The video for the Drift of Signifieds contribution is now live
The audio and video were both recorded using a camera focused on the vinyl disc playing the original of “Threnody”, picking up room sound as well as the audio coming from only one speaker as the amplifier has a tendency to lose one channel at inopportune moments. Ambient sounds from the natural environment beyond the room, including distant insect noises of hundreds of cigales outside, can also be heard in the raw recording.
The disc was manipulated in real time using both pitch control and manual slowing and stopping of the LP, sometimes simultaneously. The video was then edited using KDEnlive on Linux. Audio processing and editing was done there and then passed to and from Audacity, applying compression, reverb and selected reversed delay, as well as a bit of pitch shifting. Some sections of sound were EQed heavily with a low-pass filter, timestretched, then copied and pasted into the middle of an artificially spread stereo image to thicken and extend the bass elements.
The video image was colour and gamma filtered, mirrored and layered, with a section of secondary footage shot of the pitch light on the record player being manipulated in real-time with “Threnody” playing (though muted in KDEnlive) also mirrored, recoloured and layered over the top to match various peaks in the remixed track.
As for the name, Optigon is a deliberate mis-spelling of the Optigan, a name which arose semi-consciously for the remix and one which was justified after the fact on the basis that the remix was done using a video of a disc spinning.
