Visual Music Archive

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Sonar 

(2009) 

by Montreal-based designer Renaud Hallée is a musical loop generated by shapes with cyclic behaviors. A basic keyframe animation using flash, without scripting.

The idea :

 

  • Chain reaction (sort of evolving life form) that produces music
  • Primitive-sounding synthesizer (early electronic music) to match minimalistic style
  • Anticipation of events using (a) decreasing numbers and (b) eventually trajectories on a spinning wheel

 

"It was a personal auto-financed project, and my first film. On a creative level: The film and its graphical evolution were very clear in my mind before starting to animate. Creating it was a very intuitive and logical process. The concept was interesting since the audience would instinctively expect the events to occur in time by following rhythm, numbers decreasing and objects' trajectories. That way, the film would seem to flow naturally and to have a language of its own. On a technical level: Since I studied in filmmaking and music composition, I knew very little about computer animation. Because I thought the idea was great and because it was simple enough to do it without advanced skills, I decided to give it a try. I basically learned keyframe animation while doing the film." – Renaud Hallée

 

Source: Stash Magazine Issue #68 (May 2010)

 

 

Sonar, stripes, partitur, mittig, kugeln, Video Art

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)

Synesthesia: A Union of the Senses (2002) by Richard E. Cytowic disposes of earlier criticisms that the phenomenon cannot be real, demonstrating that it is indeed brain-based. Following a historical introduction, Cytowic lays out the phenomenology of synesthesia in detail and gives criteria for clinical diagnosis and an objective test of genuineness. (MIT Press)

Links

 

SEE ALSO

Pfadfinderei is a design bureau operating on an international level. Finding and visualizing paths was the approach that led to the name Pfadfinderei (engl. pathfinders/ boyscouts). Starting off in Berlin in 1998 as a vector orientated design bureau, Pfadfinderei soon expanded to what might be called an enhanced multimedia Wurstfabrik. The big passion of Pfadfinderei's members has always been live visualisation of music. Back in the days they were VJing in various Clubs, nowadays they are planning, creating and performing visual installations on an international level. (Pfadfinderei)

Permutations (1966) by John Whitney, Sr. was an early artistic film constructed entirely off the black-and-white monitor of a large computer system (IBM 360, IBM 2250 Display, written in GRAF and FORTRAN). Color was added by editing with an optical printer. It is an elegant abstract work composed of architectures of color dots that develop pattern while displaying a kinetic rhythm. This early work has had an immense influence on the later generations of computer animators. (Paradise 2012)

Iannis Xenakis (1922–2001) was a Greek composer, music theorist, and architect-engineer. He is commonly recognized as one of the most important post-war avant-garde composers. Iannis Xenakis pioneered the use of mathematical models in music such as applications of set theory, stochastic processes and game theory and was also an important influence on the development of electronic music. He integrated music with architecture, designing music for pre-existing spaces, and designing spaces to be integrated with specific music compositions and performances. (Wikipedia)

No. 5: Circular Tensions (1950) - Homage to Oskar Fischinger by Harry Smith begins with a static red triangle, then a green square, and then a red circle. It is as though we are being introduced to the protagonists of the film: simple, static shapes out of which complexity and rhythmic interaction will be produced. The film also bombards the viewer with a number of alternating colour transitions used in conjunction with shapes that emerge from deep screen space. (Senses of Cinema)

Visual Kitchen explores the semantics of live AV performance and video art from a background of VJ’ing and music video production. As designers of moving images, VK adapts any kind of (non-)narrative structure into dazzling trips of visual flux, combining rigorously structured loops with soft- or hardware-generated chaos. The output is very diverse and versatile, from analogue photographic to digital minimalism, exploring the parameters of the canvas. (Visual Kitchen)