Visual Music Archive

The latest additions

to the archive are presented here. Since the Visual Music Archive is not a blog it accumulates slowly and steadily, and shall continue to far into the future.

The Clockmakers (2013) by Montreal-based designer Renaud Hallee plunges into a graphic, almost mathematical world where everything is symmetry and geometry. Half-figurative and half-abstract, both experimental and powerful, this acrobatic number is a playful creation, a sort of methodical parade that sparks unusual emotions. (National Film Board of Canada)

White Noise (2010) is a ballett work by Amy Seiwert (choreography) and her company im'ij-re (that's how you pronounce the word imagery). Interactive system design by Frieder Weiss. im'ij-re is a contemporary ballet company in San Francisco directed by Amy Seiwert. Holding the belief that ballet has an expressive and vital voice relevant for our current time, respect is held for swans and sylphs, but they are not where the company’s interests lie. Having no desire to regurgitate art, im'ij-re’s artists share the belief that through collaboration and experimentation with artists of other discplines, vibrant and courageous ideas can be expressed. Habitual reactions are discouraged. (Frieder Weiss)

Orchestrion / Conductor (2011) by United Visual Artists was initially build as part of their ongoing relationship with the Creators Project, redesigning the main stage for Coachella 2011. Creating both a platform for performance and a standalone light and sound sculpture, Orchestrion is a collaboration with composer Mira Calix. Featuring sliding doors, the 64m3 cubic structure opens for bands to perform in it, and closes as part of its own performance taking place at set times during the three day festival. (United Visual Artists)

Etienne De Crecy: Live (2007) featuring a truly unique stage structure, designed by Francois Wunschel and Pier Schneider, founders of 1024 architecture / Exyzt, Etienne de Crecy performs from within a six metre square cubic structure with visual projections synchronized with De Crecy’s live music. It’s almost impossible to explain the complexity of the ensuing light show, inspired by Daft Punk’s famous Pyramid stage set, as seen at Rock Ness, and updating Orbital’s groundbreaking lights and laser shows of the mid-90s. (The List)

Audio Kinematics (2007) is an audio/video installation by Jost Muxfeldt. Audio Kinematics works with the phenomenology of sound and space, and how a listener is manifest in that space. Formally, it plays with the idea of kinematic relations on the level of sound: a virtual audio sculpture. It utilizes the spatial relations and proportions of a mechanical structure to determine various parameters of a sound composition, and creates a kind of virtual kinetic sound sculpture. (Jost Muxfeldt)

Shift (2010) by Max Hattler is a three minute animation and exhibits influences as disparate as modernist abstraction to industrialisation and German Expressionism. The effect is jarring, and in the Tenderpixel basement a fitting mausoleum for sci-fi exploits played out under factory-esque, conveyor-belt conditions. Max Hattler's work has always been exuberant and anticipatory; Shift presents an abstract apocalypse, hearkening back to the fears of the modern age. It's beautiful, and it's scary, and it's utterly engrossing. (Because Magazine)

Animal (2011) by Arnaud Gillette and Yannick Jacquet is a desire of contrast, a graphic point of view on a subject in variable curves, a show where the equestrian universe tells the classic space of the theater stage. The main actors of this part into dialogue with digital and music art are four horses, using lights and video installations. (Arnaud Gillette)

United Visual Artists (*2003) are an art and design practice based in London. United Visual Artists produce work at the intersection of sculpture, architecture, live performance, moving image and digital installation. United Visual Artists’s team members come from many disciplines including fine art, architecture, communication design, moving image, computer science and engineering. The cross-pollination of diverse skills inspires new fields of exploration, which is core to their ethos. (United Visual Artists)

Hidden Worlds of Noise and Voice (2002) by Golan Levin and Zachary Lieberman with the production of Ars Electronica Futurelab is an interactive audiovisual installation whose central theme is the magical relationship of speech to the ethereal medium which conveys it. Participants in this exhibit are able to 'see' each others' voices, made visible in the form of animated graphic figurations that appear to emerge from the participants' mouths. In the Hidden Worlds installation, users wear special see-through glasses, which register and superimpose 3D graphics into the real world; when one of the users speaks, colorful abstract forms appear to emerge from his or her mouth. The shapes and movements of these forms are tightly coupled to the unique qualities of the timbres and phonemes sung or spoken by the user, thus enabling a wide range of audiovisual play. The graphics constitute a consensual hallucination which is shared by all of the participants. (Golan Levin)

1024 architecture (*2007) is a company created by Pierre Schneider and François Wunschel, both co-founders of the Exyzt collective. 1024 architecture focuses on the interaction between body, space, sound, visual, low-tech and hi-tech, art and architecture. They make audio-visual installations, micro-architecture, urban intervention, performances, exhibitions and others. (1024 architecture)

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. The graphic score of Mycenae-Alpha provides a basis for an analysis of the work’s form and a guide to its characteristic sonic features. 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. (Ronald Squibbs)

Further resources

Center for Visual Music is a nonprofit film archive dedicated to visual music, experimental animation and avant-garde media.

Visual Music blog by Maura McDonnell.

CVM Library – a wonderful resource for books and other texts compiled by the Center for Visual Music.

Synesthesia in Art and Science is a Leonardo bibliography compiled by Crétien van Campen (editor).

Synaesthesie Forum – list of books dealing with synaesthesia. (German)

See this Sound (exhibition, web archive and symposium)

The media art gallery fluctuating images deals with the diverse artistic and institutional aspects of Visual Music. Cornelia and Holger Lund and their network support the Visual Music Archive.

The Swedish VJ Union is an organization which purpose is to unite and market swedish VJs and spread knowledge about VJ-ing.

VJ Theory intends to develop a community actively discussing and reflecting on philosophy and theory related with Vjing and realtime interaction.

V-Atak is a label dedicated to audio and visual art made up with a hybrid mix of VJ’s, movie makers and musicians.

VJForums for all kinds of information and questions.

The community home of Cymatics is dedicated to collating, sharing and discussing cymatic research and application.

Vidauxs is an independent netlabel which aims to research, promote and distribute experimental audio and video productions.

Festivals & Awards

Visual Music Award (Germany)

CAMP – Festival for Visual Music (Germany)

Visual Music Marathon (USA)

Offf (Europe)

Seeing Sound (UK)

onedotzero (UK)

Optronica (UK)

MuVi (Spain)

CIMATICS (Belgium)

Visualux (Japan)

In Academia

At the Institute For Music And Media (Robert Schumann School of Music and Media, Düsseldorf) students can choose Visual Music as a major in the institute's two bachelor programs.

This Visual Music blog is a supplement to the Visual Music Collaborative workshop being held at Eyebeam Art & Technology Center in creative partnership with Ghostly International.

AV:in is an online course created with the participation of leading audiovisual scene professionals, collectives and independent artists. AV:in was designed as a comprehensive online educational program for audiovisual studies.