Photo: Ollyy/Shutterstock

A Negative Narrative

Photo + Video + Film
by Paul Sullivan Jul 9, 2010
A new website that uses photographs to create innovative insights into the lives of your favorite music artists…

Images can be equally as good at creating a narrative as words. Then again some things – music, for example, which exists in its special emotional and temporal sphere – can be quite difficult to put into words.

Most written music interviews these days come with some kind of image, but not many tell a story. Mostly simple portraits that reveal what the artist looks like or what kind of clothes they wear. but no real insights into their personality.

But a new website called A Negative Narrative – http://anegativenarrative.com/ – has come up with a way to change that. Rather than interact with their favorite artists via only words, they ask them to respond to questions via images.

“We interview bands and musical artists,” runs the website blurb, “but instead of the tired and dreary formula of re-telling you about their mumbled, misunderstood words in a half-arsed write-up, we let them submit their answers through the beautiful, poetic and artistically-vague medium of photography (thereby retaining their own subjectivity and creative control)”.

Click on the excellent up-coming artist Catherine AD , for example, and you get a series of witty, provocative and endearing images that she’s posted in response to questions like “Define Britishness”, “What Is In Your Pockets?”, “What Do You Find Sexy?”, and “What Scares The Shit Out Of You?”

The interviews also include a self-portrait as the cover image, a short blurb on the artist, links to the band’s relevant social networking sites and a free MP3 track to download. What’s not to like? In the future they are also hoping to attract some bigger names and allow visitors to submit their own questions.

Stay tuned by following A Negative Narrative on Twitter or Flickr.

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