FATIMA'S DREAM - a lasergram experiment
Fatima is the name used in a song for the note ‘fa’ in an elementary music school while learning the C major scale: Dorica (c/do), Rebeka (d/re), Milica (e/mi), Fatima (f/fa), Sonjica (g/sol), Lanica (a/la), Sinisa (b/si), Dorica (c/do). Fatima is in the fourth place of the scale as a note. In harmony, the fourth place of a C major scale is a subdominant chord whose characteristics serve as a bridge to the dominant (G), the tense chord, and then back to the main chord - C major.
‘Fatima’s Dream’ is an experimental photogram project that strives to fuse light and sound. My intention with this project was to draw with sound and light, at the same time, on a photosensitive paper to explore the limits of the photographic medium as well as its essence. Photograms seemed like the best field for experimentation, and that is how laser-grams were created.
Fatima's Dream project has two parts: the first part is the chromatic scale from the C note, organized like a piano keyboard. Every photogram (laser-gram) is one note with a duration of approximately 30s. The idea of this part was to create a shape sheet for the most basic scale and later to use those shapes to create compositions, just like in music.
The second part of the composition consists of notes from the F blues scale (F-Ab-Bb-C-Eb-F), played one by one, with each note lasting 20-30 seconds. Moving and rotating the paper, I was able to play and compose. The process was very meditative as the 30s+ of a particular vibration without stop has a specific effect and every movement had to be counted and thought of as much as possible. It felt like a meditative movement practice.
After the photo paper was exposed to the laser’s dance, I intended to enhance the feeling of the chords and notes with different materials: transparent textile, nets, wet plastic bags, and various paper treatments such as exposing with a lighter, spraying the developer or water from a spray bottle, painting with the developer over the exposed papers, etc. This more dynamic part of the process made the clean and 'stiff' shapes' reflection almost alive and moving, while simultaneously increasing the feeling of the played composition.
These improvisations ask questions about the synesthetic phenomenon: how does a particular shape sound, how does it feel, how does it smell? Fatima's dream confirms that sound can shape the light under very controlled circumstances, that it can smell like a fixator, and that it can feel very meditative listening and looking at it. The goal of this project is to reach beyond the limits of what is purely 'photographic' or purely 'musical' or 'audio' and to step into synesthesia and compose sound photographs.
Material used: black and white matte photo paper cut into 12 6,5x9cm pieces, black and white glossy photo paper 12,7x17,8cm, a laser, a plastic jar, a stretched balloon, rubber bands, wooden board, Bluetooth speaker, a small piece of mirror, GarageBand app's keyboard
