Partitura For Blue Noise

The series of drawings were produced in a variety of techniques and materials, all exploring the notion of “colored noise”. The blue noise pieces are studies that led to the development of a longer piece, Sounds like a Plan (2013-14). With its limited palette, this series’ object of study are the sound properties of the color blue. In the physics of sound engineering there is, in addition to the well-known “white noise”, a spectrum of other colored noises. They each denote different characteristics of the noise’s power spectrum and are comparable to timbre in music. Goldstein uses Blue noise here and other colors of noise in related works as an entry point for a pragmatic (rather than associative) connection between sound and color. Later works also refer to pink noise, or to lack of color technologically generated images.

The drawings reflect visual experiences of sound, and are viewed as having rhythm and a sound-like happening. The techniques used to create this effect are also a mixture of “technical” and “design”; though there are moments where control is given up to uncontrollable tools, the overall approach is of artistic choice, which nonetheless conveys automatism, time, rhythm and noise. Sound is also important for the chosen techniques, which include marks made by a drill, with graphite replacing of the drill bit: the sound and vibrations of the drill transfer onto the paper as rich patterns and textures. Using clear tape strips, these textures are then transferred onto different parts of the drawing or to other drawings, an action equivalent to recording (and even maintaining analog quality loss with every generation of its copying). The graphite sticks to the tape, so that the automatic marks can be used purposefully – or in other words: composed – for instance by layering, editing and repetition.

The drawings, and later animation connecting them in a video piece follow a common strategy of Goldstein’s work, in which he employs physical and mathematical structures as visual references, alternating between intuitive methods and didactic, derivative methods. The video reflects the latter, and was produced by transferring the visual information of each drawing into sound, through an analytic program. A further related work completes the cycle with a thoroughly machine-made product: when the sound information is retransferred into visual information, the result is colorless (Minus Green, 2015).