Visiosonics — Developing moving images in direct response to sound — improvising with technology

ABSTRACT

‘Visiosonics’ is a term proposed here to describe digital audio-visual artworks (multimedia) where the sonic and the visual are presented in equitable unified interactive isomorphic combination. The term is suggested to describe nonlinear configurations of sound as visual art — sound as moving image and moving image as the recognizable expressive attributes of sound. Such digital forms often involve the use of production processes where the relationships between visual and sonic components are manipulated in improvised performance with technologies involving software (MAX/MSP Jitter) and/or interface usage. Exploring relationships between the physical (kinesthetic reactive) and the cognitive (learned experience) is formative for shaping approaches to improvisation — giving insights into how we arrive at balanced creative conclusion. The production of the visual component of the DVD — Uneasy Dreams www.uneasydreams.com by the Delta Saxophone Quartet — is a point of reference for this practical and theoretical exploration. Ideas that evolved in producing this artwork are discussed referencing notions of conceptuality and practice-based analysis such as the development of digital rhythm between and within media — notions of temporality and the overlapping of coexistent chaotic systems — synaesthesia and the construct of improvising metaphor.

KEYWORDS:

• improvisation
• sonic art
• multimedia art
• nonlinear systems
• synaesthesia