arts, ink. – Page 233 – Featuring weekly columns from University of Michigan student writers about arts and culture.

What’s it like recording during COVID?

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 Josie Faith Leave a comment

Hey, all!

I’ve had a really cool opportunity these past two weeks–as well as the next two weeks to come–to spend some productive time with my a cappella group, DJs A Cappella, and the company Liquid 5th in order to record our 1st-place-winning ICCA set from last winter (Think Pitch Perfect).

Over the last two weeks, I’ve gotten to take an inside look at how different recording studios are handling the pandemic and the inability to have people face-to-face while recording music. I figured this might be something interesting to some of you, so here we go!

Liquid 5th is the company my a cappella group has worked with for years. Our contact with the company is located in North Carolina, and specializes in working with collegiate a cappella groups. My freshman year we took a road trip down during our spring break in order to finish recording an EP the group had started the previous year, and I can honestly say it’s one of my top 5 college memories.

You can check out that EP here! https://open.spotify.com/album/1vkjsGmjdfUSPqhMegWz1k

During that recording process, we had 5 or 6 members in the studio at once, each in our own sound-proof boxes, and recorded together. Liquid 5th worked closely with our music director and the person who arranged the specific songs we were recording in order to make sure the final product was as close to what we had imagined as possible.

This time around, things are a little different. We’re still working very closely with professionals in order to make sure the outcome of our sessions is high quality, but instead of recording in North Carolina, I have 18 people recording one at a time in my tiny studio apartment off of Liberty Street.

Our contact with Liquid 5th and I had a zoom meeting a week or so ago to install a bunch of super crazy software on my Mac, which not only allows him to control my computer from where he is in North Carolina, but to directly transmit all audio recorded by the equipment here in Ann Arbor to his home studio hundreds of miles away.

Each member of the group has a 2-hour time slot where they are charged with recording their specific voice part for all of the 12 minute set. Instead of singing along simultaneously with other members as we did last time, we sing with a pre-recorded MIDI track of the voice parts on a piano, as well as the vocal tracks of any members who’ve already recorded before us. It’s a little different, but it works.

The equipment we’re using was rented from another contact of the group’s, and we cart it back and forth from the studio to my apartment before and after every day of recording.

In general, it’s meant a lot more of the responsibility for things to go well lands on our individual members of the group. We’ve had to be very on top of scheduling, locations, driving, and drop-off/pick-up times.

Overall, however, we are super psyched to be able to put out new music even though we cannot travel or record like all the past members of this group have in their own respective times as members of the DJs!

If you’d care to give our award-winning set a listen, it can be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-D6ok1iWRDU

Round green shapes of varying sizes glow against the black background. The text reads, "Immersive."

Immersive #7: 17776

March 29, 2021April 24, 2022 Liana Leave a comment

At the rate that technology is currently progressing, it’s easy to envision a chrome-plated future where autonomous technology is able to resolve even the most menial of issues we encounter in our day-to-day lives. With advanced technology, we’ll be able to extend lifetimes beyond our modern rates, perform more complex and previously unimaginable feats, and address the most challenging issues of our time: war, poverty, famine, and so on.

But what happens in the case that we are able to resolve all our challenges and fulfill all our ambitions with some sort of technological venture? What would that world look like where the impossible was possible? For sports writer Jon Bois, this futuristic world and its population would find a new sort of fulfillment through American football, or at least a modified version that exists in the year 17776.

Bois’ 17776 was an unprecedented multimedia narrative that sought to develop a world that was absurd and engaging without being gruesome or down-right miserable like the rest of the popular stories at the time. Thus, the story was created to follow the perspectives of three space probes as they watched on-going football games that spanned across state borders and involved hundreds of players at a time.

An animated gif of two lines of X's, indicating players, approach a football located around Seward that has a green line trailing behind it, indicating its path of movement. — Football Game Play Visualization

17776 first begins with an regular sports article, whose text quickly expands to fill up the rest of the page and eventually transforms into a calendar labeled “March ‘43.” Here, we are introduced to the character of Nine, a personified version of the space probe Pioneer 9, who’s urgent questions and existential crisis are left unanswered for months as the reader continues to scroll down the site, a physical and visual reminder of the time that passes within the story. The narrative continues through a combination of plain-text commentary, vintage graphics, and surreal videos, showing brief vignettes into the lives of various football players and human characters as the space probes comment more largely on how far the game has evolved to become more than just a simple past time: “play is the point of existence now.”

The graphic contains a yellow calendar. At the top, the text reads "March '49." From March 3 to 6, in green text, it reads "God damn it! I said no communications! NO communications! Now you have to start over. Please sit and wait. Remember: 27 years, 13 days. On that day, do not contact me. I will contact you. Do not respond to me. Don't." And in red, the text reads, "OK, sorry." On the 13th, the red text reads, "Wait, shit. I'm an idiot. I'm sorry. Starting over again. See you in 27 years, 13 days." — Space Probe Characters Communicate to Each Other

Altogether, the hodgepodge that is 17776 with its space probe main characters, niche facts and features, and absurd football gameplay is proof that inspiration and compelling stories can come from anywhere. But, beyond this brief insight into the existential and speculative tale that 17776 seeks to tell its readers, the story is best experienced in its actual form as its charming implementation of text language and visual space can not be described in words alone. To this end, I encourage you to read 17776 to experience the way in which all elements of the story come together to describe a world where the state of Nebraska is a perfectly valid football field and where technology has advanced far enough that space probes can become sentient.

Experience 17776: HERE

(A sequel story called 20020 also exists.)

+KHAOS+ EP.19: ONE STEP CLOSER

March 29, 2021March 29, 2021 Kat Leave a comment

+KHAOS+ EP.19: ONE STEP CLOSER

When Zion agreed to join Khaos, Ellea started to rumble. Ed and Milo couldn’t believe what was happening in front of their eyes; Khaos was ready to lift off into space, headed to another destination.

+Author’s Comment+

Back at it with the colors!

Feel free to follow my art Instagram account: @kats.art.folder

The Indian Artist: Capturing the Essence of India

March 28, 2021January 23, 2022 Riya A Leave a comment

Hello everybody! I hope that you are all doing well! I wanted to share one of my favorite artists that I came across during quarantine last year. During a year of terrible hardship and pain, as it was for so many around the world, coming across this artist opened my eyes to a new way of expression and truly mesmerizing and beautiful artwork. Enjoy!

Bijay Biswaal is a self-taught Indian artist of national and international repute who has made his mark by encapsulating the beauty that is Indian scenery, culture, people, and religion. What I love most about Biswaal as an artist is that he does not limit himself to mediums. Though he does excel in acrylic paintings and ink sketches, he ventures beyond, using watercolor, oil pastel, collage, cartoon, and caricature. I fell in love with the way that he captures his subjects when I first came across him on Instagram. The way in which he can manipulate acrylic paint to behave like watercolor while maintaining opacity and shine is incredible to witness. He has a way of bringing out so much dimension, movement, and dynamics in his work.

I have myself tried replicating some of his work, particularly his ink drawings of Ganesha the Elephant God, Goddess Lakshmi, and Radha Krishna. I find that using the work of other artists as study pieces, learning how they use lines to create beautiful art, is very rewarding and educational. Just from understanding his linework, I can say that I have a better understanding of how to capture movement in figures and portraits, attributes that I plan to implement in my own way when I create.

Bijay Biswaal has grown a following that spans the world. He is the Indian brand ambassador for Windsor and Newton and has collections in many places internationally including Mumbai, Chicago, Australia, Istanbul, Turkey, London, and China. This incredible artist has provided me with so much joy, and during a time when it was very difficult to grow artistically and find inspiration, Biswaal was able to provide that for me. He has really worked towards redefining realism and creating such a unique method of rendering.

I implore all of you to seek out this incredible artist. I have attached all of Bijay Biswaal’s links below including his Instagram and website.

https://www.instagram.com/biswaal/

https://www.biswaal.in/home

As I say every week, if anything that I discussed in this post stands out, or if any questions arise please feel free to comment and share your thoughts!

Looking forward to next Sunday!

~ Riya

Personal website: https://riyarts.weebly.com/

Laying Down the Sound: Unraveling – Episode 2

March 28, 2021March 28, 2021 Dominic Manzo 2 Comments

Welcome once more to Laying Down the Sound! This is the sixth installment of the series and the second episode focused on my song “Unraveling.” Last week, I went over the core guitar parts and vocal melodies of the song, leaving off after the second chorus, just before the guitar solo at the end. In this video, I demonstrate the chord progression that underlies that solo, and I dig into the lyrics of “Unraveling” – their origin and meaning. To conclude, I include a full acoustic performance of the song (I also have a bit of fun with a guitar part in the song I haven’t shown yet). Next time, I’ll move to the recording side of things.