Number 1 in the Funeral Music Chart
Found footage and text, 40 minute duration, 2024
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Coined 'The My Way Killings', an unexplained spike in fatalities related to singing My Way by Frank Sinatra in karaoke bars occurred in the Philippines between 2002 and 2012. Presented as an eternal karaoke, 'Number One in the Funeral Music Charts' looks at endurance post-death through performance, legacy and the archive.
In the Flashing Lights, 3 minutes 58 seconds duration, 2024
Research and process
Super 8 Film footage of Frank Sinatra purchased from Ebay, used in a piece in L5, was the starting point of investigating the singer. Since revisiting the footage, I moved from looking at Sinatra through the lens of a cultural icon living on through the media, to it developing through this cultural phenomenon and encompassing performance, karaoke and the public’s part in keeping a celebrity’s memory alive.
Initial mind map
Research into specific cases of the killings
Karaoke : The Global Phenomenon by Zhou Xiun and Francessca Tarocco
I looked into the reception to karaoke in Asia, where the killings took place, and Britain, the context of the artwork
Small Talk by Paul Rooney
In this two-screen installation, Rooney recreates a video he made 9 years later. The sardonic subtitles appear to converse with each other, discussing the passing of time and the motivation behind the remaking. Rooney's method of installation as well as the choice to have two videos in sync was a major turning point within the development of my work.
Studio visit and tutorial with Louise Adkins
Adkins works in the intersection between performance and the documentation of historical events. I visited her in her studio to talk more about her work and discuss my project. We discussed the idea of re-enactment and how it can restage the spectator as part of the performance and highlight the cyclical nature of time. From the tutorial, I considered the role of audience expectations, slippage within history and how I can best deal with an abundant and messy archive as an artist.
My collection of youtube videos of people singing My Way on karaoke
Cassette Loop audio
(click for audio)
I attended a Bury Art Gallery workshop where we learned concrete music techniques and cut and spliced cassette tapes. From this, I made a series of cassette loops from Frank Sinatra songs. The repetition of the lyric 'the end is near' is the inspiration for choosing that lyric in the karaoke lyric video.
Editing process of karaoke visuals
The long duration was purposeful to make the work an endurance piece. The irony of having the text 'the end is near', when in fact the end of the video is very much in the distance. The fate of those who died as part of the killings had their lives cut short however, Sinatra's legacy forever lives on through karaoke performances and restagings of his work. I want the length to highlight life and death, both being cut short and enduring.
Adobe After Effects animation
I wanted to include the kitsch aesthetics of karaoke in the form of a bouncing ball lyric video. While there are videos I could have appropriated, I needed to learn After Effects and make my own to achieve the effect I wanted.
The first iteration involved the animation repeated for the length of the visuals, unsynced. However, after presenting this in crits, I decided the work would look more intentional and clean to sync up the two. This meant animating the ball to bounce on every word of the 40-minute audio. To achieve this, I animated each repetition individually to ensure each keyframe lined up with each word. Each repetition consisted of 3 layers, which led to the project having over 200 layers and caused the software to fail. To solve this problem, I animated the project in two parts and stitched them together in Premiere Pro.
Installation plan
Alternate set ups
I tested various ways to present using two projectors and a monitor and considered how it changed the work and the impact on the audience. I trialed the lyric video being on the floor
Configuring the BrightSign networked media players
Using networked media players allowed me to get perfectly synced videos. To achieve this, I configured the files in the BrightAuthor software.
Logical Song by Rowland Hill, Castlefield Gallery, 2024
Hill explores 1990s eurodance aesthetics, through an immersive installation balancing between exhibition and attraction. The use of lighting was influential in the development of my video piece into an installation, using disco lights to emulate the karaoke environment. This would push the videos, which already use the architecture of the room by using a corner, into the space in using lights that spill out onto the walls and floor.
Testing positioning of lighting
Editing process of making alternate karaoke video
I enjoyed the grainy and poorly filmed quality of the footage that was collected. One of which was so degraded, in parts you couldn't work out what you were looking at, only seeing the flashing greens and pinks flooding the screen with the crackle of singing over the top. I wanted to investigate this by playing with the video through editing. I created one video in which all of the poorest quality footage was cut together and another by slowing down the footage to simulate a series of images. I was thinking about the fate of the digital archive and documentation on the internet, being subject to the equipment of the time and remixing and appropriation after the fact.