This is my first music video. (or since my MFA Iowa thesis days)

Before the Sound began as an experiment in restraint. Not narrative, not spectacle. A slow unfolding of images that sit in the space before momentum, before meaning locks in, before noise takes over. I wanted the visuals to move the way a thought does when it hasn’t fully formed yet.

The music was written by me and created with Suno, then shaped visually through editing, pacing, and contrast. Rather than illustrate the song, the video runs alongside it. Images open, pause, collide, and recede. Some are quiet. Some are unsettled. Together, they create a threshold the viewer passes through rather than a story to follow.

This project sits naturally beside my painting practice. The same questions are at work here: presence versus performance, stillness against pressure, and what remains when explanation is stripped away.

This is not a departure. It’s an extension.

— John Gerstner