I love the aesthetics of space which is what initially drew me to the Leonid Meteor Shower over Niagara Falls, I knew I wanted to work with it in some way but was not sure what style of audio would best work for “enhancing” the image. Picking a “celestial” instrumental soundtrack seemed the obvious thing to do, but I wanted to push the idea a little further so I started searching for spoken word poetry relating to space. I stumbled upon Gas and Gravity by Hieron which uses acoustic guitar from martinsea, the voice of SackJo22, and the electric guitar and voice arrangement from 7OOP3D to help create their piece. I did have to drop the quality a bit on the audio to get the file size right for upload, but otherwise I made no additional changes to the audio besides pairing it with the image.
I believe that pairing this audio with this image emphasizes the idea of light found in both pieces, creating a story of sorts that the lights from this meteor shower over a hundred years ago can guide us today through space and through time. I think the music that accompanies the poetry also works to push the “story” forward, there is a sense of dread in some of the rhythms that I think speak to an idea of being pushed over a (metaphorical) waterfall (or otherwise into some precarious situation) while the voice assures us that the lights above will guide the audience to safety.
Through Space Through Time – The Meteors Shine by Nicole Davis is licensed under
Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International
I like this. The vocals make the audio feel intimate, and the meteor shower over the waterfall was a surprising choice. On their own, the image feels dramatic and a little unsettling, and the audio feels emotional. Together, it shifts the meaning into something that feels like destruction and renewal happening at the same time. Another interesting audio choice could be natural waterfall ambience. Technically everything worked well for me, and the audio played correctly.
Hi Nicole! I really, really like this image. This semester I have also been taking the UFO’s & Information course, so my head has been in space lately. By itself, it makes me think of similarities between meteor “showers” and rushing water, a concept I had never thought of before as I had never seen the two in an image together. I believe the audio you chose really enhances that connection between the two, but in a different way by focusing on the light. It still gives that atmospheric, celestial sound, but goes further by pushing the story forward– a beautiful metaphor you created by putting these together.
To me, the meteor shower in the image feels chaotic and fearful, and while your celestial music did pivot that somewhat, it still gave the impression of an emergency news warning, like this meteor shower is going to do some damage in my area and I need to evacuate. Something there is reminding me of the hurricane warnings on the Weather Channel (is it the percussion?). I’d expect grand, sweeping music to give this image themes of guidance and renewal. Still, it certainly took me on a journey. You’ve done the technical aspects well.
The combination of this image and audio is quite interesting! The picture feels catastrophic and gives the sense of ending. The audio by itself gives me a feeling of an open mic poetry night in the best way. Though the audio is somewhat intense, its words are hopeful; the line “it’s not so dark, the lights are out” in particular caught my attention and led me to view the image differently. After listening to this a second time, however, it almost felt ominous, like it belongs in a sci-fi movie and the aliens coming to take over Earth are trying to comfort us. I absolutely love the layers that this combination of audio and visual has!