Tout au long du XXe siècle, peintres et musiciens ont multiplié des formes d'échanges qui vont bien au-delà des parallélismes auxquels ont été trop souvent réduites les relations entre disciplines artistiques. A cet égard, les expérimentations menées par les futuristes et les dadaïstes au début du siècle, de même que les démarches de Kandinsky, Klee ou de Mondrian, ont constitué de précieux catalyseurs pour les artistes qui souhaitaient dépasser les catégories conventionnelles. Ainsi, le temps va devenir une composante concrète d'un travail plastique. L'espace prend place comme une dimension à part entière d'un projet musical. Un objet sonore est envisagé sous le double aspect de son apparence visuelle et de ses conséquences acoustiques. Les nouvelles technologies elles-mêmes se situent au croisement de différents modes d'expression. Autant de manières de questionner un art par un autre et de conduire à de fertiles débats d'idées.
Music has inspired some of the most progressive art of our time from the abstract painting of Wassily Kandinsky and Frantisek Kupka to the mid-century experimental films of Oskar Pischinger and Harry Smith to contemporary installations by Jennifer Steinkamp and Jim Hodges. While early abstract paintings tended to approach music metonymically, the colour organs, films, light shows and installations from midtwentieth century to the present day engage a range of perceptual faculties to create a plethora of sensations in the viewer.The most complete examination of this phenomenon to date, "Visual Music" features ninety major works of art plus related documentation, focusing on abstract and mixed-media art forms and their connections to musical forms as varied as classical, jazz and electronica. The book includes three scholarly essays, each discussing a distinct art historical period in depth, and an additional essay by Olivia Mattis that approaches the subject from a musicologists perspective, as well as a chronology, artist biographies and a selected bibliography.
'It was five o'clock in the afternoon. There can be no doubt whatever as to that. Old Agnes may say what she pleases--she has a habit of doing so--but I know for certain (because I looked at my watch not ten minutes before it happened) that it was exactly five o'clock in the afternoon when I received a most singular and every way remarkable visit--a visit which has left an indelible impression on my memory, as well it might; for, independent of its singularity and unexpectedness, one of its results was the series of strange adventures which are faithfully detailed in this volume. It happened thus:-'
From the early abstract animation films created at the start of this century to the latest in technologically oriented films, here is a comprehensive anthology of cinematic animation. It brings together over 50 interviews and first-person accounts that describe the work of 38 innovative artist-filmmakers. Such pioneers as Alexander Alexeieff and Claire Parker, Hans Richter, Vicking Eggerling, and Oskkar Fishinger are alongside the recent avant-garde of Robert Breer, Harry Smith, Stan VanDer Beek, Peter Foldes, and Ed Emschweiller. With nearly 300 illustrations, a filmography, a glossary of technical terms, and a list of distributors, this is the first important sourcebook for an emerging art.