For this photograph, I had an ideational preparation for almost two years.My starting point was Synesthesia.

Synesthesia could shortly be described as: sense perceptions moving by effecting each other and becoming one-piece by intermixing. FOR EXAMPLE; TO SEE THE SOUND AS COLOUR, OR TO HEAR THE COLOUR AS SOUND (*Nazan Ipsiroglu INFLUENCE OF MUSIC ON PAINTING).

All my works took form on the thoughts of how I can see the colour as sound. As soon as sound got involved, it became apparent how important the time process was. With my MOVEMENT exhibition in 1995, I had brought a different commentary upon approaching photography as describing the moment. The method I used on "Movement" made me feel relieved about using time whilst taking photographs. I developed my tudies on synesthesia on that direction.

In this type of a project instead of using more than one instrument, it made my life easier to choose one single instrument to begin with. The instrument I chose was drums.

After completing the photograph mentally, I obtained the equipment that I’d use. For the music, I took a section from IRON BUTTERFLY ’s 17-minutes piece called IN-A-GADDA-DA VIDA and recorded it on a tape, over and over. This recording was studied by the drummer for quite a long time. The drummer friend told me that I could use two of her alto drums for my photo-shooting. I had two five-meter long transparent hoses done. I connected these hoses together as a T connection. Then I connected a single transparent hose to the "T" and put a tap to the end. I put two spot lights, green and red, into black vases and fixed them. The reason to choose the red and green colours was to gain a yellow colour, as well. I had a 5-6 meter long black background done. We
removed the transparent parts from under the altos, and the other parts on the top. The transparent parts that were under, we connected to the top. I found a hall that has water and water loophole, in the University of Hacettepe-Beytepe Campus. We formed a dark environment by isolating all the windows in this hall. A team of 5 people helped me for this work. After the dark, I installed the slide film to my camera.

I used 100 ASA - 200 ASA - 400 ASA films for this shooting, and kept the film speed ring on 1600 ASA at all times. I chose this method -In despite of Push Processing- to solve the exposure problem caused by the film rolling in the camera. After taking the photographs, I developed the films on their original "ASA" rating.

In a dark environment; whilst switching the 100-watt spotlights on, I drained water continuously onto the altos by using the hoses. There is a tiny elevation on altos, with the help of this elevation, water stayed on them. To prevent water leaking from the sides of the alto drums, I used packing. We inserted the tape into the cassette-player and played it on a high volume. The reason for doing this was to concentrate on music together with the drummer.

Then I started to practice my idea; when drummer hit the drumsticks on the altos, vibration of translucent parts of the altos caused the water splash and the spotlights coloured these water drops. When the height of the water splashes changed by the drumsticks hitting the alto drums in varying hardness, according on every single note, the part of the plan about the "music piece being seen as colour" was completed. To ensure keeping water on the altos, the water tap was left on, to flow same amount of water at all times. The water left on until the end of the photo-shooting. The only job left to do was, to capture this vision in a time process with the help of a camera.

I took the pictures with a motor-speed of 3,5 frames per second by turning the film advance lever manually from the opposite direction.

I believe J Weder who is an example of this style in Painting, Bach’s Gigue from D Major 3rd Orchestra Suite, (1980-81) (*Nazan Ipsiroglu-The Influence of Music on Painting- Page 80, Tableau 15) have been very important guide to me.

The dimensions of this photograph (slide-dia) is 2,4cm * 64cm. There are so many obstacles to print this photograph. First of all it is difficult to get it as one-piece from the scanner. What I want is a photograph which is 2 meter in wide and 30 meter in height. Unfortunately there are many problems about this subject matter.

Many kind regards,

S. Ugur Okcu