Folk Music Image-Makng
2024
Create a series of visual experiments which conceptualise four subgenres within a chosen genre. Produce two visual experiments per subgenre that communicate the underlying ideas, emotions and messages.
American Folk Revival
Gaining popularity in the 1960s, American Folk Revival reinvented traditional American music by combining it with contemporary sounds, and socio-political contexts.
This linoprint composition visualises the self-reflective themes, authentic sounds, and familiar atmosphere of American Folk Revival. The subject matter embodies the subgenre’s thematic exploration of the individual’s personal journey towards self-identity and understanding. The pathway weaves through cities symbolic of the communities we belong to, through the mountainous ups and-downs of the human experience, and finally, into the distance as we travel toward the unknown. The design channels a folk-art illustration style through its decorative floral motifs, and flat, simplified subject matter achieved through linoprinting. A timeless artistic medium with a long history, the utilisation of linoprinting, with its rough, uneven, and imperfect appearance, aligns with the subgenre’s raw and grounded nature. The mottled application of watercolour further emphasises this, while also communicating the warm and rustic sounds through its colour palette.
This oil pastel illustration emphasises American Folk Revival’s thematic exploration of the human experience, as well as its whimsical, warm, and thoughtful sonic atmosphere. The abstracted delineations of human faces represent the individual (through the emphasis placed on the orange face using colour, scale, and eye contact), and their inherent connection to the community (additional, interweaving faces). The nature-inspired motifs, such as leaves, petals, and vines, echo this symbolism – reaching and twisting around the composition to connect the faces and grow harmoniously. Oil pastels were selected to create this composition for their natural and creamy appearance. The folk-art illustrative style is playful, rudimentary, and familiar, which, along with the warm colour palette and ‘folksy’ aesthetic qualities of the oil pastels, contributes to the overall feeling of comfort and authenticity found in both the subgenre’s sound and messaging.
Folktronica
Folktronica is a style of electronic music that combines the sounds and tempos of dance and techno music, with the acoustic instrumentation of traditional and contemporary folk.
To convey this juxtaposition between analogue vs digital, this composition depicts a traditional needlepoint through the contemporary process of scanography. I dragged, twisted, and shuffled the found-object tablecloth while scanning its unrefined reverse-side in order to distort and glitch the design until it is almost unrecognisable. The motion created through its development process creates a fluid, wavey movement that contains instances of repetition, and pulsating imagery – aligning well with the sonic motifs of the subgenre. Furthermore, the glitches appear somewhat realistic to needlepoint, with the distortions looking like dropped stitches and tears. The composition was also colour edited with Photoshop to further communicate this, bringing out shades of red and blue to symbolise the contrast between the familiar, ‘folksy’ sounds with the unfamiliar, modern, and electric sounds respectively.
This composition aims to visualise the sonic, aesthetic, and experiential influences of Folktronica on the listener – specifically capturing the unexpected, yet complementary juxtaposition between electric and traditionally acoustic sounds. To communicate this, I utilised food dye marbling for its ability to create unpredictable patterns, shapes, colours, and motion. Furthermore, small drops of oil were added to create the larger abstract shapes, and small, tight bursts of colour. The unexpected combination of irregular shapes, splattered patterns, scratchy textures (created both through the paper and post-production texture emphasis) and soft, melded colours, emphasises the eclectic, experimental, and unconventional sounds of the subgenre. The colours were adjusted in Photoshop to appear bright, electric, and playful in order to associate the composition with hegemonic imagery of nightlife, raves, and dance scenes.
Freak Folk
Beginnings in the 1960s and re-emergence in the 1990s, Freak Folk is an avant-garde approach to traditional folk music that is recognised for its exotic and psychedelic sounds.
This composition aims to capture the cool, light, and atmospheric sounds of Freak Folk, as well as communicate the imagery conjured though both its vivid lyricism and personal associations with the subgenre – including the morning sun, fresh dew drops, and delicate flowers. The composition’s combination of sun print, lumen print, and photography work in both a literal sense, as the imagery is constructed through sunlight and natural materials, and in an aesthetic sense, as the cool blue tones, transparent silhouettes, and floral shapes construct the intended peaceful ambiance. Furthermore, by layering, manipulating, and reflecting this imagery through the process of digital collage, the composition becomes abstracted and atmospheric – aligning with the subgenre's unconventional, unexpected, and psychedelic sounds.
Through the medium of photography, this design aims to capture the light, whimsical and peaceful aesthetic surrounding the Freak Folk genre. Inspired both by the significant presence of nature within its lyrics, as well as the visceral ‘summery’ atmosphere I visualise when listening to the subgenre, this composition’s subject matter includes a dainty purple flower pointing up towards a bright blue sky and surrounded by other green vegetation. Both captured in the original image, and adjusted in Photoshop after the fact, the subject matter is slightly blurred and dips in and out of focus, giving the overall design a soft and delicate appearance. This, plus the unconventional low camera angle, disorients the viewer, encouraging them to look at familiar details from a new perspective and reinforcing the subgenre's psychedelic nuances.
Indie Folk
Arising in the 1990s, Indie Folk fuses traditional and contemporary folk sounds with other modern genres like Indie Rock, Electronica, Pop, and Country.
Focussing on its unique point of difference compared to other Folk subgenres, this composition visualises Indie Folk’s emphasis on lyricism. With its artist’s often narrating their experiences of the world and relationships, as well as personal observations about life, spirituality, and philosophy, the medium of paper collage visually represents the holistic experience of listening to Indie Folk. Each piece of torn paper, with its abstracted and obfuscated appearance, appears like a personal memory, and together they represent the lyrical collection of thoughts, anecdotes, and experiences that come together to create their music. Beyond this, the composition also utilises a gloomy colour palette, rough and varied textures, high contrast, and torn paper edges to emphasise the raw, often melancholy sonic aesthetics of the subgenre. Furthermore, this composition alludes to mountainous imagery due to its peaceful and reflective themes.
Through its gloomy aesthetic, distressed appearance, and handmade, mixed media processes, this composition aims to visually align with the sounds, themes, lyrics, and aesthetics of Indie Folk. Visually representing the low-fi, melancholic and pensive aspects of the subgenre through its dreary imagery, the composition’s subject matter includes a stormy landscape with wild flora in the foreground. To emphasise Indie Folk’s modern perspectives on traditional sounds, the design was created by mixing the conventional art mediums of embroidery and watercolour, in an unconventional and contemporary way – employing techniques like textile manipulation, abstract imagery, scanography and post-production colour editing. Utilising techniques such as freehand embroidery, distressing the fabric, layering wet-on-wet watercolour, contributes to communicating the brooding atmosphere of Indie Folk.