Hi Paul, I'm curious about your relationship to fractal explorations and things such as Wolfram's A New Kind of Science? I made a number of pieces studying fractal properties; whatever aesthetic value they had would have been in the math perhaps?
Thanks!, Alan, and absolutely beautiful work of course! -- On Thu, Aug 31, 2023 at 12:07 AM Paul Hertz via NetBehaviour < [email protected]> wrote: > Continuing... > > I trace the kind of work that I am doing back to various historical > practices. There's the whole tradition of "visual music" including various > color organs created in Europe, with a great many showing up in the first > half of the 20th century as technology offered solutions. Many of these > were intended for churches, concert halls, or dedicated architectural > spaces, since they often required fairly massive installations of lights > and equipment. One of the very first electronic instruments, Thaddeus > Cahill's telharmonium, was offered over wires as a musical service to high > end restaurants in New York City, so I guess you could say that the > architectural presence of electronic music goes way back. The visual > counterpart of the voltages generated by massive magnetic coils was a > "singing" carbon arc lamp that produced both sound and light. And then > there are all the 60s light shows I was exposed to, for concert venues of > various sorts. > > Intimate visual music might be the exception, until video appeared. Most > visual music works in the 20th century were intended for theatrical venues > (Oscar Fishinger, Mary Ellen Bute, John Whitney, etc.). There were some > small boxes designed by Nicolas Schöffer in the 1970s (ISTR) that were > intended for visual education in small classrooms. UNESCO took an interest > in these, though I don't know where they were ever presented to students. > Thomas Wilfred's lumia are also intimate, though best viewed in an > architectural space. I saw Schöffer's boxes at his studio in Paris, thanks > to the generosity of Eleonore Schöffer. I've never seen lumia in person. > > Intermedia is the other wing that keeps me flying. Fluxus, of course, but > also the poetics of Baudelaire, Rimbaud, and Mallarmé. Math and metaphor > mediate my madness. > > 150 Media Stream's "video blades" are up to 3 meters high. The pixels are > 1/3 cm on a side, so I addressed each and every pixel as an entity in my > code. > > cheers, > > Paul > > > > > On Sat, Aug 26, 2023 at 12:38 AM Paul Hertz <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Hi Johannes, >> >> Thanks, glad you enjoyed the work. >> >> The composer and I followed a fairly systematic plan of collaboration. >> Before we began work, we determined a number of forms and processes that >> could work in both visual and musical domains. We also considered that >> decisions about coordinating music and image would fall on a spectrum from >> independent (forms juxtaposed but with no common features or timing), >> intersected (some features shared, others free to vary), to complementary >> (fairly strict correspondence of a select number of properties in the music >> and the animation). Most of the time there are intersecting processes >> occurring, but rarely producing coincidental events. A rhythm in the music >> might be generated by exactly the same algorithm as patterns in space. >> Sometimes we had the same frequency of signal producing patterns as >> producing sound. Other times, I had rhythmic visual events that I knew to >> be generated by the same process as the musical events, but with somewhat >> different parameters, so that events would both coincide and diverge. At >> other times, the musical and visual events might be related more by >> metaphor than by structure -- the density of events might run parallel, or >> might diverge, with the visuals nearly empty while the music rushes on. >> >> Generally, the compositional techniques are not meant to be noticed. They >> are the scaffolding of our decisions, that we take away to reveal the work. >> >> Because the architectural space is an office building and because we had >> to run the animation and music as a loop, there was just ambient electronic >> music to accompany the animation on site. The ending was rather muted, even >> for the performances with the musicians (we were fortunate to have two >> performances and a studio recording). To make it more emphatic, I used >> large colorful shapes at the end, considering the final arrival at a >> symmetrical array as a sort of cadence. In a sense, the final animation is >> loud while the music is quiet, or the loudness of the cadence is given to >> the animation while the harmonic progression is given to the music. >> >> Will try to answer questions in your second paragraph tomorrow. >> >> best, >> >> Paul >> >> >> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 9:21 AM Johannes Birringer via NetBehaviour < >> [email protected]> wrote: >> >>> fascinating beautiful work, very inspiring, Paul! >>> >>> thanks also for giving a bit of insight (website documentation) into >>> your visual process and the concept for having such visual/music, such >>> animations >>> and the evolving [interactive] patterning (background and foreground). I >>> was mesmerized yet also began to question or wanting to interrogate the >>> evolving pattern (did you and the composer develop this together or is the >>> music irrespective of the visuals (though you mention your Rondo form)? - I >>> guess I ask whether the music can respond to an immersive environment >>> /projection as you seem to have created it in this amazing glass house >>> (the lobby of 150 Riverside Plaza in Chicago?), or rather is it >>> fixed/controlled/composed? why so? >>> You mention an architectural-video-installation, thus could you please >>> expand a little, since i am interested in the historical side of your work >>> too, when did visual music (did Eno call it that) or projected visual >>> scenographies become coupled with architecture (Xenakis?), how did digital >>> software artists develop this further or not? and why did you decide on >>> what, to me (on the vimeo concert), looks a 'flat canvas', perhaps (if an >>> art reference is permitted) a Mondrianic kind of Agnes Martin painting >>> field becoming dynamic, motional? (I say this as an admirer of Martin's >>> paintings and her book "Paintings, Writings, Remembrances). Or did you >>> perhaps see the massive 3D immersive spectacles (teamLab stuff, and other >>> current projection environments) as a trap? How did the glass architecture >>> change your visuals (was 150 Media Stream concert different from what you >>> posted now?). >>> >>> with regards >>> Johannes Birringer >>> >>> On Fri, Aug 25, 2023 at 6:29 AM Paul Hertz via NetBehaviour < >>> [email protected]> wrote: >>> >>>> I am very pleased to announce the release a video for my recent >>>> collaborative project Campos | Temporales. Campos is an "intermedia >>>> experience" where algorithmic animation and new music share formal >>>> structures in time and space to create a hybrid art form. Composer >>>> Christopher Walczak wrote the music, which was recorded at Experimental >>>> Sound Studio in Chicago. The work originated as a large scale video >>>> installation in a curated space in Chicago, 150 Media Stream. >>>> >>>> The video can be viewed on Vimeo: >>>> https://vimeo.com/856300250 >>>> There's documentation on my website, soon to be updated: >>>> https://paulhertz.net/projects/Campos%20%7C%20Temporales >>>> >>>> Duration: 15:27 >>>> >>>> In addition to this streaming version, we have a UHD version with >>>> concert quality audio. >>>> >>>> saludos, >>>> >>>> Paul >>>> >>>> >>>> >>>> -- >>>> ----- |(*,+,#,=)(#,=,*,+)(=,#,+,*)(+,*,=,#)| --- >>>> http://paulhertz.net/ >>>> _______________________________________________ >>>> NetBehaviour mailing list >>>> [email protected] >>>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >>>> >>> _______________________________________________ >>> NetBehaviour mailing list >>> [email protected] >>> https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour >>> >> >> >> -- >> ----- |(*,+,#,=)(#,=,*,+)(=,#,+,*)(+,*,=,#)| --- >> http://paulhertz.net/ >> > > > -- > ----- |(*,+,#,=)(#,=,*,+)(=,#,+,*)(+,*,=,#)| --- > http://paulhertz.net/ > _______________________________________________ > NetBehaviour mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.netbehaviour.org/mailman/listinfo/netbehaviour > -- *=====================================================* *directory http://www.alansondheim.org <http://www.alansondheim.org> tel 347-383-8552**email sondheim ut panix.com <http://panix.com>, sondheim ut gmail.com <http://gmail.com>* *=====================================================*
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