Hostname: page-component-8448b6f56d-mp689 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-04-19T11:46:37.968Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

From Sonic Art to Visual Music: Divergences, convergences, intersections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 July 2012

Diego Garro
Diego Garro*
Affiliation:
Keele University, School of Humanities – Music and Music Technology, The Clockhouse, Keele ST5 5BG, UK
*
E-mail: d.garro@mus.keele.ac.uk
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This paper introduces strategies for the electroacoustic community to relate to, and engage with, the visual music phenomenon. It addresses technological, historical, cultural and idiomatic intersections between the two art forms. From the personal viewpoint of a trained synaesthete of acousmatic origin, the boundaries between sonic and audiovisual compositional practices appear somewhat porous. The electroacoustic language is intrinsically visual, even within its acousmatic paradigm. Visible morphologies acquire a sonorous dimension as soon as we uproot them from their cinematographic habitat and plunge them into the cauldron of a new alchemy. Multi-disciplinary lines of enquiry are essential to elucidate the workings of complex multimediatic interactions such as those at play in visual music. Yet, a holistic view of the creative and technological pathways is equally significant so that artistic truths, and myths, can be (re)discovered amidst lines of code or loops of wire connecting our computer peripherals. Thus this article is written both with the language of an analyst and, perhaps more, with the expressions and idiosyncrasies of an academic composer. A few selected examples from the contemporary repertoire are discussed to exemplify a variety of approaches to visual music composition, including extracts from the work Patah (Garro 2010).

Type
Articles
Information
Organised Sound , Volume 17 , Issue 2: Composing Motion: A visual music retrospective , August 2012 , pp. 103 - 113
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2012

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

Footnotes

*

This article is an extended and reworked version of a paper presented at the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference 2005 (EMS05): Sound in multimedia contexts – Montréal.

References

Barreiro, D.L. 2010. Sonic Image and Acousmatic Listening. Organised Sound 15(1): 35–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Barrett, N. 1999. Racing Through, Racing Unseen. Acousmatic composition. On Miniatures Concrètes. Montreal: empreintes DIGITALes, IMEB 9837.Google Scholar
Battey, B. 2005. Autarkeia Aggregatum. Audiovisual composition. http://vimeo.com/14923910. Accessed on 4 September 2011.Google Scholar
Bendazzi, G. 1996. The Italians Who Invented the Drawn-On Film Technique. Animation Journal (spring 1996). Also available at http://www.iotacenter.org/program/publication/other/brunocorrabendazzi. Accessed on 2 September 2011.Google Scholar
Bird, S. 2008. Time & Tide. Audiovisual composition. http://www.vimeo.com/1237979. Accessed on 2 September 2011.Google Scholar
Brougher, K., Strick, J., Wiseman, A., Zilczer, J. 2005. Visual Music. London: Thames & Hudson Ltd.Google Scholar
Chion, M. 1994. Audio-Vision. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
Cope, N., Howle, T. 2007. In Girum. Audiovisual composition. http://www.vimeo.com/631571. Accessed on 2 September 2011.Google Scholar
Dhomont, F. 1996. Is There a Québec Sound? Organised Sound 1(1): 23–28.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emmerson, S. 1986. The Relation of Language to Materials. In S. Emmerson (ed.) The Language of Electroacoustic Music. New York: Harwood Academic Publishers, 17–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Emmerson, S. 1999. Aural Landscape: Musical Space. Organised Sound 3(2): 135–140.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evans, B. 2005. Foundations of a Visual Music. Computer Music Journal 29(4): 11–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ferrari, L. 1970. Presque Rien No.1. On Presque Rien No.1/Société II. Acousmatic composition. Germany: Deutsche Grammophon – 2543 004.Google Scholar
Filimowicz, M., Stockholm, J. 2010. Towards a Phenomenology of the Acoustic Image. Organised Sound 15(1): 5–12.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fischman, R. 2011. Mekorot Hamuzica Havisualit: Perspectiva Muzicalit (Hebrew) [The Origins of Visual Music: A Musical Perspective]. In: Y. Kaduri and M. Zur (eds) Selected Papers: Visible Sounds Conference, Jerusalem 2010. Jerusalem: Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design.Google Scholar
Fox-Gieg, N. 2009. Traffic Flow II. Audiovisual composition. http://www.fox-gieg.com/sound-traffic.html. Accessed on 3 September 2011.Google Scholar
Garro, D. 2005a. A Glow on Pythagora's Curtain: A Composer's Perspective on Electroacoustic Music with Video. In Proceedings of the Electroacoustic Music Studies Network Conference 2005 (EMS05): Sound in Multimedia Contexts – Montréal. http://www.ems-network.org/spip.php?article169. Accessed on 18 April 2012.Google Scholar
Garro, D. 2005b. O Que A Menina Ouve (What The Little Girl Hears) (2004). Acousmatic composition. On Cultures électroniques. Bourges: Institut International de Musique Électroacoustique (IMEB), LCD 278 079.Google Scholar
Garro, D. 2010. Patah. Audiovisual composition. http://www.vimeo.com/14112798. Accessed on 18 April 2012.Google Scholar
Hill, A. 2010. Investigating Audience Reception of Electroacoustic Audio-visual Compositions: Developing an Effective Methodology. eContact! 12.4: Perspectives on the Electroacoustic Work/Perspectives sur l'oeuvre électroacoustique. Montréal: Communauté électroacoustique canadienne/Canadian Electroacoustic Community. http://cec.sonus.ca/econtact/12_4/hill_reception.html. Accessed on 18 April 2012.Google Scholar
Hyde, J. 2009. End Transmission. Audiovisual composition. http://www.josephhyde.co.uk/video/end-transmission. Accessed on 3 September 2011.Google Scholar
Hyde, J. 2010. Vanishing Point. Audiovisual composition. http://www.josephhyde.co.uk/video/vanishing-point. Accessed on 2 September 2011.Google Scholar
Kandinsky, V. 1914. Fuga (Fugue), 1914. Painting (oil on canvas). Reproduction in K. Brougher, J. Strick, A. Wiseman and J. Zilczer, Visual Music. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005: 33. Reproduction also available at http://www.tate.org.uk/modern/exhibitions/kandinsky/rooms/room7.shtm. Accessed on 2 September 2011.Google Scholar
Kupka, F. 1912. Disks of Newton (Study for ‘Fugue In Two Colors’). Painting (oil on canvas). Reproduction in K. Brougher, J. Strick, A. Wiseman and J. Zilczer, Visual Music. London: Thames & Hudson, 2005: 39. Reproduction also available at http://www.artabase.net/exhibition/2126-paths-to-abstraction. Accessed on 2 September 2011.Google Scholar
Legault-Salvail, J.R. 2009. Chute libre. Composition for prepared piano, vibraphone, bass clarinet, trumpet, flute, two violins, viola, cello, live electronics, tape and video. http://www.julienrobert.net Also available at http://vimeo.com/6542388. Accessed on 3 September 2011.Google Scholar
Longo, S. 2011. UNTITLED. Audiovisual composition. http://vimeo.com/26209975. Accessed on 3 September 2011.Google Scholar
McDonnell, M. 2010. Visual Music: A Composition Of The ‘Things Themselves’. http://tcd.academia.edu/MauraMcDonnell/Papers/521371/Visual_Music_-_A_Composition_Of_The_Things_Themselves. Accessed on 2 September 2011.Google Scholar
McDonnell, M., Buckley, L. 2010. Silk Chroma. Audiovisual composition. http://www.soundingvisual.com/silkchroma. Accessed on 4 January 2012.Google Scholar
Miller, D.H. 2008. Seven Animations by Dennis H. Miller. Audiovisual compositions. Los Angeles: iotaCenter. Preview clips available on the artist's website http://www.dennismiller.neu.edu. Accessed on 18 April 2012.Google Scholar
Nattiez, J.J. 1990. Music and Discourse: Towards a Semiology of Music, trans. C. Abbate. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.Google Scholar
Peacock, K. 1988. Instruments to Perform Color-Music: Two Centuries of Technological Experimentation. Leonardo 21(4): 397–406.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pellegrino, R. 1983. The Electronic Arts of Sound and Light. New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company.Google Scholar
Piché, J. 2003. De la musique et des images. CIRCUIT: Revue nord-américaine de musique du XXème siècle 13(3), Électroacoustique: Nouvelles Utopies. Available at http://www.jeanpiche.com/Textes/images.htm (accessed on 19 April 2012).Google Scholar
Piché, J. 2011. Australes. Audiovisual composition. http://www.vimeo.com/25188797. Accessed on 3 September 2011.Google Scholar
Rudi, J. 2005. Computer Music Video: A Composer's Perspective. Computer Music Journal 29(4): 36–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Smalley, D. 1986. Spectro-morphology and Structuring Processes. In S. Emmerson (ed.) The Language of Electroacoustic Music. New York: Harwood Academic Publishers: 61–93.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Tziopanos, N. 2010. Website for Troublemakers TV. http://www.troublemakers.tv/niko_tziopanos.html. Accessed on 18 April 2012.Google Scholar
Wishart, T. 2006 . Red Bird (1977). Acousmatic composition. On Cultures électroniques. Bourges: Institut International de Musiques Electroacoustique de Bourges (IMEB), LCD 278 079.Google Scholar