Visual Music Archive

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Lichtfront 

is an design collective based in Cologne, Germany. They have a singular pursuit, and that is to interpret sounds directly through images.

LICHTFRONT is a design agency based in Cologne, Germany and was founded by Stephan Müller, Jörg Thommes and Svenja Kübler. LICHTFRONT expertise covers VJing, visual design and scenographic design.

Hopelessly addicted to electronic music, LICHTFRONT did their first "visual remix" in collaboration with Miss Kittin in 2001. After broadcast on Germany's music television station VIVA 2, the great response pushed us to go further and improve our graphic skills towards live VJing during the next few years. That's how it all started.

 

Source: Lichtfront's MySpace site

 

 

How do visuals enhance our experience of the music? Do they change the way listeners respond and react to music?

Jörg Thommes: This question is not so easy to answer, but in a certain way our generation has a lot experience in synaesthetics. I think everybody feels sometimes, that images matched perfectly to a sound, or contrarywise. As Lichtfront we want to stimulate this synaestethic perception. If you see some sort of heavy flickering videos on the screen, compared with abstract geometry,  you never think that this has something to do with the music. But after a while you’ll find out, that each form can be compared to an equal part in the music. And as the sound transforms itself during the track, the visual forms do the same. You’ll start to match sound and image. I’m not sure if this will enhance the experience of the music, but it will enhance the experience of your perception. We’re just giving some examples for that. 

 

 

Lichtfront, architecture, design

Reading

The Art of Projectionism (2007) by Frederick Baker (in German) sets out the principles behind his use of projectors in the film making process. He defines a projectionist school of filmmaking and media art. In this publication he also presented Ambient film, a surround experience that can be shown in specially developed cinemas. (Wikipedia)

VJing (2010) is a reproduction of the Wikipedia article VJing, based upon the revision of July 25th 2010 and was produced as a physical outcome of the wiki-sprint, a collaborative writing workshop that was held 2010 in the frame of Mapping Festival, Geneva. (Greyscale Press)

VJ: Audio-Visual Art + VJ Culture (2006) edited by D-Fuse. A major change has taken place at dance clubs worldwide: the advent of the VJ. Once the term denoted the presenter who introduced music videos on MTV, but now it defines an artist who creates and mixes video, live and in sync to music, whether at dance clubs and raves or art galleries and festivals. This book is an in-depth look at the artists at the forefront of this dynamic audio-visual experience. (Laurence King Publishing)

Links

 

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