Historical Resource
The Center for Visual Music (CVM) has a really useful research page on the Charles Dockum, the inventor of the mobilcolor projector - a projection device for performing abstract colour imagery.
Visit website: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Dockum/
Showing posts with label Visual Music History. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Visual Music History. Show all posts
Monday, May 2, 2011
Saturday, April 30, 2011
Space Light Art - by Cindy Keefer
"Space Light Art" - Early Abstract Cinema and Multimedia, 1900-1959 by Cindy Keefer
Article online at: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/CKSLAexc.htm
Article online at: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/CKSLAexc.htm
Monday, May 25, 2009
Preserving Visual Music - By Holly Willis for Blur + Sharpen
Preserving Visual Music - By Holly Willis - May 8, 2009 "After more than 70 years and the explosion of visual culture, the stunning animated films of Oskar Fischinger remain unparalleled. Fischinger, who emigrated to Los Angeles from Germany in 1936 and became one of the city's central figures in a burgeoning avant-garde filmmaking community, created dozens of dazzling visual explorations of sound...
This question is tackled head-on by Cindy Keefer, Director of LA's Center for Visual Music, which is dedicated to this particular genre of experimental film...
one of the Center's key objectives is preservation. In this context, CVM recently announced that it has received funds from the Avant-Garde Masters Grant (which is funded by The Film Foundation and managed by the National Film Preservation Foundation) to preserve three reels of Fischinger's original 35mm nitrate film experiments from his Raumlichtkunst multiple projector performances of the 1920s."
Extracts from the article by Holly Willis
Read the full article >>
Sunday, May 3, 2009
Visual Music Essay - 2007 - Maura McDonnell
I am hoping to better gather together essays and articles on visual music and visual music relevant topics in this blog. I have only recently realised that blogger provides a tag facility, and so posts can be accessed via the tags. A few such tags I wish to try to provide more posts for is the tags: essay, article, research, writing. I have come across a lot of good writing - online or otherwise, so I am probably really doing this for myself, so I can quickly get access to them again. CVM and iotaCenter based in Los Angeles, US provide really good resources and links to excellent resources. Check them out for more up to date and extensive links.
If you have a link to an excellent essay, piece of writing or resource, I would love to put it in this blog, if you could email me at mmcd@soundingvisual.com, I would be delighted to hear from you and to share the resource on this blog.
Dennis H. Miller based in Northeastern University, Boston invited me to write an essay on Visual Music for the program catalog for the Visual Music Marathon held in Boston, US in April in 2007 and then presented fully again in New York, US in April 2009. The essay was published in both catalogs. The essay was based on visual music lecture notes I had prepared for a specific set of classes I taught on Visual Music to students attending the Music and Media Technology M.Phil. course at Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland (I still present the visual music classes on that course). At the time, the intention of the lecture notes was to introduce students to visual music and to show them that there was plenty of historical precedents for pursuing a very close relationship between music and image. As the course has a very strong practical element to it, students have to create their own work. So the point of the lecture was to provide a context from which they could possibly place their own music and image assignments and if they choose to also pursue this in their final thesis project. The lecture I gave on visual music did have a very practical focus to it. I shared these notes with Dennis H. Miller ( and he shared excellent teaching material with me). Dennis invitation to me was to write up the lecture notes in an essay form. It was not an easy task (much much easier to jot down notes and talk - as in a teaching situation)!The essay is an introduction to visual music. It is definitely not definitive, but it is a start for me to articulate beyond notes. The essay has many credits from the experts who checked it over for me and to whom I am very grateful.
DOWNLOAD: The visual music essay (without images - text only) can be downloaded here.
The New York Visual Music Marathon - 2009 program booklet can be downloaded from the Northeastern University website, the Visual Music Program Catalog - 2009 includes the visual music essay (not with all images from the print version, but with some) I wrote, but also includes the program note for the 60 or so contemporary works shown at the visual music marathon.
[Maura McDonnell - author]
Saturday, November 11, 2006
Thursday, November 2, 2006
Thomas Wilfred - Lumia - Untitled Opus 161, 1956/66

Thomas Wilfred - Lumia - Flash Reproduction of Light Animation. "Untitled", Opus 161, 1965/66.
"The animation, featured here, is a Flash based 'movie' made up of 30 still images taken from Wilfred's Opus 161., and produced for us by the Pompidou Centre, Paris. Special thanks to Michel Fernandez of the Centre Pompidou for producing this animation and for permission to use it here."
See http://www.lumia-wilfred.org/content/animation/op161.html for more information
Thursday, October 26, 2006
Saturday, October 21, 2006
Viking Eggeling - Syphonie Diagonale
Symphonie Diagonale by Viking Eggeling
Don't know who has scored the music for this version of the video - put the music to silent!
Don't know who has scored the music for this version of the video - put the music to silent!
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
Walter Ruttmann
Walter Ruttmann - Lichtspiel Opus I
Experimental animation directed by Walter Ruttmann, 1921. The Original Film was silent but the film was scored for music, with music composed by Max Butting
Experimental animation directed by Walter Ruttmann, 1921. The Original Film was silent but the film was scored for music, with music composed by Max Butting
Viking Eggeling - Symphonie Diagonale
Symphonie Diagonale by Viking Eggeling
Perhaps turn the volume down...originally a silent film
Perhaps turn the volume down...originally a silent film
Tuesday, October 17, 2006
Michael Snow - Wavelength
wavelength (1967)
Michael Snow - Wavelength 1967 - 12 minute excerpt of 45 minute film. Youtube broadcast
Michael Snow - Wavelength 1967 - 12 minute excerpt of 45 minute film. Youtube broadcast
Gyorgy Ligeti - Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes
A performance of Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes was broadcast by ARTE france. The video can be downloaded at UBUWEB, as well as information and transcript from the broadcast

Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes - Gyorgy Ligeti - Video from an ARTE (France) broadcast of Po�me Symphonique for 100 metronomes.
The video can also be viewed on google video
Google Video Broadcast
Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes - Google Video - 8 minutes
(following text from Google video, link above) "Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes has been very rarely performed in public. The complicated scenographic staging, the detailed ... all » preparation by hand, the need for around ten technicians to activate more or less simultaneously the 100 metronomes, makes the demand for performances limited. Thirty-two years after the premiere, the sculptor and installation artist Gilles Lacombe heard a recording of the work. Impressed, he decided to invent a machine able to perform the piece automatically. After six months, he set up this ingenious device. Ever since, Poème symphonique can be performed accurately, at any time, and in public." Video of the perfomace recorded in Rome, presented by an orchestra of 100 performers.

Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes - Gyorgy Ligeti - Video from an ARTE (France) broadcast of Po�me Symphonique for 100 metronomes.
The video can also be viewed on google video
Google Video Broadcast
Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes - Google Video - 8 minutes
(following text from Google video, link above) "Poème symphonique for 100 metronomes has been very rarely performed in public. The complicated scenographic staging, the detailed ... all » preparation by hand, the need for around ten technicians to activate more or less simultaneously the 100 metronomes, makes the demand for performances limited. Thirty-two years after the premiere, the sculptor and installation artist Gilles Lacombe heard a recording of the work. Impressed, he decided to invent a machine able to perform the piece automatically. After six months, he set up this ingenious device. Ever since, Poème symphonique can be performed accurately, at any time, and in public." Video of the perfomace recorded in Rome, presented by an orchestra of 100 performers.
Thursday, October 12, 2006
Norman McLaren - Neighbours - 8mins - 1952
Google video broadcast
National Film Board of Canada
One of the many short films put out by the National Film Board of Canada. This one was headed by Norman McLaren, in 1952
National Film Board of Canada
One of the many short films put out by the National Film Board of Canada. This one was headed by Norman McLaren, in 1952
Stan Brakhage - Prelude 5 (1985)
“PRELUDES 1-6 is comprised of six hand-painted and double-frame printed sections of 16mm film: No. 5 is composed of extremely thin-lined colors and sharply delineated shapes which are constantly interrupted by "cloud"-like forms.”
More Resources
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/brakhage.html
More Resources
http://www.sensesofcinema.com/contents/directors/02/brakhage.html
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