Description
Dubbed ‘occult aesthetics’ by Kevin Donnelly, the synchronization of sound and image in audiovisual media has been a topic of academic discussion since the early days of sound film. Musical synchronization specifically has raised aesthetic questions that have been answered differently in different eras and media, e.g. the scoring practice of ‘Mickeymousing’, the close match of musical rhythms and movements with those on screen that was deemed inappropriate for the Hollywood film, but effective in certain cartoons. In addition to narrative media where music is composed or selected to match the action on screen, the last century has seen the development of audiovisual genres where synchronization could be said to occur vice-versa: the musical number, the MTV music video, and more recently the TikTok dance video feature diegetic movement, cinematography, and editing to musical features. Moreover, the development of interactive media such as video games and virtual reality experiences has added an extra dimension of synchronization, that of the user’s or player’s movements.The purpose of this talk is to survey recent developments in musical synchronization, focusing on recent media such as video games and TikTok videos that coexist with traditional audiovisual media such as films and music videos. Drawing on the work of Donnely, Michel Chion, and Sergei Eisenstein, it explores the historical dimension of the aesthetics of synchronization, asking to what extent concepts like Mickeymousing, synch points (Chion), and plesiochrony (Donnelly) are period- and medium-specific, and to what extent they are understandable through Bolter & Grusin’s idea of remediation.
| Period | 26 Sept 2023 |
|---|---|
| Held at | RITMO Centre for Interdisciplinary Studies in Rhythm, Time and Motion, University of Oslo, Norway |
| Degree of Recognition | International |
Keywords
- Synchronization
- Audiovisual Media