A couple of months ago I visited Jamie Beck’s “From Me to You” website where I discovered the magic of Cinemagraphs™. I was fascinated by the new dimension that Cinemagraphs give to photography by moving it one step ahead without removing the magic that still pictures have (like occasionally video does .) Although you know that this is a loop of some seconds, you can find yourself watching it for minutes.
If you don’t know what Cinemagraph is, Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg, creators of Cinemagraphs, define it as “[…] an image that contains within itself a living moment that allows a glimpse of time to be experienced and preserved endlessly.”
So I thought: “What if these images had music?” I was sure that a typical “background” music would be distractive from the concept of the Cinemagraphs. Music in its nature includes motion but most times it doesn’t interact with the listener. So I designed a virtual 2D audio canvas where I placed a number of music sources in the space. Every source is like a small orchestra that plays a different music. Some are musically related and some other are not. The listener can move around (using the mouse) and listen to different musical moments as he is the composer-mixer. The duration of the music of every source is different so there is no obvious restart point of the mix. Considering also the fact that the movement of every listener is also different, gives us unlimited musical moments.
How is this related with Cinemagraphs? A Cinemagraph is always the same. On the contrary my music space is always changing. I have the belief that the final result, the feeling of the viewer/listener, is similar. Cinemagraph gives the illusion of an eternal moment and so does the constantly changing music. All these musical moments, because they are constructed from the same sources, have similar qualities and characteristics and this creates the sense of a repetition.
Bellow you can find a Cinemagraph with music:
Hint: place your mouse over the picture and move it around.
Click the bulb icon for a visual representation of the soundscape.
More info about Cinemagraphs™
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- Cinemagraphs.com – Jamie Beck and Kevin Burg official Cinemagraph website.
- From me to you – Jamie Beck’s blog with frequent Cinemagraphs updates.
- Wikipedia article about Cinemagraphs.
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