Visic: A Proposal for a True Color Music

Artists’ Statements 177 Hidden things are generally associated with darkness (and disquiet), and visible things with light. Here, these values are reversed. The contrast between the orderly shape of the torus and its chaotic surroundings may have suggested to onlookers a number of different things: to some onlookers the piece evoked the order that can exist behind or emerge from chaos; to others, it raised the philosophical question of the relationship between geometry and the real world: does geometry exist prior to the real world or is it extracted from reality ? To still others, this piece suggested the contrast between reason and the subconscious, in this case reason being paradoxically hidden under the subconscious. Since I do not like to burden my work with an idea of one “correct” interpretation , my hope is that there are many other possibilities suggested by my work, in addition to those I have mentioned above. Reference 1. The Château de Servières is an art gallery and community center in Marseille that celebrated its tenth anniversary with a series of events and programs involving artists and the community during 1998. For more information, contact Château de Servières, Place des Compagnons Batisseurs, 13015 Marseille, France. Tel: (33) 04 91 60 99 94. Fax: (33) 04 91 69 62 20. VISIC: A PROPOSAL FOR A TRUE COLOR MUSIC Robert Emmett Mueller, 30 Homestead Lane, Roosevelt, NJ 08555, U.S.A. Received 2 February 1996. Accepted for publication by Roger F. Malina. For many years I have tried to design something that would be a visual equivalent to music (as have many others [1]). An important feature of music is its notation scheme: a composer can write down his or her creative ideas and another person can bring them to life with a human touch. I have a proposal I call “Visic” for a notation scheme for visual creations . The intention of my idea is to provide a means to introduce a great variety of images into video space—the imaginary volume represented within the television screen. These images are designed to be introduced and move under the control of a keyboard input device. Using conventional musical notation , a person would be able to compose Visic on paper; another person would “play” Visic in real time by reading the Visic score to recreate the composer’s original ideas and by adding his or her personal sensitivity. The “playing” of Visic may or may not be synchronized with the playing of sonic music. Since I lack the necessary technological know-how to realize Visic myself , I write this description to serve as a catalyst for the future inventiveness of others. Visic Object Definitions The main premise of my idea is that Visic would permit a person to introduce simultaneously up to 10 computer inputs by playing on a piano-like keyboard [2]. The keyboard for Visic would use a musical instrument digital interface (MIDI) that permits a multitude of switching inputs, with the keys grouped to facilitate playing Visic. Visic would employ traditional piano-music notation, thus enabling anyone trained to read piano music to immediately sit down and “play” Visic. According to my understanding of color-music, one must introduce the equivalent of musical notes in video space. These objects must be totally controllable from the keyboard; a user should be able to choose a particular object, its color, its point of origin, the direction it will take in video space and how it will interact with subsequent objects . Thus, Visic would allow harmony (the harmonious or dissonant color interactions of objects) or counterpoint (the ways subsequent or simultaneous objects move in respect to each other). Visic would break the color spectrum into a Newtonian color pie with 12 slices—red, red-orange, orange, yelloworange , yellow, yellow-green, green, blue-green, blue, blue-violet and violet —analogous to the 12 notes of the musical scale (Fig. 3). When two colors are side by side, they influence our perception of each; but if they are broken up as though by a perforated sieve, the resulting dots of color are comparable to pointillism in painting. My conception of Visic uses simple shapes. Rectangles receive the most...