Visual Music

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, we will have to rewind until we find a starting point from which we can can try and extrapolate. " View online at: http://preview.instantcinema.org/essays/852/Fast-Forward-Conversations-with-machines Joost Rekve...

GENERATION Z RUSSIAN PIONEERS OF SOUND ART AND MUSICAL TECHNOLOGY IN 1910-1930 June 9 - July 20, 2011 OSA Archivum and the authors of GENERATION Z exhibition cordially invite you to the opening which will take place on 9th of June at 6:00 p.m. The exhibition will run at OSA Archivum, Budapest from June 9 till July 20, 2011.  ADDRESS: 1051 BUDAPEST, ARANY J. U. 32. http://www.osaarchivum.org/ exhibition details at http://bit.ly/lSXejp Variophone, theremin terpsitone, rhythmicon, emiriton, ekvodin, graphical sound – just to mention a few of the amazing innovations of the beginning of the 20th century in Soviet Russia, a country and time turbulent with revolutions, wars and totalitarian dictatorship. While the history of Russian post-revolutionary avant-garde art and music is fairly well documented, the inventions and discoveries, names and fates of researchers of sound, creators of musical machines and noise orchestras, founders of new musical technologies have been larg...

Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) Major Painting Exhibition at the Peyton Wright Gallery - Santa Fe, New Mexico Opening July 2011 Oskar Fischinger - Layers of Sound Oskar Fischinger's paintings are being exhibited at the art dealers gallery - Peyton Wright Gallery.  These paintings are a real treat to view.  Peyton Wright Gallery have put many of Oskar Fischinger's paintings online, many of these have probably not been seen before, as they have not been put online before. Some of these paintings have strong musical themes.  There are several that I really like and a beautiful one for me is, Layers of Sound.  However, there are many others and Fischinger's very distinct artistic and aesthetic style is really apparent.  A great treat to be able to view these paintings online via the Peyton Wright Gallery, and if you are lucky enough to be near Sante Fe, a treat to see in reality. View Paintings online at: http://www.peytonwright.com/art/main.php?g2_itemId=9...

"'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 documented in this essay and is very exciting information to check out for the scholar interested in accurately tracing the origins of visual music and in particular, its links to contemporary multimedia performance. The vorte...

I have been coming across Andrew Hill's name in relation to visual music quite frequently recently. An up and coming artist and researcher in the audio-visual artwork genre. Flux is quite beautiful in its sound and image relationships - ordered, synaesthetic, gorgeous. More info on Andrew Hill "Andrew Hill is a composer from the UK. He studied electroacoustic music and music technology at Keele and De Montfort Universities electing to focus his studies upon audio-visual composition. He is currently conducting PhD research investigating audience reception of electroacoustic audio-visual artworks with Leigh Landy and Bret Battey at De Montfort University." Source: http://vimeo.com/andrewhill Flux Flux from Andrew Hill on Vimeo . "An audiovisual piece inspired by cyclic patterns, exploring sound and image relationships." Source: http://vimeo.com/20174827 See also: http://visualmusic.ning.com/profile/AndrewHill

Call for works Understanding VISUAL Music 2011 Hexagram-Concordia Centre for Research-Creation in Media Arts and Technologies in collaboration with the Department of Music CONCORDIA UNIVERSITY Montreal - Canada August 26th and 27th, 2011 Website for more information: http://uvm2011.hexagram.ca/index.html INFORMATION ABOUT CALL FOR WORK AND SUBMISSIONS CALL FOR PAPERS AND CREATIVE WORKS *_DESCRIPTION_* A two-day conference focused on developing an understanding of the practice of visual music, its definition, related creative and perceptual considerations, current trends, technological innovation, and possible future directions. The event will take place on *Friday the 26th and Saturday the 27th of August 2011* and will include paper sessions, roundtable discussions, and creative works presentations. We are inviting researchers to present studies that address visual music's multiple definitions and dimensions, questions around visual music aesthetics an...

Rosa Menkman's work is beautiful in how it works with glitch and artifact images in her video work. "Every technology possess its own inherent accidents. ЯOSΛ MEИKMΛN is a Dutch visualist who focuses on visual artifacts created by accidents in digital media. The visuals she makes are the result of glitches, compressions, feedback and other forms of noise. Although many people perceive these accidents as negative experiences, Rosa emphasizes their positive consequences." Source of quote: http://aboutrosamenkman.blogspot.com/ Radio Dada by Rosa Menkman Video: Rosa Menkman Music: Extraboy Radio Dada from Rosa Menkman on Vimeo . "The video-images are constructed out of nothing but the image created by feedback (I turned a high-end camera on a screen that was showing, in real time, what I was filming, creating a feedback loop). Then I glitched the video by changing its format and subsequently exporting it into animated gifs. I (minimalistically) edited the v...

Light Dreams: Visual Music by Vibeke Sorensen Date: Mon, 05/16/2011 - 8:00pm - 9:45pm Location: CCRMA Stage, The Knoll, Stanford University, USA Event Type: Concert "a retrospective of works by the renowned visual music artist and scholar Vibeke Sorensen. The concert will include a world premiere of Green Space, a new work in stereoscopic 3D." Website with more information: https://ccrma.stanford.edu/events/light-dreams-visual-music-vibeke-sorensen

" MuVi3. International exhibition of video and moving image on synesthesia and visual music " Palacio de los Condes de Gabia (Granada, Spain) and Almeria University 16 th -19 th of February 2012 MuVi3, invites artists, musicians, designers and performers, also professors and university students, to submit proposals of kinetic works to be part of a public exhibition, with performances and discussions. The event is organized by the Foundation of Artecittà (Granada), the Politecnico di Milano, the University of Granada and the University of Almeria. Deadline for submissions: 15 July 2011 Fee of submission: Free For informations: http://muvi-visualmusic.tumblr.com/ Download of the Text and Forms of the Call in: http://dl.dropbox.com/u/7288487/CallMuVi3%20%2812apr11%29.zip Contact: info@sinestesie.it and info@artecitta.es

This is a very fascinating audio visual work - emulating human emotion - those of love and fear, and how wonderful this piece is. The introduction is like the audiovisual elements breathe together.... a beautiful artwork. Audiovisuelle Rauminstallation fear:love from Institut Fuer Musik Und Medien on Vimeo . "fear: love is an audiovisual installation by Gerrit Kress, which deals with the two emotions fear and love. It shows the center of human emotion: an inner core that contains the particular emotion, grown in a system of transmitting and receiving arms that allow communication with the body and mind."[google translate from German] Source: vimeo link: http://vimeo.com/23318809

CVM at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany May 11. For more information on this event, visit http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$7532 Cindy Keefer, Director of the Center for Visual Music Los Angeles, will discuss and screen work by pioneers of kinetic art and pre-digital cinema from CVM's archives... Keefer will screen work from CVM's archives including Dockum's “Mobilcolor Projections,” Bute's “Abstronics” (an early oscilloscope film), a short Bute documentary, the Fischinger “Lumigraph Film,” and more. She will discuss CVM's work with the Fischinger legacy, current preservation work, and “Raumlichtkunst,” the new restoration of his 1920s multiple-projector performances. Followed by the screening “Films Sacred and Profane” by Jordan Belson Visit: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm for more information on Center For Visual Music and visual music related events and news

"Binary Opposition" for Video and Electronics by Edgar Barroso Edgar Barroso "Born in Mexico in 1977, Edgar Barroso is a PhD Candidate in Music Composition at Harvard University where he works with Hans Tutschku, Brian Ferneyhough, Helmut Lachenmann, Michael Gandolfi and Chaya Czernowin. " Source: http://edgarbarroso.net/?page_id=12 This is a stunningly beautiful audiovisual work, that seems to reduce both aural and visual material to one thing, which is then used as material to craft a unified work that consists of aural and visual material. What I love about this piece, is its incredible sense of structure and development with visual and aural elements evolving over time into a variety of similar and dissimilar transformations - really engrossing work from start to finish. View on vimeo "Binary Opposition" for Video and Electronics by Edgar Barroso from Edgar Barroso on Vimeo . "Binary opposition is a piece that explores the inter...

Vessel - Alba G. Corral and Jon Hopkins The visuals in this piece are just beautiful. Vessel - Jon Hopkins from Alba G. Corral on Vimeo . Collaboration between Jon Hopkins and Alba G. Corral in L.E.V. 2011 Website: Alba G. Corral "Alba G. Corral (Madrid, 1977), based in Barcelona, use the code to create visual tools to give life real-time digital abstract landscapes. Develops programming visual generative art and live performances in the live context cinema. Combines form and technique, getting narratives that create atmospheres express sensitivity and taste for color. Has come a long way always related to visual manipulations. Improvisation different atmospheres digital sound and language become abstract organic sensations in their creations take shape Processing carried out with the tool. Regularly collaborates with musicians of the Barcelona scene as Miguel Marín, Stendhal Syndrome, or Nikka Aneas Iris, co which is the audiovisual project The Space in Be...

VISUAL MUSIC PROGRAMME at 18th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, May 2011 presented a Visual Music supporting programme at the festival. http://www.itfs.de/en/ CVM (Center for Visual Music) presented two historical programs of abstract animated films by Oskar Fischinger, including preserved prints and rarely-screened films. Title of Program: Oskar Fischinger Retrospective , May 7, 2011 Cornelia and Holger Lund presented contemporary visual music Title of Programme: Visual Music: Contemporary , May 8, 2011. A programme was put together on Norman McLaren Title of Programme: The animator as musician , May 6, 2011 See: http://www.itfs.de/en/programmes/supporting-programme/visual-music.html Visit CVM Events page for up to date information on Visual Music Events http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm

Advanced Beauty - 18 Sound Sculptors - 2009 Curated by Universal Everything Soundtracks by Freefarm A DVD was created and there are links to purchase the DVD on their website. The website created to support the collection is excellent with links to the artists whose work is documented online, with video clips online on their website and on their vimeo channel, so all can be seen online which is a great resource. "Advanced Beauty is an ongoing exploration of digital artworks born and influenced by sound, an ever-growing collaboration between programmers, artists, musicians, animators and architects. The first collection is a series of audio-reactive 'video sound sculptures'. Inspired by synasthesia, the rare, sensory experience of seeing sound or tasting colours, these videos are physical manifestations of sound, sculpted by volume, pitch or structure of the soundtrack. The films embrace unusual video making processes, the visual programming language Processing,...

"GARY JAMES JOYNES is a sound artist, composer and visual artist from Edmonton, Canada...As CLINKER, his work explores meditative spaces and the kinesthetic and synesthetic effects of sound and visuals...Recent work includes "On the Other Side..." a Live Cinema piece commissioned by the 2008 INTERNATIONAL LEONARD COHEN FESTIVAL" Source: http://www.clinkersound.com/bio-cv/bio-cv.htm Clinker Live Cinema Really beautiful work by Clinker in Live Cinema performance. He provides a really useful and interesting definition of Live Cinema on his website's live cinema page. " LIVE CINEMA | AV PERFORMANCE - MANDATE CLINKER’s Live Cinema creates a live synchresis between audio-visual events which reside in the moment. No computer or MIDI synching is used in the genesis of these events. All A/V “connections” are live and are made possible organically through the use of live layering / phasing / triggering techniques. Clinker’s interest is focused on the c...

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/ Synchresis DVD vimeo channel The Synchresis DVD works can be seen on ANAT’s Vimeo Channel. http://www.vimeo.com/anat/videos Example highlighted here: - PRINCIPLE 4 (excerpt) by Botborg ANAT, Filter Issue 66 Sync...

Event - The New Flesh - May 12, 2011 - Toronto, Canada. "Experiments in audio video performance exceeding all reason! avant garde video in the omega age" Thursday May 12, 2011 The Revue Cinema, 400 Roncesvalles Avenue, Toronto, ON, M6R 2M9. Details and updates available on the facebook event page here. "The New Flesh Experiments in audio video performance exceeding all reason! Avant garde video in the omega age. Featuring Performances by: Botborg (Germany / Australia) Nohista (France) Rybn (France) Rko (France) Skeeter (Canada) Mandelbrut (Canada) The Nod (Canada) Tasman Richardson (Canada)" Website: http://www.tasmanrichardson.com/

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

I have just come across this very interesting audiovisual project installation, based in Russia. The glasses are illuminated to the music. It consists of hardware and software to realise the illumination. A video clip of the installation is available on youtube or at the website documenting the project Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=13l3pPUmBtg&feature=player_embedded Website: http://habrahabr.ru/blogs/sound_and_music/118618/

Bart Vegter, Nacht-Licht , Netherlands, 1993, 13 min. 16mm View Nacht-Licht on the EYE channel at Preview Instant Cinema http://preview.instantcinema.org/eye/422 "Vegters first film made with the use of handwritten image generating computer programmes. Each of the three parts in the film has its own, formal starting-point. On this formal basis, variations are executed by gradual changes in position, direction, movement, velocity and colour of the elements."

Light Installation Artist - Kurt Laurenz Theinert - Visual Piano Kurt Laurenz Theinert is a photographer and light artist, who develops, performs and installs incredible light installations.  The following is a summary of his visual piano instrument. " The visual piano is an instrument which makes it possible to create moving images in a space. It is unique and was conceived and developed by the photographer and light installation artist Kurt Laurenz Theinert in collaboration with the software designers Roland Blach and Philip Rahlenbeck. Using a MIDI-keyboard it is possible to generate varying graphic patterns which can be digitally projected onto one or more screens. These dynamic and immediate drawings in light are not (as with VJ soft-and Hardware) generated by pre-recorded clips, but every moment of the performance is being played and modulated live and in real time via the keyboard and pedals. " Source from website [Text: Winfried Stürzl] http:...

Historical Resource The Center for Visual Music (CVM) has a really useful research page on the Charles Dockum, the inventor of the mobilcolor projector - a projection device for performing abstract colour imagery. Visit website: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Dockum/

VISUAL MUSIC AWARD Call for Entries 2011 "The avant-garde-artists of the “Absolute Film” movement worked on visionary film experiments. They created visual symphonies from animated images which they composed on film according to their perception as artists. These were called “paintings in time”, ”visual music”, “symphonies of light and sound”, “cinematic paintings”, “color light music” or “space light art”. Target Groups: The “Visual Music Award 2011” is again an international call for proposals addressing young talents. Invited for participation are young independent creative artists and designers as well as students for example in the disciplines of new media art, experimental film and music video and allied disciplines. In the year 2011, for the third time, we invite video jockeys (VJs or DJs) and "live-performance" artists to participate with their formats in the catagory "visual music live contest"!" More information: http://visualmusicawa...

CCRMA - An Evening of Visual Music with Dennis Miller [CCRMA = Center for Computer Research in Music and Acoustics, Stanford University, US] A concert of visual music works presented by Dennis Miller at Stanford University - 5th May, 2011 An Evening of Visual Music with Dennis Miller Date: Tue, 05/03/2011 - 8:00pm - 10:00pm Location: CCRMA Stage, The Knoll, Stanford University Event Type: Concert "Dennis Miller, a visual music artist and scholar curates an evening of selections from Northeastern’s Visual Music Special Collection. Come to see works by: Stephanie Maxwell , Vishal Shah/Adam Stansbie , Harvey Goldman/ James Bohn , Jim Ellis/Aksak Maboul , Damir Cucic/Erich Maria Strom, Betsy Kopmar/ The Headroom Project (Andreas Ecker), Bret Battey , Semiconductor (Ruth Jarman & Joseph Gerhardt), Brian Evans , Tina Frank/General Magic , Jean Detheux/Michael Oesterle , Bum Lee/Erik Satie, Karl Lemieux/Olivier Borzei, Gerhard Daurer, Eva M. Toth/Gyorgy Kurtag Sr., ...