Papers and Study Questions for Mus 127s The Harmony of Sound and Light
Spring 2005
Group 1: Color Organs & Lumia
Questions:
- What did Rimington have to say about the correspondences between standard music
and "colour music"? Which parts do you agree with him on, and which do you disagree?
- Sound and Light have some obvious fundamental correlations, with respect to Adrian Klein's
views, what are the major failures of correlation between the two, and how do they effect the
art of color-music?
- How are lumia and other art related and what makes them similar or dissimilar?
Group 2: Form in Abstract Art
Questions:
- What led Mondrian to his version of abstraction and how did he integrate abstraction into his
style?
- 1) What was Kandinsky's principle of inner neccessity and how does it apply to his abstract
art and theories of abstraction?
Group 3: Early Abstract Animation
Questions:
- Discuss the types of form interactions within Walter Ruttmann's Lichtspiel Opus I,
and the correspondences of these form interactions to the interactions between instruments and
parts within a musical work.
- Viking Eggeling believed that art can act as a "universal language" when it is
"free of figurative association". What does this mean, and how does Eggeling's
animation Diagonal Symphony clearly communicate with the viewer through this
"universal language"?
Group 4: John Whitney
Questions:
- Whitney is attempting to produce a correspondence between visual and auditory patterns,
yet his visual patterns are superficially at least more complicated than their auditory
counterparts. In a given instant, a Whitney composition can have hundreds of shapes moving
along complicated paths. No musical composition has hundreds of themes or notes running
concurrently. Explain how his theory accounts for this difference, and your own perception of
this distinction. If this difference is perceptible, how does it affect the appreciation of
Whitney's work?
Group 5: Visual Music
Questions:
- Using examples from the description (and what you remember) of Study No. 8 (with
Dukas' The Sorcerers' Apprentice), in what ways does Fischinger create harmony between
light and sound? What relationships does he emphasize between abstract music and images?
Group 6: The Art of the Inner Eye
- The films of Jordan
Belson -- Jessica Riley.
- The films of James
Whitney -- Joshua Slater.
- The films of Harry
Smith -- Victoria Luyapan.
Questions:
- How have Harry Smith's experiences in life affected the themes and images within his works?