Jump to content

Visual music

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

This is an old revision of this page, as edited by Mluckman1918 (talk | contribs) at 16:46, 4 August 2007 (→‎Visual music on film). The present address (URL) is a permanent link to this revision, which may differ significantly from the current revision.

Visual music, sometimes called "color music", refers to the use of musical structures in visual imagery, which can also include silent films or silent Lumia work. It also refers to methods or devices which can translate sounds or music into a related visual presentation. An expanded definition may include the translation of music to painting.

Visual music also refers to systems which convert music or sound directly into visual forms, such as film, video or computer graphics, by means of a mechanical instrument, an artist's interpretation, or a computer. The reverse is applicable also, literally converting images to sound by drawn objects and figures on a film's soundtrack. Filmmakers working in this latter tradition include Oskar Fischinger (Ornament Sound Experiments), Norman McLaren, and many contemporary artists. Visual music overlaps to some degree with the history of abstract film, though not all Visual music is abstract. There are a variety of definitions of visual music, particularly as the field continues to expand. Visual music has also been defined as a form of intermedia.

Since ancient times artists have longed to create with moving lights a music for the eye comparable to the effects of sound for the ear. – Dr. William Moritz, the best-known historian of visual music writing in English, his speciality being the work of Oskar Fischinger.

Sometimes also called "color music," the history of this tradition includes many experiments with color organs. Artist or inventors "built instruments, usually called 'color organs,' that would display modulated colored light in some kind of fluid fashion comparable to music."[1] Several different definitions of color music exist; one is that color music is generally formless projections of colored light. Some scholars and writers have used the term color music interchangeably with visual music.

The construction of instruments to perform visual music live, as with sonic music, has been a continuous concern of this art. Color organs, while related, form an earlier tradition extending as early as the eighteenth century with the Jesuit Louis Bertrand Castel building an occular harpsichord in the 1730s (visited by Georg Philipp Telemann, who composed for it). Other prominent color organ artist-inventors include: A. Wallace Rimington, Bainbridge Bishop, Thomas Wilfred, Charles Dockum and Mary Hallock-Greenewalt.

Visual music on film

Visual music and abstract film or video often coincide. Some of the earliest known films of these two genres were hand-painted works produced by the Futurists Bruno Corra[2] and Arnaldo Ginna between 1911 and 1912 (as they report in the Futurist Manifesto of Cinema), which are now lost. Mary Hallock-Greenewalt produced several reels of hand-painted films (although not traditional motion pictures) that are held by the Historical Society of Philadelphia. Like the Futurist films, and many other visual music films, her 'films' were meant to be a visualization of musical form.

Notable visual music filmmakers include: Walter Ruttmann, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye, Jordan Belson, Norman McLaren, Mary Ellen Bute (who made a series of films she called Seeing Sound films), Harry Smith, John and James Whitney, and many others up to present day.

In 2005, a US exhibition called "Visual Music" at the Los Angeles Museum of Contemporary Art and The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington DC included documentation of color organs and featured many visual music films [3] and videos as well as paintings and installations.


New Benchmarks in Visual Music by Michael A. Luckman

VisualMusic - Paintings in Motion == are the artist's interpretation of a musical composition's structure and form originally created as individual hand painted cells within a graphic music animation. In each series, the graphics played sequentially in sync with the music, collectively reveal one or more parameters of the music's development from beginning to end. In the Bach Preludes for example, the artist interprets the harmonic/tonal structure of the composition using color coded geometric shapes and patterns timed to the music, communicating to the viewer a true sense of the music's movement and counterpoint. Likewise in his Forrest Gump - Bird Animation Compositions and Interactive VisualMusic Teaching Modules, students learn what makes up a musical phrase as color coded birds interpret the compositions ABBA structure…. As a spin-off 3rd and 4th graders without the use of language explaining mathematical principles can and have learned basic algebra, including set and sub-set cognitive and abstract reasoning skills… Upon several viewings laymen of all ages as well as professionals will come to recognize and identify these visual patterns with elements of the music as the eye and ear begin to make the connection, further enhancing their understanding of the composition and total VisualMusic experience!

ABOUT THE ARTIST: Michael A. Luckman, multimedia artist, classical composer, educator... recently premiered his VisualMusic works to the Tanglewood audience in Lenox MA in 2006, recieving tremendous response from an international audience of music and art lovers including world class musicians as well as respected researchers/academics frpm major institutions ... for having created a very unique merging of the visual arts and music that is quickly being recognized for it's originality and innovation as a true breakthrough in this "EXPERIENCIAL MEDIUM". "Visually I have created cell by cell - not a program, Graphic – Animated Multimedia Compositions using geometric 2D /3D shapes and colors that interpret measure by measure (in sync with the music playing), the structure and form of a musical composition.

THE ART AS A NEW NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION MEDIUM: Luckman remarks, "During my premiere showcase last summer in Lenox, MA I was also besieged from a myriad of Educators/Researchers/Medical Professionals working with the Learning Disabled,, Autistic Alzheimers, and Brain Stroke Victims, that my unique “VisualMusic Language” has real applications with the possibility of being a breakthrough as a new medium to communicatie/reach patients afficated wiuth these diseases and possibly even assist in helping them rewire their thinking process."

CONTACT: Michael Luckman (516) 690-4376, email: LuckmanMedia@yahoo.com, http://www.LuckmanMedia.com For more information about the artist go to the artist’s web page: [1] Visual Music Paintings in Motion Music Visualization Art in Motion Video Art Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Visual_music

See also

References

  • Michael Betancourt, "Mary Hallock-Greenewalt's Abstract Films." [Millennium Film Journal no 45, 2006]
  • Martin Kemp, The Science of Art: Optical Themes in Western Art from Brunelleschi to Seurat. [Yale, 1992]
  • Maarten Franssen, “The Ocular Harpsichord of Louis-Bertrand Castel.” [Tractrix: Yearbook for the History of Science, Medicine, Technology and Mathematics 3, 1991] Fraansen's site
  • Dina Riccò & Maria José de Cordoba (edited by), "MuVi. Video and moving image on synesthesia and visual music", Edizioni Poli.design [Milano, 2007]
Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Visual_music&oldid=149168609"