Sunday 31 August 2014 || It can be argued that Visual Music, as an idea, was initiated in the 1920s by Oskar Fischinger, who was active as an artist in Frankfurt and Berlin. He invented techniques whereby a series of frames, showing abstract images, were put together as short films. His innovation caught the attention of Hollywood where, in 1926, he emigrated but, unfortunately, achieved only very limited success. Walt Disney used some of his ideas in Fantasia but gave him no credit.
When: Sunday 31 August 2014
Venue: QA065, Queen Anne Court
Duration: 15 mins
Time: 19.45 - 20.00
Performance by Terry Trickett
Abstract
Now, almost a century after Fischinger, we can continue to explore the Intrinsic relationship between music and images using all the advanced technology currently available. New ways of juxtaposing two art forms can now be found to generate what I will call a ‘synaesthetic’ experience for audiences. By this I mean engaging the senses of people both aurally and visually at one and the same time.
In my own explorations of Visual Music, I combine computational design with clarinet playing. It is by bringing together traditional musical skills and state-of-the-art image technology that I aim to achieve, in my performances, an equal balance between art and music. For a demonstration at DRHA 2014, I’m proposing to include two examples: Cavalcade and Three Arabesques.
The initial visual idea for Cavalcade was sparked off by a musical composition for clarinet. Apart from developing the idea visually, by manipulating Processing code to produce a video, I provide the sound track, live, on solo clarinet.
In ‘Three Arabesques’ I give full rein to my lifelong fascination with the complex geometry of Islam. By playing a mathematical game based on hexagons, I produce patterns which take flight into a realm of geometric fantasy. In performing this work, I play one part of Poulenc’s Sonata for Two Clarinets live; the other part is recorded.