ABSTRACT

Just Ancient Loops is a ternary audiovisual symphony with great emphasis on the interplay between the music and the visuals. Together, the three parts – a largo Genesis, an allegro Chorale, and the largo final Ascension – present different views on heaven.

Music is neither only accompanying the images, like a soundtrack in a film, nor are the images just expressions of the music, as is commonly the case in music videos. Morrison's imagery and Harrison's composition create, through multifold bilateral reference, a phenomenon one might call übersynchresis, a term elaborated on grounds of the acronym synchresis by film theorist Michel Chion in order to describe a permanent correlation between music and image.

KEYWORDS

symphony, synchresis, über-synchresis, audiovisual correlation

Bill Morrison's audiovisual film Just Ancient Loops consists of three parts that are typical for a symphony: a largo Genesis, an allegro Chorale, and the largo final Ascension. The imagery, mainly decaying pre-1950s nitrate celluloid film footage, is supplemented with high-definition CGI animation based on NASA data. The found-footage material was sourced from two archives: the Moving Image Research Collections at the University of South Carolina and the Audiovisual Preservation at the Library of Congress. The images are taken from feature films, documentaries, and ephemeral films – advertisements as well as industrial, educational, and amateur films – and are all in various states of decay, as shown by their blisters and scratches.

Michael Harrison, one of the most innovative composers in recent years, created the music that accompanies the visuals. In the piece, entitled Time Loops, he refined ancient tuning systems to develop Just Intonation, a tuning system wherein the distances between notes are based upon whole number ratios. Morrison reflects on Harrison's musical creation through the CGI animation. These animations are based on the research of Walter Murch, who found a connection between the overtone formula and the orbits of the planets. This interplay constitutes the quintessential musical and visual correlation of the film.

The multilayered cello composition was played by the exceptionally gifted cellist Maya Beiser. Beiser performed the piece live at the premiere at Bang On A Can Festival 2012 and hence turned the screening into a performance. The fact that the music was played live during the screening clearly emphasizes the music and hence influences the audiovisual reception.