# Michael Betancourt [michaelbetancourt.com](https://michaelbetancourt.com/) ## Description American theorist and artist writing on visual music and the history of colour-light performance, extending into motion graphics, glitch aesthetics, and the political economy of abstraction; publishes extensively as both a scholar and a practicing moving-image artist. ## Key Tags #visual-music #theorist #critic #glitch #motion-graphics ## Essential Works - [The History of Motion Graphics](https://michaelbetancourt.com/) (2013) - survey history connecting visual music's colour-light lineage to contemporary motion graphics - [Glitch Art in Theory and Practice](https://michaelbetancourt.com/) (2016) - critical framework for glitch as an aesthetic and political category ## Details Works as both an independent scholar and a practicing moving-image artist, publishing extensively across academic and popular venues on visual music, motion graphics, and glitch aesthetics. His writing connects the historical color-organ and Lumia tradition directly to contemporary software-based abstraction and data-driven image-making. ### Concepts and Theories - [[Visual Music]] - his scholarship is a central contemporary reference point for the visual music tradition's history and theory - [[Light Art]] - his writing traces colour-light performance history as an antecedent to contemporary light-based media art ### Creative and Technical Practices %% none yet %% ### Collaborators %% none yet %% ### Institutional Affiliations and Associated Movements %% none yet %% ## References ### Primary Sources Bibliography Betancourt, Michael. *The History of Motion Graphics*. Wildside Press, 2013. Betancourt, Michael. *Glitch Art in Theory and Practice: Critical Failures and Post-Digital Aesthetics*. Focal Press, 2016. ### Secondary Sources Bibliography %% none yet %%