Minute 12 (by Ourania Xanthi)
Minute 12
Disintegrating Soundscapes | Decasia Loops
‘Decasia’ is an experimental film directed by Bill Morrison in 2002 and it combines archives and footage of old and decaying scenes and images. The film’s central themes revolve around the concepts of decay and deterioration, memory, the passage of time, loss, and ephemerality. The music composed by Michael Gordon complements the visual material and enhances the depth of this experimental work.
In this reflective analysis, I will delve deeper into the inspiration and the development of the project in the particular minute of the film that I was given. The idea was primarily sparked by the question that Michael Gordon posed to himself when confronted with the visual material of ‘Decasia’, which was presented and shared by Bill Morrison; He pondered , “what would an equivalent to the look of decayed celluloid be in music?” Therefore, I undertook the task of searching for a response to this question and sought a suitable substitute to Michael Gordon’s haunting and intense soundscape.
At the twelfth minute of the film, aside from the initial image of the ship, one cannot recognize anything at all. All that is observable is dissolving footage, scratches, dust and melted images repeatedly. The musical accompaniment that I chose to replace Michael Gordon’s music is ‘The Disintegration Loops’, a four series album by the American composer William Basinski. I made the choice to incorporate this music firstly based on my personal fondness for the chosen music, to which I am emotionally attached.
The compelling story surrounding ‘Disintegration Loops’ is tied both in its creation and development but also its profound historical significance. William Basinski in his endeavour to transfer old loop tapes to digital media he noticed that the tapes were literally deteriorating and falling apart, creating a haunting sound. The tapes were physically decaying and he decided to record and document the music’s disintegration, therefore capturing the sounds of decay in the process. Basinski considered this process as a distinct form of artistic composition in its own right and he subsequently released this project as a sequence of albums. Each volume in the series features a distinct and unique collection of tape loops, each capturing the sound of music ‘dying’. The timing of the recording was also significant due to its correlation with the aftermath of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in New York City. During the creative process, Basinski witnessed the smoke rising from the World Trade Center from his apartment, adding a significant historical context to his efforts. The music has subsequently become linked to these events and has been characterised as an auditory representation of this tragedy.
The music is being played on a tape continuously and repetitively, and with each iteration, the tape builds up a growing number of digital glitches. Concurrently, the music undergoes a process of falling apart, mirroring the visual content of ‘Decasia’, which itself consists of a continuous loop of decaying, abstract, and fragmented images.
I found that the musical accompaniment complements in a harmonious way the visual elements of my minute, creating a mood that is both melancholic and nostalgic, while also evoking a dreamy and atmospheric ambiance and feeling. Listening to the ‘Disintegration Loops’ is intriguing because it sparks diverse visual experiences in the minds of listeners, with each individual interpreting the music uniquely. It is both haunting and ethereal, comforting and unsettling.
The connection between ‘Disintegration Loops’ and the twelfth minute lies also in their shared exploration of themes centred on deterioration, manifesting on both physical and metaphorical levels. On a physical level, the particular minute visually captures the decay and disintegration of old archives and film itself. Basinski’s music features sounds gradually deteriorating. On a metaphorical level, both projects revolve around the concepts of memory, loss, the existential condition, and the inherent transience of existence.
Ultimately, as a concluding element within my project, I made an online to explore works by other artists who engaged with disintegrated film material. This led to the discovery of the "Turconi Project," which is a record of film frames and clippings collected by an Italian film historian Davide Turconi. The collection consists of 23,491 clippings that have undergone digital scanning. Most of these frames date back to the early years of cinema, from around 1897 to 1915 and show signs of nitrate decomposition. As a result of these preservations, the deteriorated frames have been turned into beautiful and thought-provoking images.
Links to the Turconi Project:
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