* My apologies in advance for the weird font formating on this post. Despite reseting the text so that it should all be in Georgia font at uniform size, the post seems determined to display the hodgepodge below.*
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Album361
Mass Flow Rate - It Goes On Forever |
My first thought was that the scene in this image belongs to another world. That might sound funny, because a sunset over relatively calm waters is probably a very common sight in reality. But, something about the image seems...off. I've been reading a book by Japanese Author Haruki Murakami called 1Q84, in which "things are not what they seem." The book is an example of fantastical realism, in which reality is slightly skewed to allow certain paranormal activity - experiences from the range outside of scientific explanation. That's how I feel about this image. It's somehow...outside our reality.
On composition, the image makes use of two very simple and powerful alignments moving in perpendicular directions to form a 90 degree angle along the bottom right side of the frame. This directs our attention clearly to the sun, which is actually quite small for an image of a sunset. Sena does a good job of matching the color contrast of the band's name "Mass Flow Rate" and the album title "It Goes On Forever" with the background space they overlay: "Mass Flow Rate" is in bold white because it occupies space within the light, "It Goes On Forever" is in a kind of neon purple because it sits on the darkness of the night sky.
To me, "Mass Flow Rate" and "It Goes On Forever" both seem to be conversing with the image of the water below them. The "Flow" could be of the waves that crash towards the shore, and their increasing power as the sun sets. "It Goes On Forever" could be a comment on the feeling one gets looking off into the horizon at sea. I've often felt this same way watching the sun set over Lake Michigan or the Monterey Bay in California. Once, when a close friend passed suddenly of a heart attack, I instinctively trekked to the beach so that I could watch the waves come in. The smell of the salty ocean air, the sound of the waves crashing along the cliff face, it all just seemed so much more eternal than me or anyone I knew. Oddly enough, this was comforting. The idea that there are things you aren't supposed to understand.
There are many interesting images on this site. If you haven't already seen it, check it out here.
Below is a little more information about how the artist, Eric Sena, created this project.
From Albums Without Sound
"This is a blog documenting a yearlong project covering two of my favorite obsessions: music and graphic design. I will be creating a new album cover each day using random entries from Wikipedia, QuotationsPage, and Flickr. I originally encountered this system on Facebook. Here’s how it works:
1) Go to wikipedia and select “Random article”. This article gives you the name of the band.
2) Go to quotationspage.com and click on “Random Quotes”. The first or last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your album.
3) Go to flickr and click on “Explore the last seven days”. The third picture-- no matter what it is-- will be the album cover. (Note: Starting with Album 028, I decided to use only images with a Creative Commons Attribution or Attribution/Non-Commercial license.)"
