Chris Watson, sound recordist, sound artist and musician, generously shared a great deal of advice with me during a technical workshop I attended in Iceland. Among all that guidance, one piece of advice surprised me greatly.
I had mentioned to him that upon my return to Montréal, I was preparing to create an installation based on my composition Résonnance, a piece dedicated to the St. Lawrence River. He asked me how I intended to go about it. I told him I had some beautiful photographs, a few videos and, of course, my composition. He looked at me with a slight smile and said:
If you present visual elements alongside your composition, your guests will come to see you at the end and tell you how much they enjoyed it. If, on the other hand, you offer them only the audio track in a dimly lit setting, they will tell you, with great enthusiasm, that they have just lived a truly unique and deeply enriching experience.
I put his recommendation into practice. Several friends and collaborators I had spoken to about it were skeptical, and I admit I was nervous myself at the first presentation. Yet he was right: I received many testimonials along those lines.
Of course, this does not apply to every situation, and the use of visuals, used sparingly, can also enhance the listener’s experience. It is all, I believe, a matter of balance.
What matters most is engaging the listener’s imagination, for it is imagination that makes them truly active in their listening, not a passive spectator, but a co-creator of the experience.
Who has never been alone in the dark in a forest, even for just a few minutes, only to realize how powerful the imagination can be?