Visual Music

Visual Music has a short history. It can be argued that the idea was initiated, in the 1920s, by Oscar Fischinger who was active as an artist in Frankfurt and Berlin. He invented techniques whereby a series of frames, showing abstract images, were put together as short films. His innovation caught the attention of Hollywood where, in 1926, he emigrated but, unfortunately, achieved only very limited success. Walt Disney used some of his ideas in Fantasia but gave him no credit. Earlier this year, I took part in the Punto y Raya Festival 2014 held in Reykjavik. Here, the instrinsic relationship between music and abstract images was explored by 80 or so artists from all around the world. I think we can say that now, almost a century after Fischinger, Visual Music has come of age!