Music Mosaic - "A New Life"

   Music evokes strong emotions in listeners. Guided by a melody, the imagination can create entire worlds instantly.  Some of these small bursts of imagery are as complex and fleeting as dreams. It is nearly impossible to retain them in one’s mind over time.  For this week’s assignment I tried to mentally capture these images as they came and quickly write them down.  This exercise helped me not to waste the product of my instinctive creativity.

   Burkhard Dallwitz's "A New Life" (listen in here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=REISCYUUKEQ) created specific imagery in my mind as I listened to it with closed eyes.  My mind envisioned a wide valley bordered on both sides by blue hills, with two full moons visible; each one nestled in the sky on opposite sides of the valley.  While I did not re-create this exact image as part of my mosaic, some basic elements of this image guided the work as a whole. The idea of symmetry suggested by the valley with two moons was something I wanted to maintain.  However, instead of a valley I decided to mimic the steady rise of the music’s intensity with lines that would rise to an apex and end abruptly, just as the song does.  This decision gave me a unifying visual frame in which to insert the fragments of my vision. 

   Three images on each side of the frame all feature sloping lines that draw the eye upward and to the center where the two sides meet at a central point, the moon.  The upward movement is accompanied by an increasingly energetic set of images.  At the base are the silent mountains.  Moving up, we encounter a living plant, a person, and power lines.  The images of the reaching hands were created with single flash bursts to give bright highlights and strong contrast.  The song ends quickly after its climax.  It is a constant rise with little or no falling action.  When “A New Life” ends, it comes as a sudden leap or fall at the end of a long rise.  After reaching the moon, the eye is no longer being guided and is free to roam, exploring the rest of the image or leaving altogether.  The water beneath the moon suggests a place to land should the eye fall after its exhausting upward climb. 

   During the past week our class read that story is about relationships.  What can this simple rising image tell us about relationships?  I think all relationships have their climax moments; those moments where you have reached the point where your support drops out from under you and you either fly or fall. 

   “A New Life” doesn’t tell a complete story, necessarily.  Rather, it is the beginning of a story.  Fittingly, this music plays over the closing credits of “The Truman Show”.  The film ends much the way the music does, with a step into the unknown.  The resolution is still to come.

-Nate