Digital and Video Art by Florence de Mèredieu
An Exploration of Mixtures of the Visual Arts and Music
In the book Digital and Video Art, Florence de Mèredieu says she did not set out to study the relationship between music and high-technology. This is an immense field she says. In the section on Sound Art, she explores the way a mix of the visual arts and music has the impact of increasing the scope of what can be achieved through the synergy of the fields.
From now on we can no longer make a clear cut distinction between the visual and the acoustic. The computer is there to guide us towards an all encompassing form of perception and synthetic creation that quite clearly reflects the present state of human creativity and above all, its future state. Nicholas Schoffer.
Blends of Expressive Creation
She gives examples of mixtures of genres into blends of expressive creation. For example, on page 208, she talks about the way Nicholas Schoffer created luminous kinetic sculptures. These sculptures were innovatively created as cybernetic expression combined with acoustic dimension. This work occurred throughout the 1970’s. The synergy that occurs between various mediums such as sound and tangible mediums like granite as well as the projected image provides infinite new possibilities. The sensation of falling created by this particular combination is a type of immersion experience. The installation incorporated five different sounds tracks playing under water sounds.
de Mèredieu brings other examples to the conversation to show that modern hybrid art exists on the borders of many disciplines. Art and music or sound merges with other disciplines on the margins of various areas of study. Science, Maths and Architecture are just some of the disciplines that can be merged experimentally.
On a feature splash page, the author talks about Atsuyoshi Hikida and a work called Luminescence. This was a light and sound installation created in 1996. The work involves chemical reactions, sound, light and computer technology. This work was a direct experiment calling on interactions between substances with a signal being sent by sensors. The sound is synthesised by signal.
Using Technology in Different Ways
By contrast, another sound experiment uses technology in a completely different way. Human beings could interact together to create Opera! In 1996, Tod Machover, a composer working at MIT Media lab presented an experimental interactive opera called Brain Opera. Only partially written the opera was completed by Internet users.
A Japanese artist Haruki Nishijima produced a performance piece in a novel way when he set his performers butterfly nets and sent them off to chase “electronic insects.” This work was called, Remain in Light and was created in 2001. The insects were actually sound frequencies, which translated into a swarm of multicoloured lights projected on a screen.
de Mèredieu highlights potential possibilities without known limits, when she talks about blends of media that can evolve from hybrids combined from music and other aspects of the visual arts.
Resource
de Mèredieu.F. Digital and Video Art. Chambers Arts Library. Edinburgh. 2001
Network Wires
|
What do you think about this article?
More in Visual & Performing Arts
Latest Articles