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Artists’ Statements 179 perhaps more so than a painting or a piece of music alone. The use of arbitrary shapes and the choice of a limited repertory of manipulation in video space would permit the formulation of a computer program that acts as a true color organ. On first glance, Visic may appear to be just another plaything for creating screen designs. However, I believe that Visic would create visual flow and allow object manipulation of color and form. It is my feeling that Visic could be a new and meaningful art form with powerful aesthetic import. References and Notes 1. A complete summary of the history of “seeing music” is given by Bulat M. Galeyev, “The Fire of Prometheus,” Leonardo 21, No. 4, 383–396 (1988). More recent inventions and color-music systems are described in Lynn Pocock-Williams, “Toward the Automatic Generation of Visual Music,” Leonardo 25, No. 1, 29–36 (1992). It is a comprehensive summary of color music, including Alexander Scriabin’s Prometheus (1911) and Thomas Wilfred’s Clavilux (1922). See also Adrian B. Klein, Color Music : The Art of Light (London, C. Lockwood, 1926) or Adrian B. Klein, Colored Light, An Art Medium, 3rd Ed. (London: Technical Press, 1937). 2. Other arrangements or types of keyboards are also possible (for example, organ-like dual keyboards with foot pedals). Also, orchestras of Visic keyboards are conceivable. The screen could be large or small, direct or laser-projected. 3. See Jose C. Sanchez Mayendia and Carmen Alzola Domingo, “Perceptual Analysis of a Two-Dimensional Image Generated within a Square,” Leonardo 25, No. 2, 205–210 (1992). See also Peter Kivy, The Fine Art of Repetition: Essays in the Philosophy of Music (Cambridge, U.K.: Cambridge Univ. Press, 1993) for a discussion of the abstract possibilities of moving form. CONCRETE AMNESIA: AN INDIGENOUS STAR MAP RESURFACES THE DOWNTOWN GRID Scott Parsons, 1570 S. Fenton St., Lakewood , CO 80232, U.S.A. E-mail: . Received 13 July 1998. Accepted for publication by Roger F. Malina. Brief glimpses into the deep past are rare, but are possible on occasion through the cracks and in-between places of the modern-day world. Among the shadows cast onto California Street by Denver’s downtown skyline , Ha-no-oo: Star Calendar (Color Plate B No. 3) portrays the celestial vault in 21 Native American languages of the Colorado region. Named after the Arapaho word for galaxy, Ha-no-oo is a record of the familiar starscape in a massive, site-specific public artwork emFig . 4. Scott Parsons, Ha-no-oo: Star Calendar, site-specific star map of 1,500 waterjet-cut granite stones at light rail station, Denver, Colorado, 71.3 ft long, 1997. Schematic of mosaic. 180 Artists’ Statements bedded in the sidewalk at a busy light rail stop in downtown Denver. Sky, land and language combine in ageless geometry to transform a city sidewalk into a ten-thousand-year journey across the night skies of Colorado. Stars The installation stretches to a length of 71.3 feet and comprises a mosaic of 1,500 pieces of stone. The central axis of the design follows the 4- and 16-hour right-ascension lines across the sky in a north polar projection; all the stars shown in the mosaic can be viewed at some point during the year in the sky overhead (Fig. 4). One of my main aims in this work was to include terms from a large number of Native American languages, so over 4 years I researched the native names of the stars with the help of tribal elders throughout the western United States. I then had each name inlaid within the star field in stone as a testament to the variety of languages and cultures of this region . The stone letter forms I used for the star names are a design I based upon Ssiquoya syllabary, Arapaho symbols and several contemporary Roman typeface designs, including Jonathan Barnbrook’s “Mason Sans” from Émigré digital type foundry. I completed the floor plan on a Power Macintosh in Adobe Illustrator and then sent it to Creative Edge Corporation in Fairfield, Iowa, for water-jet stone cutting directly from the Encapsulated Postscript (EPS...

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