Outline: Visual Imagination and Interaction in Music

Introduction

Thesis Statement and Hypothesis

Background

Perception

Sound, Visual, and Perception

Music, Visual, and Perception

Music Visualization in History 

Sheet Music

Color Organ

Futurism and Cinema

Technology

Music, Film and Music Video

Music Digitalization

Interaction

Multimedia platform

Current Situation

Problems

Lack of Imagination

Interaction between Audience and Music
Digital Music Explosion/Identity of A New Artist

Case Study

Animated Music

Disney: Fantasia

Matteo Negrin: Music Painting

Forss: City Ports

Interactive Music

Labuat: Painting A Song

Ellie Goulding: Lights

Placebo: The Never-Ending Why

The Johnny Cash Project

Projection Project

Cirque du Soleil: Zarkana

Methodology

From Music Structure to Visual Forms

Lyrics and Typography

Motion

Interface and Interaction

Solution

Project Brief

The project

Review (conclusion)

Technology

Music, Film and Music Video

Music and Film has influenced each other since the music was used in movies. Music has impacts on visual perception and vice versa. 

• In 1920s, music became an important part in films.  It guides viewers into narratives. It goes along with storytelling, mood, and clarifies the plot. 
• The influence of visual information on the perception and interpretation of music performances can indeed change the way viewers experience music.  
• In 1980s, the born of music video and music television (MTV) has a profound impact on music industry. Viewers are receivers; they receive the obvious value, and the messages on visual, and couldn’t get the metaphors in music.

Music Digitalization

In nowadays, information travels fast in digital world, and so is music. Music can be composed, updated and spread online, and can be heard a million times over night. 

In other words, it is easy to get famous, but it is also easy to fall out.

Interaction

The interaction between audience and performers has changed through technology. Audience participation is not a new concept. In 1880s, music was performed in music halls where sing alongs and audience participation took place. 

• 1880s: Music halls
• 1920s: Mass singing performances survived on sports events and clubs
• 1960s: The Beatles was born and its yellow submarine revives the music hall ideal of audience participation. 
• 1980s to present: TV, gigs, sports events, clubs, or even online.

John Cage: Creating music was a process that initiated by the composer or performer, but completed by the audience.

Example: Bobby McFerrin

As technology advanced, performances with spectacular lighting, stereo, and visual effects are common nowadays. But the more I experience it, the more I feel like we are only receivers to these technological platforms. 

Example: Superbowl 2012 and 1993

Multimedia Platform

Internet has enormously changed the way music is distributed. 

Music has to be assigned for a new value. "The product is no longer the music in and off itself. The product is the musician’s story and the experience of being part of it,”-Scooter Braun, Justin Bieber’s manager.

The role of graphic designers in collaborating with musicians can be as important as musicians itself. I believe in the co-creating environment, graphic designers and musicians can growing together, feeding and informing the other.

  

Note: Before the music dies (Documentary) 

History in Music Visualization

Sheet Music

Sheet Music is written representation of music. It is a visual language readable by musicians and performers. Before the fifteenth century, it is preserved on manuscripts. After printing became available, the effect of printed music was similar to the effect of the printed word, in that information spread faster, more efficiently and to more people that it could through manuscripts.

Color Organ

In 1895, Alexander Wallace Rimington built the clavier à lumières, or keyboards with lights. His device formed the basis of the moving lights. In 1960s and 1970s, the term color organ became popularly associated with electronic devices that responded to their music with light shows.

Example: Debussy Clair de lune

Futurism and Cinema

“The dream of creating a visual music comparable to auditory music found its fulfillment in animated abstract films by artists such as Oskar Fischinger, Len Lye and Norman McLaren”-William Moritz

Futurists have another visual approach to express the content of sound with typography. 

In Filippo Marinetti's Zang Tumb Tumb and  Les mots en liberté, he visualized the sound by type treatment. The book of Zang Tumb Tumb celebrated the Battle of Tripoli with expressive typographic methods that combined sound poetry and visual prosody. 

In Les mots en liberté, tremendous visual effects can be seen through the composition of typography. Visual imagination was required to conceive of such a work and to integrate its visual-verbal-tactile effects so thoroughly.    

1921 Hans Richter "Rhythmus 21"