Kiss me softly | crackly | sharply

This video attempts to subvert the usual relations of sound and image, drawing attention to the tactility of the soundtrack by juxtaposing two unconnected found footage elements: a small section of a Hollywood film noir and an ASMR soundtrack of museum objects. In this way, it refers to traditions of found footage experiments, like that of Martin Arnold, which decontextualise classical cinema to create new meanings and experiences. In its different elements it bring old and new screen cultures together - the masculinised hard-boiled film noir and the feminised internet phenomenon of ASMR – as well as high and low art – popular genre cinema and the cultural heritage of objects in a museum - in order to explore the material qualities of sound. By reshaping the experience of an established or classic text, my work aims to highlight the significance of sound as a practice, to the importance of sound personnel in building film worlds that move us and place us sensorially in them. It also points to the correlation between audiovisual practices of filmmaking and ASMR internet culture, as inspired by collaboration with sound designer Julie Rose Bower (creator of the original ASMR sound remixed on the soundtrack). This in turn invites a rethinking of aesthetics and technique to question and subvert the hierarchies between film and internet cultures. My aim is to play with our preconceptions of sound, using the creaks and strains of non-animate objects to create an experience of bodily movement and confrontation.