Knowing that my visual essay will incline towards a visual prose, I decide to use the caption as a rhetorical device, complementing the main narrative presented by the visuals. The first soundtrack I chose was Frank Ticheli’s Earth Song, composed by Eric Whitacre in a beautiful contemporary choral setting, to frame the heavyhearted storytelling about conflicts, pandemic and other human sufferings, with some captioning of my iterative studio progress inserted in.
After some peer review of the first visual essay draft I focused on tackling the didactic nature. In terms of the soundtrack and caption, I developed a more poetic and allegorical text to narrate my latest studio progress, better fitting the narration style of the choral piece.
text to narrate my latest studio progress, better fitting the narration style of the choral piece.Followed by further iteration with the time-based narrative significantly evolved, I changed the soundtrack to contemporary classical composer Part’s Kleine Litanei (Estonian composer from a Serialist background and renowned for a radical Sacred Minimalism). Forgoing the exhaustive description of my studio practice, I left only the actual lyrics with the moving image, allowing them to compliment each other without distractions.
The piece however is set in a sacred text in Greek and Archaic German. The translation requirement gave me the freedom to add another layer to the moving narrative. The greatest opportunity to incorporate my understanding of the positional good life to the visual essay’s narrative comes at the Holy Trinity part: Ehre sei dem Vater dem Sohne und dem Heilige Geiste (Glory to the Father the Son and the Holy Spirit). As one of Christianity’s canonical concepts, I would like to juxtapose a secular interpretation, and apply it as a translation of the original sacred text, presenting a translation that isn’t literal but conceptual.
Here I appropriated the 3 sacred entities to candour, connectivity and leap of faith––3 individual, non-overlapping concepts, all key gateways to a good life. This idea can do with more considerations and development, because these ideas have not yet been personified to conscious subjects (at least perceived so), without the intractability and connectability a personification could offer.
Do not get me wrong––I have no intention to create a cult, but the GCD aspects of religions are certainly intriguing for a post-modern, secular practitioner. This could also be added to the agenda for further studio practice of this project.