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1. "Since ancient times artists have longed to create with moving lights a music for the eye comparable to the effects of sound for the ear." - Film historian Dr. William Moritz , in ''Towards an Aesthetics of Visual Music,'' Asifa Canada Bulletin (Montreal: ASIFA Canada), Vol. 14: 3, December 1986 online at Center for Visual Music Library Sometimes also called "color music," the history of this tradition includes many experiments with color organs. Artist/inventors "built instruments, usually called "color organs," that would display modulated colored light in some kind of fluid fashion comparable to music." Moritz, ''The Dream of Color Music and Machines That Made it Possible'' online at Animation World Magazine . Several different definitions of color music exist; one is that color music is generally formless projections of colored light, while visual music is often described as an art created around hue, form and motion, making it a fundamentally different art. Other scholars and writers have used the term color music interchangeably with visual music. Visual Music and abstract film/video often coincide. The earliest films were hand-painted works produced by the Futurists Bruno Corra and Albero Ginna between 1911 and 1912 (as they report in the Futurist Manifesto of Cinema), which are now lost. Other filmmakers include Walther Ruttman, Hans Richter, Viking Eggeling, Oskar Fischinger , Len Lye, Jordan Belson , Norman McLaren, Mary Ellen Bute, Harry Smith, Stan Brakhage (to a lesser extent) and many others up to present day. The construction of instruments to perform visual music live, as with sonic music, has been a continuous concern of this art. Prominent artist-inventors include: Thomas Wilfred, Charles Dockum and Mary Hallock-Greenewalt. Color organs, while related, form an earlier tradition extending as early as the seventeenth century with the Jesuit, Louis-Bertrand Castel proposing an "occular harpsichord" in 1734. 2. A system whereby music or sound are directly converted into visual form, usually film, video or computer graphics, by a mechanical instrument, an artist's interpretation, or a computer. An expanded definition may include the translation of music to painting. Filmmakers working in this tradition include Oskar Fischinger (Ornament Sound Experiments), John and James Whitney (Five Film Experiments), Norman Mclaren, and many contemporary artists. See the Center for Visual Music online library for additional articles on Visual Music: - In 2005, a US exhibition called "Visual Music" at The Museum of Contemporary Art Los Angeles and The Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, Washington DC, featured many visual music films {Link without Title} and videos. LINKS Moritz, William. Towards an Aesthetics of Visual Music. {Link without Title} ASIFA Canada Bulletin, 1986 Moritz. The Dream of Color Music and Machines That Made it Possible. {Link without Title} Animation World Magazine, Apr 1997 Moritz. Visual Music and Film as an Art before 1950. {Link without Title} in Karlstrom, Paul J., editor, On the Edge of America: California Modernist Art, 1900-1950. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1996. Đ |
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