Date: 18/3/2007
(These notes do not completely reflect Cindy Keefer’s talk. After posting earlier notes to this blog, I received an-email from Cindy Keefer, kindly correcting some mistakes in my notes, and adding some links. These newer notes reflect those corrections. Further explorations on the topic can be found at the end of the post, and are not related to Cindy Keefer’s talk. Many thanks to Cindy Keefer for the excellent talk, and for the corrections.)
Center for Visual Music:
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org
Center for Visual Music Library:
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Library.html
The basis for this presentation can be found here:
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/CKSLAexc.htm
Cindy Keefer stressed the importance of researcher and film historian William Moritz (1941-2004) to the field of Visual Music. Moritz Memorial Site: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Moritz.htm
Then proceeded to present the work of authors and researchers in the field of visual music, in chronological order:
Father Castel
Built Ocular Harpsichord, the first color organ, 1734.
Used prisms, candles
L’optique des couleurs
D. D. Jameson
In 1844 published “Colour music”, describing a system of notation for colour
Frederic Kastner
Pyrophone Models, 1869-1874
Colour Organ
Bainbridge Bishop
Patented first colour organ, 1877
A. Wallace Rimington, United Kingdom
1893 Colour Organ patent
1911 Book: Colour Music: The Art of Mobile Colour
Futurists Arnaldo Ginna and Bruno Corra
Early abstract colour films, 1910’s
Alexander Hector
1912, design an instrument to directly associate sound and colour (reviewed in Scientific American)
Scriabin
Composed Prometheus, including a score for colour (to be performed by a colour organ)
Mary Hallock-Greenewalt
Created Sarabet, 1919
Patented notation system for performance.
Thomas Wilfred
Developed Clavilux, 1919, a “light sculpting device”
He later (1930’s) foresaw potential for “a clavilux in every home” (Home Clavilux or Clavilux Jr.). “Unfortunately”, said Keefer, “we got TV instead”
Ludwig Hirschfeld-Mack and Kurt Schwerdtfeger, Bauhaus
Created Reflektorische Farbenlichtspiele
In the video that was screened, we could see Hirschfeld-Mack, collaborators and students operating the mechanism he devised – a manual system of masks and lights, for light performances, which produced very complex results from a very simple principle.
Alexander László
Developed Sonchromatoscope console
Consisted of a switchboard and several projectors, with slides, movable abstract forms and coloured light. The switchboard could be compared to a contemporary mixing desk, controlling the colour and image levels.
Beginning in 1925, László performed “Farblichtmusik” concerts.
Oskar Fischinger
Fischinger collaborated with László
He created what Keefer called “the first music videos” and “the first multimedia show with abstract film and slides”. She called Fischinger “probably the first avant-garde VJ”.
In 1926-27 Fischinger performed his own multiple projector film shows (using up to 7 projectors) with various musical accompaniment. These shows were titled Fieber (Fever), Vakuum, Macht (Power) and later, R-1 ein Formspiel (which was screened, in a recreation by Moritz).
Sources for Fischinger:
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Fischinger
http://www.oskarfischinger.org (official site)
Starting in 1927, there were held in Germany four Farbe-To-Forschung Kongresses (Colour Music Congresses)
László Moholy-Nagy
Created films in the 1930’s based on his kinetic light sculptures (namely Lichtrequisit, or Light-Space Modulator).
Charles Dockum
Began building his Mobilcolor Projectors in the late 1930s.
Guggenheim Museum commissioned a Mobilcolor projector and Dockum performed it there in 1952.
Mary Ellen Bute
made a number of abstractVisual Music films, some of which she called “Seeing Sound” films
Imagination, collage from previous abstract films, 1958
Jordan Belson and Henry Jacobs
Vortex Concerts at San Francisco’s Morrison Planetarium, 1957 (over 100 shows)
around 50 speakers, up to 30 projection devices
projected onto the 60 foot dome
Nicolas Schöfer
1956 – Kinetic Art Devices
Jud Yalkut
1966 – Film “Turn turn turn” (includes shots of several artists’ kinetic devices, including Schöfer and Nam June Paik)
Light shows of the 60’s
“hundreds of light show groups”, according to Keefer. Used multiple techniques, such as coloured liquids projections.
Example: “Single Wing Turquoise Bird” light show (links with Fluxus; they were using computer graphics already in 1965)
Single Wing Turquise Bird
Keefer mentioned that many visual music authors (namely Fischinger) reject the term “synesthesia” being applied to their work.
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Other links and articles on the topic (strictly my own explorations, and in no way mentioned or endorsed by Cindy Keefer):
William Moritz related links (may contain errors, as pointed out by Cindy Keefer)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Moritz
http://www.iotacenter.org/visualmusic/articles/moritz
Moritz’s article ” The Dream of Color Music, And Machines That Made it Possible”
http://www.awn.com/mag/issue2.1/articles/moritz2.1.html
Arnaldo Ginna and Bruno Corra
http://www.futurism.org.uk/cinema/cinema_frames.htm
Thomas Wilfred
http://www.lumia-wilfred.org/index.html
László Moholy-Nagy
ZKM: László Moholy-Nagy »Das simultane oder Polykino«
http://mkn.zkm.de/source-text/24/
ZKM: Bio:
http://mkn.zkm.de/artist/moholy-nagy/biography/
ZKM: Lichtspiel
http://mkn.zkm.de/works/lichtspiel/
“Experimental/Abstract Film and Synaesthatic Phenomena 1725-1970″ by Dr. Mladen Milicevic
http://myweb.lmu.edu/mmilicevic/NEWpers/_PAPERS/exp-film.pdf
“Sonic Light 2003: composing light, articulating space” by Joost Rekveld
http://www.lumen.nu/rekveld/wp/?p=215
“Colour and Sound – Visual Music” by Maura McDonnell
http://homepage.eircom.net/~musima/visualmusic/visualmusic.htm
“Visual Music Notes” by Maura McDonnell
http://www.soundingvisual.com/visualmusic/
“A brief history of Synesthesia in Arts” by Sean Day
http://home.comcast.net/%7Esean.day/art-history.htm
“Soundings” by Suzanne Delehanty
http://www.ubu.com/papers/delehanty.html
“Classic” texts, in PDF, at Rhythmic Light
http://rhythmiclight.com/archives/
IOTA Center
http://www.iotacenter.org/
American Synesthesia Associataion
http://www.synesthesia.info/
Wikipedia articles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_music
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Music_visualization
Article from Ars Electronica:
http://www.aec.at/en/archives/festival_archive/festival_catalogs/festival_artikel.asp?iProjectID=13708
Syggraph 2004, “Synaesthesia” theme
http://www.siggraph.org/artdesign/gallery/S04/index1.html
“Sons et Lumières” exhibition at Centre Georges Pompidou
http://www.cnac-gp.fr/Pompidou/Manifs.nsf/0/
“Visual Music” exhibition at Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
http://www.moca.org/museum/exhibitiondetail.php?&id=350E4B6AD56B6DA4B2FC1256DD600561C77?OpenDocument
“Expanded Cinema” book, by Gene Youngblood, 1970, free download:
http://www.vasulka.org/Kitchen/PDF_ExpandedCinema/book.pdf
or
http://www.ubu.com/historical/youngblood/index.html
Coden
Media+Code
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