Expanded Abstraction: CVM Program, Los Angeles

Opening late July,2011, Los Angeles:
Expanded Abstraction:
A special 3-screen program from CVM featuring Scott Draves' Generation 244, plus work by Robert Seidel, Baerbel Neubauer, Christina McPhee, Maura McDonnell and Charles Dockum. Curated by Cindy Keefer. LA County Museum of Art, central plaza, Stark Bar. On view beginning July 28, evenings through January, 2012. Images courtesy Scott Draves and the Electric Sheep. PREVIEW of McPhee's Bird of Paradise video triptych.

(re posted from CVM events page: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm

OPENING NIGHT - Thursday, July 28

Please join CVM at LACMA at Stark Bar - Thursday, July 28

CVM's new *Expanded Abstraction* 3-screen program begins in LACMA's Stark
Bar (central plaza, next to main entrance) at 8 pm...that's the same night
as Marclay's THE CLOCK 24 hour screening in Bing Theatre...so please join us while taking a break from The CLOCK, as Stark Bar will be open until 2am screening the CVM program. Or come just to see abstract film/digital work curated by CVM.

*Expanded Abstraction* features *Scott Draves*' *Generation 244* (2010),
plus triptych work by *Christina McPhee, Robert Seidel, Baerbel Neubauer,
Maura McDonnell, Charles Dockum* and more. Runs through January 2012,
evenings only.

RUSSIAN PIONEERS OF SOUND ART AND MUSICAL TECHNOLOGY IN 1910-1930

GENERATION Z
RUSSIAN PIONEERS OF SOUND ART AND MUSICAL TECHNOLOGY IN 1910-1930

June 9 - July 20, 2011

OSA Archivum and the authors of GENERATION Z exhibition cordially invite you to the opening which will take place on 9th of June at 6:00 p.m. The exhibition will run at OSA Archivum, Budapest from June 9 till July 20, 2011. 

ADDRESS: 1051 BUDAPEST, ARANY J. U. 32.
http://www.osaarchivum.org/
exhibition details at http://bit.ly/lSXejp

Variophone, theremin terpsitone, rhythmicon, emiriton, ekvodin, graphical sound – just to mention a few of the amazing innovations of the beginning of the 20th century in Soviet Russia, a country and time turbulent with revolutions, wars and totalitarian dictatorship.
While the history of Russian post-revolutionary avant-garde art and music is fairly well documented, the inventions and discoveries, names and fates of researchers of sound, creators of musical machines and noise orchestras, founders of new musical technologies have been largely forgotten except, perhaps, Leon Theremin, inventor of the first electronic musical instrument, the theremin.

This community of creators, however, was inherently incompatible with the totalitarian state. By the late 1930s it became effectively written out of histories, wiped out from text books.

Many of their ideas and inventions, considered as utopian at that time, were decades later rein vented abroad. We still use them today not knowing their origin.

This exhibition is an attempt at reconstructing and understanding the Russian artistic utopia.

The exhibition runs from June 9 till July 20.

June 24, 2011, on the Night of Museums, 10:00 p.m.:

Multimedia theremin concert: Najmányi László, visual artist, performer, theremin specialist.

Thanks to CVM for original post: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/

Oskar Fischinger Painting Exhibition - Santa Fe, New Mexico

Oskar Fischinger (1900-1967) Major Painting Exhibition at the Peyton Wright Gallery - Santa Fe, New Mexico
Opening July 2011

Oskar Fischinger - Layers of Sound

Oskar Fischinger's paintings are being exhibited at the art dealers gallery - Peyton Wright Gallery.  These paintings are a real treat to view.  Peyton Wright Gallery have put many of Oskar Fischinger's paintings online, many of these have probably not been seen before, as they have not been put online before.

Some of these paintings have strong musical themes.  There are several that I really like and a beautiful one for me is, Layers of Sound.  However, there are many others and Fischinger's very distinct artistic and aesthetic style is really apparent.  A great treat to be able to view these paintings online via the Peyton Wright Gallery, and if you are lucky enough to be near Sante Fe, a treat to see in reality.

View Paintings online at:
http://www.peytonwright.com/art/main.php?g2_itemId=9200 

'Raumlichtmusik' - Early 20th Century Abstract Cinema Immersive Environments.

"'Raumlichtmusik' - Early 20th Century Abstract Cinema Immersive Environments."
Essay by Cindy Keefer (Director Center for Visual Music)

"Leonardo Electronic Almanac, Creative Data Special Issue. Leonardo: The International Society for the Arts, Sciences, and Technology, and MIT Press. October 2009."

This is an important historical visual music essay on Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson's early experiments in creating abstract cinema for immersive projection environments. It traces the origins in their work of what is more common today - the immersive multimedia environment. Information about plans Fischinger had to present a multimedia performance for the Farblichtmusik shows (started by László) has been researched and documented in this essay and is very exciting information to check out for the scholar interested in accurately tracing the origins of visual music and in particular, its links to contemporary multimedia performance. The vortex concerts, are discussed in detail. These concerts are important to check out for both historical visual music but also in relation to tracing the origins of using projected visuals alongside electronic music, which is so common today, in relation to video projection with electroacoustic music. This article traces these connections and provides an introduction to its history. Do go and read.

Abstract

"Filmmakers Oskar Fischinger and Jordan Belson created cinematic multimedia experiments from 1926 to 1959; three of these events are predecessors to immersive environments: (A) Beginning in 1926, Fischinger's multiple projector shows combining abstract films, colored light projections, and painted slides; (B) Fischinger's 1944 (unrealized) concept for a dome theatre with center film projectors filling the sphere, creating "endless space without perspective" and (c) Belson and Henry Jacobs’ 1950s Vortex Concerts at Morrison Planetarium, utilizing multiple projectors and 38 speakers, with
“no separation of audience and stage or screen; the entire domed area becomes a living theater of sound and light."

Article can be read online at:
http://www.leonardo.info/LEA/CreativeData/CD_Keefer.pdf

Visit CVM Library Page for more resources in relation to visual music.
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Library.html

CVM Lecture And Screening - At ZKM Germany - May 11, 2011

CVM at Zentrum für Kunst und Medientechnologie, Karlsruhe, Germany May 11.

For more information on this event, visit
http://on1.zkm.de/zkm/stories/storyReader$7532

Cindy Keefer, Director of the Center for Visual Music Los Angeles, will discuss and screen work by pioneers of kinetic art and pre-digital cinema from CVM's archives... Keefer will screen work from CVM's archives including Dockum's “Mobilcolor Projections,” Bute's “Abstronics” (an early oscilloscope film), a short Bute documentary, the Fischinger “Lumigraph Film,” and more. She will discuss CVM's work with the Fischinger legacy, current preservation work, and “Raumlichtkunst,” the new restoration of his 1920s multiple-projector performances.

Followed by the screening “Films Sacred and Profane” by Jordan Belson

Visit: http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm
for more information on Center For Visual Music and visual music related events and news

Visual Music - Supporting Programme

VISUAL MUSIC PROGRAMME at 18th Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film

The Stuttgart International Festival of Animated Film, May 2011 presented a Visual Music supporting programme at the festival.

http://www.itfs.de/en/

CVM (Center for Visual Music) presented two historical programs of abstract animated films by Oskar Fischinger, including preserved prints and rarely-screened films.
Title of Program: Oskar Fischinger Retrospective, May 7, 2011

Cornelia and Holger Lund presented contemporary visual music
Title of Programme: Visual Music: Contemporary, May 8, 2011.

A programme was put together on Norman McLaren
Title of Programme: The animator as musician, May 6, 2011

See: http://www.itfs.de/en/programmes/supporting-programme/visual-music.html

Visit CVM Events page for up to date information on Visual Music Events
http://www.centerforvisualmusic.org/Events.htm