And yet, no Rothko ;-) Quite apart from your thesis, this is a nice chunk of tunes. Agreed about "A Viennese Tragedy." Music, for me, has always been more about shape and motion than color and such, but, I'd be interested to hear the intersection with visual art you're proposing.

ahhhhh, excellent: a mix concept project (where have we heard that before,
Mr Burns??). This looks amazing !

"...some of them may go so far as to claim some sort of influence from visual art."

Well I'm just a mixer...not a composer...but anymore (and since sometime last year)
I never make a mix without 1st conceiving the cover art
[exhibit A || exhibit B]
(used t'be the other way around--make the mix, hunt down suitable art).

The series I'm working on @ the mo' is a perfect example...inspired by 3 very stark, yet beautiful water color paintings, I worked for a week on the cover images, then purchased new material that put me in the cognitive framework of those covers...and am now working on the mix prototypes, which are, at the moment, following an Ambient-->Classical-->Experimental-->Microsound path.

Great theory/mix project, this ! I must remember to thank the gentleman who pointed its existence out to me...

Meanwhile, back at the ranch...

Barnstormers- "The Art of the Mix" at 11:16 am MST by Mike Mckee, Photo- Sam Mauney
Up | Down | Top | Bottom
This summer, Raleigh, N.C.'s increasingly renowned Lump Gallery unveiled the Hive Mind Soundsystem-a thunderous tower of artistically modified woofers, horns and tweeters affixed with paint, wood and found objects. With the visuals set, this self-proclaimed "mother of all sound systems" emitted a high-decibel mix of songs selected by each artist in the show's 20-person crew. At the center of this group is Barnstormers-a collective of photographers, painters and artists from Tokyo and New York. Founded in 1999, the group is perhaps best known for its annual treks down to North Carolina, where it sets to committing vibrant works on the sides of otherwise drab, rural barns. Lead B-Stormer David Ellis-"Skwerm" if we're counting tag handles-says he and his mates refute the "neo-graffiti" label, noting the term itself is sort of silly. Featured in The Fader, Mass Appeal, Tokion, Jane and NPR's Morning Edition, the collective has also presented time-lapse films (No Condition is Permanent, Watching Paint Dry and the anti-war Letter to the President), built a vacant house for displaying art on a Baltimore median strip, and painted live to DJs in Osaka. With speakers stacked from floor to ceiling, the Hive Mind exhibit is a striking visual. And true to the Barnstormers' form the process enjoys equal footing with the product. This is demonstrated by Ellis and company's emphasis on the collaborative aspect of their art, which often involves more than 20 artists seemingly haphazardly in the same project.

Thanks for the comments guys. I'm not concerned w/ color so much - though I do believe there are certain "hues" in music (orange and yellow in Fennesz's Endless Summer come to mind). What sticks out to me the most is the emotional response to cross-media techniques such as tonality, layering and (as you said) motion. Another point that I've developed is "freeing the viewer," or in this case, the listener. In the same way that Rothko broke realistic form to create feeling through color and shape, noiseicians break melody to create feeling through tone and synthesis of sounds. This all appears a bit superficial because I still have some other writing committments that precede this one. I still have a fair amount of planning to do.

You're dealing with interesting ideas here, Alex. I like very much the concept of 'freeing the listener'.A mix series I knock out occasionally (Experiments In Mood) has recently taken a turn towards quiet starts...I like to play something when people are round for a chat so that they don't realise they are listening to 'music' until, say, 10 or 15 minutes into the CD. It's an idea I've only toyed with recently (and, to some extent, unconsciously) that I now want to pursue further. I recently started making environmental sound recordings which I intend to use more on some of my mixes to blur the lines between background and foreground noise.I like the idea of a visual influence. Certainly, music has huge visual-emotive significance to me. Like (headphone) listening to ambient music in an outdoor environment (and vice-versa) so the two mix.I'm sure all the folks who commented here would love to see your completed essay, please keep us informed.