New Ratio (2007, 1min 40 secs, colour, stereo sound)

The ratio and scale of the screen rapidly expands and contracts in a series of chromatic oscillations and phasing beeps.  A hypnotic and sensory exploration of tonality and the screen's limitations and potential. - William Rose

New Ratio is the first piece that I’ve made that explicitly explores the move from the 4:3 screen ratio to 16:9, which is now effectively the standard for broadcast television and video.  The colour fields that comprise the work involve a tense relationship with the edge of the screen.  In commenting on this piece Sean Cubitt has suggested that the equal mixture of additive and subtractive colours is effectively a 'democratisation of colour'.  Each colour has been assigned a particular tone: white was attributed a standard 1KHz test tone; the pitch of the tone attributed to blue was half that of the test tone; and each of the colours in between (in descending order of luminance) were attributed tones at intervals between these values.  An additional sound is the 'pip' every time there is a cut.  This sound was the result of a glitch, but it has become an integral part of the soundtrack.  The video comprises two simple repeating sequences, which are fundamentally the same duration.  However, one sequence includes an additional frame of black that throws them out of synch causing a phasing that effects different mixtures of colour, a range of tone combinations, and various pulsations in the soundtrack and within the frame.  There is a discrepancy between the formal structure of this piece (as described) and the perceptual effects that arise, which are far more difficult to account for.- SP