Visual Music

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…

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

"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…

Octopulse "The Octopulse shows that noise is music. With this cuddly ‘alien bagpipe’ you can control analogue sound synthesis through unconventional means. The ‘tonetacles’ of the Octopulse react to movement and light, transferring movements into information for an analogue synthesiser to convert into cacophonous noises." http://www.shootthestylist.net/octo/index.htm

Octopulse "The Octopulse shows that noise is music. With this cuddly ‘alien bagpipe’ you can control analogue sound synthesis through unconventional means. The ‘tonetacles’ of the Octopulse react to movement and light, transferring movements into information for an analogue synthesiser to convert into cacophonous noises." http://www.shootthestylist.net/octo/index.htm