Bubbles

Bubbles was presented at the Region II Conference of the Society of Composers, Inc. (SCI) at Hamilton College, Clinton, New York, November 10-11, 2006. The music from Bubbles played repeatedly during the festival Synthèse 2006 in Bourges, France, June 2-11, in a loop with one hundred eighty-one other pieces all inspired by water. From among these pieces, the music from Bubbles has been selected for presentation on the concert OEuvres Ouvertes: Panorama 2006 L'eau at 2:30 pm. on Thursday, June 7, 2007, at The 37th International Festival of Electroacoustic Music in Bourges, France.

The video images for Bubbles were filmed in the winter of 2001-02 at Idyllic Wilderness Creek in upstate New York. They attempt to capture subtle visual aspects of natural phenomena, including the ephemeral textures of the play of sunlight and cloud on the stream's frozen surface and the uneven rhythms of interactions among water, air, and ice. The sound was derived from the original captured water noises, and the piano part was composed from the loudest frequency bursts in the water track. Some sound was temporally displaced to invite the perception of relationships with the video.

Completed Summer 2005.
5 minutes.
Either single play or loop.
Stereo sound.
3:2 aspect ratio.

Image from digital video Bubbles by Ann Johnston Miller

Ann Johnston Miller has worked as a professional studio ceramist for thirty years making clay sculpture and functional work as well as welded steel sculpture and installation. She has shown in the New York City and the central New York state areas as well as in the southeastern United States. In 2000 she began working with video. The videos have been shown at the Ladyfest East film festival in New York City and Rooftop Films in Brooklyn, New York.

Allen Fogelsanger is the composer and programmer for Armadillo Dance Project so check out his bio right here! Bubbles is his first venture into composing sound for video.

The music for Bubbles can be heard from an MP3 file (11.2 MB).

The video follows air bubbles underneath the ice covering a stream. Here is a version (5:10, 15.9 MB) of Bubbles running at 12 frames per second (instead of 29.97 fps) and with "medium" stereo quality. Here's a better quality excerpt (0:19, 19.5 MB, QuickTime 7's H.264 codec).

Other audio and video examples of AF's work are at Soundscapes and Movement.