# Visual Music [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_music) ( 18th century–present ) ## Description Visual music — the correspondence of abstract image and sound, from 18th-century color organs through 20th-century abstract/absolute film and into contemporary computer animation and audiovisual performance, as pioneered by [[Oskar Fischinger]] and [[Thomas Wilfred]]. ## Key Tags #visual-music #color-organ ## Essential Works - *Visual Music Masters: Abstract Explorations: History and Contemporary Research*. iotaCenter, 2019. - Survey text on visual-music history and practitioners^2019f6 ## Details ### Books - *Visual Music Masters: Abstract Explorations: History and Contemporary Research*. [iotaCenter](http://iotacenter.org/visual-music-masters/), 2019. 75 pages, illustrations (chiefly color), 26 cm. Available from [Amazon](https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/8857222233/ref=ox_sc_sfl_title_15?ie=UTF8&psc=1&smid=ATVPDKIKX0DER). #book - **Adriano Abbado** has been working with electronic music since 1975 and with digital art since 1981, and earned an MS from MIT's Media Laboratory in 1988. He taught Computer Graphics at Milan's Istituto Europeo di Design, Electronic Music at Turin's Conservatory, and Audiovisual Art at UC Santa Barbara. ### Artists - [John Hawk](https://filmvideo.calarts.edu/programs/film-and-video/program-faculty/john-hawk) - ["What to do with a dot."](https://youtu.be/MPxCTB72b88?si=i__neIXvNk3SbSt_) - Jane Cassidy - ["The Night After I Kicked It"](https://youtu.be/NBTB6k7uZB0?si=NzvSd46yw00CLTOr) ### Key Theorists %% none yet %% ### Exemplary Practitioners - [[Oskar Fischinger]] - pioneer of abstract "absolute film" synchronized to music - [[Thomas Wilfred]] - inventor of the Clavilux and originator of "Lumia," a purely visual light-art form parallel to visual music - [[Jordan Belson]] - abstract "cosmic cinema" filmmaker working in the visual-music tradition - [[Larry Cuba]] - computer-animation artist extending visual-music abstraction into digital media ### Related Concepts - [[Video Art]] - early computer animation crosses over directly with the visual-music tradition - [[Time studies]] - Mary Hallock-Greenewalt, inventor of the Sarabet color organ, also wrote on subjective time (*Time Eternal*) - [[Transpersonal and psychedelic cinema]] - abstract, non-narrative visual-music practice overlaps with psychedelic/cosmic cinema ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Associated Movements or Institutions - [iotaCenter](http://iotacenter.org/) - nonprofit organization dedicated to the research, preservation, and promotion of visual music - [Center for Visual Music](https://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/) - Los Angeles-based archive and resource center for visual music and experimental animation ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %% ### Secondary Sources Bibliography *Visual Music Masters: Abstract Explorations: History and Contemporary Research*. iotaCenter, 2019.