Music of Photography: Cognitive Dissonance and Being

Last Updated on June 26, 2016 by Patrick

Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
Quincy Jones.

I was at a job interview recently. The general manager there asked me some questions that really struck a chord within me and made me experience my first cognitive dissonance and made me also realize the difference between reason and being, between thinking and being, and my rationale over what we discussed were from the weak spots of my mind.

My thinking habbits rapidly brought onto me the conflicts of interests. He was obviously interested in the human part of me but also in the genius in me, if I was creative enough and if I responded quickly, since he was looking for great answers to questions such as “what makes you happy?”, “what do you like to do in life?” or “why did you choose this path of visual design, rather than the path of information technology?”, including questions like “what brought you here?”, “why did you apply for this job?” and “if you were to choose between graphic design and IT, what would you choose?” etc.

I wasn’t really ready for these kind of questions, not only because they put my mind to work and to reveal the real part of me, but also because he addressed them to me before I even sat down on the chair in front of his desk in his office. That was kinda quick! And actually I had different expectations. I thought that a job interview is easier than this. Obviously, I was wrong…

Instead, I answered in a too simple, rather uninspired way that really dissapointed me too. I don’t know if I dissapointed him also, since he didn’t quite show it – he was really relaxed and objective about our conversation, but nevertheless…

At the first question I answered “because I want to work, to earn a living” and that wasn’t inspired at all. And he told me “no, that is not a good enough answer”.

It was quick, I admit it, and what came out of me was how I am on a daily basis. I am still not aligned with who I really am and with who I must be. He, then, suggested I answer him saying “how about you say that you want to offer me your expertise”. That was a one to zero score for him and he was also right.

The dissonance I experienced was within me, both in my mind and in my emotional part, also in my conscience, it was a sort of dissonance that revealed me two distinct aspects of myself: the fake and the real. And I firstly mentioned the fake one because it is what quickly, mechanically still comes out in my behaviour from learned patterns that I still carry with me although I know what is my path, I started to walk on it, I am heading in the dirrection I must be, but also I haven’t let go of them. They really have no reason to be here and I must quickly let them go.

I am still carrying them with me, within me, and, from time to time, I act as such, in accordance with them but in dissonance with my Being.

Unfortunately, it is not easy and this, I think, you already know. It’s not easy to let go of many years of memes that I have accumulated in my head. Although they don’t define who I am, they really shamefully structure my behaviour in such a way that makes me really mediocre to say the most.

But let’s see what cognitive dissonance really is, ok? Cognitive dissonance is a term used in psychology describing an experience one lives within one’s mind when two different beliefs, creeds meet and create conflict. These are indeed opposite and apparently at least one of them has nothing to do with the subject. They are contradictory and are in conflict with what the individual really is.

That is how I felt and before long I almost had a nervous break down, falling into a short depression that lasted for several days. How could this be? How could I be so uninspired? Have I lost my inspiration, my path, my ikigai, my reason of being? I was disappointed for my answers and that I made my interviewer very disappointed with me, at least that’s how I think. I didn’t get the job.

I attended very few job interviews and I guess I didn’t really know what they imply, what they really mean. And so, I was trying.

When you try you don’t really know what you do, you just try to see what works. But when you do you already know what you do or what you want to do and do it. It is not quite self-explanatory but it is as simple as this.

There are plannings ahead and they are very clear. Once you know your path, you know what you need to do in life, you know what you came here for, then if you walk your path, walk the talk and practice what you preach, then and only then you are aligned. Until then, you’re on the way to.

The term dissonance is also used in music. The dictionary definition states the following:

1. a simultaneous combination of tones conventionally accepted as being in a state of unrest and needing completion;
2. an unresolved, discordant chord or interval;
3. lack of harmony among musical notes.

As you can see, there are three variants of the definition, each describing, almost similarly, the term, except for the third one. The term that is opposite to this one is consonance. This one is a term describing the bringing back to harmony of the musical work.

I will keep the tradition that I followed so far in this photographical work and I will talk about music and photography in the same dissertation.

The dichotomy of sounds and tones, therefore of musical and photographical elements, in a work of art is not necessarily eager to bring the artist, or the artwork, or the listener / viewer into disharmony or continuous tension. It is meant to form a special kind of expression in order to bring the attention back to the message and only if it is required. Often, the message is the said path of the artist and artwork, as it is with the human being and his or her own life.

I think that tension, resolving conflicts, the releasing or liberating of energy from the work of musical art is essential to the outcome, to the completion of the said work. Otherwise there is no use for tension, for discordance between sounds and so, monotony can be the only character or the lack of story.

I often look for stories in the visual arts that I practice and photography is no less the exception.

I went out to shoot again, after quite a while. I took quite a long pause between shoots and this is not helpful, but I think I progressed into this artistic pursuit.

I admit, I slacked off quite a lot lately, as I am in a transition phase for some time now, as you could figure out from the beginning paragraphs of this chapter.

Went out into my town with the specific idea to shoot something for my third volume of this work. I didn’t know what to expect, as I was clueless to what I need, though I thought I found a shot so I could make it a photograph. I had expectations.

I arrived at the scene with the idea in mind that I would shoot some abstract textures and rhythms that appeared onto the surface of a lake near my home, in another neighborhood and so I did. Only that the scene didn’t come out as I expected. I was witnessing the sunset, though. Why look down when you can look up..? It was the dissonance between depression and hope…

And that was it. I looked at the sky and sure enough, the clouds and the Sun gave me quite a show to record on camera. I tried many shots, many frames, different exposures, different aperture settings and so on. I tried different ideas, I isolated my subject matter in order to correct the contrasts later on in post. And then the brilliant idea came to me: I needed to go low-key.

And this is interesting, this notion right here: low-key. People often speak using musical terms such as high note, high-key, low-key, and these are both related very much to tonality as they are to sound. Actually, sound and tonality is like the bread and the knife. It’s like, you need sound but you need to know how to use it. Also, we have the term of scale both in photography and in music: musical scale and the scale of the photographical elements in a scene, small scale, large scale and so on.

And so, I went for a low-key shot, underexposing it for two stops of light. All I wanted were the backlit silhouettes since the clouds came and went by into the scene. I tell ya, shooting a cloudscape is not really on my alley. Or is it? I do get a lot of satisfaction from shooting clouds, though. I find cloud scenes very spectacular and awe inspiring.

Back home, I downloaded the images and started post-production. It took me quite a while to decide which one is the one, what image should be the one. I was also aiming for another name for this chapter but the signs of the moments pointed my into this dirrection.

The dissonance of the scene consists in the difference between light and shadow, between the Sun and the backlit clouds, between warm and cold tones of colors. The rest of it… I leave it up to you to interpret. It is a moody scene, though..

The mind is a battlefield, you know. There are actors there who are triggered into activity playing the role of warriors. Each has his own creed and belief, and defend them to the last drop of blood. These accumulate, sediment unto the floor of the sea of the mind in order for later to be mumbled up to the surface as a scuffle bigger than yesterday but no less than tomorrow. Including the past and the future can fight one another and combat each other. None of these are the one that is: the individual.

Your path, who you are, your Being, must resonate loud and clear each moment and wherever you go. As I am in this transition phase, ten years from now hoping not to be anymore and to be aligned fully with who I am, I still tend to do things in dissonance with who I really am. The problem is I cannot answer in words to the question “who are you?”, not because I don’t know, but because I am finding out each day, little by little, and it’s difficult for me to describe. Who I am I can really translate in what I do even though I live a double life, so to speak, as a mechanical man and as a real human being.

It is that question that comes to mind, to be or not to be, or should I say to do or not to do? Either one, is the same…

The cognitive dissonance occurs when one has a mind with different ideas, beliefs, with almost an entirely different mindset than one’s actual Being. You want to do something but you can’t and instead you act in disagreement with who you are. This creates conflict asking yourself the valid question: how could you?! This is not your ego yelling at you, it is the real you.. your Conscience.

But who puts you in a state of depression causing you such suffering that you reach an emotional crisis? Of course, your ego. But it is all for the better of you. It heals you and puts your Conscience to work.

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