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James Whitney, pioneer of visual music

November 24, 2010 by Fosco Lucarelli 3 Comments

Early (50’s to 70’s) attempts of illustrating music with motion patterns, caleidoscopic textures, dots and grids: James Whitney, visual composer, younger brother of John, whose works we’ll write about soon.

We’re talking hand-crafted stuff here: works produced punching grid patterns in 5″ by 7″ cards with a pin.
Only later in his life, the film-maker started using analogue computers.

Main works:

Yantra (1950-55): dots painted on punched 5″ by 7″ cards through pinholes, to produce a complex flowing motion.

Lapis (1966), (pictured above): produced with computer aided graphics, small circles oscillates in and out in a kaleidoscope manner. The patterns, accompanied by Indian sitar music, are trance inducing and hypnotic.

Dwija (1973), meaning “twice-born” or “soul” in Sanskrit. Completely solarized, its imagery is rear projected and re-photographed, to create a constant flow of hardly definable transformations of color and form.

Wu Ming (1977), meaning “no name” in Chinese, repeats a single action over and over – a particle disappears into infinity, and returns as a wave.

Check the videos:

Variations on a circle (1941-42)

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TnU88XWYjEs

Yantra (1950-55)

httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nvWwlZSXaR0

Lapis (1966)
httpvh://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kzniaKxMr2g

Further reading and related:

Willis, Holly: Cinema Du Dots: LA Weekly, 2005
Interview with Whitney, 1974
Whitney inspired music videos.

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Comments

  1. Roberto La Forgia says

    November 24, 2010 at 4:29 pm

    credo di avere le pupille con un diametro di 10 centimetri. grazie per il viaggione.

  2. fooosco says

    November 24, 2010 at 4:34 pm

    figurati, peccato per la scarsa qualità.

Trackbacks

  1. John Whitney, inventor and father of computer animation. : socks-studio says:
    November 25, 2010 at 1:57 pm

    […] inventor, older brother of James (read previous post ), one of the fathers of computer […]

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