Lost in Translation
Looking for meanings in words, images and sounds
Guest Challenge: Organized Noise
The notion of son organisé seems to be central to composer Edgar Varèse’s understandung of music. “Son” can be translated into both ‘sound’ and ‘noise,’ and it is the ‘noise’ part that fascinates me. For music, it means broadening the material that can be used for a composition: Varèse apparently claimed that ‘noise’ is only another word for any sound one subjectively does not like .
In my eyes the concept of organized noise begs the question of its applicability to pictures. Photography is known to record ‘noise’ in capturing the old, the broken, the decrepit – the sights someone might not like subjectively. The medium appears to lend itself to this aesthetic choice, and it has been keenly criticized for it.
But there is also the aspect of organizing noise into music – or visual ‘noise’ into pictures. Some sights overwhelm us with their complexity, some with their ugliness or apparent meaninglessness. Nonetheless, I claim that photography can be a means of reducing this complexity, or making sense of the ‘noise.’
So, how to approach this? Here is a couple of thoughts:
- Take your pick: Not all available ‘sounds’ have to be heard at the same time – not all the available elements have to go into the composition of the picture. Get closer, eliminate some of the ‘noise.’
- Look for a main voice: Find a visual anchor that dominates all the other elements. Or look for a visible hierarchy of 1st, 2nd, 3rd (etc.) voices. What’s dominant? What’s just background noise?
- Find a rhythm: Straight horizontal or vertical frame-to-frame lines can convey such a sense.
For this challenge abstract pictures may work better than those showing recognizable objects. The abstract pictures in this post were made ‘using’ the battered trash container below.
Here is a list of participating posts:
http://travelwithintent.com/2016/01/28/silent-building
https://cardinalguzman.wordpress.com/2016/01/28/1-בהודו
http://tishfarrell.com/2016/01/28/thursdays-special-organized-noise
http://lessywannagohome.blogspot.be/2016/01/organized-noise.html
https://lynneayersbeyondthebrush.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/photo-editing-organized-noise
https://jaspasjourney.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/xcaret-eco-archaeological-park-mexico
https://memoriesaremadeofthisblog.wordpress.com/2016/01/29/thursdays-special-organized-noise
https://unavistadisanfermo.wordpress.com/2016/01/31/organized-noise/
https://inthezone2001.wordpress.com/2016/01/30/january-snow-pathways/
Lost in Translation 
I have to be honest. When I saw the subject of this week’s challenge I was perplexed. Now I think I understand what is required. Finding beauty, or at least acceptability, in ugliness. Though what is ugly to me might not be to you. I can’t bear to look at jellyfish and I avoid close ups of insects. A clever challenge and it’s good to see Thursday’s Special back again. 🙂
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Thanks for the response, Jo. You need not go looking for something entirely ugly if you don’t like to. You might also think in terms of “chaos” or “clutter” and superimposing a sort of order, the order of the picture. I know this may sound overly smart but I had a while to think about it now 😉 I am looking forward to what you come up with!
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Oh no! I wasn’t thinking of taking part, Tobias. 😦 I was curious and appreciated your explanation. I especially like the last of your close ups. I was trying to relate them to the whole, rather unsuccessfully I have to say. I shall leave this one to photographers, I think, but I’ll be back to check out entries 🙂
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Thank you for your thoughts, though. They just helped me understand something. Maybe I’ll get back to that in an extra post…
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🙂
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I’ll look forward to that. Your philosophy of photography is always interesting. 🙂
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Great challenge! I must put my thinking cap on for this one…..
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A stunning, gleaming, jewel-like collection of photos, and an interesting concept behind them – although it took me a few reads to comprehend! You’ve really drawn out colours that certainly don’t dominate the whole image, which, incidentally, I’m very glad you showed. I’m off to dissect a few of my own images to see what happens.
Your comment about sights overwhelming with their complexity resonated: on my home beach I tend to photograph rock patterns rather than cliffs, and decay looks even more beautiful pulled away from its context.
Thank you for a visual treat, and a number of provocative ideas.
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The colours were all there though. But it is kind of difficult to see that in the picture of the whole battered container I show in the last picture. The “lying figure” of the first picture is right to the left of the ladder: See that small diagonal shape close to the third rung (counting top to bottom)? That’s it.
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This could also work for the “deconstruction” concept we discussed before, I think 🙂 Thank you Tobias for leading the discussing here. There are some very perceptive bloggers around us that just need a bit of push from creatives like you.
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…yes, this also seems to blend into the deconstruction topic, I agree.
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Meg, I tried to open your post, but it can’t be found. What happened to your blog?
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It wasn’t due till March and it escaped and posted itself. Apologies. Faulty scheduling. So I took it down.
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I thought you posted something for Tobias for organised noise, but now I realise it was for calligraphy 🙂 I was afraid your were upset with me or something due to my slow appearance in blogoshpere.
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Absolutely not! Just totally incompetent, mixing up February and March!
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Very interesting Tobias. I’m off to think about it
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This is very fascinating. Thank you for giving us a shake up, Tobias.
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My pleasure, really!
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Pingback: Thursday’s Special: Organized Noise | Tish Farrell
Hey! Hey! Paula! You’re back. De retour. 🙂
Ça va mieux? La pression au travail a un peu baissé?
J’espère que tout va bien et que ton genou petit à petit se remette.
Bjo
Brian
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En fait ca va bcp pire…. Tuve que trabajar demasiado. Thank you for caring, Brian.
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Bon. Au moins, ce week-end ne sera que pour toi. Feliz cumple…
(Sretan rodendan) (?)
😉
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Almost perfect, it is perfect cause you don’t have this symbol “đ” which is pronounced like “j” in “jar” in English 🙂
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Haha! That’s because you guys are almost the only ones I know to put accents on consonants not vowels. Some time ago in Praha, I had to send a few mails to the office, with a Czech keyboard. 😦 Some things were “lost in translation” at the other end. I got a mail back saying: “Qué?”
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Very challenging theme for me. I will go with an interpretation that first crosses my mind – visual noise.
http://lessywannagohome.blogspot.be/2016/01/organized-noise.html
PS enjoy your petite escapade Paula.
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and it fits the bill 🙂 Thank you, Klara. I like when people come up with their own interpretation of the title. And thank you for the wishes. There won’t be a post on Sunday (am still recovering), but I left a post scheduled for Saturday for Guzman’s challenge. A month in one photo 😀
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Pingback: Photo Editing: Organized Noise – Beyond the Brush
I posted mine , but completely forgot to link to the challenge….
(You must think I’m completely stupid……)
Your post is awesome ,as always, of courseM
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Whoever thinks you are stupid deserves a big beating from me :D. Grazie Anna. I will look it up.
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