Color
Color is among the strongest stimuli
that our brains receive from the outside
world. It has been found to affect heart
rate, perceptions of time, estimates of
weight, size, and temperature, as well as
how we experience loudness and noise [6].
The earliest visual-music instruments
often provided little more than general
washes of color. As the field developed, so
did control of color. Today it can be used
to reinforce rhythms in the music.
Combinations of colors can be used to
create visual harmonies or cacophony.
And color is a carrier, perhaps the most
essential visual carrier, of expression. It is
through controlling color that the
lumianist most controls mood.
Two questions about color face a
lumianist who wishes to play along with
musicians in a way that reinforces and
expands on the musical performance.
First, how should color and music interact
with one another? Second, how can one
control color changes in real time to
produce emotional responses? Similar
questions will be asked about form and
motion, but it is about color that the
earliest experimenters first asked them,
and color provides an amazing range of
opportunity in its own right.