© 2000 Fred Collopy, received 1 May 2000 LEONARDO, Vol. 33, No. 5, pp. 355-360, 2000 355

Color, Form, and MotionDimensions of a Musical Art of Light

FRED COLLOPY

AbstractLumia are an art form that permits visual artists to playimages in the way that musicians play with sounds.Though the idea of creating lumia has a long historicaltradition, modern graphically-based computers make itpossible to design instruments for creating lumia thatare more flexible and easier to play than at anyprevious time in the history of art. In designing andplaying lumia, three principal dimensions requireattention: color, form, and motion. By organizing thedesign of lumia and instruments for creating themalong these dimensions, it is possible to learn a greatdeal from art theory and history, as guidelines havebeen devised for the effective use of each of thesedimensions.

Music has always had visual dimensionsthe shape ofinstruments, the pattern of notes on the page, themovement of the players and listeners, album cover art,stage lighting, even music videos. But seeds of a new,more intimate relationship between hearing and seeingmusic have been sown over the past two centuries andare beginning to bear fruit. The resulting art has beencalled by a variety of names, including visual music,color music, mobile color and absolute cinema. I preferthe name lumia. Lumia are pieces, like songs, created byvisual artists. Some are essentially compositional intheir structure, others

include improvisational elements. Lumia are the result,in part, of the visual artist's fascination with the impactof music on listeners.

What is it about music that has evoked the envy ofpainters and other visual artists? In a lecture he gave in1882, Oscar Wilde suggested that it is because "musicis the art in which form and matter are always one, theart whose subject cannot be separated from the methodof its expression, the art which most completely realizesthe artistic ideal, and is the condition to which all otherarts are constantly aspiring" [1].

Lumia are an art form that shares much in commonwith music. They are dynamic, based on essentiallyunlimited combinations of simple elements, are capableof expressing a broad range of human emotion andexperience, and can be created in real time. With lumia,artists have begun to make paintings move like music,and even to link them with music.

The idea that visual arts and music might be playedtogether really took root in the early decades of thetwentieth century, though it appeared as an idea even inthe writings of Newton and Leonardo. Attempts torealize this vision can be seen as early as the eighteenthcentury, with the invention of color organs. Many artistsof the early twentieth century wrote about how musicand painting could be related, some of them evenbuilding machines to explore the movement of colorand form directly. In the earliest days of Fred Collopy, Case Western Reserve University, 693 EnterpriseHall, Cleveland, OH 44106, U.S.A. E-mail:flc2@po.cwru.eduWeb site: http://RhythmicLight.com.

356 Fred Collopy, Color, Form and Motion

film, a small number of filmmakersturned their attention to abstract worksthat they often designed to accompanymusical performances. Computer andvideo technology now make it possible toachieve what could only be dreamed ofthen.

Three DimensionsThe early history of this art was

driven by an interest in color. In theeighteenth century, a Jesuit priest, Louis-Bertrand Castel, invented the first colororgan. Others, including D.D. Jameson,Bainbridge Bishop, and A. WallaceRimington, created color organs throughthe next century [2]. These instruments,typically controlled by playing a piano-style keyboard, bathed a screen in ever-changing colored light. By the twentiethcentury, painters were experimenting withrelationships of color and form, creating anew, abstract art. Many of them were alsointerested in the relationship of paintingto music. The Cubist painter LeopoldSurvage wrote in 1914 that "painting,having liberated itself from theconventional forms of objects in theexterior world, has conquered the terrain ofabstract forms. It must get rid of its lastand principal shackle-immobility-so as tobecome as supple and rich a means ofexpressing our emotions as music is" [3].

By 1930, Thomas Wilfred had coinedthe word lumia to describe the emergingart, and organized the structure of lumiaaround three factors. "Form, color andmotion are the three basic factors inlumia-as in all visual experience-and formand motion are the two most important"[4]. It was with Wilfred's Clavilux thatcontrols came to be organized into threegroups.

The latest type of Clavilux consists of unitsthat broadly correspond to manuals on apipe organ. Each unit has its bank ofsliding keys divided into three groups;form keys, color keys, and motion keys. Aneutral white beam of light of greatstrength is intercepted by an arrangementof lenses and built into form through theform keys. The form, or forms, are madeto move rhythmically by means of themotion keys, and either one color orseveral in any combination are finallyintroduced from thecolor keys. The whole instrument isplayed from a notation book so that anycomposition can be duplicated exactly,with a margin for personal interpretationsby the playing artist [5].

For each of these three domainscolor,form, and motionit is necessary todecide what parameters will bemanipulated and how composers andplayers will control them. In effect, oneneeds to determine what "knobs" will beavailable.

ColorColor is among the strongest stimuli

that our brains receive from the outsideworld. It has been found to affect heartrate, perceptions of time, estimates ofweight, size, and temperature, as well ashow we experience loudness and noise [6].

The earliest visual-music instrumentsoften provided little more than generalwashes of color. As the field developed, sodid control of color. Today it can be usedto reinforce rhythms in the music.Combinations of colors can be used tocreate visual harmonies or cacophony.And color is a carrier, perhaps the mostessential visual carrier, of expression. It isthrough controlling color that thelumianist most controls mood.

Two questions about color face alumianist who wishes to play along withmusicians in a way that reinforces andexpands on the musical performance.First, how should color and music interactwith one another? Second, how can onecontrol color changes in real time toproduce emotional responses? Similarquestions will be asked about form andmotion, but it is about color that theearliest experimenters first asked them,and color provides an amazing range ofopportunity in its own right.

The Language of ColorColor is complex. Since Newton,

scientists have been developing theories ofcolor vision, and artists have beenproposing principles for its effective use.One of the most important assumptionsmade about color relates to itstrichromatic nature. Under thisassumption, uniquely specifying aparticular perceived color requires use ofthree terms, such as hue, value, andsaturation. Some systems of specifyingcolor actually go beyond three parameters.Winifred Nicholson and others devisedscales that underline the fact that surface

colors possess additional characteristics.One such feature, identified by Russianartists around the time of the First WorldWar, was texture [7]. For the purposes ofthe lumianist, working directly with light,a three-parameter model will suffice.

The way in which the parameters aredesignated and relate to one another definesa particular color model. Color modelshave been defined for a variety ofpurposes. Computer video, for example,uses red, green, and blue to specify color.This RGB model defines the percentagefrom each component that will producethe desired color. Print processescommonly use cyan, magenta, andyellow, the complements of the primarycolors used in the RGB model. Theytypically add black as a fourth process toinsure that edges and type are well-defined.The resulting model is called the CMYKmodel. For our purposes, color modelsthat use dimensions that are more closelyaligned to perception will be more useful.One, the HSV model, allows us to specifya color in terms of its basic hue, theamount of white mixed into that hue(saturation), and the amount of lightpresent (value). These are dimensions withwhich artists are likely to be comfortable.

With computers, mapping betweenany two specified, quantitative colormodels is fairly straightforward. Softwareoften allows you to see a particular colorrepresented in RGB, CMYK, HSV, andother model specifications and to convertamong them. No matter how they aredefined, though, interaction among thethree dimensions is not simple, becausethe dimensions do not have linearrelationships to color perception. In otherwords, at some locations on the scales asmall change produces a small change inthe perceived color, while at otherlocations a change of similar magnitudeproduces a somewhat larger perceivedchange. Furthermore, how the perceivedcolor changes is often a function of thevalues of the other dimensions and ofother colors nearby.

Hue is the principal way in whichone color is distinguished from another.Describing and managing hues isgenerally taken to be the central problemfor color

356 Fred Collopy, Color, Form and Motion

theory. Indeed the very language we use todenote colors is associated prirnarily withtheir hues. A hue can be referenced by itsangle around a color wheel, for example,red at 0, yellow at 60 degrees, green at120, blue at 240, and purple at 300. In awell-balanced color wheel, complementarycolors appear at 180 degrees opposite.Numerous color wheels have been defined.They all share the objective of making therelationships among hues more accessible.Because hue is a continuous space,naming and distinguishing among hues issomewhat arbitrary. Goethe andSchopenhauer spoke of six distinct hues,Ostwald of eight, Munsell of ten [8].

Saturation describes how pure aparticular hue is. It is also referred to asthe intensity, strength, or chroma of acolor. Reducing the saturation of aparticular hue, while maintaining itsvalue, has the effect of adding whitepigment, producing what artists call tints.

Value is the quality that differentiatesa light color from a dark one. It is alsoreferred to as lightness. A particular colormoves toward black by a reduction in itsvalue. Low-valued colors are less visiblethan ones with higher values. Decreasingvalue while leaving saturation alone hasthe effect of adding black pigment,producing what are referred to as differentshades. Finally, what artists refer to astones can be created by decreasing bothsaturation and value. One of the reasonsthat the HSV color model is so useful isthat there is a substantial literature thatuses these conceptshue, tint, shade, andtone-to describe art history and technique.

Mapping Colors to MusicLike color, musical tones can be also

defined by three parameters: frequency,amplitude, and overtone or timbre.Whether and how these might correspondwith the three dimensions of color hasbeen of some interest over the centuries.Perhaps the most persistent association ofcolor and music has been the effort tocorrelate discrete hues with specific tones.Newton associated the seven colors heidentified (red, orange, yellow, green,blue, indigo, and violet) with the sevennotes of the Western scale (C, D, E, F, G,A, B). Dividing the visible spectrum intoseven distinct colors is, as we have seen,somewhat arbitrary. Some have suggestedthat Newton saw seven colors in the

rainbow because there were seven naturaltones in the musical scale [9]. Otherwriters have proposed other mappings.Though over a dozen different ones appearin the historical literature, there is littleconsistency among them.

There are many problems with thesetone-hue correspondences. Our experienceof musical notes is closely related to theirphysical existence. Small numbers ofoscillations per second are perceived asdeep notes. Tones become higher as thenumber of oscillations increases. Aregular and identifiable pattern resultsfrom increasing the frequency ofoscillations. When the number ofoscillations doubles, we hear the samenote, but an octave higher. Color does nothave a lowest and a highest perceived hue,and changes in the number of oscillationsdo not produce consistent changes in theperceived color. At some places on thecolor spectrum, a given change infrequency is readily detected; at others it isnot noticeable at all. When two or morenotes are blended in a chord, theiridentities are retained by the ear. Whentwo colors are blended, their identities arelost to the eye [10].

There is a more subtle and, I think,fundamental problem with assigning huesto tones. It is a problem that afflictsalmost any attempt to map numbers ontothe hue portion of color space. Theresulting images end up containing toomany unrelated hues. Take a walk throughan art gallery. One of the things that ismost striking about so many of theobjects we judge to be beautiful is therestraint that has been exercised in therange of color used. Rarely does a work ofart use the full range of hues available.Then look at the numerically constructedimages that are used to illustrate suchthings as the densities of populations, thegeometry of fractals,the flow of airthrough a wind tunnel, or the notes usedin a musical composition. You will findrepresentatives of yellow, blue, purple,red, green, magenta, and cyan all present.It is a rare artist's work that will use all ofthese in a single composition. A lessonthat keeps coming back as we developinstruments to play with graphics asmusicians play with sound is this: there isno reason to assume that structures thatcreate beautiful sounds will in and of

themselves produce works which lookbeautiful.

This is not to say that all approachesto using hue in relation to melody aredoomed. Brian Evans took an approachthat seems promising. He proposedcombining some basic principles aboutcolor interactions with an idea that occursfrequently in the temporal arts: tension-release. He characterized color frames asneutral, balanced, or weighted, dependingupon the relative amounts of various huesin the frame, and he demonstrated how thethree resulting domains could be usedcompositionally in combination with thetension-release idea to produce a colorgrammar [11].

The extent to which color may beused to support, reflect, and otherwiseinteract with melody in music remains tobe seen. My guess is that it will be lessimportant than experimenters and writershave assumed. Mappings that are verydirect will, in general, use too many huesand will quickly appear trivial andrepetitive. But there are otherpossibilities. Color is defined by threeparameters, as are musical sounds. Theinteractions of these sets of parametersproduces nine possible one-to-onemappings, and of course numerous otherscould be contrived through combinationsof parameters. And beyond these there aresuch musical parameters as tempo,interval, and mode and such visual ones astexture, shape, and movement.

As early as 1944 John Whitney, oneof the most influential visual musicartists, wrote of color as providing a largetextural vocabulary to audiovisual artists,much as orchestration serves thesymphonic composer [12]. For themodern artist Paul Klee, who was also amusician, color was secretive, irrational,and suggestive. He felt that it could takeon myriad possible shades, much in themanner of musical tones. At the sametime, he was cautious about makingmappings between color and music thatwere too literal or direct [13].

Ann Driver thought of the use ofcolor as like that of accent in music."When strong colors are used to provideimpulse to graphic movement they arelike the accents which give music its life"[14]. And because it is the alternation ofcolors that

358 Fred Collopy, Color, Form and Motion

most affects us emotionally, Survage sawit as like the alternation of sounds, orrhythm.

Color changes can be used like almostany changes in the painting of the graphicimage: to draw attention to the rhythmicstructure of the music. A change in colorcan signal each beat, each downbeat, thebeginnings of bars, or accents. Colorchanges can be associated with particularpercussive elements. The manyopportunities for using color as a rhythminstrument can be glimpsed in dance clubsor in the use of stage lighting in musicalperformances.

Fig . 1 . Adjacent hues reflect a calm.harmonious moment in the author's lumia BlueGlass. Images courtesy Fred Collopy.

The central role of color in lumia isprobably in support of musical harmony.It is possible to use color combinations tocreate a variety of moods, much as chordstructure and other elements of harmonyin music are used to establish moods.Indeed such uses in music are sometimeseven referred to as "coloring" the music.Creating various types of harmoniesrepresents a task that color is particularlywell-suited to doing.

Controlling Color in Real TimeThe second major question for the

lumianist who wishes to play colorimprovisationally relates to controlling it.It is through achieving control of colorcombinations and changes that thelumianist can achieve expressive powerlike that of musicians.

One approach to controlling color issuggested in the work of some of thecolor theorists, for whom it is therelationships among hues that provide thegreatest potential for evoking a response.

Ogden Rood, for example, argued thatharmonious color combinations are foundin pairs separated by 90 degrees on thecolor wheel, as well as by triads of colorsthat are about 120 degrees apart [15]. JosefAlbers noted that strong complementarycolors (those separated by 180 degrees)produce afterimages and vibrations [16].Faber Birren observed that people findpleasure in harmonies of color based onanalogy (adjacent hues) and on extremecontrast (complementary hues) [17]. Whenadjacent colors are used, the effect is toproduce color schemes that arepredominantly warm or cool in feeling.When complementary colors are used, theresult is more startling and compelling.The use of adjacent colors is illustrated inFig. 1.

FormThe importance of form in visual

music is not self-evident. Clearly theremust be changing color (even if onlymonochromatic variation). But what ofform? The ambivalence of earlyexperimenters is evident in thisobservation from Rimington, writing in1911:

The author has made many experimentswith regard to the introduction of form, asthe painter understands it, in the colourprojected upon the screen, and has cometo the conclusion that if used at all it shouldbe indefinite or merely decorative and notin any sense realistic. The kind of form, forinstance, which we see in cirrus clouds,while very beautiful in itself, has no definitemeaning and is not calculated to distractthe mind from the beauty of the cloudcolour and yet is sufficiently interesting initself. This kind of form introduced into thecolour perhaps gives an added interest to itin slow compositions, but in rapid ones theeye and the mind have quite enough to doto appreciate and enjoy the color itselfwithout the addition of form, which wouldseem to be an unnecessary complication[18].

While remaining generallysubordinated to color, form did come toplay an important role in the design ofcolor instruments. As successivegenerations of instrument makers creatednew designs, they often addressed theproblems associated with expressing formin the work of their predecessors. Oneexample is Klein's evaluation of aperformance by Thomas Wilfred:

Wilfred's compositions make frequent useof a series of forms which owe theirstructure to the geometrical formation of thetungsten filament of the gas-filled projectorlamp used in the "Clavilux"; and the initiatedcould not avoid being irritated by observingthe obvious fact that so many of the formswere merely the image of a familiarilluminating contrivance. If we are to have form in colour-music, thatform must be as much the intention of theartist as it is in painting, and not dependenton chance circumstances [19].

Where Should the FormsUsed in Lumia Come From?

Color is a bounded universe. As theSwiss artist Karl Gerstner puts it, "no oneexpects to find new colors-except those wesee with closed eyes" [20]. But theuniverse of known forms continues togrow, and we have almost no idea abouthow various systems of forms arestructurally related. For much of thehistory of painting, knowledge of formwas used to solve problems ofrepresentation. But with the birth ofabstract painting, the interest of manypainters moved to color and form for theirown sake. In his seminal book Point andLine to Plane, Wassily Kandinskyendeavored to establish a basis for anabstract art of form and color itself, ratherthan merely as a means of representingother objects [21]. Other artists haveundertaken similar exercises. Paul Klee'sNotebooks and Gyorgy Kepes' Languageof Vision and related volumes are notableexamples. These works provide deep veinsof ideas about form for lumianists tomine.

An issue that interested Kepes, forexample, relates to achieving "rhythmicalpatterning of the picture surface." Heproposed that rhythmic patterns can beachieved at several levels. On one level arethe relationships of objects subdividingthe picture plane. A higher level ofrhythm is reached as the optical units arerelated to their virtual movement to andfrom the picture plane. "Finally we mighthave orderly changes or repetition of morecomplex configurations of visualexperience; rhythmic order of tension andrepose, con-

Fred Collopy, Color, Form and Motion 359

centration and rarefaction, harmony anddiscord” [22]. That these are similar toideas explored by composers was not loston Kepes:

Music suggests an excellent analogy. Amusical unit played by an instrument isrepeated contrapuntally on otherinstruments, on the strings, on thebrasses, on the woodwinds, even onpercussion instruments. Each plastic unitwith its specific sensory quality echoes theprevious one; light, dark, color, shapes,forms, all mutually help one another, onetaking over the movement where anotherstopped, leading toward complete unity[23].

As with color, artists have devisedprinciples that link relatively low-levelentities such as points, lines, and planesto higher-level constructs like tension,balance, harmony, and discord. There aremany examples. In his book BasicDesign: The Dynamics of Visual Form,Maurice de Sausmarez describes how theorientation of lines can be used to createfeelings.

Horizontals and verticals operatingtogether introduce the principle of balancedoppositions of tensions. The verticalexpresses a force which is of primarysignificance-gravitational pull, thehorizontal again contributes a primarysensation-a supporting flatness; the twotogether produce a deeply satisfyingresolved feeling, perhaps because togetherthey symbolize the human experience ofabsolute balance, of standing erect on levelground [24].

He proposes similar principles toguide the use of diagonals, curves, andshapes. The relationships among evensimple elements such as lines can be usedto represent complex ideas such astension-release. Fig. 2 shows the momentjust before the last line joins a cluster oflines to produce a harmonic structure. Thetension in the alignment of the diagonallines reflects that in the music of thatmoment. And of course there is a vastliterature by painters exploring suchrelationships. This literature isparticularly relevant given some of theexcesses (such as the widespread use ofmirror and axial symmetries) that havebecome so typical of computer art. RudolfArnheim noted, for example, that the useof ornamental patterns (those based on asimple formal principle) are rare in worksof art. "Strict symmetry, for example, isas rare in painting and sculpture as it isfrequent in decoration and the applied arts,such as ceramics or architecture" [25].Even minor deviations from perfect

symmetry can be used to substantiallyalter the emotional impact of an image, asis illustrated in Fig. 3.

MotionThe third dimension-motion-is the

one that has changed most with theintroduction of temporality to painting.While painters and sculptors had longattempted to suggest movement in theirstatic works, the development of a truevisual art of movement awaited theinvention of film. Some importantpainters were ready as soon as filmappeared on the scene. We have alreadyencountered Leopold Survage, who wasextremely interested in introducingmovement to his painting. He producedmore than 200 watercolor sketches thatrepresented key ideas for an abstract film,though it was never produced.

The Dadaist and Constructivist painterHans Richter had been making paintingsthat suggested music with titles such asCello, Prelude, Fugue, Rhythmus 23, andOrchestration of Color. Many of theworks were long scrolls in which formswere developed along thematic lines asthey move from one end of the scroll tothe other. Working with Viking Eggelingin the years between 1919 and 1922,Richter focused on developing movementsfrom simple elementary patterns throughall kinds of counterpoint variations. Asfrom they worked on making elementaryforms and colors dynamic and onorchestrating them, they became aware ofthe possibilities of cinema. "We hadarrived at a cross-road, the scroll looked atus and it seemed to ask for real motion.That was just as much a shock to us as itwas a sensation. Because in order torealize movement we needed film" [26].

Early attempts to convert Prelude intoa film left Richter unsatisfied. "After our,as it appeared to me, unsuccessfulattempts to set scrolls into motion, Irecognized that the problem of film liesessentially in the articulation of time andonly very secondarily in the articulation ofform. The more I delved into thephenomenon of film, the move convincedI was that articulated time, namelyrhythm, is to be regarded both as theelementary dimension of film and its innerstructure" [27]. So with film, rhythmtook on added meaning for the visualartist.

Fig. 2. A moment of musical tension is reflected inthe relationship of the individual lines just beforethey join to form the resolved structure of Fig. 4.

Guidelines for creating visual rhythms intime are less developed than are those forcolor and form, although choreographyprovides one point of departure. Oneexample of a very general principle fromcomposition in dance and film is stated byArnheim, who notes that "at anyparticular

Fig. 3. A slight departure from symmetry adds tothe implied energy in this image the author's lumiaFilm for Music.

360 Fred Collopy, Color, Form and Motion

moment we may not know what willcome next, but we must not dismiss fromour consciousness what we have heard orseen before" [28]. It is only throughmemory that we experience movement,and in con-

Fig. 4. The individual elements move at differentialrates creating a complex rhythm in this structurefrom the author's lumia weDDDing.

structing a coherent experience in time theartist must aid the viewer in making senseof the many successive images.

Abstract filmmakers also turned theirattention to the problem of rhythm. JohnWhitney noted that what works in musicdoes not work in film. What is "oftenreferred to as the drive of a piece of music,is almost automatically enhanced withmetrical or cyclical consistency andrepetition. Rock musicians knowthis-perhaps too well. On the other hand,the most difficult visual quality tocompose into a composition, as everyabstract filmmaker may know, is the samedriving propulsive thrust with a visuallyrhythmic metrical cycle" [29]. In hisfilms, Whitney used what he called"differential dynamics" to achieve thedesired rhythms. He used graphicharmonics to affect rhythmic patterns.When the nested polygons in Fig. 4move, each at a different speed, they createrhythms.

ConclusionsLumia are an art form that allows

visual artists to play images much asmusicians play with sounds. They can bestructured in terms of three primarydimensions-color, form, and motion.Painters have a long history of interest inthese, particularly color and form. Theyhave formulated principles for using themto achieve particular psychological andemotional effects. More recently, kineticartists and filmmakers have developedsimilar principles for the use of motion.Together with ideas developed bycomposers, these principles can provideartists with certain jumping-off points aswell as with solutions to problemsencountered when integrating visual andmusical performances.

Rhythm has played a particularlyimportant role in the thinking of painterswho have been interested in therelationship of music to their work. Thereis a rhythmic element to each of the threedimensions. The changing of colors isrhythmic, the ways in which forms arearranged (even in static images) is oftendescribed in terms of rhythm, andmovement in time is inherently rhythmic.This suggests that rhythm constitutes aparticularly rich point of entry for thedesign of instruments and for thedevelopment of technique for playingvisuals in performance with music.

References1. Oscar Wilde, Essays and Lectures (London:Methuen, 1911), p. 136.2. Kenneth Peacock, "Instruments to PerformColor-Music: Two Centuries of TechnologicalExperimentation," Leonardo 21, 397-407 (1968).3. Robert Russett and Cecile Starr, ExperimentalAnimation: Origins of a New Art, 2nd Ed. (NewYork: Da Capo Press, 1988), p. 36.4. Thomas Wilfred, "Light and the Artist," Journalof Aesthetics and Art Criticism 5 (June 1947), pp.247-255.5. Adrian Bernard Klein, Colour-Music: The Art ofLight (London: Crosby Lockwood & Son, 1930), p.195.6. Frank H. Mahnke, Color, Environment, andHuman Response (New York: John Wiley & Sons,1996), pp. 71-77.

7. John Gage, Color and Culture: Practice andMeaning from Antiquity to Abstraction (Boston:Bulfinch Press, 1993), pp. 27-28.8. Richard Kostelanetz, ed., Moholy-Nagy: AnAnthology (New York: Da Capo Press, 1970), p.153.9. Karl Gerstner, The Forms of Color (Cambridge,MA: MIT Press, 1986), pp. 167-68.10. W. Garner, "The Relationship between Colourand Music," Leonardo 11 (1978), 225-226.11. Brian Evans, "Temporal Coherence with DigitalColor" Leonardo, Digital Image-Digital Cinemasupplementary issue (1990), pp. 43-49.12. John Whitney, Digital Harmony: On theComplementarily of Music and Visual Art(Peterborough, NH: Byte Books, 1980), p. 142.13. Hajo Duchting, Paul Klee: Painting Music(Munich, Germany; Prestel, 1997), pp. 45-46.14. Ann Driver, Music and Movement (London:Oxford University Press, 1936), p. 34.15. Ogden Rood, Modern Chromatics withApplication to Art and Industry (New York: D.Appleton & Co., 1897), p. 294.16. Josef Albers, Interaction of Color (New Haven,CT: Yale University Press, 1975), p. 62.17. Faber Bitten, Principles of Color (Atglen, PA:Schiffer Publishing, 1987), pp. 34-39.18. A. Wallace Rimington, Colour-Music: The Artof Mobile Colour (New York: Frederick A. StokesCo., 1911), pp. 71-72.19. Klein [5] p. 19.20. Gerstner [9] p. 9.21. Wassily Kandinsky, Point and Line to Plane(1926), in Kenneth C. Lindsay and Peter Vergo,eds., Kandinsky: Complete Writings on Art (NewYork: Da Capo Press, 1994), pp. 527-699.22. Gyorgy Kepes, Language of Vision (Chicago,IL: Paul Theobald, 1944), p. 54.23. Kepes [22] p. 63.24. Maurice de Sausmarez, Basic Design: TheDynamics of Visual Form (New York: VanNostrand Reinhold, 1964), p. 24.25. Rudolf Arnheim, Art and Visual Perception: APsychology of the Creative Eye (Berkeley, CA:University of California Press, 1974), p. 149.26. Stephen Foster, Hans Richter: Activism,Modernism, and the Avant-Garde (Cambridge, MA:MIT Press, 1998), p. 95.27. Foster [26] p. 96.28. Arnheim [25] p. 374.29. Whitney [12] p. 69.

Fred Collopy designed his first versionof Imager-software that enables artists toplay images as musicians play withsounds-for the Apple II computer in 1977.More recently, his work has beenpresented at ISEA, SIGGRAPH, and otherdesign and visual arts conferences. Hespent 1998-1999 as a visiting scientist atIBM's Thomas J. Watson ResearchCenter, where he continues to work withmembers of the Computer Music Center.He currently teaches about technology anddesign at Case Western ReserveUniversity's Weatherhead School.