Nebulous nostalgia

Engage in nostalgia through PANORAMA (2022), a video installation on view now as part of I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces at the AGO: it features a compilation of home movie footage from the Prelinger Archives set to the backdrop of a lo-fi soundscape by Toronto-based composer and musician David Wall. Organized in twenty-six chapters, each section of PANORAMA depicts day-to-day scenes of life − like love, celebration, competition, discovery and surprise.

Accompanying the video is a custom-made soundscape by Wall that encapsulates the unedited “first thoughts” aesthetic of the Prelinger Archives. Wall created the soundtrack by contacting a diverse group of Canadian musicians, asking them to document themselves singing one-take recordings using informal equipment like iPhones. Choosing from a list of well-known folk and popular songs, each musician submitted a one-minute clip with no option for rehearsals or retakes. To enhance the “homemade” quality of the home movie footage, Wall chose not to edit or synchronize the music with the imagery for dramatic or emotional effects, leaving it (mostly) to play organically in the background. The result is a soundscape that inhabits a “similar world of casual play and rough-hewn moment-capture as the lovingly created little films flickering across the installation’s screens”.

To learn more, we asked Wall to give us a breakdown of how he created his soundscape.  

AGOinsider: What inspired you to create this lo-fi approach for PANORAMA's soundscape?

Wall: It was really an instinctive response to the grain and informality of the images. PANORAMA is a celebration of a kind of “first thoughts” artmaking, so I tried to reflect that with the sound. 

AGOinsider: What was Rick Prelinger's response to your approach?

Wall: Much to my amazement and glee, Rick, who is a brilliant curator and artistic collaborator, liked the idea right away and pretty much let me make the music on my own. I think the approach (though not necessarily the execution – that took a lot of work!) just kind of made sense.

AGOinsider: How did you select the songs the musicians covered?

Wall: Again, the song selection came from an instinctive place. I tried to find a list of tunes that felt like they’ve always existed, at least in the context of mainstream Americana (the context of the home movies themselves); songs that can evoke multiple time periods and genres. It was up to each musician to choose from the list and decide how they wanted to perform the songs.

AGOinsider: What were the challenges in putting lo-fi recordings into a gallery space?

Wall: There’s a big difference, of course, between charming lo-fi and unpleasant lo-fi. I knew that people experiencing the installation would, in a sense, grant us permission to use primitive-sounding recordings, because of the nature of the project and images. But I had to work a fair bit to keep the limitations of the recordings from sounding obnoxious in the large space, using EQ and subtle digital interventions.

AGOinsider: As a composer, what is your starting point? Do you ideate from the material first?

Wall: I do a lot of work putting music and sound to image and the starting points are almost always what’s on screen and what kind of emotional world the director/creators are hoping to evoke. In most cases, music is there to serve the image, not vice versa.

AGOinsider: Do you have a favourite song?

Wall: Lost in the Stars, by Kurt Weill.

AGOinsider:  What is your favourite artwork in the exhibition?

Wall: There is so much to choose from! I loved pouring over the contents of Warhol’s box, eating up the wonderful images of food and marvelling at the film documenting African-American protest history, but I’m sure I’ll find something else to love the most the next time I go.

Experience PANORAMA (2022) in I AM HERE: Home Movies and Everyday Masterpieces, on view at the AGO through August. To keep up-to-date with the latest art and culture, inside and outside the AGO, be sure to sign up to AGOinsider.