Visual Music

The Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices book edited by Andrew Knight-Hill is available to pre-order on the Routledge website and on Amazon.  It is available in April.  A Focal Press/Routledge publication and part of the Sound Design Series. Publisher's Description  Sound and Image: Aesthetics and Practices brings together international artist scholars to explore diverse sound and image practices, applying critical perspectives to interrogate and evaluate both the aesthetics and practices that underpin the audiovisual. Contributions draw upon established discourses in electroacoustic music, media art history, film studies, critical theory and dance; framing and critiquing these arguments within the context of diverse audiovisual practices. The …

BOOK: Visual Music Masters: Abstract Explorations: History and Contemporary Research Author: Adriano Abbado 2018 Adriano Abbado’s recent publication on the history and contemporary practice of Visual Music is available now. A great resource for all interested in learning more about the origins and the field of visual music. It is richly illustrated and very clearly organised and so is also really great for pedagogy purposes too. You can order the book at Amazon at the following link Adriano has provided some more information on the book at his website: http://www.noisegrains.com/?page_id=237 Book topics I History The Beginnings Music and Early Twentieth-Century Luminous Instruments Abstract Films Music and Abstract Art Electronic Art II Contemporary Developments Anim…

Sacred Lumia Gallery by Louie M. Brill Louis M.Brill is a lumia artist who works from his Lumia art studio in San Francisco, US. He also writes a blog named, Sacred Lumia , here he explores "the processes of Lumia and how it fits into the world of art, cinema and culture as a visual medium of appreciation”. This is a really great resource for artists and scholars interested in the practice and context of lumia art. Louis embraces “the light as the paintbrush and canvas to present Lumia art as a very evocative and nattarive visual presence.” An important part of his practice is that lumia can be controlled through directed artistic intensions and I think this is a very commendable point. WIth the advent of technologies that can do the art for you, there is stil…

Growing literature in the field of Visual Music When I started to explore the topic of audio visual composition and started to use the term 'visual music' in 1999 to describe my own practice and research, there were very few books on the topic of Visual Music as such.  However, there is a very rich source of texts in Journals on particular areas of practice and related areas of research and the term visual music did come forth in these journals, but was not prominent.  I started to gather these articles as they were precious sources of information about other people's work and research and very exciting to learn about.  The term itself came to prominence with the publication of the catalogue 'Visual Music' for a major Visual Music Exhibition held …

The online article "A Brief History of Optical Synthesis" was written by Derek Holzer in 2007 as part of his Tonewheels project exploring optical sound and colour music. This web article became the basis of a lecture that Derek gives on optical sound and graphical composition. Quote from introduction "The technology of synthesizing sound from light is a curious combination of research from the realms of mathematics, physics, electronics and communications theory which found realization in the industries of motion picture films, music, surveillance technology and finally digital communications. As such, it's history is an interesting cross section of 20th century history, reaching from the euphoria of the late 19th Century and early 20th Cent…

A very interesting project consisting of experiments, exhibitions and research in a new medium in audio-visual screenless animation: The Diasynchronoscope  proejct is really a very exciting find, and really worth checking out. The artists and researchers from TROPE (Joint artistic partnership of Carol and Bruno, co-creators of the Diasynchronoscope) are the creators of this new medium. What the medium consists of is a series of physical objects are positioned in space according to Gestalt and animation principles and then animated with synchronized sound using projection mapping technologies. The artists and researchers consider that this might be called ‘concrete animation’. Because the Diasynchronoscope is a screen-less medium‚ videos do notreplicate the ex…

Some excellent resources now available in relation to the early 20th Century Drawn Sound experiments that took place in Russia.  This recent news comes from some very timely facebook posts by the Center for Visual Music. Andrei Smirnov's book 'Sound in Z: Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Early 20th-century Russia is just recently published and is available in Europe to purchase.  Andrei presented an incredible paper at the recent 'Seeing Sound Symposium', 2011, held in Bath Spa of which I attended and saw and heard the incredible work and experiments presented in relation to this period. " Sound in Z: Experiments in Sound and Electronic Music in Early 20th-century Russia Edited by David Rogerson, Matt Price. Foreword by Jeremy …

Four Senses Concert, 2002 This important concert that took place in 2002 in the Dorothy Winstone Theatre, Auckland, New Zealand.  The four senses concert were a collaboration between Raewyn Turner (NZ) and Tony Brooks (UK). website:  link "The ‘Four Senses’ 1999, 2002 concerts were to engage and reframe perception of music and to play with subjective experiences and simulated synesthesia. Each sensory element was constructed from information relating to the other elements. The associations and correspondences of the elements made by the audience was according to their own individual and personal experiences. The investigations include perception, misinterpretation, fictional translations and the sensory worlds of the blind/deaf: of hearing, of b…

Fast Forward: Conversations with machines From camera obscura to cybernetics: filmmaker Joost Rekveld outlines experimental cinema from its hidden past to a distant future. By Joost Rekveld Essay Quote from essay "In this essay I want to develop my thoughts about possible futures for what is now referred to as experimental cinema, inspired by some of the ideas behind expanded cinema. Experimental cinema is a marginal cinema, not in the sense that its purpose is to remain obscure forever, but in the sense that those filmmakers are called experimental who challenge the categories of mainstream cinema. These same artists often cross over from or into other disciplines, so in order not to lose ourselves in speculations concerning the future of everything, …

"'Raumlichtmusik' - Early 20th Century Abstract Cinema Immersive Environments." Essay by Cindy Keefer (Director Center for Visual Music ) "Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Creative Data Special Issue. Leonardo: The International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, and MIT Press. October 2009." This is an important historical visual music essay on Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson's early experiments in creating abstract cinema for immersive projection environments. It traces the origins in their work of what is more common today - the immersive multimedia environment. Information about plans Fischinger had to present a multimedia performance for the Farblichtmusik shows (started by László) has been researched and docume…

Filter Magazine Issue 66 / Synchresis Explored: Australian Sound Artists working at the spontaneous weld between sounds and image. December 2007. http://filter.anat.org.au/category/issue-66/ Articles: Monster and Maps by Mitchell Whitelaw Synchresis DVD "The Synchresis DVD, curated by Mitchell Whitelaw brought together ten Australian sound artists: Gordon Monro , Wade Marynowsky , Peter Newman , Jean Poole , BotBorg, Julian Oliver & Steven Pickles, Robin Fox, Andrew Gadow and Abject Leader. 3000 copies were circulated in Filter Issue 66 nationally and internationally and the DVD was launched at the Chauvel Cinema Sydney with live performances by Robin Fox, Peter Newman and Ian Andrews." http://www.anat.org.au/2010/06/synchresis/ …

Vague Terrain 19: Schematic as Score: Uses and Abuses of the (In)Deterministic Possibilities of Sound Technology. Interesting article on synthesising images and sound and looking back to electronic video and music pioneers to provide a context for more informed contemporary work that synthesise video and sound. View article: http://vagueterrain.net/journal19

"Space Light Art" - Early Abstract Cinema and Multimedia, 1900-1959 by Cindy Keefer Article online at: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/CKSLAexc.htm