Music of Sound and Light: Xenakis’s Polytopes

This article explores the audiovisual installations of Greek composer and architect Iannis Xenakis, focusing on the works he calls “polytopes.” The term polytope captures the complexity of the spatial designs and multiple spaces of these unusual light-and-sound works, which have often used thousands of lights and hundreds of loudspeakers. Xenakis’s polytopes are examined in their aesthetic and cultural context; the discussion of this original form of avant-garde art includes a survey of its forms, functions and reception.