Visual Music Archive

close Work Detail

 

Mycenae-Alpha 

(1978) 

composed by Iannis Xenakis on the UPIC system, presents an example of the relationship between graphic image and sonic structure in electroacoustic music. It is also the first work to be composed entirely on the UPIC system.

Mycenae-Alpha is an electroacoustic work that Iannis Xenakis composed in 1978 as part of an installation of lights, movement and music that took place at Mycenae Acropolis in Greece. Mycenae-Alpha is also the first work to be composed entirely on the UPIC system. The UPIC is a tool for the graphic composition of electroacoustic music which was first developed in the late 1970s by Iannis Xenakis and his staff at the Center for Studies in Mathematical and Automated Music in Paris. The UPIC has undergone several modifications and improvements since that time. My presentation today is organized around two main topics related to Mycenae-Alpha. The first topic concerns the relationship between the striking images that make up the work's graphic score, which is included in your handout, and the equally striking sounds that these images represent. The second topic concerns the large-scale structure that is generated by the relations among the various sections of which the work is composed.

 

Source: Images of Sound in Xenakis's Mycenae-Alpha by Ronald Squibbs (PDF)

 

 

Mycenae-Alpha, partitur, real time, software, Code

Reading

Notation. Calculation and Form in the Arts (2008) is a comprehensive catalogue (in German) edited by Dieter Appelt, Hubertus von Amelunxen and Peter Weibel which accompanied an exhibition of the same name at the Academy of the Arts, Berlin and the ZKM | Karlsruhe. (ZKM)

Notations 21 (2009) by Theresa Sauer features illustrated musical scores from more than 100 international composers, all of whom are making amazing breakthroughs in the art of notation. Notations 21 is a celebration of innovations in musical notation, employing an appreciative aesthetic for both the aural and visual beauty of these creations. The musical scores in this edition were created by composers whose creativity could not be confined by the staff and clef of traditional western notation, but whose musical language can communicate with the contemporary audience in a uniquely powerful way. (Notations 21 Project)

Digital Harmony (1980): On the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art – John Whitney, Sr. wanted to create a dialog between "the voices of light and tone." All of his early experiments in film and the development of sound techniques lead toward this end. He felt that music was an integral part of the visual experience; the combination had a long history in man's primitive development and was part of the essence of life. His theories On the complementarity of Music and Visual Art were explained in his book, Digital Harmony, published by McGraw-Hill in 1980. (Paradise 2012)

Links

 

SEE ALSO

Kandinsky (2009) edited by Tracey Bashkof is the first full-scale retrospective of the artist's career to be exhibited in the United States since 1985, when the Guggenheim culminated its trio of groundbreaking exhibitions of the artist's life and work in Munich, Russia, and Paris. This presentation of nearly 100 paintings brings together works from the three institutions that have the greatest concentration of Kandinsky's work in the world, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; as well as significant loans from private and public holdings. (Guggenheim)

Visual Sound Design (2010) by Reza Ali is a little app he made to help him understand microsounds, oscillators, timing, frequency, low frequency oscillators, polymorphism, sequencing, filtering, time domain effects, such as reverb, chorusing, etc, and distortion effects, such as clipping and more... in real-time in a visual manner, which is how he learns best. (Reza Ali on Vimeo)

‘vE-”jA: Art + Technology of Live Audio-Video (2006) by Xarene Eskander is a global snapshot of an exploding genre of tech-art performance: VJing and live audio-video. The book covers 40 international artists with 400+ colour images and 50+ movies and clips on an accompanying DVD and web downloads. (VJ Book)

Tarik Barri is an audiovisual composer based in Utrecht, the Netherlands. Reflecting his interests in programming, drawing and composing into a coherent multimedial discipline, he developed and uses software that merges audio and visuals into a new audiovisual reality. (Sonic Acts Festival)

Construction 76 (2008) by video artist LIA was created in collaboration with the musicians collective @c. A five-minute sound track was taken from @c’s 55-minute track 76 and synchronized with visuals: parallel to a sound oscillating between bongo sounds, electronics, rich sonic associations and atmospheric piano/cello sounds, the computer-programmed video features arabesque-like shapes and simple graphic elements that arise against a cosmic, black and red background, multiply and vanish again. (Lia)