Visual Music

The iotacenter are doing a very cool thing on their site - each week, they select a clip of the week, site of the week and artist of the week. Thanks to Derek Haugen of Iotacenter for selecting this Visual Music Blog as site of the week on November 30th. Visit: - iota at: http://www.iotacenter.org/ Available at Amazon Visual Music from Iota: An Anthology of Contemporary Art, Vol. 1 (2006)

Visual Music Survey - Ilias Bergstrom This is a really worthwhile survey to fill out - it is great to see some research being done on Visual Music and Audiences, thanks Ilias for letting me know about this survey - do fill it out - as it's a great cause - Visual Music Some more information In order to find out which one of two different visual music technologies audiences prefer, Ilias has created an online survey for comparing them. Please take part by filling it out. The survey is reached using the link below, and should not take you more than 10-15 minutes to complete: www.surveygizmo.com/s/204226/visual-music-1 Ilias will post all the details when the survey is closed. See also: http://www.onar3d.com/

A unique event encompassing film,artworks, music, live performance and interactive experiences in showcasing the world of *visual music. *Items included range from pioneering work in the field to new pieces created for the evening, from cutting-edge to humorous interpretation and from international prize winning items to local endeavour. "What does music look like? This is the question that Colchester music lecturer Julia Orpen is attempting to answer at The Headgate Theatre on Sunday 6th December. The event, entitled “ Sound and Image ” is part film show, part art show, part concert and is the result of eighteen months personal investigation that has led to both local and global collaboration. Sub-titled ‘ The World of Visual Music ’, the series of short films forming the heart of the event include an international award winner and contributions from Australia, Ireland, Austria, Italy and the USA. Julia Orpen says: "Experimentation in the possibilities of combining sound ...

Jodina Meehan is a cymatics artist using sound waves to create permanent art, and she is also editor of the Journal of Cymatics . This journal is supported by a website, that has a lot of very useful resources, information and examples in the area of cymatics - this wonderful and incredible sound to art work of cymatics. You can become a member of this website also. The Journal of Cymatics: The Study of Sound Made Visible , was founded in 2007, by editor Jodina Meehan. Reporting on the art and science of cymatics around the world. If you have a piece of cymatics news to contribute, do visit the website on how to contribute. Website: http://cymatica.com/ Jodina Meehan at work in her studio creating cymatics art You can view Jodina Meehans creating her own cymatics work in her studio- view the beautiful patterns created in an excellent video that showcases her cymatic on the following page: http://cymatica.com/2009/05/05/cymatica-1-inside-my-studio There are lots of categories on thi...

Los Angeles premieres. Co-presented with Center for Visual Music “Joost Rekveld has provided an undeniable masterpiece with #37.” International Film Festival Rotterdam This ravishing “play of light” explores rhythmic abstractions in the cinematic tradition of Oskar Fischinger and visual music animation. The centerpiece of the program is the Los Angeles debut of Joost Rekveld’s #37 (Netherlands, 2009, 31 min., 35mm CinemaScope), a stunningly beautiful study of the propagation and diffraction of light through crystalline structures. Sure to bend more than a few minds, the lineup also offers award-winning animated shorts from around the world, most of which are screening in L.A. for the first time. Featured artists include Scott Draves, Robert Seidel, Steven Woloshen, Bärbel Neubauer, Thorsten Fleisch, Bret Battey, Michael Scroggins, Samantha Krukowski, Mondi, Devon Damonte, Scott Nyerges, Vivek Patel and Yusuke Nakajima. Plus the final film by the late CGI wizard Richard “Doc” Baily. In ...

EraSer + vj Ape5 are an audiovisual and experimental project from Italy. More on ape 5 Ape5 is active since 2001 both as a VJ and video-artist, basing his performances on the research and experimentation of real-time video, interested in the interaction between arts and video and in the experimentation of glitch aesthetisc of the sound. In 2005, he established vidauxs.net on the the first net labels that focus on real-time audio-video interaction. Lately he is into building audio-video controller that use open-source hardware See: http://www.ape5.it/ More on EraSer Matteo de Ruggieri using the pseudonym of EraSer has given birth to his own electronic experimental project through the art of circuit bending, exclusively playing with toys and musical instruments transformed by him, creating glitch and lo-fi electronic sounds on an intense melodic basis. An artist and circuit bender, he has set up circuitbend.it the first italian website based on this art, has modified toys for intern...

Audio Visual Performance A Visual and Sonic interplay by the painter- filmmaker Jean Detheux and pianist Jean-Philippe Collard-Neven See http://www.nouveaucinema.ca/2009/en/programmation/festival/?search=ok&lab=cinewild Programme note: "Normally, when you present a piece, you specify your intentions. But in this case, it is the absence of intention that defines our performance. We are not hoping for anything in particular to take place since it is precisely the “whatever happens” that interests us—all the more so if it is beyond our will or our control. We can say that the performance will be comprised of certain elements. There will be music, both early (Frescobaldi, Dowland, Couperin) and contemporary (Jean-Luc Fafchamps, John Adams, Steve Reich, Maurice Ravel, Claude Ledoux, Collard-Neven). There will also be free improvisation, music that doesn’t yet exist but lives only in the realm of possibility. At the same time, there will be images, drawn and reworked, as well as pho...

The punto y raya festival to be held in Barcelona on November 26th to 29th, 2009 (see website ) in its call for works has collected an amazing selection of audio visual works. The website provides excellent documentation of the works being shown and is a brillant starting point for checking out contemporary audio visual work - both fixed media, installation and performance. See festival videos page at: http://www.puntoyrayafestival.com/english/videos_eng.html The 2009 official competition program for the festival showcases contemporary work - there are 76 films from all over the world, there is a link to more information about each film and a screengrab from the film - this is an excellent festival http://www.puntoyrayafestival.com/2_edicion/eng/competicion09_mod1_eng.html "This festival explores the ultimate synthesis of the form·movement duality in different spheres of human endeavour. Due to the simplicity of its criteria, it uses abstraction's prime matter to reveal th...

"Sound Expression, graphics and audiovisual animation an experimentatl approach in line with their theoretical work on psicosonography. Intermodal ethic and integrated graphic design. This website is based on a few examples of their work." http://www.inter-modal.org/ Also see: http://visualmusic.ning.com/profile/antonio

48X48 from VS Team on Vimeo . Installation du collectif Visual System, pour l'édition 2009 du festival Scopitone à Nantes. 48X48 a été réalisée par Julien Guinard, Stephen Roques et Valère Terrier. Une sculpture lumineuse interactive et contrôlable, une œuvre volumétrique en apesanteur de 64m2, le collectif travaille sur des structures architecturales provisoires avec une technologie détournée : la led. Conçue comme un espace de lumière sans armature, généré par son environnement, elle happe le spectateur qui mènera rapidement un jeu spatial (sa position), architectural (points de vue de l’installation dans l’espace) et cinétique (vitesse de déplacement), alors conditionnés par la présence ou absence de lumière. Remerciement très spécial à Monsieur Thierry Pillet et à la Fondation Jean-Luc Lagardère qui sont à nos côtés depuis le début. A previous post showing their architectural installations is here

Practice-led Visual Music Research Symposium, Bath Spa University, 19/20th Sept 2009 "Bath Spa University’s Center for Musical Research hosts an informal two-day symposium exploring a broad range of multimedia work highlighting the relationship between sound and image. Areas such as visual music, abstract cinema, experimental animation, lumia, cymatics, live audiovisual performance and relevant installation work will be examined and explored." http://seeingsound.co.uk The excellent programme organised by Dr Joe Hyde consisted of papers/presentations , performances and screenings . The mix of screenings, talks, papers and performances made this a really rich event and a wonderful opportunity to see and hear the work that is being created now in the area of practice-led Visual Music Research and to hear in detail how this is being done across many universities and various research activities in the UK, US, Ireland, Germany. Screenings came from a mix of historical work...

Barcelona based IQBIT is an electronic composer from Rome based in Barcelona, Spain. IQBIT collaborates with Visual Artists, creating electronic music and sound for collaborative video and audio visual projects.  The works from these colloborations are both linked to research in synaesthesia but are also definitely are Visual Music.  Their visual music arises from a collaboration between music composers and visual artists, so the resulting video is a unity of the composition of visual and audio material.  Some of the videos are live sets - consisting of live audio and video. The words used to describe their works - sound video. Their live sets are described as Audio Visual Projects. Iqbit myspace link: http://www.myspace.com/iqbit Collaborations with xx+xy visuals Bo Za AV project IQBIT has created the sound for a Audio Video live set with visuals by xx+xy visuals. This project is called Bo Za AV project and is documented online on the xx+xy visuals website. There are also high q...

June 12, 2009 - Animation World Network Headline News - Top Stories Center for Visual Music to Preserve Fischinger Experiments http://news.awn.com/index.php?ltype=top&newsitem_no=28079 Center for Visual Music has received two new grants for preservation of very early Oskar Fischinger animation experiments. The first grant is a prestigious Avant-Garde Masters Grant, to support the preservation of three nitrate reels of Fischinger's original 35mm experiments from his RAUMLICHTKUNST multiple projector cinema performances of the 1920s. The grant is funded by The Film Foundation and managed by The National Film Preservation Foundation. The Film Foundation is a nonprofit organization established in 1990 by Martin Scorsese, dedicated to protecting and preserving motion picture history. Joining Scorsese on the board are: Woody Allen, Paul Thomas Anderson, Wes Anderson, Francis Ford Coppola, Clint Eastwood, Curtis Hanson, Peter Jackson, Ang Lee, George Lucas, Alexander Payne, Robert Red...

QUBY QUBY from tsaworks_martin Böttger on Vimeo . Martin böttger, Germany has several videos on Vimeo - some of these are also installations. Excellent work and great audio visual connections.  This video he created with Maya. His Blog: tsaworks Of his many video excerpts on vimeo, this work creeated in collaboration with Bruno Dias is wonderful - such tight 3D integration with the audio. Tractor TRACTOR from tsaworks_martin Böttger on Vimeo .

There are some really interesting vimeo channels showcasing contemporary work in the audio visual field. These channels are a great opportunity to see what is going on with audio visual work/art/music today. They also demonstrate how many different fields that audio visual works are taking place in - such as in installation settings, as interfaces, in gallery spaces, as films and animations led by music collaborations and music label collaborations - there are just so many ways now in which audio and visual are being put together...I like to still call all these approaches visual music. (Author Comment) Experimental Motion Graphics Channel http://vimeo.com/channels/motiongraphics Designflux http://vimeo.com/channels/designflux "Designflux exists as a quarterly publication, bringing together interviews, reviews and portfolios of the best in contemporary motion design. This channel acts as a means to showcase work we are watching at Designflux as well as to publish special informat...

This demonstration of an intereactive surface for VJing is excellent. The purpose of this interface is as said by Stuart Taylor on his vimeo page. "VPlay is an interactive multi-touch surface designed to open up the practice of VJing, encouraging new creative dialogues to be formed between VJs and members of the audience." http://vimeo.com/2738692 VPlay: An Interactive Surface for VJing from Stuart Taylor on Vimeo .

NEW VISUAL MUSIC RESOURCES from Ron Pellegrino Ron Pellegrino's website has an extensive amount of resources that are of great relevance for any studies into visual music and visual music visualisers.  Not only does it document his own work, but also provides links to his writings on the area of music and visual studies and writings and resources on visual music. For example some really excellent resources can be found linked from the homepage of his website - http://www.ronpellegrinoselectronicartsproductions.org/ Topics and Resources such as: Visual Music Compositional Thinking Of interest is his recent writings and resources and a book and DVD now available. EMERGENT MUSIC AND VISUAL MUSIC: INSIDE STUDIES - BOOK and DVD - 2009 Some new visual music resources from Ron Pellegrino that should be of interest to music visualizers: Just released on Amazon.com  and now available are  EMERGENT MUSIC AND VISUAL MUSIC: INSIDE STUDIES Part 1: The Book P...

Applying Concepts of Musical Consonance and Dissonance to Colour An edited version of this article was published in the May 2004 edition of the journal Leonardo (Vol. 37, No. 2) K atherine Lubar is a painter and musician who applies concepts of musical consonance and dissonance to the use of colour in her paintings. This article on colour intervals is a most comprehensive account of how she does this in her work, it is also an excellent article documenting a colour to music interval correspondence. (Author Comment) "After comparing the colour intervals to their musical counterparts, I do feel they share something in common — the colour intervals don’t have the same character as each of the musical intervals, but both seem to follow a similar pattern in terms of which work harmoniously and which don’t. In addition, I have realized, from this research, the importance of the element of contrast to both visual and musical compositions. So while these correlations may not all work on ...

Preserving Visual Music - By Holly Willis - May 8, 2009 "After more than 70 years and the explosion of visual culture, the stunning animated films of Oskar Fischinger remain unparalleled. Fischinger, who emigrated to Los Angeles from Germany in 1936 and became one of the city's central figures in a burgeoning avant-garde filmmaking community, created dozens of dazzling visual explorations of sound... This question is tackled head-on by Cindy Keefer, Director of LA's Center for Visual Music, which is dedicated to this particular genre of experimental film... one of the Center's key objectives is preservation. In this context, CVM recently announced that it has received funds from the Avant-Garde Masters Grant (which is funded by The Film Foundation and managed by the National Film Preservation Foundation) to preserve three reels of Fischinger's original 35mm nitrate film experiments from his Raumlichtkunst multiple projector performances of the 1920s." Extracts...

Being Irish of course, I am aware and familiar with contemporary music composition in Ireland.  I hope to make more posts about music composition or things musical that could be helpful for visual music or audio visual work. Ronan Guilfoyle is one of the prominent contemporary composers working in Ireland today, he is also a Acoustic Bass Guitarist and Educator. It has always been of interest to me that Visual Music has at its core a strong consideration for music composition or a musical thinking to composition. What is it that is being explored with visuals that is so musical - one of the more important elements is rhythm - how time is handled. Ronan has written some essays on the subject of rhythm in relation of course to music composition and jazz in particular. They are available to check out on his website. (Author comment) The essays on rhythm - some of the titles listed on his website - such as  'creative rhythmic concepts for jazz improvisation; the rhythm boo...

CIMATICS\09\FESTIVAL Brussels CALL FOR SUBMISSIONS. DEADLINE: JULY 31.2009 Cimatics - Brussels International Festival for Live Audiovisual Art & VJing - invites all artists, creatives and producers to send their submissions for the next Cimatics festival. Cimatics festival takes place from 20th - 29th November 2009 at various locations in the centre of Brussels. The 7th festival edition will again bring an extensive overview of what's currently taking place at the crossroads of media, art, music and technology. See: http://cimatics.com/cms_site/news/archive/article.php?id=53 Online submission form at: http://www.cimatics.com/entries/index.php

I have just come across this most interesting installation research project to be shortly exhibited in paris. There is a lot of imagery that uses software generative processes to create "scripted" imagery - these images are always incredibly beautiful, and ordered displaying the most wonderful 'ordered' patterns that would be very hard to realise/create by hand processes. When these patterns are tied up to audio processes, then the most incredible synergy seems to take place. This project is a very physical realisation of both scripted animation and an interactive sonar field. What caught my eye was the imagery and the tight connection with sound. (Author comment) "b iot(h)ing - Invisibles is an interactive installation exhibited at the Prague Biennale and is to be exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris in 2009. ‘Invisibles' by biot(h)ing uses holosonic speakers to create sound patterns projected into an interactive space. These speakers isolate indi...

"Sound out of Paper is a research project in progress related to the technology of synthesizing sound from light called Graphical (Drawn) Sound technique which was invented in Soviet Russia in 1929 as a consequence of the newly invented sound-on-film technology. At exactly the same time similar efforts were being undertaken in Germany by Rudolf Pfenninger in Munich and, somewhat later, by Oscar Fischinger in Berlin. As such the history of the Graphical Sound is an interesting cross section of 20th century history, reaching from the euphoria of the late 19th Century and early 20th Century inventors through the paradigm-smashing experiments of the Soviet avant-garde in the 1920's and 1930's to the cynical clash of ideologies of the Post-war years and finally to the dawn of the digital era in the 1970's." Source: Andrey Smirnov :: main projects at - http://asmir.theremin.ru/gsound1.htm Theremin Center Moscow State Conservatory Bolshaya Nikitskaya 13 Moscow, 125009 R...

Excellent and really relevant resource on Visual Music authored by Hieke Sperling . "Dr. Heike Sperling is co-chairing with Prof. Manfred Becker the post-graduate-program Motion Design at Filmakademie Baden-Württemberg since 1998. She has also been teaching at the University of the Arts (HFK) Bremen, the University of Applied Sciences Salzburg, Austria, and the University of Applied Sciences Northwestern Switzerland in Basel." Heike's website also documents her own work and students work where she teaches visual music, it also documents talks and workshops she gives. All screenshots link to pages of her website Website

Music Video by Kate McKeon, based in Ireland for Band Halfset. Halfset - Adrift - Kate McKeon on MUZU . See Kate McKeon's Myspace: http://www.myspace.com/katemckeonphotography I did an earlier post on Kate's Visual Music Piece- Carnival Link to it here

EXYZT is a inter disciplinary collective based in paris ( architects, artists, cooks, graphic designer, vj's, ... ) These video excerpts documenting are so good I had to embed a few of them here, so I could easily come back to this post again and view these incredible vj/dj/performance, live, architecture sets - see their video channel on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/user/exyzt Boom-Box / Dj'stage / EXYZT / 1024 / Nuit-Blanche / Amiens / 4. oct 2008 USHBOOM / EXYZT @ Karosta / 2007 "A Video performance at the Labichampi festival in karosta ( Latvia )... As ninauguration of the timber structure we built in the an abandonned soviet house we performed on the facade thanks to a very simple set up. 1 mac 3 4500 lum beamers ... K@2 futur art center ?! in 2010" Square CUBE / ETIENNE DE CRECY LIVE / Model Test Vimeo "An amazing electronic music live by Etienne de Crecy at the "transmusicales de Rennes" music festival" Etienne De Crecy Live 2007 Transmusi...

California NanoSystems Institute, UC Santa Barbara "The AlloSphere is a unique, one-of-a-kind scientific instrument that is a culmination of 24 years of Professor JoAnn Kuchera-Morin's creativity and research efforts in media systems and studio design. She approached the design of the AlloSphere in much the same way that she composes a piece of music... The AlloSphere space consists of a 3-story cube that is treated with extensive sound absorption material making it one of the largest anechoic chambers in the world. Standing inside this chamber are two 5-meter-radius hemispheres constructed of perforated aluminum that are designed to be optically opaque and acoustically transparent. There are currently two projectors, soon to be multiple high-resolution video projectors, mounted around the seam between the two hemispheres, approaching eye-limited resolution on the inner surface. The loudspeaker real-time sound synthesis cluster (around 500 individual speaker elements plus sub-...

Nancy creates visual music works in both BlissPaint and Flash as the artist says, she creates "work that actually could be 'played' in real time if the colors were attached to keys on a musical key board." Her desire is to create an instrument that could play color in time. The key issue for Nancy is to "'tune' the color through several spectra creating a smooth transition from light to dark. I think the color itself will create the 'music' over time- note the shapes of the color, or the way the color moves". Source: Artist website - www.nancyherman.com Nancy has created several of these color in time works and they are available to preview on her website at: http://visualmusic.nancyherman.com/ Link to Satie's Gymnopodies I have been aware of Nancy's work for long time and meant to blog about this ages ago. Very consistent and accurate color in time works, worth checking out.

Came across this amazing video demonstrating a visualising of music created with software. The YouTube video channel belongs to username inwit and there are a few more videos of this visualising of music - incredible stuff.

onedotzero adventures in motion: now open for submissions! SUBMISSION DEADLINE: FRIDAY 29 MAY 2009 "onedotzero_adventures in motion is acclaimed by artists, audiences and creative industry alike for being the world leader in audio-visual arts and entertainments at the forefront of a new experiential festival experience which combines music, film, play, live performance, interactivity, digital arts and culture. onedotzero_adventures in motion festival is now open to receive visually progressive moving image work for their 2009/2010 global touring festival. the festival premier takes place in london at BFI Southbank, 9-13 september 2009, followed by an extensive international tour which kicks off in buenos aires, 25-27 september 2009. " More information on submissions at: http://www.onedotzero.com/submissions

"Ryoichi Kurokawa is a japanese audiovisual artist. His works take on multiple forms such as screening works, recordings, installation and live performance. Kurokawa composes time based sculpture with digital generated materials and field recorded sources, and the minimal and the complexities coexist there. Kurokawa accepts sound and imagery as a unit not as separately, and constructs very exquisite and precise computer based works with the audiovisual language. That shortens mutual distance, the reciprocity and the synchronization of sound and visual composition. He also performed live-visual for musicians such as HUMAN AUDIO SPONGE(ex.YMO: Sketch Show + Ryuichi Sakamoto). In recent years, Kurokawa is invited to numerous noted international festivals and museums in Europe, US and Asia including TATE MODERN[UK], ARS ELECTRONICA[AT], transmediale[DE], Shanghai eARTS[CN], MUTEK[CA], TodaysArt[NL] and SONAR[ES] for exhibition, screening or audiovisual concert, and he continues to be ...

Nihil 12 from _blank on Vimeo . "_blank is an entity null66913 is a place _blank = female subject [error.msg#vibration too abstract to be considered a person] null66913:core { experimentalOBJECTS }" Website: http://null66913.net/about_blank/ Vimeo Channel: http://vimeo.com/user435020/videos Blog:  http://musicavisual.blogspot.com/

morphing from Gwen Vanhee on Vimeo . Geomtrical formes morphing into lines as they age. Cross-media explorations. "Movement, shapes & colors are AS2 (flash) generated, some parameters are controlled by mouse-gestures. The video itself is a compilation of several screen captures, taken while rendering. Audio was added afterwards." Audio: Cinematic Orchestra - All things to all men Vimeo Channel More images The freshness of the colours against the muted background is really quite beautiful. This piece in particular creates wonderful matches with music activity. (Author comment)

"Otolab was founded in 2001 in Milan by an affinity group of musicians, djs, vjs, videoartists, videomakers, web designers, graphic designers and architects joined to go through a common path in the field of the electronic music and audiovisual research. The projects are developed through lab sessions, seminars and live performance according to the principles of brainstorming and mutual support, free circulation of knowledge and experimentation." See the otolab vimeo video channel for examples of their audiovisual works and performances http://www.otolab.net/ http://www.vimeo.com/otolab Selection of audiovisual works project descriptions Op7 otolab, op7 (demo) from otolab on Vimeo . otolab 2007 --audio: sn, dies_, mud, scrub, maikko, tonylight --video: mud, dies_, xo00, peppolasagna, fd, orgone --total time (live): 50,00' "op7 is a live audiovisual performance that develops a new way of reading the concept of the tunnel as a metaphor of the journey and the survey ...