Ed Henderson Suggests Soundtracks for Photographs

Similar to the series Drawings to Sound Effects, John Baldessari here worked together with Ed Henderson, his student at that time, to examine the relationship between what is heard and what is seen. Baldessari described to Henderson a number of clichéd photographs from the magazine National Geographic that the latter could not see. Henderson’s job was to choose the appropriate acoustic background for the pictures from a selection of kitschy atmospheric music and sound effects. The joint efforts of the two artists resulted in a series of almost surreal mini films containing often humorous compositions of sound and image. By taking stereotyped photographs and music out of their original context and recombining them, Baldessari showed how the associative meanings and emotional reactions triggered by the clichés and genres of mass culture have long since become part of our collective subconscious.



 

Workdetails
  • original Title: Ed Henderson Suggests Soundtracks for Photographs
  • Date: 1974
  • Genre: Short film

This work is issued in following texts