from side to side a steady rhythm is created but then as the image is stretched one gets a sound similar to that from a scratched record. Humour aside all of this helps the viewer question audio-visual causality. Is the man dancing to the music or being danced by it? In practice it is somewhere between the two.