I love music. The more unusual or ‘interesting’ the better. I like to find music from different cultures and perspectives, with flavours and structures that evoke the exotic and stimulate in new ways.
I’m also interested in the parallels between music and visual art, particularly abstract painting. Perhaps because I’m deaf in one ear, I tend to be attracted to rhythm and dynamic structure and hardly ever pay much attention to words and meaning in lyrics. In a similar way, whenever I’m looking at something, I’m struck by the immediate visual perception of the colours and textures before my brain starts to make sense of what I’m looking at. I’m curious about the way music connects directly to the emotions and seems to be able to bypass the intellect so fluidly and how some understanding of this can be translated into making paintings.
In looking for literature around this subject I came across a conference paper by Sama Mara, (2016) an artist and ‘geometer’ in which he talks about a joint project with the composer Lee Westwood called “A Hidden Order”. The paper he presented goes into detail about the mathematics behind his theory that there’s an intrinsic relationship between the harmony of music and the harmony of visual pattern. The project used this theory to develop a computer programme that converts sound into pattern and vice versa. They then explored the relationship between traditional Islamic geometric art and western contemporary music; transposing the music into patterns and using the art to generate music.
I’m not so interested in using music to generate visual art, or vice versa, but I love the resulting geometric patterns and the music, and the evident relationship of their structure.
I’ve also been reading, Rhythm, music, and the brain: scientific foundations and clinical applications, (Thaut, 2008). Parts of it anyway, it’s a very dense text. There’s a section where the author looks at the structure of rhythm and how it relates to our ‘innate psychbiological functioning’. In other words, how rhythm affects our mind and body. The essence of it is this: that timings and patterns in a rhythm can affect us by generating a psychological and emotional experience of expectation and suspense, tension, arousal and release. A key point is where the author equates temporal rhythm to spatial rhythm. To crudely paraphrase; the shaping of melody, harmony, and counterpoint in music is analogous to the shaping of lines and colors in paintings, (or sculptures).
I’m currently working with linocut printing to explore patterns; specifically looking at how to create a sense of depth and complexity. I’m also working with the idea of ‘thinking through doing’, seeking a ‘fow state’ to tap into the subconscious and make work in a more spontaneous, improvisational way. Lino cutting has been an interesting in this respect as it’s easy to ‘get lost’ in the repetitive making of small cuts.
It’s really interesting the way that rhythm is integral to the idea of ‘flow state’, of being in and experiencing the moment, rather than thinking ahead or behind. So rhythm is fundamental to the unthinking making process, as well as the intellectual composition and detailed structuring of a piece. Mmm…
Mara, S. (2016) The Rhythm of a Pattern. Bridges Finland 2016, The University of Jyväskylä, 9–13 August, pp. 309–316. Tessellations Publishing, Phoenix, Arizona, USA.
Thaut, Michael H., 2008, Rhythm, music, and the brain: scientific foundations and clinical applications. London. Routledge [e-book published 2013]