During the Bauhaus period Wassily Kandinsky applied to his painting music composition principles and more precisely the ones of Schönberg, leading to the development of his theory on synaesthesia, as formulated in "On the Spiritual in Art". He described synesthesia as a phenomenon of transposition of experience from one sense modality to another. More than a transposition of musical and colour harmonies by the means of frequencies of light waves and sound waves, he investigated two essential problems: dissonance and temporality. His synesthesic approach thus cannot be understood in simple correspondence schemes such as tone-colour relations but more on the level of a composition based on visual and sonic patterns in "collaboration and opposition" in order to reveal tension and emotion inside the inter-play of colours, forms and shapes. see image

He then focused his work on a methodological research during his Bauhaus period, in the same fashion as Johannes Itten with his colour indexing or Paul Klee and Josef Albers with their 'fuge' paintings, transposing musical composition rules towards painting. see image As such the Bauhaus movement with its methodological artistic approach stands for an artistic practice breaking with the 'beaux-art' tradition while qualifying artistic concerns in relation to the technological and social changes due to the industrial revolution in order to reintroduce them in the concept of art itself.

In a similar way Piet Mondriaan studied the problem of the visual perception of movement in his apparent static compositions. By using the perceptual effect of a rhythmically moving raster he wanted to add to the two dimensional painting not only the third dimension of depth but also the fourth dimension of time, as visual suggestions of movement.

The synesthesia of movement in visual raster remained a central theme in Mondriaan's experiments, culminating in the "Boogie Woogie" painting, showing the city of New York seen from a skyscraper while listening to the jazz music as an abstract geometric interplay of colour surfaces and line structures. see image

In the painting coloured areas correspond to sounds with definite pitch, whereas areas without colour correspond to sounds without any definite pitch (which Mondrian refers to as noise). The primary colours have their analogues in the pitches of the standard scale, recalling Isaac Newton's analysis of the spectrum in terms of the seven tones of the Western scale. Other relations in Mondriaan's scheme are the visual notion of size, corresponding to dynamics or acoustic amplitude, and position in space, corresponding to position in time recalling the flow of cars through a maze of city streets or the complex interplay of rhythms in a jazz improvisation. see image

Combining time-sequenced parameters of music with the visual aspect of painting Mondriaan explored the perceptive and cognitive modalities of the pictorial space. But rather than his intended aim to construct of a universal language one can retain the setting of a system of assignments (signifiers), a methodological approach based on the perceptive parameters of a media in the creation of art.

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In order to illustrate parameter design by a historical yet non digital example, one can understand the design of the Philips pavilion see image for the world exhibition in 1958 "le poème électronique" by Le Corbusier and Iannis Xenakis not only as a result of new building techniques but as a contemporary expression extending architectural principles to music and cinema. The superposition of a hyperbolic external shape, conceived by Iannis Xenakis, with the internal one of the "stomach of a cow" conceived by Le Corbusier constitutes more than a contradiction to one of the main architectural principles (inside=outside / form follows function) but a de-construction of its traditional language introducing nowadays media based design concerns. see image

On the one hand the application of new static construction principles based on hyperbolic mathematical functions on which Iannis Xenakis also based his musical compositions "metastasis" and "ph-concret", played as interlude in the pavilion, can be seen as a rational approach to relate space, music and construction through science. see image Both musical scores stand for a complete new form to conceive music beyond tone and notes but on mathematical functions and physical behaviour. In the case of "ph-concrete" the hyperbolic functions set not only a temporal system for the evolution of sound but also a spatial vocabulary to music, such as density, growth.... The application of mathematic functions as a sonic and spatial set is a major theme of Iannis Xenakis entire work known today by the 'polytopes' series as his research on granular synthesis.

On the other hand the internal shape of the pavilion creates an organic space of "flows", a "cavern" covered on its internal side with image projections displaying the history of man and technology, which can be seen as cultural approach acting on the semantic level of form. The footage by the Italian filmmaker Philippe Agostini included time-based colour sequences floating the entire inner space in a single colour, a principle which also can be found in the book, realised by the graphic designer Jean Petit, where transparent slides are inserted in between the pages to sequence and structure the composition. see image

This abstract colour play reinforces the sequential, rhythmic perception similar to the musical score "le poème électronique" by Edgard Varèse composed for the pavilion and which is listed today as one of the first electronic music compositions. The spatial projection of synchronised images and colour light is enhanced by the sound spatialisation of the pavilion using 425 speakers all over the internal shell to create an immersive experience. The result was a ground breaking immersive environment, an "oeuvre totale", since the space of the Pavilion hosted the audio and the visual materials as integral parts of the architectural design, a 'machine à spectacle' achieved by electric technologies connecting the levels of perception in a new way.

These both apparently opposite design approaches form a once unique vision on the way we conceive and perceive the correlation between space, colour, and light; it stands for the interrelation of technology and aesthetics in the construct of sign forms, which as a matter of fact was the core theme of the Philips pavilion design. From this point of view the design of the pavilion expresses the positivist view and hope of the 58 world exhibition setting the technological progress in the centre of a new society after 'point zero'. In relation to the Iannis Xenakis / Le Corbusier example, as the way we relate space to form, light and sound in both a parametric/rational level as on a cultural/semantic level.

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Almost at the same time as the "poème électronique" another important step in the relation between media and architecture / art was undertook by Nicolas Schöffer's presenting on the roof top of the 'unité de l'habitation de Le Corbusier at Marseille the first cybernetics sculpture. see image
'Cysp1' is a sculpture of metal blades and plates of different shapes and colours equipped with microphones and photo-electric cells. Within the cylindrical base, an electronic device, developed by Philips, regulates the different actions / motions, caused by information retrieved from the environment. Variation and modification in colour [= light] and sound affect the device movement in correspondence to the intensity of the changing parameter. For example, sharp sonorities or the colour blue evokes agitated movement, while low sonorities and/or red provoke movement in opposite direction and low speed. 'Cysp1' is the first interactive sculpture retrieving its data from its environment; its name comes from a merging of the two principles Cybernetics and Spatiodynamism, while translating them into kinetic, light and sound rules.

"Every surface, even insignificant, can be transformed into a Light Wall see image , thanks to coloured and moving projections of a CHRONOS or LUX sculpture, brightened by coloured spotlights and rotating slowly on its base. Some Light Walls are obtained by luminodynamic effects on screens of variable size. These effects can eventually be controlled, modified and diversified by the user-contemplator of the show."

Nicolas Schöffer www.olats.org/schoffer/murlum1e.htm

In his 'chrono-dynamic' works Nicolas Schöffer explores time-based programming achieved with the means of electric programmers, see image provoking visual effects by the means of rotating mirrors and colour light projectors, which reflections are concentrated on a screen standing in front of the sculpture. The achieved light painting is the result of the programmed kinetic sculpture creating endless variations with the addition that the visitor can step aside to follow the mechanics. Further on, Nicolas Schöffer created, alone or in collaboration with musicians such as Iannis Xenakis, Pierre Schaeffer... music scores of non-repeating music compositions. These 'sculptures à spectacle' are mile stone in the development of interactive and system-based art, where the art practice lies in the setting of a control system and where its aesthetics depend on the relevancy of the system at play. This approach puts the object and subject in a new relation, as he manifested with his cybernetic tower for Paris see image being a 'reflector' of the urban flows and life, as he formulated; in his urban visions about the cybernetic city. His cybernetic vision stands today for the visionary art of the sixties extrapolating the technological progress of the growing post-industrial society into a general vision where art plays a major role of a new social order.

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The work by Oskar Fischinger, known as 'sonic ornaments' see image , constitutes another important step towards the aesthetics of system art. Yet, instead of a synesthesic correlation [perception] produced by the use of different media and known from most of the artist in the twenties, his work introduces a totally new approach.

The precise process of interrelation through mapping one media onto another, notifies a structural and semantic founding of an aesthetic, which operates on the level of signs and codes and in which the process determines the produced result. Consequently, the process - and system - setup becomes the creation, the level where significance is produced. The author creates "sonic structures", or music, not with the usual background and perspectives of a musician but with those of a visual artist.

Exemplifying the methodological researches undertaken by the avant-garde of the twenties _ as the ones of the Bauhaus and constructivists who tried to integrate the contemporary technological progresses in the conception and production of artefacts _ one can conclude that the 'Sonic Ornaments' nevertheless stand in direct relation to the experiments of Josef Albes, Wassily Kandinsky, Lazlo Moholy-Nagy ...

Lazlo Moholy-Nagy 's constructivist movie 'black-white-grey' uses photographic techniques of positive and negative overlaying of images ' to paint light in movement', exploring his kinetic sculpture 'the light space modulator' see image whereas Oskar Fischinger directly maps visual patterns to music. But the common ground of the work is the technical exploration of the media parameters 'cinema' to create a new visual and sonic experience. Accordingly, one can conclude that Fischinger's experiences of the 30th introduce the aesthetic discourse of the second half of the century and more particularly, the one of the computer age.
His work had a great impact on composers such as Edgard Varèse, who met him in California shortly after his arrival in America in the end of the thirties. This example shows the continuity and exchange of the avant-garde artist's where a direct line can be drawn between the synaesthesic approach of the twenties up to the cybernetic works of the sixties in the research of a parametric and system-based art exploring the technologies of their time to set up a methodological approach in the creation of artefacts. These examples are just a small selection of the multitude of works which have been produced, pioneering since the twenties the aesthetics of the information age.

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The technological developments of the last decades are at the base of the shift from industrial to the information society, where computation and communication technologies extend our very 'senses'. The notions of body, matter, space and time are increasingly defined by the unit of information; its structures, processes and systems introducing new parameters of space and time such as networks, real-time immersion and interaction as well as new parameters of materiality (nano-technologies and smart memory materials) or biological (gene technologies) ones in its definition. This situation opens a huge artistic field of exploration for new cultural codes and semantics based on the notion of inFORMation.

One of the specificities of the digital medium is the reduction of all information to a binary signal, be it a picture, a text, a space or a sound - all data is recorded as a binary sequence constituting the base of computation as defined by programming languages and communication through networks according to transmission protocols. Therefore it is the medium, which, through its processes unifies information as much on the structural as on the semantic level. Speaking of digital media is thus equivalent to place this programmatic interrelation inside a spatial and temporal structure between data and in consequence between the different types of textual, visual, sonic... data.

This interrelation between different media nevertheless must be described through programming (structured language) importing its own methods, processes and codes. Consequently this kind of information mapping, parameter design, leads to a systematic and processual thinking in the production of artefacts. This 'coding' acts as much on the structural as on the semantic/cultural level in correspondence to what was previously declared as "signifiers", but also reveals besides its operational aspects (a system has to run on a chosen technological platform) its aesthetic relevancy. When talking about the relevancy of systems it is therefore important to develop an artistic discourse based on the modalities of a media as much as on its cultural and semantic inscription of the set system.

In order to underline that parameter design is more about aesthetics than technology the article is based on a small selection of pre-digital art in order to underline the continuous quest during the 20th century about an artistic method in the setting of sign systems which of course relies on technology but also on the cultural state. From this point of view the 20th century avant-garde works quoted in this article already project the potentials of nowadays artistic exploration within the digital realm as much as they may frame with their general vision what we can understand as aesthetic relevancy.

LAb[au]©

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The technological developments of the last decades are at the base of the shift from industrial to the information society, where computation and communication technologies extend our very 'senses'. The notions of body, matter, space and time are increasingly defined by the unit of information; its structures, processes and systems introducing new parameters of space and time such as networks, real-time immersion and interaction as well as new parameters of materiality (nano-technologies and smart memory materials) or biological (gene technologies) ones in its definition. This situation opens a huge artistic field of exploration for new cultural codes and semantics based on the notion of inFORMation. One of the specificities of the digital medium is the reduction of all information to a binary signal, be it a picture, a text, a space or a sound - all data is recorded as a binary sequence constituting the base of computation as defined by programming languages and communication through networks according to transmission protocols. Therefore it is the medium, which, through its processes unifies information as much on the structural as on the semantic level. Speaking of digital media is thus equivalent to place this programmatic interrelation inside a spatial and temporal structure between data and in consequence between the different types of textual, visual, sonic... data. This interrelation between different media nevertheless must be described through programming (structured language) importing its own methods, processes and codes. Consequently this kind of information mapping, parameter design, leads to a systematic and processual thinking in the production of artefacts. This 'coding' acts as much on the structural as on the semantic/cultural level in correspondence to what was previously declared as "signifiers", but also reveals besides its operational aspects (a system has to run on a chosen technological platform) its aesthetic relevancy. When talking about the relevancy of systems it is therefore important to develop an artistic discourse based on the modalities of a media as much as on its cultural and semantic inscription of the set system. In order to underline that parameter design is more about aesthetics than technology the article is based on a small selection of pre-digital art in order to underline the continuous quest during the 20th century about an artistic method in the setting of sign systems which of course relies on technology but also on the cultural state. From this point of view the 20th century avant-garde works quoted in this article already project the potentials of nowadays artistic exploration within the digital realm as much as they may frame with their general vision what we can understand as aesthetic relevancy.

LAb[au] ©2009

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