Degree Show

This project explores the analogue relationship with music and photography, executed in my final year of university. With a huge interest in music production and DJing while studying my degree, I knew I wanted to incorporate it into my final show. After reviewing the Russian underground music scene from Stalin's regime, where it was illegal to listen to western music and so the likes of Elvis, Beatles and Rolling Stones were cut into sheets of x-ray film so that they can be dealt illegally. The usage of x-ray negatives was due to the fact it was possible to fold and hide more quickly so that the dealers could sell the music undetected as the crime was punishable by execution. I wanted to see if it was possible to do the same onto photographic film which is much thinner and harder to cut onto. Unable to find if it had been done before I put all of my efforts into creating an analogue sound piece using the Moog Sub 37 & Mother 32, Acidlab M303 and the Roland TR-707 & MC-202. I then photographed two contemporary interpretive dancers who I shot using 10x8 sheet film in the studio and sent off both the negatives and sound piece to a mastering and cutting engineer who cut the sound into the negatives so that the song that the dancers listened to could be played back on a record table. Both the positive images and negatives placed on a carefully designed record play were exhibited together and allowed for people to listen to the song while looking at the original prints. I intend to explore this project further with Ilfords ULF format film in future.