Max Cooper - Spectrum (Official video by Christian Stangl)

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Taken from 'Unspoken Words' album/film - stream / buy / pre-order: https://ffm.to/unspokenwords_.oyd

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Max Cooper
Writing the music created a melting pot of feelings for me, it carries a lot of hope and happiness, but also sadness and reflection, without there being any conflict. It’s a simple example, for me, of how language is a poor tool when it comes to describing an internal state succinctly and accurately, where music can do so, far more effectively and directly.

I named the track spectrum in reference to the valence of language along a positive to negative scale of mood, which we need to work with when describing emotive states. An internal state, for me, at least, is a speckled sampling of this spectrum, perhaps tilted in one way more than another, but always in relation to the spectrum and moving with each new thought.

I was interested in the visual analogy of the colour spectrum, and presenting it in partial, changing form, in relation to human imagery. I chatted to the artist and film creator Christian Stangl about the project, and he came up with the idea of using rocks with partial crystal structures, water and lighting effects to explore the natural creation of colour spectra from split white light. The system yielded some structures reminiscent of human form, and Christian created human apparitions amongst them to be discovered with each viewing.

Christian Stangl
An opal is more then a gemstone.
They are unique minerals which are created by nature in a special way.
Opals are formed by accumulations of siliceous fluid in various rocks. They are formed either in sedimentary rocks or hydrothermally in volcanic rocks, such as in tuff, but they can also form from organic material over millions of years. After they are fully formed they still have up to 20% water.

My father ​collects rough crystal opals and ​refines them into beautiful polished gemstones.
The play of color is one of the most mesmerizing effects i have ever seen. Looking inside an opal is almost like a window into another Universe.

When I already started to do the first macro photo experiments with them, Max Cooper asked me to create a music video for him. It didn't take long until I realized that Opals and Max Coopers track Spectrum could be a very good match.

I used a small video-beamer with a special lens attachment to project tiny moving pictures onto the minerals to bring them to life in a special way. Either these videos were synchronized to the music or they show traces of humans. The variation of light and color makes the opal a perfect object just waiting to be moved. I used a micro-rotation-stage to get these motifs moving and to change the angle of incidence of the light.

Look closely and you can discover bizarre landscapes, interstellar nebulae but also human shapes.


Credits
A film by Christian Stangl
Music: Spectrum / Unspoken Words by Max Cooper
Label: Mesh / Mesh Films
Rotation-Stage-Controller by Mario Zeller
Opals polished by Ernst Stangl
Faces from Traiskirchen-Das Musical
Produced in 4K UHD

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Christian Stangl
Website: https://www.christianstangl.at
Vimeo: https://vimeo.com/christianstangl
https://www.esta-holzdesign.at/
http://www.schweigendemehrheit.at/traiskirchen-das-musical/

Mesh
Website: https://meshmeshmesh.net/
Instagram: : https://www.instagram.com/meshmeshmesh_/