Form
The importance of form in visual
music is not self-evident. Clearly there
must be changing color (even if only
monochromatic variation). But what of
form? The ambivalence of early
experimenters is evident in this
observation from Rimington, writing in
1911:
The author has made many experiments
with regard to the introduction of form, as
the painter understands it, in the colour
projected upon the screen, and has come
to the conclusion that if used at all it should
be indefinite or merely decorative and not
in any sense realistic. The kind of form, for
instance, which we see in cirrus clouds,
while very beautiful in itself, has no definite
meaning and is not calculated to distract
the mind from the beauty of the cloud
colour and yet is sufficiently interesting in
itself. This kind of form introduced into the
colour perhaps gives an added interest to it
in slow compositions, but in rapid ones the
eye and the mind have quite enough to do
to appreciate and enjoy the color itself
without the addition of form, which would
seem to be an unnecessary complication
[18].
While remaining generally
subordinated to color, form did come to
play an important role in the design of
color instruments. As successive
generations of instrument makers created
new designs, they often addressed the
problems associated with expressing form
in the work of their predecessors. One
example is Klein's evaluation of a
performance by Thomas Wilfred:
Wilfred's compositions make frequent use
of a series of forms which owe their
structure to the geometrical formation of the
tungsten filament of the gas-filled projector
lamp used in the "Clavilux"; and the initiated
could not avoid being irritated by observing
the obvious fact that so many of the forms
were merely the image of a familiar
illuminating contrivance.
If we are to have form in colour-music, that
form must be as much the intention of the
artist as it is in painting, and not dependent
on chance circumstances