Interstitial Traces

This piece is a collaboration between animation artist Celia Eid and composer Robert Coburn. It was created while they were living on different continents – she in France and he in Japan. In a way, the piece represents both of those influences. The flowing, abstract gestures of the animation are very much in keeping with Celia’s Brazilian/French artistic nature and the sound world Robert created grows from field recordings made in Japan. Part of the intention in making this piece was to deal with the relationships of foreground and background. It began with Celia’s black and white, horizontal imagery as background but that quickly evolved into something more. After seeing the abstraction of Celia’s animation, Robert found many shapes that seemed to represent elements from the real world. In wanting to highlight that as well as ground the abstraction in a non-abstract sound world, he worked with found sounds and field recordings. The two seemed to make a perfect pairing. As the work unfolded, the foreground/background elements merged and took on new life. As with any collaboration, the piece grew in unexpected ways as both artists participated actively in decisions regarding both media. The result is a work that goes beyond what either of them might have ever dreamed separately.