Visual Music: Searching for an Aesthetic

Tom DeWitt

Abstract-If the nonverbal and emotionally evocative aesthetic of music is to be extended to visual art, we mustexamine the psychology of sight and the intuitive uses of this psychology by visual artists. The structure of theeye, the nerve connections between the eye and the brain, and the visual cortex can give us clues as to howhuman perception is uniquely sensitive. These sensitivities, amplified through the self-expression of artists,can induce emotional responses that are more related to the form of the expression than to the content of theimagery. Works by the author and by other artists who influenced him are used to illustrate these points.

I. INTRODUCTIONDuring the nineteenth century, Helmholtz [1]studied the relationship between musicalharmony and the human perceptual apparatus.His discoveries can guide an investigation intothe relationship between music and visual art,not because he uncovered a direct correlation,but because his method of analysis can be usedto find one. In a key finding, Helmholtzconcluded that we appreciate the geometricprogression in sound frequencies because ourears seem to produce these overtones even inthe absence of their physical presence. In otherwords, we enjoy the art born from the subtlemanipulation of our aural psychology.

If we apply this methodology to sight, it isreasonable to suggest that the eye has intrinsicphysical properties that point toward anaesthetic. The centric structure of the retinawith its logarithmic density of sensor cellsradiating from the fovia, the cone androd retinal cells that are sensitiverespectively to color and monochrome,the crossing of left/right eye neurons inthe optic nerve chiasma, and theprocessing of the visual cortex itself areall unique psychological phenomenathat must be examined.

II. VISUAL HARMONYInteresting work has been pursued byChaikin and Schwartz at the New YorkUniversity Brain Research Lab,showing how visual processing mightwork [2, 3]. Noting that cells in the eyeand brain are distributed in a polarcoordinate system, as opposed to theCartesian coordinates that usually areused in computational geometry, theypostulated that our visual

Tom DeWitt (multi-media artist), Image ProcessingLaboratory, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy,NY 12180, U.S.A.Received 7 July 1986.

© 1987 ISASTPergamon Journals Ltd.Printed in Great Britain.0024-094X/87 $3.00+0.00

apparatus simplifies some image processingproblems, particularly geometric rotation. Theirmodel of visual perception and cognition seemsto be related to an aesthetic that I developedindependently in my art.

In 1974 I produced a work calledPhilharmonia [4], which was based on thelogarithmic spiral. It was realized using anaudio synthesizer to draw pictures. If a sine andits cosine wave form are displayed on anoscilloscope as the vertical and horizontalinputs, a circle or oval will be produced. Ifthese wave forms are amplitude modulated bywave forms at frequencies higher than the sinewave frequency, the circle is pinched into ashape like a flower or a rose window. Thepetals move dynamically but are stable

when the modulating frequency is at integralmultiples of the sine wave frequency. Thepattern in the petal leaves is determined by thetimbral qualities (wave shape) of themodulating wave form. An image made by thistechnique is shown in Fig. 1. Since the processwas realized with an audio synthesizer, I wasable to record a sound track simultaneously.

My endeavors in this area were by no meansthe first. Probably the most impressive formalbody of work of this type was realized by theWhitney brothers, James and John Sr. I hadbeen influenced by these artists at thebeginning of my filmmaking career, and in1965 I approached John seeking anapprenticeship. He declined my request but did

Fig. 1. Frame from Studies for Philharmonia, videotape, 1974 showing a pentatonic petal made usingthe algorithms of digital harmony. The lobes of the flower correspond to the harmony of a

simultaneously created musical composition.

LEONARDO, Vol. 20, No. 2, pp. 15-122, 1987

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share his teaching with the entire world bypublishing a treatise on the subject, DigitalHarmony [5], in which he described hissimple and effective algorithms for producinga pleasing time variant image by modulatingspirals. These can be described as digitalcomputer programs, providing amuch-needed notation for the emergingvisual music art form.

In my efforts to notate, I resorted toconventional musical practices, a linear stripof notes on paper. I used graph paper and aform of notation explored in this century bysuch artists as Villa-Lobos and Gershwin—skyline notation. The choice was premised onan automated score reader I was developing.The notated graph paper was placed onregistration pins, much like those used in cellanimation, and a video camera converted it toan electronic signal. An electronic circuitreduced the video image to a set of timedpulses which corresponded to the position ofeach note on each line, and this could be readby a small computer.

My idea was to liberate the artist from theelectronic music studio by allowing notationat the piano or simply from memory, just ascomposers score for orchestras. I started todevelop the machine to read scores in 1976,when electronic music equipment was onlyslightly more accessible to composers thanprofessional orchestras. By the time the workwas published in 1981 [6], the modest priceof home computer systems had providedcomposers with accessible tools forcomposition. Digital music synthesizers withpiano keyboards have since becomeubiquitous.

My notation for visual harmony presumedthat a composition was to be constructedfrom a fixed vocabulary of visual notes, muchlike the diatonic scale. John Whitney affirmsthis assumption of mine. In a mannerremarkably similar to aural harmony,logarithmic spirals have stable structures onlyat fixed intervals of frequency. If a pianokeyboard is used for a musical performance,it can be used simultaneously to producevisual harmony based on Whitney's digitalharmony. A demonstration of this techniquecame in 1974 when Laurie Spiegel, PhilEdelstein, Randy Cohen and I recorded"Studies for Philharmonia" in a liveimprovisational setting.

Perhaps the piano keyboard is a suitableperformance tool for visual harmony; afterall, it has become commonplace as aninterface to sophisticated musicalsynthesizers. However, I have often thoughtthat the universal use of the piano keyboardis an anachronism forced on us by thetechnical evolution of the

piano. If chordal structures are desired duringa piano performance, the physical size of twohands is imposed on the composition. Ipropose that we construct cluster keyboardsbased on that more recently evolved digitalinterface, the typewriter. With atwo-dimensional keyboard, virtually any 10notes could be played simultaneously.

When computers are used to make visualor aural music, they can be programmed tocreate a polyphony from a single command.Consider the implementation of a graphicmouse by Laurie Spiegel [7]. In hercomputer-based instrument, thetwo-dimensional position of the graphicscreen cursor, as controlled by a mouse ortrackball, triggers the production of chordalstructures. I have proposed a similarperformance controller based on my trackingsystem, Pantomation. In this system, thethree-dimensional movement of a conductor'sbaton is interpreted by a music program as aninteractive control for changes in the music[8].

III. COLOR

Universal agreement on a color aesthetichas not yet been reached, nor is there a set ofrules correlating music tones and visualcolors. This contrasts with Western musictheory, which long ago settled on a set ofaural frequencies, suggestively named thechromatic scale, upon which generations ofcomposers have built aesthetic architecture.John Whitney reflects on this difficultproblem of achieving a formalism for colorwhen he writes:

I confess my own puzzlementdespite nearly forty years of colorfilmmaking . . . . One propoundstheories for the use and effect ofcolor; I make a new plan with eachfilm. Rarely have the best ideaslived up to expectations [9].

However, on the simplest level, one canconsider the important threshold betweenmonochrome (black/white) and color. I foundthis transition to trigger a psychologicalrelease with emotional connotations. In myfirst film, AtmosFear [10], I used a timedissolve from a city skyline in color to ahigh-contrast monochrome image of identicalcomposition which establishes a day-to-nightfeeling. This is followed by coloredabstractions superimposed above the skyline,leading to jazzy city neon night scenes. Thefilm ends with a dramatic voyage alongrailroad tracks, the movement of the track tiesmade more stark by

the high-contrast, black-and-white film stockused to record the image.

The superimposition of a color patternover a black-and-white pattern places thecolor pattern in sharper relief. In Koan [11],richly saturated flesh tones in the foregroundimage are juxtaposed over mutedbackgrounds (Color Plate No. 1). The eyesees the muted background as distant andremote. Yet the background motif wasactually derived by electronically tracking themovement of the foreground subject, acouple clapping hands. Technically speaking,the background in this image is an integralpart of the foreground image, but the use of amuted color scheme for the backgroundresulted in a clear sense of separationbetween the hands in the foreground and thesky-like background their movement created.

Perhaps because the monochrome retinalneurons, called rods, are more sensitive tolight than the color-sensitive cones are, thetransition from black and white to color canproduce the sensation of awakening. As ourlevel of visual perception grows in increasedamplitudes of light, visual perceptionchanges from black and white to color. Myfilm, The Leap [12], pivots on thismonochrome to color transition, in that themoment of denouement—a leap fromconfusion to enlightenment—is accompaniedby the introduction of color into the motif.The reverse transition from color to black andwhite leaves a feeling of release into twilight.I suggested this to Dean Winkler when hewas producing First Experiment with Bryon'sSolids [13], and the effect can be observed inhis tape's finale: intensely colored geometricobjects transform to black and white beforethey fade out completely.

Another interesting psychological effect ofblack and white seems to be its associationwith the factual as opposed to the emotional.Our emotions are often described as colors,e.g. green with envy, blue with heartbreak,red with anger. Newspapers and journals, byway of contrast, fulfill their primary roleswithout the use of color. We speak of thefacts in black and white. In my film, Fall[14], I represented the impersonal face of themachines of war in black and white. Theseimages were then processed into colors of fireto portray their emotional connotations. Inmy videotape, This Is TV— America [15], acommentator is recorded in color in front of asequence of television commercials shown inblack and white. The black and white is a foilfor the commentator's skin tones, but moreimportantly, the black-and-white presentationof the once-glossy color

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commercials makes them easier to view withobjective detachment—the goal of the spokencommentary.

IV. THE DEPTH DIMENSION

It was not long ago in musical history thatthe stereo revolution swept a new wave ofaudiophile instruments into the mass market.Visual stereo also enjoyed a moment ofcommercialization in the early 1950s, butpublic interest proved ephemeral. However,one should remember that the genre in whichstereo visualizations were used during thisperiod was almost exclusively the genre ofthose dark melodramas, horror films. Such abase exploitation cannot be considered adefinitive test of aesthetic merit, although wecan conclude that the stereo effect, whichinvolves, in part, the joining of the opticnerves at the chiasma, has the power to excitethe psyche. It is my personal contention thatthree-dimensional pro-

jection of moving images will return to theforefront of cinema art with the emergence ofvisual music.

One of the leaders in this field, VibekeSorensen, has been producing three-dimensional computer graphics since 1975.She has been perfecting the stereorepresentation of solid objects through aseries of gallery installations, e.g. MicroFishe [16]. I drew much inspiration from myassociation with Sorensen while participatingin the film Hot Wax [17]. I converted somestill frames from this piece into parallaxbarrier stereograms, a form of stereo-pairphotograph that can be viewed withoutwearing special glasses [18]. Recently Idemonstrated that this technique can beapplied to make flat panel computer graphicsdisplays, such as plasma panels, intogoggleless three-dimensional displays. Suchdisplays could be combined with myPantomation system, mentioned above as acontroller for music, to detect the position inthree-dimensional space of a movable stylus.

This allows an artist to draw in threedimensions. Further experimentation hasresulted in my invention of a monocularrangefinder that can be used to acquire thesurface coordinates of solid objects [ 19].

Like Sorensen, I have produced a series ofstill images for viewing with stereoscopicviewers. What motivates my work is theconcept of extending the colors, textures, andsensibilities of Impressionist painting into thethree-dimensional realm. Although much oftwentieth-century visual art has created flatrepresentations of three-dimensional space[20], I have developed computer programsthat convert two-dimensional images intostereo-pair renderings of three-dimensionalimages. This technique uses the grey tones ofan image as a code for depth information.The concept is borrowed from topographicalmapping, but it can be generalized for mostsurfaces. Fig. 2 shows a grey scale encodedlandscape. Fig. 3 shows its stereo rendering.

Fig. 2. A computer-generated topographical view of a synthetic landscape. The image contains enough information for three-dimensional rendering.The horizontal and vertical dimensions are the plane of the photograph, and the third dimension is encoded as levels of grey.

118 DeWitt, Visual Music

Fig. 3. Two renderings of the landscape at slight angles of rotation form a stereo pair, viewable with a stereopticon. Photograph from current work with theIBM 7350 Image Processing System at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY.

V. THE TIME DIMENSIONIn discussing how the psychology of

perception might imply a visual aestheticsimilar to music, I began with characteristicsof the eye and progressed to the stereo effectof the optic nerve linking the eye and brain.But what aesthetic grows uniquely from theprocessing of visual images in the brain?Clearly this question will raise many morequestions, because the working of the brain isnot fully understood. Consider, therefore, anentry level question: How fast do we think?Peter Mark Roget observed in the earlynineteenth century that a sequence of staticimages appears to be joined together ifpresented at rates above 12 frames persecond. This psychological phenomenon isthe basis for motion picture techniques. Withthe advent of moving pictures, the timedimension was introduced into a visual art,and it was here that artists became creative incinema, cutting the film.

The persistence of vision closely matchesour aural perception, that is, discrete soundevents become continuous tones at about 20cycles per second. Like the reduction of ascore into beats and measures, films are madeof frames and shots. The film medium invitesartists to become visual musicians, dividingup time according to a sense of change.Hence, one aesthetic that music can teachvisual artists is that of tempo.

In my work with light shows in the sixties,I began to make film loops. Made for freneticrock and roll music, the loops included alibrary of flicker frames, alternating clear andopaque frames at

frequencies of 12 to 2 flashes per second.During performance, the rhythm loops wouldbe bipacked in the projector with loops ofmotion images. This work eventuated in OffOn [21], a film built from these loops (Fig.4). Similarly, at the finale of Fall, Ideveloped a sequence with the working title"Inevitable Rhythms" made from loops withinterwoven rapid and repetitive cuts.Sometimes I have been asked to warnaudiences of the danger this film could posefor epileptics, a warning based on theiroccasional seizures at rock concerts or instroboscopic light. The seizures seem to beinduced by stimuli occurring at a rate close tothe speed of thought.

Although formalisms for tempo in musicaltheory have been challenged recently [22], itis instructive for visual artists to study thetraditional structures upon which most musicis based. I assume that moving pictures canhave tempi ranging from largo to presto, justas music does. Often we see exciting scenesthat are rapidly cut and lyrical scenes that arestructured on shots of relatively longduration. To produce moving pictures on apar with music, it might be advisable tocontinue this formalism further, so that theexact duration of time between cuts would bebased on a set beat frequency eithersubdivided by rational fractions orlengthened by integral multiples. Certainly,music has shown that this simple schemeappeals to an innate rhythmic sensibility inour psychology.

In Off On, The Leap, Fall, Philharmoniaand The Rhythm Machine [23], among otherpieces, rhythms were established

not solely by cutting between disparatescenes but by more subtle changes within animage during a given shot. Loosely phrased,the geometry was jumpy. If one imagines thetotal image to be a kind of visual orchestra,the percussive beat-keeping was made by astroboscopic emphasis of image subelements.In this way, I was able gradually to develop avisual idea, something akin to a musicalmelody, while sustaining immediate dramathrough rhythmic structure.

Rhythm can be sensed visually by discretespatial changes in the viewing plane. Ourvisual perception is keyed to moving objects.They call special attention to themselves inthe context of otherwise static imagery. Thissensitivity to movement is anothercharacteristic of visual psychology that hasbeen important in developing a visual musicaesthetic. Autonomous rapid eye movements,called saccades by psychologists, are anindication of mental activity. The brain isconstantly commanding change in its visualsensory input. The eyes and head arerepositioned to lend animation to staticobjects. A visual artist working in motionmedia such as film can provide the movementdeliberately for the sake of expressingfeeling. Rapid movement might provideexcitement; slow movement might induce amore languid feeling.

In my films, deliberate control ofmovement is a primary concern. InAtmosFear, for example, a zoom carries theviewer through a tunnel to a dirty city street.The movement is slow, deliberate, andirresistible. The viewer is deposited in ascene by a kind of irreversible force

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This contrasts with the light headed circularpans of the Brooklyn Bridge which mighthave been inspired by a view of the worldfrom a child's swing. At the conclusion of thefilm, the eye is taken on a rapid course alongelevated subway tracks. The intention was toend on a note of visual excitement.

This is not to say that the mind alwaysfocuses on a moving object. If a backgroundshifts rapidly while a foreground remainsstatic, the mind tends to cling to the staticforeground image. We can establish thefeeling of rising or falling by showing anobject in a fixed position against abackground that moves down or up. Suchfeelings are akin to musical sensations; theyhave a universal nonverbal meaning. Much ofthe second half of Fall shows a skydiverdescending against synthetic patterns thatmove upwards. Being the focus of theimagery, the parachutist never leaves theframe. However, the ascending patternsemphasize the sense of descent. Our brainshave an instinctive emotional response to thevisualization of falling, which was suitablefor my composition devoted to the fall ofIcarus.

VI. SYMMETRYOne of the most common intellectual

constructs is polar duality, the symmetry ofopposites. In living nature, bilateralsymmetry is found everywhere, from mirrorimage sub-microscopic molecules to themacro-structures of organisms. The eyes, theoptic nerves and the brain itself are structuredaccording to bilateral symmetry. Followingthe logic of this investigation, the aestheticsof symmetry are suggested by thesebiological systems. Mirror-image symmetry,that is, symmetry along a vertical axis, isuniquely visual, because it is the mostprevalent. We see it in our bodies, and wemay well feel it in our brains.

The hypnotic effect of symmetrical imageswas introduced to me by Scott Bartlett, whodeveloped the second half of Off On by usingsymmetrical image printing techniques. Thesection was very successful aesthetically andleft a deep impression on me [24]. However,I felt that the quadrilateral symmetry used insome shots was less striking, moremechanical and compulsive in feeling thanthe technically less complex bilateral mirrorimage symmetries in other sequences.

I first used symmetry in my project, TheLeap (1969). A dancer moves in front of abarrier. As originally filmed, the dancermoved constantly to the left, tracked by acamera pan. When the image was printed

superimposed over its mirror symmetry, atension was created, focused on the middle ofthe frame (Fig. 5). To my eye, the dancercould not 'escape' the image frame, but eachmovement tightened the focus on a visualenclosure. In the symmetrical image, thedancer was always reaching toward the centerof the frame, counterposed against himself.The image worked well in a visual poem thatdealt with the dilemma of being trapped in anexternally imposed definition of one's ownpersonality.

In The Leap I used symmetry thematically,but symmetry also has a purely decorativeeffect, most clearly seen in anothercollaborative venture, Calypso Cameo [25],which was based on a process called'dynamarhythmic symmetry' [26]. Rather thanstrictly bilateral, these symmetries are createdby rotating geometric primitives around acenter axis. The effect is similar to Whitney'svisual harmonies, but the technicaldescription is quite different. Thesesymmetries are formed by the relationship ofthe ratios between the sides of a two-dimensional geometric object and the angleof rotation. In the case of the perfectrectangle, the rotation describes a series ofrectangles of decreasing size, each with thesame ratio between the sides. In fact, it wasthis relationship that the Pythagoreans usedto describe the square root of the number 2.

At the time of this writing I am usingbilateral symmetry in visual musicperformance. The Pantomation system,described above, is used to control a laserprojector. The movement of the artist isprojected in bilateral symmetry, so eachmovement appears as a symmetrical pattern. Ihave used the effect both for abstractsequences and to draw representationalimages such as faces, birds, and butterflies.

VII. THRESHOLDBORDERS-DRAWING

Artists often begin a painting bydrawing outlines of areas they plan to fillin later with detailed brushwork. Inkeeping with the methodology of thisinquiry into the development of a visualaesthetic, we must make special note ofhow artists pursue the development oftheir arts. If visual artists use outlinedrawing as a method of organizingimages, we must consider the aestheticimplied by such draughtsmanship.Additionally, we note recent studies inpsychology which have indicated that thebrain processes visual imagery byperceiving thresholds of change in imageintensity [27]. These thresholds are the

Fig. 4. Frame from Off On, film, 1967. Asequence of 10 frames indicating a rhythmicstructure of 3 x 3, 2 x 2. This rhythm isaccentuated by alternating negative and positivepolarities.

Fig. 5. Frame from The Leap, film, 1969. Thebilateral symmetry of a dancer and hisenvironment force the eye to the image center,reinforcing a thematic motif, imprisonment.The sequence of images gives some impressionof the movement.

120 DeWitt, Visual Music

outline edges of solid image areas. Outlineinformation can be extracted fromphotographs by electronic or photographicprocesses. We can express what we see byextracting outline information from scenes ofcomplex shading.

My first use of outlines came inAtmosFear, where I used both the Sabatiersolarization effect [28] and off-registerprinting of negative and positive images.Almost a decade after this work, I was usingan electronic outline generator, particularlyfor my pantomime piece, War Mime [29], inwhich an image is echoed for manyiterations, each echo represented by anadditional outline. The effect is related to thatachieved by McLaren in Pas de Deux [30],although his outlines were achieved simplythrough lighting. In Just a Day in the Life of...[31], 1 used the outline generator to

show an out-of-body experience, as thereclining figure falls through its outline (Fig.6). One can see literally from this image howan outline 'falls' out from an image with solidshading.

I appreciate the efficiency of outlines,because in computer graphics the amount ofmemory required to store an image is often alimiting factor. My Pantomation systemreduces complex scenes to a few key pointsforming an outline in space. One can drawwith it as one would with a pencil. Theefficiency of outline generation permitted meto store images in a microcomputer withouttaxing either its memory or processing power[32, 33]. Some of my work today is focusedon algorithms for converting raster-scannedimages such as television into a simplifiedvector format for display with a laserprojector. The type of laser projector I use iscapable only of making outline drawings[34].

VIII. BOUNDED AREAS-PAINTINGOnce an image is sketched in outline, it

may be completed by filling the outlinedareas with solid color. This procedure iscommon as a painting technique. Are thererelated aesthetic considerations? The brain iscapable of recognizing images that arepartially blocked or occluded from view byopaque foreground objects. Contrast thisvisual mechanism with hearing. The ear maybe exposed to the summation of manysimultaneous sounds, but the brain extractscoherent information from subsets of the totalsound environment. This is a process ofsubtracting from our immediate awarenessunwanted elements of a complex audio waveform. However, when the eye sees anoccluded object, the brain fills in the missingelements, completing the process ofrecognition by adding pieces.

Fig. 6. Frame from Just a Day in the Life of..., videotape, 1975. The outline of a mime literally shows how edge information 'falls out' from shadedsolid fields. The simplified outline, like the clown-white face of the mime, is elegant in its simplicity.

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Such a powerful mental mechanism issurely a springboard for aestheticdiscovery. The process bears a similarityto painting, that is, filling in contiguouslybounded areas with solid imagery. Thepainter decides what portion of anoccluded image to reveal. The decisionmay be made to facilitate the viewer'smental reconstruction of a blocked objector to tease the viewer with a hint ofsomething missing.

The simplest form of creativejudgement in creating bounded areas isthe cropping or framing of an image. Herethe artist imposes a limit on the field ofview within the artwork. For thefilmmaker or video artist, this frame isfixed by convention. However, the motionmedia such as film and video offer theartist a new horizon, the ability to changethe parameters of interior occlusions as afunction of time.

The creative team of WTV (DeanWinkler, Tom DeWitt and Vibeke

Sorensen) explored the aesthetics ofmotion painting by investigatingtechniques that reproduce the aesthetics oftwo types of painting: watercolors andmatte knife oil painting. In Aquarelles[35], bounded areas were sortenedelectronically and the colors within thebounded areas were allowed to flow intonearby spaces (Fig. 7). Moreover, thecolors within a bounded area weredynamically mixed over time by recursivefeedback through a digital frame buffer.The effect made the colors run together,as if in a water medium. The videotapeKoan followed a different procedure.Here bounded areas were sharply divided,as if cut by a matte knife (Color Plate No.1). The most recently created imageappears in the foreground and occludesthe remnants of previous frames whichhave been accumulated in a digital framebuffer.

The key to much of this work is calledexactly that: keying. The term is used invideo to describe a process by which

images are electronically combined. Ingraphic art and modern pictures, the termcommonly used for this technique ismatting. The artist creates a compositeimage by overlaying discrete images. Thesensibility of the artist determines whereto place images so that occludedbackground objects will be sensed in theirentirety. The matte or key determineswhere these occlusions will occur and thetransparency of the foreground image.As my work progressed intothreedimensional representation of solidobjects, I encountered a related graphicdevice, hidden line removal. Inthreedimensional space, occlusions areimplied by the distance of an object fromthe viewer. Objects closest to the eyeocclude all others further back along eachline of sight. Although this may seemintuitively obvious, the computerprogramming required to achieve theeffect is not. A substantial effort is nowunderway to achieve efficient methods forhidden line

Fig. 7. Frame from Aquarel%s, videotape, 1980. A sharply edged five-pointed star oozes into a watery surrounding, much as watercolorsspread on a wet substrate. This electronic technique helps build a bridge from motion graphics to a traditional painting medium.

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removal in computer-generated graphics.Perhaps such research can be said to confirmthat the development of the visual arts ismotivated by the unique characteristics of thepsychology of perception.

IX. CONCLUSION

A new art form, visual music, is emerging.Its aesthetic can be deduced partially byexamining key features of human visualperception: the structure of the eye, the nervepathways from the eye to the visual cortex,and functional characteristics of the brain.The precursors to visual music are traditionalmusic and visual art, and their aesthetics arequite relevant in instructing the infant artform. The artists working in visual music areguided by an intuitive grasp of how certainimages can directly induce emotionalresponses. The natural genius of suchcreators must be respected as an indicator fordirections to be taken by the art. This is anexciting era, for we are witnessing the birthof a branch in the cultural tree. If theimportance of aural music is any indication,visual music may become a major vehicle forartistic self-expression.

Acknowledgements-The author would like tothank Jim Modestino, Director of the RPI ImageProcessing Laboratory, for providing acess tophotographic and computing facilities. MadlynDeWitt, the author's mother, has helped in manyways, and he particularly would like to thank herfor her editorial assistance in preparing thismanuscript.

REFERENCES AND NOTES

1. H.L. Helmholtz, On the Sensations of Tone as aPsychological Basis for the Theory of Music (NewYork: Dover, 1954).

2. George Chaikin and Carl Wieman,"Logarithmic Spiral Grids for Image

Processing and Display", Computer Graphics andImage Processing 11, 197-226 (1979).

3. E.L. Schwartz, "Spatial Mapping in the PrimateSensory Projection: Analytic Structure andRelevance in Perception", Biological Cybernetics 25,181-194 (1977). Tom DeWitt, Philharmonia,videotape, 10 min., 1974, in Cathode Ray Theater(Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, New York).

5. John Whitney, Digital Harmony (New York: ByteBooks, McGraw Hill, 1980). The title is somewhatmisleading. Much of the Whitneys' work and much ofmy work were realized with analog devices.

6. Tom DeWitt, Pantomation, videotape, 10 min.,1980, in SIGGRAPH Video Review, No. 2, Section 9(1981).

7. Peter Wetzler, "Music Mouse by Laurie Spiegel",Ear Magazine of New Music 10, No. 5, 6 (NewYork: New Wilderness Foundation).

8. Tom DeWitt, "Pantomation-Scoring and PerformanceInterface", Ear Magazine of New Music 9, No. 5, 68(New York: New Wilderness Foundation, Fall 1985).

9. John Whitney [5] p. 90.10. Tom DeWitt, AtmosFear, film, 6 min., 1966

(Distributed by Museum of Modern Art, New York).11. WTV, Koan, videotape, 3 min., 1981, in TeleVisions

(Distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix, New York).12. Tom DeWitt, TheLeap, film, 8 min., 1969

(Distributed by Canyon Cinema, San Francisco).13. Dean Winkler, First Experiment with Bryon's Solids,

videotape, 5 min., 1980 (Distributed by ElectronicArts Intermix, New York).

14. Tom DeWitt, Fall, film, 16 min., 1971 (Distributedby New York Filmmakers Cooperative, New York).

15. Tom De Witt, This Is TV-America, videotape, 28min., 1979 (Distributed by Art Dept., SyracuseUniversity, Syracuse, NY).

16. Vibeke Sorensen, Micro Fishe et al., stereophotographs,1985 (Distributed by Modern VisualCommunications, Los Angeles).

17. Vibeke Sorensen, Hot Wax, film, 30 min., 1978.18. Sam H. Kaplan, "Theory of Parallax Barriers",

Journal of the Society of Motion Picture andTelevision Engineers 59, 11-21 (July 1952).

19. Tom DeWitt, "Rangefinding by Diffraction", U.S.Patent.

20. Robert Hughes, The Shock of the New, (New York:Knopf, 1981). Hughes is hardly the first critic toobserve how twentieth-century art flattened theimage, but he eloquently presents this observation inboth a book and a companion television series.

21. Scott Bartlett, Tom DeWitt et al., Off On, film, 10min., 1967 (Distributed by Museum of Modern Art,New York).

22. John Cage, Silence, lectures and writings, 1961(Middletown, CT: Wesleyan Univ. Press, 1961).John Whitney takes exception to Cage's views onmusic and makes an argument advocating a return toharmony. Cage's rejection of traditional rhythmicstructures calls for a similar rebuttal.

23. Tom DeWitt, Joel Chadabe, George Kindler, VibekeSorensen, The Rhythm Machine, videotape, 10 min.,1979.

24. Tom DeWitt, "Off On, The Binary Hangup", FilmMagazine (San Francisco State College), 1, No. 1,17 (1968).

25. Tom DeWitt and Vibeke Sorensen, Calypso Cameo,videotape, 2 min., 1983.

26. Edward B. Edwards, Dynamarhythmic Design (NewYork: The Century Co., 1932).

27. Tomaso Poggio, "Vision by Man and Machine",Scientific American 250, No. 4, 106 ff. (April 1985).

28. C.B. Neblette, Photography, ItsMaterials andProcesses, 6th Ed. (New York: Van NostrandReinhold, 1963) p. 218.

29. Tom DeWitt, War Mime, videotape, 4min., in Cathode Ray Theater [4].

30. Normal McLaren, Pas de Deux, film, 14 min., 1969(Distributed by Canadian Film Board).

31. Tom DeWitt,Just a Day in the Life of...,videotape, 20min., 1975.

32. Tom DeWitt and Phil Edelstein, "Pantomation-ASystem for Position Tracking", Proceedings of theSecond Symposium on Small Computers in the Arts,No. 455 (IEEE Computer Society, 1982) p. 61.

33. Tom DeWitt, "A Pantomation Interface for the AppleII", Proceedings of the Third Symposium on SmallComputers in the Arts, No. 499 (IEEE ComputerSociety, 1983) p. 25.

34. Alan Jackson, "Laser Shows-The Use ofComputers", in Proceedings . . . [33] p. 115.

35. WTV, Aquarelles, videotape, 7 min., 1980, inTeleVisions [11].

No. 1. Upper right. WTV (Dean Winkler,Tom DeWitt and Vibeke Sorensen), framefrom Koan, videotape, 1981. Thiselectronically processed image emulatesmatte knife painting in oil. Boundaries aresharply defined or are marked by straightline strokes. The color scheme deliberatelymutes the saturation of the background,although electronically the ‘sky’ was formedby tracking the movement of the hands in theforeground. (See Artist’s Article by TomDeWitt).

No. 2. Center. Liliane Lijn, A Ritual Dialogue:Woman of War and Lady of the Wild Things(Woman of War, painted steel, aluminium,synthetic fibres, glass tank prism, aluminiummesh, glass beads, piano wire, audio system, 5milliwatt helium-neon laser, smoke machine andcomputer, 8’9” high, 1986; Lady of the WildThings, painted steel, synthetic fibres, opticalglass prism, aluminium mesh, light emittingdiodes and a sound-to-light microprocessingsystem, 8’ high with an 8’wing spread, 1983).These sculptures are female archetypesperforming a ritual dialogue. One is aggressivelyactive, whereas the other is reflectively passive.Together they form a communicative whole.

No. 3. Lower right. Hand-blown cups for themodern glass harmonica, made of resilientsemi-conductor-grade fused quartz glass.Each cup is shaped, then tuned either bygrinding or by etching and, finally, flamed.Liquid gold bands are painted and thenbaked onto the sharps and flats to markthem. Each cup sits on its own cork, which isslid onto the central steel shaft. (SeeDocument by Finkenbeiner and Meyer.)