THE SOUNDSCORE TO heartBEAT: A NARRATIVE-FORM MUSIC ...
THE SOUNDSCORE TO heartBEAT: A NARRATIVE-FORM MUSIC ... THE SOUNDSCORE TO heartBEAT: A NARRATIVE-FORM MUSIC ...
Svnaestheric Art Synaesthesia also refers to a class of artworks which attempts to combine media, engaging two or more senses simultaneously with a single presentation. It is in this sense that heartBEAT may be regarded as synaesthetic. Image, music, spoken text, graphics and sound effects are combined and presented through the medium of television. Synaes±etic conventions can be observed across a broad historical range of creative thought. Synaesthetic elements constitute central aesthetic features of such established artforms as opera and ballet Most recently, film and television have emerged as important new synaesthetic artforms, and are enjoying growing attention by both artists and the public as serious aesthetic media. Aristotle Historical Thought The plausibility of a link between the senses was discussed as early as the fourth century B.C. by Aristotie. He believed that our ability to perceive sensation lies in a single faculty of perception. May we not, then, conceive this faculty which perceives white and sweet to be one qua indivisible in its actualization, but different, when it has become divisible in its actualization.-^ Aristotle believed that taste, sight, hearing, touch and smell were monitored simultaneously by this one sense. Individual sensations were combined by the beholder into the perception of an object (or experience) as a whole. Newton Isaac Newton believed that a physical relationship existed between sound and light and attempted numerous models of his theory in drafts for the Opticks."^ Newton theorized that, as light and sound share in a basic wave nature, colored light has inherent physical similarities with musical pitch. He divided the speco^m somewhat arbitr:irily into seven colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) and presented an analogy to the seven pitches of the diatonic scale. Newton went even further, however, postulating properties of light based on the principles of acoustics. He asserted that the ratio of vibrations from extreme red to extreme violet (opposite ends of the spectnim) ;ire in a 2:1 ratio of the musical octave. However, his calculations proved less conclusive in other areas, and in the final version of Opticks. Newton abandoned his attempt at establishing specific ratios for the color spectrum.
Clavicin Oculaire The first known color music system was put forth in 1734 by a Jesuit priest and scholar, Louis Bertrand Castel.^ He constructed the clavicin oculaire. or "harpsichord for the eyes," an instrument which featured an arrangement of colored tapes, attached to a keyboard, through which light was passed. These tapes were arranged according to the color spectrum, though Castel did not adopt Newton's details of pitch and color equivalences. Rhythmic alternations of keys resulted in corresponding changes in the colored tapes. Historical accounts of the clavicin oculaire suggest that its practical success was limited, due largely to technological shortcomings of the period. The Symbolists The most intense period of artistic interest in synaesthesia occurred from 1880 to 1930, beginning with the Symbolist movement in 1880. The Symbolists, led by Baudelaire, Rimbaud and others, held the notion that the primary differences among the related arts were differences only in their physical nature. Art, literature, music and drama were seen as signifiers of a single type of aesthetic experience. Charles Henry, a Symbolist artist and philosopher, predicted that man ultimately would develop "one totally dynamogeneous art."^ This was to be an integrated, synaesthetic experience designed to affect the viewer not just aesthetically, but in a holistic, restorative sense. Henry speculated that this experience would probably not even be regarded as aesthetic, but as some super-mental environment New synaesthetic combinations were actively explored during this period. Literature, long an integral element in drama, was combined synaesthetically with color in Rimbaud's sonnet Les vovelles. in which each vowel was typeset in the color in which it appeared to him (A black, E white, I red, Q blue, Ii green).^ The Song of Solomon (text by Paul Roinard, music by Flamen de Labrely), premiered in Paris in 1891, was designed to engage the senses of sight, sound and smell.^ Described as "a symphony of spiritual love in eight mystical devices and three paraphrases," the first section featured vocal recitations of the vowels I and Q, music in the key of D major, bright orange stage decorations, and the dispensing of the odor of white violet throughout the hall. Each succeeding scene had its own particular tonality, vowel combination and odor. Color Organs By the end of the nineteenth century, scientific advances in the practical application of electricity made possible the successful constniction of numerous color organs.'^
- Page 1 and 2: THE SOUNDSCORE TO heartBEAT: A NARR
- Page 3 and 4: FOREWORD The following document is
- Page 5 and 6: CONTENTS FOREWORD ii ACKNOWLEDGMENT
- Page 7: CHAPTER I HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE In
- Page 11 and 12: 5 Television Immediacy. Television,
- Page 13 and 14: CHAPTER n STRUCTURAL DIMENSIONS hea
- Page 15 and 16: 9 Before this recitation ends, the
- Page 17 and 18: 11 The Spoken Text The spoken text
- Page 19 and 20: CHAPTER m METHODOLOGY AND MATERL\LS
- Page 21 and 22: improvements over the Kurzweil syst
- Page 23 and 24: 17 Microphones Neuman U87 ShureSM81
- Page 25 and 26: Closing Section (Recapitulation) Cp
- Page 27 and 28: ENDNOTES ^ Lowrie, R. H., "Psycholo
- Page 29 and 30: 23 regular columns and features by
- Page 31 and 32: Books and Scores 25 Manuals Appia,
- Page 33 and 34: APPENDED A: SPOKEN TEXT AND GRAPHIC
- Page 35 and 36: 29 4 THOUGHTS MR shaving. Classical
- Page 37 and 38: That's all. Just real surprised. 31
- Page 39 and 40: MR in batiiroom, checking the pulse
- Page 41 and 42: 35 Tub Dance. MS bathes. MR helps M
- Page 43 and 44: Trading lines. Graphic: MR&MS Witii
- Page 45 and 46: 39 SARA This brings us back to TV.
- Page 47 and 48: 41 DAVID Thank you. KIM As some of
Svnaestheric Art<br />
Synaesthesia also refers to a class of artworks which attempts to combine media,<br />
engaging two or more senses simultaneously with a single presentation. It is in this sense<br />
that <strong>heartBEAT</strong> may be regarded as synaesthetic. Image, music, spoken text, graphics<br />
and sound effects are combined and presented through the medium of television.<br />
Synaes±etic conventions can be observed across a broad historical range of<br />
creative thought. Synaesthetic elements constitute central aesthetic features of such<br />
established artforms as opera and ballet Most recently, film and television have emerged<br />
as important new synaesthetic artforms, and are enjoying growing attention by both artists<br />
and the public as serious aesthetic media.<br />
Aristotle<br />
Historical Thought<br />
The plausibility of a link between the senses was discussed as early as the fourth<br />
century B.C. by Aristotie. He believed that our ability to perceive sensation lies in a<br />
single faculty of perception.<br />
May we not, then, conceive this faculty which perceives white<br />
and sweet to be one qua indivisible in its actualization, but<br />
different, when it has become divisible in its actualization.-^<br />
Aristotle believed that taste, sight, hearing, touch and smell were monitored<br />
simultaneously by this one sense. Individual sensations were combined by the beholder<br />
into the perception of an object (or experience) as a whole.<br />
Newton<br />
Isaac Newton believed that a physical relationship existed between sound and light<br />
and attempted numerous models of his theory in drafts for the Opticks."^ Newton<br />
theorized that, as light and sound share in a basic wave nature, colored light has inherent<br />
physical similarities with musical pitch. He divided the speco^m somewhat arbitr:irily<br />
into seven colors (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo, violet) and presented an<br />
analogy to the seven pitches of the diatonic scale. Newton went even further, however,<br />
postulating properties of light based on the principles of acoustics. He asserted that the<br />
ratio of vibrations from extreme red to extreme violet (opposite ends of the spectnim) ;ire<br />
in a 2:1 ratio of the musical octave. However, his calculations proved less conclusive in<br />
other areas, and in the final version of Opticks. Newton abandoned his attempt at<br />
establishing specific ratios for the color spectrum.
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