"Fall of Flower"

"Fall of Flower" is a collaborative multi-media piece which involves visual images, words, and sound. The piece uses still digital images which in themselves are layered fragments of visual detritus, discarded diagrams, and scribbles from notebooks - a fusion of drawing and colour, with photographs playing a small but significant part; a reassuring glimpse of the ‘real’ amongst the abstract marks and colours – recognisable for a fleeting moment, then dissolving into the surface.

The words were written by Liz Cashdan in response to the image sequence. In the score the text was layered – with deliberately placement, displacement and repetition to suggest ambiguity of interpretation. In her soundscape, Jessica Hodson combined live instruments, found and synthesised sounds with voice to interpret the visual sequence.

This piece reflects my preoccupation over several years with the real, the illusory, the transient – and the marks and traces which remain. While computer imaging software enabled me to to map the patterns of change through image sequence, I found that the printed visuals lacked the tactile quality of surface, and the intensity and emotional impact of the colour I had worked with on screen. I explored the possibility of a dual existence for each piece. The original linear sequence of images could exist in their own right on screen – and unique textural collage substrates be made to receive the print. I made pieces which fused the illusory and the tactile – with idea and concept hidden or revealed through interplay between translucent waxed surface, and the layers beneath. Imaging software became an integral part of my wall based pieces and books .
I found that by using a time based software package, and by collaborating with artists of other disciplines I could go beyond the linear sequence – into a multi layered space in which there is a continual never ending reshaping of image, sound and word. Each element has own time line, of varying length – where paths cross, intercept each other, interact, fade and disappear.

Pat Hodson 2004

Image sequence by Pat Hodson
Words by Liz Cashdan
Music and sound by Jessica Hodson
Running time: 8 minutes - continually looped.