The Riffle

Geez, I am so excited. 

I'm not going to write too much about The Riffle itself here, because I worked hard to write all that and put it on the studio website.  When I read a blog, and then I go to their website and find the very same words, I don't like that very much.  So I try not  to do it myself. 

Instead, I'd like to just enthuse here about finding a new (or at least new to me) artform.

The Riffle is my image and audio series, based on the natural settings and life in this midwest river valley where I live.  For all intents and purposes, its an audio slideshow series.  The audio-slideshow is becoming a ubiquitous thing.  It's the animated banner that invites you to kiss Brad Pitt.  It's the little box in the corner of the tv station's website, that runs a reporter's voice-over and still photos of breaking news.

It's been an enormous surprise to me that these little image and sound haikus seem to have caught the attention of advertisers while bypassing the notice of artists.  What a nifty little vehicle for artistic expression!  Some still images, blended together in a series of evocative visual transitions; a bit of speaking, some ambient sound, a few words read aloud, all woven in.  Two minutes, three minutes, maybe five at most --- a chance to bewitch anyone passing through one's corner of the internet...

It seemed to me that this was a heavenly economical and powerful form of expression.

The more I looked and listened, the more it seemed that these 'Flash movies' or 'Quicktime movies' were being used as supportive additions to language-based expressions -- the equivalent of 'illustrations' of audio books or audio articles.  I can't imagine why it hasn't attracted more interest from visual artists. 

I experimented with the formats that I found on the internet, and finally decided that it might be better not to speak over top of pictures.  It sort of drowned out the images.  So I chose ambient sound, and slides of text where words seemed needed.

The result was "The Riffle" and it's first installment "Knox Woods ... A Walk With The Old Ones".  It's a three and a half minute piece taken from an autumn walk through a nearby patch of old growth forest.

I feel so strongly that the land on which one lives deserves to speak for itself -- or at least, one is obliged to repeat what it says.  It's an idea that gives me courage to begin and dig determinedly into "The Riffle".  So I have started it, and I will keep at it.

Linda

Comments

[Wen]

Love it! God has an awesome paintbrush!

[Eva]

Linda I just love Riffle. I also agree that Flash presentations would be a great tool for artists, but was unsure how big of a site I would need to use it. Do you know the smallest size I could get by with?