Visual Music

The Lambdoma Keyboard

by Barbara Hero

From Dangerous Minds: "The Lambdoma Matrix is attributed to the philosopher Pythagoras (500 bc) who spent over twenty years as an Egyptian initiate. The concept of the Lambdoma Matrix in the present age is relatively unknown, and is not cited in most dictionaries. On the surface, it appears to be nothing more than a mathematical multiplication and division table. On a closer look however, it bears a one-to-one relationship to musical intervals in a very specific harmonic series. Because of its numerical framework of ratios, it can be translated into frequencies of audible sound. The Lambdoma bears relationships to aromatics, chemistry, crystallography, cybernetics, art, music, geometry, all of which may be explored by those interested in the above disciplines. The Lambdoma bears mathematical relationships to Issac Newton, the Diophantine equations and the Farey series, as well as in the present century to Georg Cantor…"

Check out the video demonstration by Barbara Hero.

[ 01/12/2010, Visual Music ]

Harry Smith

Early abstractions (1939-1957)

From Dangerous Minds: "Artist, alchemical filmmaker, musical archeologist and avant garde shaman, Harry Smith's obsessive interests made him an influential, yet not widely known, figure of 20th century Beat culture and beyond. If Smith was only responsible for preserving the folk and blues musical traditions of early America in his Anthology of American Folk Music set from 1952, we would have him to thank for providing a way forward for a young Bob Dylan and the whole of the 60s/70s folk scene. But Smith was far more than that, he was a filmmaker of astonishing originality, making stop motion animations influenced by 19th advertising art and the elaborate Middle Ages alchemical paintings of Robert Fludd. [...]

The restored version of Smith's celluloid tetraptych was a marvel to behold, with all of the four images now perfectly in time to one another, and looking like a great psychedelic kaleidoscope of imagery taken around New York City, in particular the Chelsea Hotel and its bohemian denizens. Patti Smith, Allen Ginsberg and the Jefferson Airplane's Marty Balin all make cameo appearances. Seen, digitally restored and as Smith had intended, it was simply breath taking."

You might also want to consider this interview with Harry Smith.

[ 12/01/2009, Visual Music ]

The Way He Always Wanted It II

A film by Stephen Prina

Saw this wonderful film on the Ford House by American architect Bruce Goff (1904-1982) tonight at the Kunstfilmbiennale in Cologne. Artist and musician Stephen Prina managed to beautifully combined very slow tracking shots of the breathtaking interior with fragments of Goff's music compositions.

The film "investigates the architect Bruce Goff's own multi-faceted approach to music, painting and architecture. Shot in Goff's Ford House, the film includes a score by Prina, performed in the house and written using excerpts from Goff's own compositions and correspondence." (via Tate Modern)

"Is this house a love song? Is the film? Certainly it indicates an intense affiliation between Goff's multifaceted practice and Prina's own genre-defying oeuvre. It points to a set of relationships that it does not gossip about. Its subject seems to be synthesis itself, like the model of film as a gesamtkunstwerk. Love is impenetrably private, unconfessable to our public gaze, a series of open circles that remain to us utterly closed. File under research, the way he always wanted (too)." (via ArtReview)

[ 10/30/2009, Visual Music ]

Eyes Can Hear

by Jared Ficklin

From DesignMind: "Making sound visible is a hobby of mine. After years pursuing real-time sound visualization, I became intrigued by the idea of eliminating time and allowing listeners to take in an entire song as a single visual impression. The result reveals an unseen beauty. [...]

There is a pretty unique aesthetic to different songs rendered with the same algorithm. I enjoy the notion of someone buying a song because they like the way it looks, or because it looks like a song they know they like. With the right system in hand, would members of the deaf community be interested in creating visualization-based musical performances? What would the music sound like? I also wonder if it is time to update the Closed Captioning system to include visual impressions of the music and sound effects that normally go by unseen in a movie or television show.

(Jared Ficklin is a principal designer at frog design. Jared creates Flash animations of all types, including sound visualizations.)"

[ 10/21/2009, Visual Music ]

Geometry of Circles

by Philip Glass

From Muppet Wiki: "The shorts consist of the movement of six circles (each with a different color of the rainbow) that are formed by and split up into various geometric patterns. Glass's music underscores the animation in a style that closely resembles the 'Dance' numbers and the North Star vignettes written during the same time period as his Einstein on the Beach opera."

[ 10/04/2009, Visual Music ]

"Cymatics" directed & produced by Susi Sie

Making sound visible through cymatics

TED Talk by Evan Grant

From TED: "Evan Grant demonstrates the science and art of cymatics, a process for making soundwaves visible. Useful for analyzing complex sounds (like dolphin calls), it also makes complex and beautiful designs."

Thanks to Tobias Gallé!

[ 09/06/2009, Visual Music ]

Collage by Oriane Baud

Mutations

by Lillian Schwartz, Music by Jean-Claude Risset

From Olsen website: "Lillian Schwartz is an early pioneer in the use of the computer in the Arts and was a consultant at the AT&T Bell Laboratories. Mutations is based on computer images, laser beams diffracted in plastics, and crystal growth in polarized light. The film features a stunning soundtrack by Jean-Claude Risset."

All her films are listed here.

Thanks to Marcus Schmickler!

[ 08/27/2009, Visual Music ]

Ólafur Arnalds "Ljósið"

by Esteban Diácono

Via Esteban Diácono's website: "Long story short: This video was created after been introduced by a friend to the wonderful music of Olafur Arnalds. Built in After Effects using Trapcode Particular, the visualization was intented to mimic Synesthesia. It's my most known work, and opened many, many doors for me."

[ 08/17/2009, Visual Music ]

Korb

I'll be gone

Via Motionographer: "I’ve always been a sucker for a simple idea well executed. And right now I can’t think of a piece that achieves it better than this music promo by Lithuanian director Rimantas Lukavicius (korb), for Mario Basanov & Vidis feat. Jazzu, for the track “I’ll be gone”.

Taking the simple premise of using a cardiograph (Four of them to be precise) to represent different audio lines within the track, Rimantas manages to create something truly mesmerising. It’s one of those, ‘I don’t quite know why I like this so much, but I do’ pieces of work. I guess there’s something special about the piece being utterly devoid of visual clutter, and that so much currency is made from the right camera pans and cuts. It’s a ballsy move to stay with such a simple set-up throughout the whole promo and Rimantas succeeds in holding the attention without needing to introduce any further imagery. Hats off to him…".

Thanks to Tobias Gallé!

[ 07/22/2009, Visual Music ]

Bang Out

by Berlin's Transforma

Simon Krahl came to a talk I gave in Berlin. That is how I learned about their amazing work.

Via their website: "Transforma produce audiovisual performances, installations, projections for music, video clips, and have worked extensively with theatre and dance. Creating images and atmospheres which establish a connection between the material properties of their subject, abstract storytelling and a hands-on approach to production, they have developed their own language within the live visual experience. They have long standing collaborations with numerous artists, directors and musicians and have performed live and exhibited at many major festivals and venues around the world.

Transforma was formed in 2001 in Berlin by Luke Bennett, Baris Hasselbach and Simon Krahl."

[ 07/01/2009, Visual Music ]