Sonic and Visual Structures: Theory and Experiment

The author creates ‘sonic structures’, or music, not with the usual background and perspectives of a musician but with those of a visual artist. In this article he discusses first the historic spatial and temporal limitations of music and the visual arts. He then describes how, in his sonic and visual experiments, he has attempted to liberate these artforms from their traditional bounds. By programming and combining the non-material elements of space, light and time as well as the concrete forms deriving from them (such as architecture, film, video, dance and literature) he has sought to bring together various disciplines that have been separated since the Renaissance. His work involves contemporary technology, such as the computer. He foresees a ‘collective choreography’ of the visual and sonic spaces of cities, involving the creative interaction of artist and public.