Digital Harmony: On the Complementarity of Music and Visual Art

by John Whitney

A seminal work by a pioneer in computer graphics and cinema techniques.

Genres: Music, Art, Film, Technology

235 pages, Hardcover

First published May 1, 1980

Reviews

[Heather Stark]

A true pioneer of motion graphics, and my goodness he doesn't ever let you forget it. I found this work frustrating, as it touches on so many interesting questions, but I feel the author does not make any actual progress on answering them in an analytical way. What he does would now be called research based practice: here's what I built, my goodness it's cool, and while you're here, here is a bit of exposition as to how. There aren't any cumbersome mumbles about the why, which is actually a relief. But it leaves the "why" around the aesthetics of this type of experience as the elephant looming in the wings, who is never invited onstage. This is at its core a manifesto focussed on defining new potential territory for artistic exploration, and celebrating the tools which enable this. But it is strangely inexplicit as to fundamentals to the topic staked out in the title. Worth checking out, bearing this in mind.